Tips for Good Domain Names & Top Tools for Creating Them

Posted by Tom Blue on December 5, 2008 under Marketing, Technology | Be the First to Comment

So you have a website idea, but don’t have a good domain name?   There are a few important characteristics of great domain names and there are a few tools that I use that could help you during your selection process.





Characteristics

1. Descriptive and Memorable: I put these two together because they are both so important and they also depend on each other.  As advertisers say, you only have a visitor’s attention for 8 seconds so you better pitch it quickly.  If you have a domain name that describes your product immediately you are going to have better customer conversion.  In addition, a descriptive domain name makes it “memorable.”  If you are scanning your brain for some blog site that you went to earlier in the week are you going to think of BlogSpot or TypePad first?  I would think of Blogspot.  Caveat: A really unique name can sometimes be more memorable then a descriptive name and can A) help you with distinguishing you from your competition and B) build a brand.

2. Dot Com Extension:  You have to have a dot com extension.  Not only would you look behind the times with another extension, but you would also have to buy the dot com extension if your brand ever got big.

3. Short:  The shorter the better.  No one wants to type in 20 characters to get to your name, plus that makes it easier to forget.

4. Easy to Spell:  Spelling errors are common so be aware of this.

Good Domain Name Tools

1.  Rhyme Time: Names that rhyme are catchy. If I wanted a career site I would think about names that include the word job and words that rhyme with job(see RhymeZone). For example, gobjobs or hobjobs. These aren’t great names, but I think you understand where I am headed.

2. Play on Words: I like domains that are a play on words. Let’s say you provide voip switches. A good play on words domain would be something like switchcraft (vs witchcraft) or switchlord (vs switchboard).  The way to go about this is to find the base word that you want to use…switch and a) see what words rhyme with it (see RhymeZone above) and b) see what words have any of those rhymed words in it.  For example, use this tool to find out which words include the word “witch” in it.

3. This is a great domain name search tool – http://instantdomainsearch.com – It allows you to immediately see what names are taken and which ones aren’t.

4. Thesaurus: An online thesaurus is always handy because every combination of the word you would like to use could be taken.

5. Finally, this is a little tool that you might have seen. It is a little hokey, but can help with some ideas… Domain Name Generator