How to decide on your domain name

With so many domain names already registered, it can be difficult to find a generic name that suits your business. Here's some tips on how to find the one you want.

Brainstorm your site's concept
Start by noting down what the site will be about, in a paragraph or two. Then boil down this description into a maximum of 2 sentences. Don't worry about covering all the details - just make sure you're addressing the essentials of what the site will be about.

Now take your short description, and highlight all the "key" words that describe your site. Let's take a fictional example:-

"Our web site will be a guide on how to specify print requirements. It will describe the choice of paper qualities and sizes, and inks. It will help people to choose a printing company."

We can now start to think of domain names that will describe the site, such as:

• specify-printing.com
• paper-and-ink.com
• choose-a-printing-company.com

.. and many other variations

Pre-fixes and suffixes
You can experiment with adding letters before the name, such as:

e, e-, my, i, i-, the, online, net, web, internet, hot, cool, our, your

.. or letters after the name such as:

world, links, site, web, net, resource, business, company, corp, inc, shop, store, mall, search, directory, guide

This might generate ideas such as:

• your-print-guide.com
• paper-and-ink-world.com

Automate the process - now!
A really neat (and FREE) bit of software that helps you to generate possible domain names is the Domain Name Analyzer from Softnik Technologies:

http://www.softnik.com/products/dna/index.htm

It's a small (500k) download, so you could be using it within the next few minutes. Why not break from this workshop to do just that. Click here to go to the download site.

.. OK, back with us? The next question is: having chosen some really good domain names, are they available? Read more to find out how..

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