I’ve come across customers who for some reason purchase their domain name and hosting before they even get a website designed for themselves. Before I even talk about buying a domain name, if you plan on having a website custom designed talk to a web design first they can save you money and help you get the best possible name for your business.

Now about buying a domain name.

1. Match your Business Name -You want your domain name to match your business name if possible. Most of those awesome names are gone, match.com, webdesign.com, etc, etc. If they aren’t being used then the cyber squatters have snatched them up and are waiting for you to come along and give them $10,000 or more for their $10 domain name.
2. All Else Fails - Well if you aren’t able to get a domain with your business name then pick something with a relevant name to your business. If you have a company that sales widgets, then make sure widgets is in the domain name.
3. Easy to Remember - Your domain name has to be easy for your customers to remember. Make sure you DO NOT have hyphens in your domain name, do you really expect your customers to remember to place a hyphen in your domain name. It isn’t going to happen which means your website traffic will be limited to the occasional customer that finds your website through the search engines. No hyphens and keep your domain name limited to one or two syllables if at all possible.
4. .Com – a dot com domain name is still the most popular website domain. If you are a non-profit or some type of organization then get a .org domain name. My main point is stay with whats popular at the moment, you are completely welcome to by the other domain types when you get your dot com at checkout so you have the option later to use the other domain type if you want.

Bottom line folks, if you are wanting to start a website get with a website designer for assistance with your domain name. They should help you with your selection with no issues.