No matter how young, every startup has its unique brand identity. It makes no difference if you run a marketing firm, an online store, or a blog; your company has a voice, tone, goals, appearance, and personality. These elements combine to establish your brand identity, which is a core part of your company’s online effectiveness and success.
One thing we repeatedly see among new entrepreneurs is that they fail to grasp the critical role their domain name plays in their online success. These entrepreneurs don’t recognise that domain names act as a company’s online identity, much like business names.
To generate strong online results, focus on developing a visually appealing website and securing a short, memorable, and intriguing domain name. And if you don’t know how to select a powerful domain name, hang in there because that’s what we’ll cover today.
Three Vital Tips for Creating a Great Domain Name
Great, brandable domain names are the most notable and in-demand domain names in the market, and that’s because they can assist with laying the foundation for your online presence in addition to giving your business a professional look.
To create a brandable domain name, we advise using a matching domain and trade mark, as brandable domain names are generally derived from excellent trade marks. This would enable you to make the most of your brand while getting the best out of your domain name.
Major corporations with strong names, like Tesla, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google, all have high-quality domain names that are identical to their brand names. Getting a powerful brand name will make getting a powerful domain name easier.
You can get a powerful trade mark by:
- Inventing New Words: Come up with words that perfectly express the nature of the products and services you represent. This is the same path major companies like Snapchat and Gmail took.
- Using Known Words: Using common words is the best way to connect your brand to its product and customers instantly. And the best way to find everyday words that suit the personality and identity of your brand is by searching through thesauruses and dictionaries. Twitter, Amazon, and Tinder took familiar, everyday words and breathed new meaning into them.
- Using Acronyms: Another method for developing a memorable brand name is to shorten long descriptions of your brand. Brands like MAC, which stands for “Make-up Art Cosmetics,” Microsoft, which is “Microcomputer software,” and BMW, which stands for “Bavarian Motor Works,” are a few excellent examples.
- Getting Help From a Naming Agency and your IP lawyer: Visiting a naming agency can assist you in establishing a unique brand identity and provide excellent crowdsourced business names with great domain names that align with your brand’s values. Your intellectual property lawyer can then help you find out if the chosen brand could be registered as a trade mark.
Once you find your perfect domain name, make sure to register your trade mark so that your domain name is protected. Without a trademark, your domain name could be susceptible to attacks from other brand owners.
2. It Mustn’t be Lengthy
Simplicity is the fundamental rule of crafting a powerful domain name. And the reason for this is that if your domain name is short, catchy, and sweet, it’ll be easier to remember, recommend, and search online.
3. It Must Have a Top-Level Domain (TLD)
Generic top-level domains (gTLDs) like “.com,” “.org,” and “.net” remain the most widely-used extensions despite the internet’s massive growth; in fact, they are used by virtually all great domain names.
The Domain Name Association reports that there are currently over 1500 new domain extensions, a 145% rise from years past. But regardless, almost everyone visiting a website assumes that it has a classic generic top-level domain, like “.com.”
And though generic top-level domains are more expensive than other growing domain extensions, every business still desires one because they know how effective it is at winning customer trust and confidence.
But if you are unable to get a popular top-level domain like “.com” for your chosen great domain name, you can still be successful with emerging types of TLDs like NFT domains (e.g. “.nft” and “.crypto”), as well as country-code TLDs like “.co”, “.io” and “.eu.”
Don’t Make Mistakes
A sure way to succeed online is to own a great domain name. But to achieve this successfully, you will have to choose a domain name suitable for your brand while avoiding misspelled words, symbols, and numbers, as they would only make your domain name unnecessarily complex.
About the author: Grant Polachek is the head of branding for Squadhelp.com, 3X Inc 5000 startup and disruptive naming agency. Squadhelp has reviewed more than 1 million names and curated a collection of the best available names on the web today. We are also the world’s leading crowdsource naming platform, supporting clients from early-stage startups to Fortune 500 companies.
