Do’s and don’ts of getting a domain name

Coming up with a domain name is hard.

Been there. Done that.

And even if you come up with a good domain name, purchasing it could get even more complex because someone might have the same name idea and have already purchased it.

Like it or not, many people on the internet could think just like us, and that’s why most good domain names are already purchased.

So, purchasing a domain name is not often a straightforward process.

Here is how it works:

1. You’ll think of a name. You’ll like it.
2. Then, on social media and Google Search, you’ll see whether a brand or website already exists with that name.
3. If it doesn’t exist, you’re happy, and you’ll purchase the domain name
4. If it does exist, you’ll go back to step 1 and repeat the whole process

But don’t let this process scare you.

Here are some tips that could ease the pressure of this journey:

Consider the type of website you’re building

For example, If you are making a business website, use your business name as part of the domain name.

And your business name doesn’t have to be the whole domain name. You could use other words, such as “services”, “app”, etc., based on your business type.

For example, in the next lesson, I will be purchasing a domain name called criyasoft.com because I am building a site for a fictional invoicing software called Criya. I think adding the word “soft” gave it more meaning.

This suggestion is purely subjective, though.

Anyway, go with your name if you’re going with a personal website.

For example, I own naresh.dev.

My domain name covers two purposes:

1. The .dev domain extension is usually used by developers (programmers)
2. My surname is Devineni

I could have easily gone with nareshdevineni.com as my domain, but I decided to go with a shorter and more creative route. And it’s okay to get creative.

Finally, If your website is about blogging about a particular topic, include the topic name in the domain name.

For example, if you want to blog about Microsoft Excel, try to have the word “excel” in your domain name.

This brings us to the second point.

Don’t limit the scope of your website with a narrow domain name

The domain name can convey the kind of content covered inside the website.

For example, say you want to create a blog about Microsoft Excel.

And if your domain name is advancedexcelformulas.com, visitors could think your website is about advanced Excel formulas only.

I don’t want you to narrow down the scope of your website like that.

Even if you just want to write about Excel Formulas right now, I want you to have the flexibility to cover different topics in the future.

You never know when you’ll change your mind about what you want to write on your website.

So, if you go with something like masterexcel.com, it gives you the flexibility to cover a wide range of topics in the future without giving any wrong hints to your users.

Also, please don’t go too broad like excel.com.

Your first preference for the domain extension should be a “.com”

We call .com, .net, and .org extensions as top-level-domain (TLD) extensions.

Registered companies should ideally use the “.com” extension. The “.org” is used by organizations, and the “.net” is used by networking-related companies such as web hosting companies.

But nobody on the internet follows these rules. So, you don’t have to, in my arrogant opinion 😀

Also, people on the internet are conditioned to trust domain names with the .com extension.

But if the domain name that you want is not available with .com, don’t worry.

People on the internet are getting accustomed to new extensions such as .io, .me, .today, etc.

For example, when I tried to register for minilessons.com, it was already taken.

But the person who owns the domain name is not using it anyway:

And when I searched whether there is any brand named Minilessons, nothing showed up.

So, I went with the .io extension because it is generally used for startups, and well-established businesses, are using it left and right.

For example, codeable.io and codepen.io are well-respected businesses in the community of web developers.

They are using the .io extensions just fine.

So, I was confident going with minilessons.io for my brand, Minilessons, and boy, I was not wrong.

People love me and trust me just fine too.

Also, make sure the domain name is easily pronounceable

This makes it easy for the users to remember your domain name and easily type it in the browser.

Also, as your website gets popular, you have to say your brand name out loud in different scenarios. So, make it easy for yourself, too 😛

The Conclusion

That’s all I want to convey for now.