Adam Whittom

Brainstorm About Possible Names

If you want your own website, but just don't know which way to go with it, brainstorm about your interests and possible topics that you may include on your site. Try to narrow down your possible domain names to topics that you have the most information and expertise about. The more that you know about a certain topic, the easier it will be to create content and keep the website going with fresh information.

Memorable, Easy To Spell and Not Easily Confused

A huge goal in choosing the proper domain name for you website, is to make sure that people will be able to find it and then recommend it to others. Your domain name needs to be a name that is memorable so that people can remember the name and recommend it to their friends and family. The name also needs to be easy to spell and not easily confused. If you have a website named youneedtocheckthisout.com, when people try to refer others by word of mouth, is the receiving party going to interpret it as uneed2checkthisout.com or possibly ukneedtoochequethisout.com? You want a domain name that is easy to convey through everyday language as well as in written form.

Use As Many Extensions As Possible

If you find that your domain name is available with other extensions along with .COM or .NET, buy them up. You can always redirect multiple domain names to your main site. If you are lucky enough to get a domain name like, freemoney.com you would potentially benefit from buying up freemoney.org, freemoney.net, freemoney.info and any other possibly combinations. By having all possible extensions, it will keep someone else from buying them up and getting mistaken traffic if someone uses the wrong extension when they type it into the address bar. Also, if your website become popular, your have kept others from buying up the name with another extension and possibly reaping financial gain from your brand name.

Avoid Using Trademarked Names

Avoid using trademarked names as your own domain names. The chances that you are able to find a domain name available that is an exact trademarked name is slim, but even incorporating a trademarked name in your own domain name is not a positive move to make. If you start a business and make a name for yourself, you wouldn't want someone coming along and intentionally trying to benefit from your hard work by using your brand name to bring in visitors to their websites. If it is not a legal issue, it is definitely an ethical issue.

In summary, examine what you intend to use your website for and chose a domain name that caters to that purpose. Use as short a domain name as possible and try to use a name that will allow you to secure the .COM extension. Make the domain name easy to spell, remember and avoid possible trademark infringement.