Domain names, CatchTiger.com is full of them! But what should you keep in mind when buying a domain name? We will answer all your questions on this blog.

A domain name is the perfect showcase for your business, product, or brand, as it is the first thing people see when they search for your website. Companies or individuals can register a domain name for several reasons:

To build a professional website

To build a personal website

Have a personalized email address

Generate parking income

To sell it (invest)

Before we tell you what exactly a good domain name is, let’s first take a step back and see how you can claim your own domain name. This can be done in two ways: purchase or lease.

BUY A DOMAIN NAME

You can buy a new domain name for about € 15 a year, depending on the TLD (Top Level Domain, this is the combination of letters after the period). You don’t actually ‘buy’ this domain name, you ‘rent’ it. Buy a license to use a specific domain name, according to the rules set by a registrar. SIDN is the official registrar for the .nl websites, DNS Belgium is the registrar for the .be websites, and Verisign is one of the registrars for the.com websites. As long as you pay your monthly or yearly fees, you can use the domain name for as long as you like.

LEASE WITH DOMAIN NAME

If you want to lease a domain name, you are actually using one that belongs to someone else, which could be why this only happens in very rare cases. One of the reasons you lease a domain name is if you don’t have the funds to buy it right away. In this case, the domain name will be paid on terms.

FIRST IMPRESSION

Making a good first impression is critical, as that impression is what people will remember about you. When it comes to a website, your domain name is the first impression, so it is important that you get it right. Having a matching domain name and email address also increases its reliability. An example: your business is called London Real Estate and your domain name is realestateinlondon.com. Your business name does not match your domain name and it will confuse your customers. They will probably search for a website like londonrealestate.com, which is not your company’s website. When choosing a domain name, make sure that it also matches your business name.

As we already said, your email address is better to match the domain name as well. An email address like ‘[email protected]’ looks more professional than ‘[email protected]’.

When choosing your domain name, you need to consider the TLD you choose, as it conveys a certain message to your customers. If you own a Dutch company, you will probably go for a .nl domain name. If this particular domain name is already in use, you can choose the domain name a.com, which will immediately give your website a more international look.

You control the first digital impression people have of you, so consider it carefully.

THE IMPORTANCE OF A GOOD DOMAIN NAME

Like our economy, domain names are influenced by supply and demand. The more popular a domain name is, the more expensive it will be.

Between 1995 and 2000, premium domain names such as website.com, realestate.com, and Auction.com could still be registered. Many investors would kill for a time machine, to be able to travel back in time and register these domain names, because now they are worth a lot of money. Only a limited number of these so-called “premium” domain names are available. The more domain names that are registered, the fewer names will be available.

A domain name like realestate.com will have a lot of “organic” visitors per day. Apart from these visitors, the domain name will look very trustworthy and trustworthy. Websites such as ups.com, shell.com, and mcdonalds.com have the exact same domain names as their respective companies and will also be considered very trustworthy.

When you go to the grocery store to buy laundry detergent, you probably choose the one you’ve seen advertised on television, because you feel like you already know. This is pretty much the same when it comes to domain names, so you can get an idea: a domain name is important for its trustworthiness.

HOW DO I CHOOSE A GOOD DOMAIN NAME?

Choosing a good domain name depends on your goal. Are you choosing a domain name for your (new) business or do you want to invest in a domain name? In this article, we will explain how to choose a good domain name for your business:

Do you mainly operate in one country? Choose the TLD of the country where you operate (ccTLD), such as .nl for the Netherlands, .be for Belgium, or .UK for the United Kingdom. Are you an international company or do you want to go international? So you’d better choose a general TLD (gTLD) like.com, .eu, or.net.

Consider the form of your domain name. You can buy the domain name flower.com, but you can also go for the plural version flowers.com. In this particular example, the name flower.com would be better suited to a brand and flowers.com would be better suited to a florist. In addition to choosing a word in the singular or plural, the tense of a verb can also be important. In theory, the domain name run.com would be more valuable than ran.com. However, the value still depends on the purpose of your domain name.

Your domain name should also be easy to type. A good method to test this is the so-called radio test. Imagine hearing a radio ad with the domain name shoezzz.com. Clients will probably wonder if it is spelled with ‘oe’ or with ‘oo’ and how many z’s it is spelled with. Not all domain names that fail this test will necessarily be bad. Just look at Netflix.com and Flickr.com.

Try to keep your domain name as short as possible – the more words it contains, the less valuable it will be. A domain name called drivinglessons.com will be more valuable than doyouwanttolearnhowtodrive.com. One called Google.com will be more valuable than typing your question and this search engine will answer you.com.

If you choose to use multiple words, make sure they are written in the correct order. This sounds like a logical thing to do, but it still goes wrong sometimes. A domain name called www.aaaptickets.com will be much clearer than ticketscheap.com. This is also the case for so-called newTLDs: coffee.company instead of company.coffee.

Try to avoid using a dash (-) in your domain name. These cannot be heard on the radio and make your website less valuable. Customers often forget to use a dashboard, costing you valuable traffic.

Try to avoid “hacks”. These are domain names like barbecu.es and swimsu.it. They are difficult to understand and surely need additional clarification, which takes valuable time, especially when it comes to advertising.

All of the above tips and tricks can be used when choosing a good domain name for your business. If you want to buy a domain name as an investment, there are a few additional things to pay attention to. We will return to this in another blog.

Do you still have any questions after reading this blog? Send us a message and we will get back to you.