Choosing a domain name: seven rules and two pitfalls

Your domain name is your address, your business card and often the first thing someone sees of your business. You choose it once, because changing it later costs visitors, reviews and findability. These are the rules.

Seven rules

1. Short. Two words is the maximum, one is better. People have to remember it after hearing it once.
2. No hyphens, no digits. "hairdresser-de-vries-2.com" is not something you tell anyone over the phone.
3. Easy to spell. Say it out loud to someone and see if they type it correctly.
4. .nl for the Netherlands, .com for everywhere. For a local Dutch business .nl is familiar and often still free. .com if you work internationally or the .nl is taken.
5. Your business name, not your trade. "hairdresserbreda.com" looks clever for Google, but Google stopped looking at the domain name long ago. Your name wins in the long run.
6. Check the name as a social handle and as your registered business name too. Everything the same is easiest.
7. Buy the variants. The .nl as well, the spelling with and without "the". A few tens of euros a year, and nobody can run off with it.

Two pitfalls

• The domain in your web designer's name. Then it is their address, not yours. Always in your own name, with your own login.
• A name that pins your business down. "gymsouth.com" is awkward when you open a second location in the north.

And then

A domain costs €10 to €20 a year. Register it as soon as you have the name, even if the site is not there yet; good names disappear fast. At Scrollvio we arrange the registration in your name if you want, at cost.