Before you plan to register your domain names and launch your website on webserver, you might want to know the following common mistakes that you should try to avoid when choosing your domain names:
Domain names do not match your business
If you are starting a new business, it is important to choose your business name and your domain name at the same time so that both of them match.
Why? Because when people think of your website, they usually refer it to your business name.
For example, First Site Solutions is both my business name and domain name. So if my potential customers try to look for my website on the Internet, they simply type my business name in the web browser and they can easily find me. In this way, they do not even bother to remember my web address (URL), as it is common sense that when people think of your website, they usually think of it by your business name.
Domain names include too much hyphen
People are, sometimes, enticed to get their best domain name by adding additional dashes or hyphens between words. For example, you have no way to get myperfectnaem.com, but www.my-perfect-name.com is still available for you to take.
Although a school of thoughts claim that a hyphened name is better for search engine to distinguish keywords and thus will return better search results for those keyword that included in that domain name, you still need to think it carefully…
Dashes, hyphens or underscores can confuse some people and others may overlook them. For example, when people recommend www.my-perfect-name.com to you over the phone, they might overlook the hyphens between words. So you might end up typing www.myperfectname.com in browser.
There is not doubt that a domain name with a single dash is acceptable according to some webmasters, but one with too much dashes make your site look like spam site.
Confusion about COM, NET and ORG
COM, NET and ORG are three of the most popular top-level domains (TLDs) nowadays. Most people want to have a COM address for their business and as a result they are the most difficult domain names to obtain.
One common question from my clients is that if they can not get the “.com” domain of their first choice, but find the “.net”, “.org” or other country-specific TLDs available (like .ca, .uk. sg, etc), should they take them?
Unfortunately there is no cut off answer. From my personal understanding each of them has its own meaning and your choice depend on the nature of your business.
.com is, of course, suitable to any business, but it is the best choice if your business is a commercial site that is money-oriented. These businesses make money through their website.
.net is special for network sites which are usually stressed on a specific area . For example, the website www.e-books.net is particular for e-book network.
.org is for organization both commercial and non-commercial and also service oriented e.g., www.wikipedia.org is basically a social service website dedicated to provide information to all.
If you run a business in a local community, a country-specific domain is good for you. For example, if you run a flower delivery business in Canada, the domain .ca is suitable to your business, as it is more likely for local people to order a flower delivery from local website .ca rather than .com which suggest a international site.
