Looking to get a domain name and don't know where to start? First, answer these questions:

1) Is your business a start-up or established?
2) Is your company name literal or descriptive?
3) Do you have a vanity phone number?
4) Is your company name longer than 15 characters?

If your business is a start-up, and you have not yet incorporated or gone through any business establishing, then consider securing your domain name before offically naming your company.
This way you can tie in the domain and the business name that much closer, creating a greater brand impact. This thinking applies to small businesses even more than big business.

If your business is established and you just searching for your domain name now, you might be in for a shock.
Thousands of domains are registered each and every day. Odds are that unless your company name is quite unique (such as one based on your last name), your name is probably already taken. If not, get it NOW! The cost of missed opportunity is huge. Better to invest the $19.99 per year, just so you can secure the rights to the name and use it sometime in the future.

If your literal business name is not available as a domain, what do you do?
It depends on the type of name your business has. Can it be abbreviated or written in long form as a URL? Is your name descriptive or literal? If one, then try thinking in terms of the other.

If the domain of choice is not available as a .com but is as  a .net, you may be tempted to grab it. It makes sense to, as an offensive move, but I would not stop there. I would continue to search for alternative .com domains.

You would certainly lose traffic to the .com version. If you get someone to attempt to visit your site, you don't want them to remember .net.

If your business has a good vanity phone number, consider .com-ing it.
This will help reinforce your phone number AND your website at once. Think about 800Flowers.com and other national companies that are known by their phone number. This can even work with your local area code if you are local service company.

If you have a long company name, you might want to consider having more than one domain.
One literal domain name, which, if longer than 15 characters will probably be available. And at least one other one, if not two. The first should be an abbreviated version, so you can use it on your print materials and in your email. On the web, despite what those emails are telling you, shorter is better 😉 So if you are Very Best Company, International, you might want to have for print and email VBCoIntl.com as well as VeryBestCompany.com (or VeryBestCompanyInternational.com).

Ready to find your domain name? Try our domain search. {mos_ri}