Domain Names For Your Business
How To Find A Domain Name For Your Business
Domain names play a key role in how visitors to your website identify your business. This is precisely why you should spend sufficient time finding the domain name that best suits your brand. But finding a suitable name for your website is not always as simple as it looks: the name you want is already taken, the catchy four-letter domain is too costly, or you may just lack inspiration. Let’s look at how you can mount a successful search for the ideal domain.Buying existing domain names
If you know the exact domain name you want, but someone else already owns it, you should begin by visiting their site to see what’s there. There is a chance that the current owner runs a similar business to yours and is fully utilising the domain; in this case, there is little chance of them selling it to you.However, there are also many people who invest in domain names as others do in stocks and shares. They buy good names and either leave them idle or set up a generic landing page, often with a link for those interested in buying the name. In this case, there’s a good chance you’ll be able to get your ideal name, though you may have to pay a premium price for it.A third possibility is that the current owner hasn’t updated the site for a long time. They may have lost interest or their business may have closed, for example, but the site is still online. It’s definitely worth contacting the owner of a lapsed site to see if they will sell the name. You can find their details by checking the WHOIS information for the domain name: every domain must have a contact name and email address to retain registration.It is important to understand that shorter names which can be easily pronounced are worth a lot more than long ones. Virtually all common English words have already been registered and demand extortionate prices as well, so you’ll need to be inventive – or willing to spend!Generator tools
If your ideal domain name is unavailable or the price is too much for your budget, you can try looking for variations on the same name. This can be a long, arduous task, requiring hours of sitting in front of your computer, trying to come up with new ideas based on your business, then searching for them to see if they’re available. Thankfully, there’s a quicker alternative!Online domain name generators, such as NameBoy or Bust A Name, create a large number of variants based around your chosen keywords, and they typically check availability as well. The advantages of using these tools are many:- They help you find good names for your brand by using prefixes, suffixes and other keyword options
- They check domain name availability quickly, for all extensions
- They help you find ideas for names that you may not have considered