Choosing a Domain Name

Use this criteria to help you pick a domain name that:

1. is easy for Web users to remember and find
2. attracts traffic
3. suggests the nature of your product or service
4. serves as a strong trademark so competitors won't be able to use a business name or domain name similar to it, and
5. is free of legal conflicts with trademarks belonging to other businesses.
6. ends in “.com”, people have been mentally conditioned to type in .com
7. easy to spell and type
8. is search engine friendly
9. contains good keywords (but what are regarded as good?)Google, for instance, looks at the domain name when evaluating a site. Try this online keyword generator.
10. type-in (a name which will attract type-in traffic, eg www.hardware.com)
11. leaves a possibility on user search for these (combination of) names
12. does not cause double letter problems ( the letter of first word and beginning of the second being the same can cause confusion eg eggsshow)
13. helps your alphabetical positioning in the yellow pages listings
14. can be used as an acronym - allowable for .com.au name instances eg big income service = big.com.au
15. is limited in the amount of letters being used - ideally 6 to 8

Hyphens
Hyphens can work fine when the availability for your prospective domain name has been taken. eg yourname.com compared to your-name.com
Some of the search engines recognize the words between the hyphens in a domain name and give your site better placement for them. Every little bit helps.