How to Choose a Domain Name in 6 Simple Steps

Choosing the right domain name for your website is an important task that will make your presence on your audience's mind.

A domain name is your online identity; it is the first thing visitors see when they arrive at your website. It acts as your virtual address and aids in the establishment of credibility and memorability.

So, how do you choose the perfect domain name for your website?

In this blog, we will guide you with 6 practical steps and tips to choose a domain name.

Let’s get to it— 

How To Choose A Domain Name : A Steps-by-Step Guide

Choosing a domain name can be done in many ways. It can be simple and short. On the other hand, a domain name can be creative and unrecognizable but still can have a perfect fit!

From analyzing a long search run on search engines, we have gathered some fundamental and beneficial steps one should go through while choosing a domain name. 

What are these? 

Give your thoughts a quick read! 

Step-1: Keep It Simple and Short 

What makes a good domain name?  

When it comes to the length of a domain name, the shorter one is easy to remember.

Shorter and simpler domains are easy to recall and even will not make your visitors feel hassle while searching for them online. 

All the domain names that have been ranked through time are more straightforward and shorter. Try to cling to your domain name within 1-3 words or ten characters. 

Step 2: Keep it Memorable and Easy to Spell

Think that you have chosen a domain name like- xcg52fvs.com. It is short but does not have any pronunciation. It is also hard to memorize and looks spammy. 

So, which terms to follow?

Try something that describes your vision, service, product, or any unique words. The important task is keeping it easy to pronounce and memorable. To get rid of spelling issues, experts suggest avoiding foreign words. 

For example, how did Dorik choose their domain name?

According to Dorik founders, they took the name from the word "Doric" which was one of the three orders of ancient Greek and later Roman architecture. They replaced the "C" with "K" for better pronunciation and to find the available domains easily.

Step 3: Avoid Numberings and Hyphens

Domain names that contain numbers and symbols are more challenging and trickier to type. Thus, they have the most chance of being misspelled and getting users amiss! 

Highly successful businesses also preferred to avoid using hyphens on their domain name. Buskin-Robbins, a reputed pastry business in the United States, instead of keeping any hyphens between the names they made it- buskinrobbins.com. It lessens the chance of their customers being confused about whether this website has any hyphens or not, as well as gives surety to remember the site address easily. 

The same goes for using numbers on your domain name. The tendency of getting jumbled about numerical and alphabetic writing spelling might be always there. So, avoiding using numbers and hyphens on domain names would be a wise choice.  

Step 4: Pick The Perfect Domain Extension 

[Image Source- Hostinger]

There are multiple domain name extensions available on the internet based on their categories—for example, .com, .org, .edu, .io, and more.

But which one to prefer?

Picking a domain extension does not depend on or require any boundaries at all. But you can try keeping something that is familiar to people. As people are creatures of habit, familiar names would help them recall their memories to remember your site name easily. 

There are multiple top-level domain name extensions got familiar to people around the world. The top 7 domain name extensions are-

⏩ .org- business organizations or persons, anyone on the internet can take the .org extension as their domain name. 

⏩ .net- this extension is generally used by organizations that provide internet, hosting services, and database collaboration tools. 

⏩ .edu- educational institutions that have been accredited as educational institute with post-secondary limitation use the .edu extension on their virtual presence. 

⏩ .gov- this domain extension has been intended to be used by every type of governmental institution. But now, only US-based governmental institutions can register with this extension.

⏩ .info- people or brands who want to provide information to their audiences, this .info domain name has been designated for them. 

⏩ .com- Though this domain name has been highly popular and used by almost every type of person and business, the .com domain extension has been designated for commercial organizations. 

⏩ .us- it is the internet’s first country codeTLD (aka ccTLD) that has been registered for the United states. Organizations who wants to specify their market location uses a country code domain name extensions like this.  

Additionally, if you have a business site where you promote your AI tools, having a .ai extension will help you get the right audiences on your site. 

Now, As you can see, choosing a domain extension depends on one’s service and company type, thus it adds credentials to their website. So, choose your preferred extension on the way to making a domain name for your website.

Though it does not matter which domain name extension you choose, most of the largest brands that sell higher on the market have the domain with the .com extension.  

Step-5: Use Domain Name Generator 

Many domain name generators will give you domain name suggestions, showing the result of availability even from just a single keyword! Some platforms offer result filtering by length and domain name extensions as well.  

If you run out of ideas, use the keywords on a domain name generator to find hundreds of suggestions from these. 

Step 6: Check Availability and Register it. 

To register your domain from a domain registrar, you need to choose a domain buy-sell platform. Domain registrars like Namecheap, GoDaddy, and Domain.com can be helpful solutions for checking your desired domain name availability and registering it.

You can simply put your domain name ideas into these platforms and check the availability as well as the price of your domain name. Then, you can renew registrations for your domain per month or year/s, as you want. 

On the other hand, if you run out of budget, go for some free domain to start your online presence from website builders like Dorik. Dorik's free domain provides the safest AWS web hosting to ensure the security of your website. You can easily conquer your presence online using your free domain as well.

Additional Consideration While Choosing A Domain Name

These tips can make choosing a domain name for your blog site or business easier and more effective. But, to bring something special to it, check these two ideas we have brought for you below—

Think about ccTLD

If you are selling services online or offline, having location-based domain names that are known as ccTLD will guide your customers towards your business and build your authenticity to them. Most of the companies on the internet have ccTLDs based in countries around the world. A ccTLD contains the country name code just after its Top-Level Domain. An example of a ccTLD could be https://www.amazon.co.uk/, where .uk is the country-code Top-level Domain.

Here, Amazon, which sells services online, has its domain name, amazon.com. But they also have multiple domain names for individual countries, like 'amazon.com.in' for India and 'amazon.com.jp' for Japan. 

Consider the Best One From The Expired Domain Names

Expired domain names that are available to buy can be a useful and profitable way to choose a domain name. If you are an affiliate marketer and looking for an easy SEO boost, an expired domain is the best solution for you.

You can search expired domains from Spamzilla, Domcop, Freshdrop, expireddomain.net, etc. To find the right one, you should always check the domain backlink strength, history, and quality of that domain.

How Do I Choose a Free Domain Name?

You can get free domains from free domain registrars, web hosting providers, and website builders. 

Freenom and Dot TK are some of the domain registrars where you can get a completely free domain. 

Can I Change Your Domain Name After Getting Registered?

No, you can't change your domain once you're registered. But, if there are any refundable option available, or your domain is not activated yet, you still have the chance to change it. 

Does Changing Domain Will Affect My SEO?

Yes, changing your domain can surely affect the performance of your site's Search Engine Optimization. 

Wrap-up 

Choosing a domain name is an integral part of your website-building journey. A good and memorable domain name will help your web audience return to your website without looking at their browser histories.

Follow our "how to choose a domain name" guide and simplify your domain name brainstorming process.

Once you have done your journey of choosing a domain name for your online presence, you can try to find the most helpful website builder from among the best no-code web builders and let your web design wow the world! 

Share your domain-choosing experience with us so our readers can find it more helpful. 

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