Five tips for picking the perfect domain name

With over 140 million domain names registered across the world and with tens of thousands more being registered every day, the odds of getting a single word domain name under any top level domain (TLD, everything after the dot) are slim, unless you’re willing to purchase a premium domain name. Looking just at the .com TLD, there are no single word domain names, other than premium names. The bidding for a single word .com domain name starts in the thousands and climbs from there.

Buying a premium domain name might be worthwhile. When searching for a domain name on Hover, you’ll see premium domain names listed and their prices alongside the suggested results. Single word domains are great, especially if you plan to promote your domain name as a way for potential customers to get in touch; radio or podcast ads will work better with a single word domain name like business.com. Check out details on Hover premium domain names.

A great domain name is a worthwhile investment. It is, after all, the online identity of you and / or your business. However, if you get creative, you might not need to drop a bundle to get a great domain name. Here are five tips to find the perfect domain name.

Consider other TLDs:

If you can score a .com, that’s great. It is, after all, the TLD that most people will assume when entering your domain name into their browser address bar. Given this TLD’s popularity though, it can be exceedingly difficult to find the perfect .com domain name.
If you’re willing to look beyond .com, you’ll find your options open up considerably. Country code TLDs (ccTLDs) are a great alternative. If you’re based in Canada, consider a .ca domain name. If you’re in APAC, a .asia domain name might be the right choice. Hover also offers .us, .it, .eu and.uk, among others.
There are also .info, .tel, .mobi, .net, .co and other TLDs that can be considered. Check the full list of Hover supported TLDs.

Avoid punctuation:

This one is debatable and falls under personal preference. That said, meonline.com looks and sounds much better than me-online.com. If you must use punctuation in order to get the domain name you want, stick with the hyphen (dash) as opposed to the underscore, i.e. me_online.com
Do you remember your first ever email address? It probably came from a free webmail provider and was something like “billy_mctavish_awesomesauce1982@hotmail.com.” Remember trying to tell people your email address? It was never easy…

Say it aloud:

Make your domain name one that rolls off the tongue. Try saying the domain name you’re thinking of pulling the trigger on aloud before proceeding. “me online dot com” sounds great. “me dash online dot com sounds pretty good. “Me underscore online dot com” sounds terrible. In fact, we dislike underscores in domain names so much that we don’t even offer underscores as an option. Sorry billy_mctavish. We really don’t think they’re awesomesauce.
Even if you avoid punctuation, don’t make your domain name a tongue twister or a mouthful. thelongestdomainnameintheworldandthensomeandthensomemoreandmore.com is a funny gag… but it’s hardly a domain name you’d be able to drive people to with anything other than a link.

No tricks:

If you’re reading this post, we’re going to go ahead and assume you’re good people; salt of the earth. You’re not interested in things like domain typo squatting or other tricks to get people to visit your site. ’nuff said.

Cover your bases:

You’ve found a domain name and a TLD you like. It might be an idea to cover your bases by grabbing some of the other TLDs that are available. If you were able to score the perfect .com domain name, consider at least grabbing your local ccTLD (.ca, .us, .asia etc.) as well. You might want to consider grabbing the .co, the .net or the .tv to go along, but that’s entirely your choice, of course.
Whether or not you need to grab all available TLDs for your domain name depends on how you plan to use said domain name. If it’s going to be integral to your business, it’d be a good idea to do so.

So with all that in mind, start searching on Hover to see what domain names you can find.