The obvious first choice is to select a domain name which has your business name or product name in the address. Let’s use the fictitious company “Happy Days”, a Brisbane based wedding photographer. The first choice might be: www.happydays.com or www.happydays.com.au.

If your business name is not available, you might consider incorporating a word in to the domain name which describes the business you are in. Not only are you more likely find a suitable domain which is available, but keyword searches through Google and other search engine using this particular word are more likely to come across you site if it is actually featured in the URL, for example: www.happydays-photography.com

Another option is to incorporate your location in to the domain name. Again, this has the advantage of attracting website traffic from search engines where keyword searches on a particular area have been used: For example, www.happydays-photography-brisbane.com.au

Take a look at  www.nissan.com The car manufacturer failed to snap up their domain name first and are now embroiled in a legal battle to stop “Nissan Computer” from using this particular domain. Don’t risk your competitors hijacking your brand, products or business name, for the sake of a few hundred dollars a year.

I am commonly asked, ‘should we use a .com or a .com.au address?’. This really depends on a few factors, such as whether your website be predominately targeting an Australian market or an international market? Many local small businesses prefer a .com.au domain name extension over .com and there can be search advantages of this approach. Regardless of which domain name you choose, you should where possible purchase the BOTH the .com and the .com.au extensions, again to avoid someone else accidentally or purposely pinching your hard earned website traffic.

Still not sure which domain name is right for your website? Call Cassaè Designs on 0407 732 080 or contact us here for more information.