How to strategically choose your Domain name. Australian businesses you can’t be ignorant   by Justin

Next to a good functional website, a name is absolutely crucial. In the modern world, you have seconds, sometimes micro seconds to get information such as brands and products across to your market. I see so many businesses who have taken no care in deciding their domain name. By that I’m referring to the legal, social and Google aspects of deciding the name. A little effort beforehand can pay off greatly when you go to publicise your website/business.

I have seen so many businesses over he years come to me with domain names which may sound good however the underlying problem lies in what messages are transmitted and what legal problems they may expose themselves to.

Below are some key steps all businesses in Australia should go through before purchasing a domain name.

1.Google keywords

Firstly go to Google keywords tool (Google it!!). Here you can type in keywords relevant for your business and Google will tell you the number of searches for those words on a global and local scale (local can be set to your geographic region in the world). The results show you the total number of hits as well as the competition for those words and phrases.This is important information and can have a big impact on the ability for your business to be found. If you type in single keywords and groups of keywords that will provide you a good idea of the amount of people searching for those terms. A good balanced name/website text will have a mix of highly searched terms and low competition words. What if I already have a business name?? Well of course this is the case for many, but the exercise is still worth doing as the content of your site can be ‘tweaked’ to include certain keywords thus giving it more weight when considered by Google rankings.

2. Online thesaurus and synonym

Use the web to find a name There are many resources for finding a catchy business and domain name. I like to take to the thesaurus (www.thesaurus.com) for inspiration and also find that rhyme, phrase/saying finder, and synonym (www.synonym.com) websites work well too.

3. Domain name endings

Don’t underestimate The Domain name endings. A suite of Domains are now popping up registered in Libya. Why? It is a .ly ending. So for example insight.ly, sellsimp.ly and many more. Argentina ends in .ar for example. Such a domain may be c.ar (note if you are going to have a domain from another country, please check with the relevant authorities first. Also this approach does not work if you are planning on having a local Australian business).

I usually list a few possibilities at this stage and then try them out on friends and family. The idea is to have a name which can be said once and remembered by all. Not easy, but that’s the goal! After you have narrowed it down go ahead and type it into to Google and see what comes up. An example. I have a good friend who I went to University with and has his own web developing business. He wanted to use the name WOWwebsites. WOW also stands for ‘World of Warcraft’ which receives some 45 million searches a month worldwide. Strategically it would have been a great name, but a similar name was already taken and he didn’t like the similarity.

4. Things to avoid:
-Long names
- Who wants to type a 30 character name into a web browser
-Hard to spell names – Why make things overly complicated
-Names with meaning in other languages – A classic example of this is the Mitsubishi Pajero, a total flunk in Spain, simply due to the meaning of Pajero in Spanish. Google the meaning, its too rude to put here!
-Names which can be spelled many different ways
-Names which infringe on trademarks (see below)
-Your personal name – If you ever want to sell your business, this can be a problem

5. Social media names These days it is also important to check if you can get all the required social media names. Facebook has a vanity name (custom URL = instead of Facebook.com/432781432478326523856124/apple you can have just Facebook.com/apple). Similar things exist in Linkedin and in Twitter you only have a limited number of characters. Whilst it is not 100% essential to have exactly the name you want, it is also nice and easy for your customers if your name is unified.

6. ASIC and IP Australia If you have decided on a few business names you should check with ASIC and IP Australia for similar business names. A failure to do so can be a real problem for you in the future and unfortunately ignorance is not considered here. As a business owner you re required to check and comply with the regulations.

http://www.search.asic.gov.au/gns001.html (search ‘All names’) http://pericles.ipaustralia.gov.au/atmoss/falcon.application_start (click ‘enter as guest’ to go to the search page)

Trademarks have different classes for registration and hence the coexistence of some names that are trademarked can exist for different industries. One example would be the co-existence of Dove chocolate and Dove soap. They can exist under the same name but different trademark classes. I have heard many stories of people not checking for trademarks and paying dearly for this. Re-branding is never a cheap exercise, and neither is court!

7. Registering A Domain name There are literally hundreds of registrars of domain names and after doing a check of names for availability, go ahead and register it. Think carefully about the name. The scope of your business will depend on whether you get a ‘.com’ or a ‘.com.au’. I wouldn’t recommend a ‘.net ‘ or.net.au’. You will need an Australian Business Number (ABN) to register it.

8. Start planning more You are now ready to plan some more. You will need to think of marketing strategies further and how this may affect your website structure. Features such as social media and newsletters may not be implemented at the start, but your small business website should be able to cope with these sorts of changes.

About the Author

Justin is associated with Empowered Websites a progressive business dedicated to helping small businesses interact with the internet better. Justin has built websites all over the world including some of the biggest climate change websites in the world. Empowered Websites offers a range of free and paid resources for small businesses including free lists of software, low cost permanent advertising in 20+ Australian business directories, website design in Melbourne and lots more. http://www.empoweredwebsites.com.au

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