The Seven Steps to Finding a Great Domain Name

The most important step in starting your online presence is the selection of your domain name.  While this task can appear difficult, you can find a great domain name as long as you take your time and follow a logical process.  A great domain name is one that is short enough to be easy to remember, easy to spell correctly, and memorable.  This will be your online brand, so take your time and use our tools and you'll soon have your own great domain name.  We offer a seven step process for you to follow to get the best name available for your web site.

1.)  Start with a list of names that come to mind that you would like to have.  If you already have an existing business, group or club name - put it on the list. Many of your first choices may not be available, but keep them on your list for now.  Fortunately, there are now more Top Level Domain (TLD) alternatives such as .net, .biz, .us, .org or .info. The ".Biz" extension is still new, but will become more popular in time.  Another alternate is to use the extensions that were made for some of the smaller countries such as ".cc" (Cocos Islands), or ".tv" (Tuvalu). 

2.)  Use our Advanced Domain Search Utility to gain some more ideas.  This free domain name generator will help to suggest available domain names.  Search for one of your top names or keywords, and if it is not available you can then click on the "Advanced Search" link.  You will then be presented with a variety of options including alternate extensions, dashes and popular prefixes and suffixes. You can also click on the "view all" to see all of the available names from that search.

3.) Use Keyword rich domain names - Assemble a list of keywords that can serve as a domain name or use a combination of keywords (example: killbugsfast.com).  You can also use our keyword recommendation tool in our resource center.  This resource is provided by Digital Point Solutions and can be located in our resource center at this link: http://www.economywebdomains.com/domain-resources-search-engine-optimization.htm

4.)  Prefixes - One popular approach is to add a prefix in the beginning of a more generic name, as in eToys.com or eGreetings.com.  Additional common prefixes to consider are e, z, my, and Ez.

5.)  Suffixes - If you have an existing business, this can be very effective.  Two good extensions are Online and Direct ( ex: MerrilLynchDirect.com). The more powerful your brand is, the more effective this option can be.

6.)  Consider adding a Dash.  Some names can be very effective with the use of a dash.  If the website is primarily to be found via search engines, then the dash can be used very well.  For search engine purpose, you can use a number of keywords separated by dashes.  Use one of our recommended keyword resources and you can find many good phrases. For most businesses, we recommend that you limit the use of dashes (no more than one), as you should use the address on your business cards, in your email signature and all of your advertising campaigns.

7.)  Creative combination words -  Get creative and use action words that can be partially combined to create a new word.  Here is a good site that creates words and will help get you started.  A great example of this is a senior care provider named Evergive.

Remember this will be your brand, so take your time, make a complete list, Follow these seven steps and you should have a list of names to consider.