All business owners want an easy to remember, catchy, short domain name. The problem is, most of the short domain names are already registered – making it harder to find the perfect domain name. This is especially true if your business name is a generic term. Selecting the domain name can often inform the decision on what your business name should be. Here are a few tips on selecting and registering a domain name:

Keep it short and sweet: An easy to recall name is likely to get more visitors than a name that’s hard to remember and/or spell.

Avoid special characters or numbers: Avoid hyphens, numbers or special characters in your domain name. Imagine how your domain name would be announced on the radio or phone. If it needs to be spelled out, it’s probably not a wise choice.

Look beyond .com: Consider alternative top-level domains (TLDs) if the .com version of your name is not available. Our domain search tool will suggest alternatives like .org, .net, industry names, and country level names if the .com version of your domain name is already registered.

Register different versions: Don’t be content buying just a single name. You want to protect your brand online by registering different versions of your domain so others can’t register it and dilute your brand. Look for and register misspellings, different extensions, singular/plural versions, and hyphenated versions that others might register and dilute your brand

Privacy protection: By a default, domain registrar displays the ownership information the domain. You can ensure the privacy of your information by opting for private domain registration. This protects your information from being displayed to the public and keeps the ownership information of your domain private

Make a long-term commitment: Do not register the domain for just one year. Search engines like a long-term commitment and intent. Opt for a term registration period like 5 years. There could be pricing benefits when you register domains in bulk for longer periods. But more importantly, you don’t have to renew the registration every year.