Domain Extensions 101
Registration of .com domains exceed other extensions by far; however, domain suffixes can have specific uses, so be sure to choose one that works for your business. Here are some of the most popular extensions and how they’re often used:
.com Represents a company, commerce, community
.co An abbreviation for company, commerce, and community
.info Primarily used informational sites
.net Preferred for technical, Internet infrastructure sites
.org Most often used for non-commercial organizations and non-profits
.biz Business or commercial use, like ecommerce sites
.me Often used for blogs, resumes or personal sites
Five Rules for Selecting the best Domain Name:
1. Keep it Simple: Be short, catchy and memorable! You should also ensure your name easy to pronounce and spell.
2. Unspoken Rules: Avoid something too similar to competing domain names and always be sure you are not violating another company’s trademark.
3. ”.COM”: The ”.com” is the most popular top-level domain and sometimes it can be hard to find one that is available. In most cases, you should favor a ”.com” ;however, if you are planning to sell in a specific country, you could consider a country specific domain such as “co.uk” for the United Kingdom.
4. Discovery vs. Branding: What’s your strategy? Solely relying on traffic from search engines? Then you should use real words and phrases like TopPowerTools.com that people are searching for to increase your search ranking. If your marketing focus is on paid search listing, banner ads and buzz building, you should come up with a brandable name like BClub.com that people will remember.
5. Be Creative, Be Unique: Most single-word domains have already been registered over the years. Creating your own unique word or phrase can help your company stand out and increase visibility. Try compounding two whole words (YouTube), using a phrase (ListApart), blending parts of two words together (Microsoft), tweaking a word (Flickr), affixing a word with a prefix or a suffix (Shopify), or making up a completely unique name (Vimeo).