What comes first: Your business name or domain name?
A little over a decade ago, businesses could just register their company name and begin their marketing journey through the Yellow Pages. With the internet age, many businesses now understand the need to get online and have a website for their business. With the rise of Aussie domain names being registered every year, it’s very important for a business to check whether the domain name is still available for registration. So if you are thinking of setting up your own business, what do you think should get registered first? Your business name or yourdomain name?
How to choose a good Australian domain name for your business
When you start developing a website, the most difficult process can be choosing a domain name as successful online businesses simply cannot exist without one. The domain name is an important foundation in helping to build your online brand, with potential customers immediately associating the domain name to your business. Think of the domain name as being like a virtual online property. If you are in the property sector, having a web address such as melbourneproperty.com.au would be better than themelbourneproperty.com.au or melbourne-property.com.au, as it not only looks much more professional but it’s also a lot easier to remember.
A domain name should reflect your organization’s name and should give an insight into what your business represents. Choosing and registering a domain name is a big decision as you could potentially live with this choice for a long time.
Firstly, choosing the domain name, which could be different from the actual business organization’s name, must be done. It should be registered as quickly as possible to avoid ‘Cyber Squatters’ from taking your domain name and holding it ransom for large amounts of money. Cyber Squatting is very common in TLDs such as .com, .co, .co.uk, .ca,co.nz to list just a few, however in Australia; the auDA (Australian Domain Administration) has implemented tight policies to tackle this issue. To register a domain name in Australia, the applicant must have a registered Australian business – for example an ABN, ACN or RBN – and even extensions such as .org.au are closely regulated with only non-profitable organizations allowed to register. There are still cyber squatters in the .com.au domain space, however. Also, generic key phrases such as ‘domain names’, ‘melbourne real estate’, ‘coffee’ etc. can only be registered by businesses which meet the criteria and can prove their eligibility.
If your organization is new and you haven’t decided on a name yet, having an attractive domain name can also help you select your company’s name. With the internet having a major role to play in today’s economy, having a good domain name can make a great difference to your sales and popularity.
Since the internet has become very competitive, having a generic domain name like melbournerealestate.com.au is a very good decision. Although it’s long, it contains the generic key phrases ‘Melbourne real estate’, and a lot of users would search this key phrase through search engines. In most cases, established websites in that sector such as real estate development firms would purchase this domain as another address through which visitors can access their website.
Using a generic Australian domain name will help people remember your products and services and can thereby increase business sales. It could also help you get a good resale value if you want to sell the website later. Furthermore, the generic words in a domain name will make your website easier to locate through search engines.
To get started, make a list of all the products and services your business will supply then add all of your preferred business names and the locations you will be operating in. Use this list to search for available domain names until you can find a name that’s available for purchase, has good generic keywords, and is memorable to users.
Once you’ve chosen your domain you can get started building your website.