You have a new business plan in mind or thinking of diversifying your current business. Either way, you will require a new website. The first step of a website creation is obviously a domain name registration. Unless you came up with really a weird name, you will find that .com version of your domain is already taken. It either belongs to another organization or a hosting company might have taken it. More than millions of websites are registered with .com. This makes it quite clear that the.com you are after may not be available.
Do not lose hope. There are plenty of other options available to make your domain name attractive and easy to remember. The .com is only one of the top level domains (TLD) along with .NET, ORG and many others. The TLD represents the ending for the site, for google.com, the TLD is ‘.com’. For Wikipedia.org the TLD is ‘.org’ and for speedtest.net, the TLD is ‘.net’
Check if the Domain is for Sale
Registered domain does not mean that it is unavailable. If your preferred domain is registered there is still a chance that it is available for purchase. Do a search to know to whom the domain belongs and how to contact the person.
Send a mail to that owner and see if the domain name is available for sale. If not, you have to think of other ways.
Tweak the Name
Before thinking of any other alternative domain name, first think how you are going to use the website for business. The primary target of any website is to bring in traffic. For that you need a name that is simple, small and easy to remember. It should not be confused with any other brand name. An abbreviated version of business name can be effective. You can tweak the name little bit to create a domain name. Web address of the famous Wall Street Journal is wsj.com. There are several other examples like that.
However, while tweaking the name make sure there is no other similar name open for registration. Flickr, online photo service, lost millions of visitors as they often visit Flicker.com instead.
Consider not Using .com
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If your web traffic usually comes from your social media platform, they will hardly notice whether the extension is .com or not. You may try other popular extensions like .net or .org.
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In the past few years, plenty of domain extensions are rolled out. These new Top Level Domains (TLDs) range anything from .tech to .biz. The greatest advantage of using a new TLD is that it conveys the meaning of your site. From the domain extension the visitors are already aware the kind of site they are going to visit.
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If your target audience is local, you may use country code top level domains (ccTLDs). These geographical ccTLDs not only tells the web traffic the site is local, it also help the search engine to understand it. For example: instead of .com use .co.in which is represents a company top level domain with India country code.
Irrespective of the domain name that you finally select, stick to these following guidelines:
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Keep your domain name short. Short names are also easier to remember.
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If possible avoid using hyphens or numbers in the domain name.
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Do not use a name too similar to another website. It can cause confusion among the visitors.
With little thinking and creativity, you can find an ideal domain name. However, if you find that the domain name you have selected is not working for your business, think of changing it.