One of the most important decisions you have to make as a business, especially in Nigeria is picking a domain name. It sets the tone for a lot of things – how your business is perceived and on a bigger scale, the kind of brand you’re looking to establish and have your customers see. Because your domain name is one of the first things people see, it can affect how people look at your brand. A well-chosen domain name for a business in Nigeria can help build user interest and push web traffic, while a negligently chosen one might do the exact opposite.
Here are some good tips to help you with picking a good domain name:
Make It Short
As with every other thing, less is more when it comes to creating a domain name. Why you may ask? It is easier to remember and type. For example, Shola’s Sweets and Confectionaries can prefer to be called sholacakeslagos.com as opposed to writing the full name. Think of it, Facebook that’s just eight characters bought the fb.com domain as well for users to be able to type the shorter form.
Keep it simple
Using Shola’s business earlier, confectionaries is a popularly misspelt word and even if it were shorter, it’d be better for Shola to keep it off her website. Words that are complicated or hard to spell are better to stay off so they don’t return a 404 error page.
Remember the brand
We’re guessing that by the time you want to decide to pick a domain name, you already have existing social pages, or you have an idea of what your brand should look and feel like. Your domain name should reflect this. For example, someone who runs a personal brand like commercial photographer, Anny Robert can decide to use his brand name for his website. This sticks to his existing branding and helps him stand out.
Pay attention to keywords
Especially for businesses, keywords can help you with search results and better optimization for search engines. Words that give a user a feel of the business help. Back to Shola’s Sweets and Confectionaries, her website says sholascakeslagos.com and it’s so easy. You know she is in Lagos, she makes cakes and her name is Shola.
Stay away from hyphen and numbers
Your domain name should be easy to spell and pronounce and hyphens and numbers break the flow. Imagine saying you’re from Face9book? Nope. Ensure that your domain name is punchy, and stick to the letters.
Check for affiliations with other businesses.
You have to ensure that whatever name you end up with is unique to you and your business. Search, and see if there’s an existing brand or business that makes use of it.
What Next?
Now that you probably know what domain name to use, the next thing is to choose a TLD (top-level domain). There are a lot of TLDs and what that means is that you and your business can now create a distinctive domain name that quickly communicates the purpose and value of their offering with the plethora of options. There are TLDs like .design for designers, and .lawyer for lawyers and these TLDs are more customised for the use case.
At Leanstack, we’re able to help you buy a new domain name or transfer your existing domain names to us. Stop wasting time and create your online presence.
Visit this page to start picking the domain you like.