Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay

By Emma Miller

While everyone else is talking about managing and growing your digital presence, not enough attention is given to the basics. If you’re just starting your own business and are looking to hit the ground running, one of your top priorities should be to build a beautiful, functional website that Google and your customers will love. After all, your website is the face of your brand in the online world, your digital storefront, and your biggest ally in the pursuit of long-term success and recognition.

But even before you start designing your website, your first priority should be to choose the best domain name possible for your business. Your domain name will affect your brand in many ways in the competitive online market, so it’s important to pick the right one in order to rank higher, improve the perception of your brand and its visibility, and inspire your online audience to become your loyal customers.

With that in mind, here’s why choosing the right domain name is so important and what you need to do to make the best choice for your business.

Choose a branded domain name

Building a memorable and recognizable brand identity in the modern online world is paramount to success. Why? Because there are too many competitors in every industry and niche out there, and if you’re just a company with a generic name or a generic domain name, people will take their business elsewhere. This is because modern customers crave more meaningful interactions with companies, and they want to establish deeper relationships with their favorite brands.

Remember, if you have a powerful brand, you’re creating loyal lifetime customers. To that end, your domain name needs to mirror your brand. It’s important to put your brand name into your domain to improve brand stickiness online and make it easier for people to find your site as well. A branded domain will help with organic search when people type your company’s name in the search box.

Keep it short and simple

Brevity is your friend in the online world, whether you’re writing copy for your website, choosing a domain name, sending out emails, or anything in between. Sure, you need long-form content to take your content marketing to the next level, but when it comes to boosting user experience on your site, you need to keep it short and to the point. This is also true for domain names, especially if you want to create a better connection with your customers by reducing customer effort.

The last thing you want to do is to create a long domain name that will just confuse your audience and make it impossible to remember. Your goal should be to make your domain name as memorable as possible, so that people can easily return to your site by simply remembering your URL on the spot. A big reason why brands like Moz or HubSpot are so popular, for example, is because their domain names are concise, while their content is well-optimized and informative.

Always go for a personalized domain

Personalization is the key element of long-term success in the oversaturated online world nowadays. People want to feel appreciated and they want you to recognize them as valuable members of your community, not just numbers in your sales funnel or leads in your CRM. If you want to succeed online and offline, you need to personalize your digital presence.

To do that, it’s important to choose a personal domain name with a top-level domain extension like .com, .net, and the like. However, you can also personalize the extension by choosing something like a .me TLD that will further humanize your online presence, whether you have a personal or a corporate brand.

Once you have personalized your domain name and your domain extension, personalizing the rest of your website will be a seamless process.

Weave a relevant keyword into the domain name

If you can, you should try to include a relevant keyword into your domain name, in order to help your site rank higher in the search results. This is not mandatory, but it’s good practice if and when you’re able to weave a keyword into your domain naturally. Don’t try to force it, but make it look effortless in order to give yourself a competitive edge.

It’s usually easier to include a keyword in a domain name if you have a personal brand, because you can easily attach it to your name. That said, you should also be able to attach a keyword to your corporate brand, provided that it remains concise and relevant.

Avoid the common domain name mistakes

Lastly, try to avoid making those small mistakes that can cost you dearly in the long run. When choosing a domain name, refrain from using any special characters like hyphens, and don’t use numbers if you can help it.

Make sure that the domain name is easy to pronounce and grammatically correct to make it more memorable. Always think long-term and choose a domain name that you know you’ll be using in the years to come, as changing domain names can have a significant impact on your brand authority and SEO in the online realm.

Over to you

The domain name you choose can define the future of your business in the digital world, so make sure to choose the right domain on the first try. Use these tips to avoid the common mistakes and make the best possible decision that will help you build a thriving digital presence for your brand.

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Emma Miller is a digital marketer and blogger from Sydney, Australia. After getting a marketing degree she started working with Australian startups on business and marketing development. Emma writes for many relevant, industry related online publications and does a job of an executive editor at Bizzmark blog and a guest lecturer at Melbourne University. Interested in marketing, startups and latest business trends.