Regardless of the nature of your business, choosing a domain name is one of the most critical aspects of building your online brand. You need to ensure that you choose not only a domain name that describes the purpose of your business, but also one that is easy to search for.

Our website’s ranking in search engine results determines the success of our business, which explains why companies leave no stone unturned in their efforts to appear amongst the very top results on the internet. Across the world, the strategic aim of companies’ digital marketers is to register en masse for every gTLD that can be associated with their company’s products or services.

This huge interest in industry-specific domain names is fuelled by the opportunity to register new gTLDs. This has meant that business owners around the world can now choose not only from the best domain names, but also from a range of industry-specific domain extensions.

But as they say, when you have too many good options, it’s hard to decide. We’ve put together the key guidelines to help you choose the most suitable domain extension for your business. But first, let’s take a look at how search engines work.

Why will this help me achieve a better ranking on Google or other search engines? With the introduction of new gTLDs, search engines are better able to rank websites than they were based on .com domain names alone. For example, if someone is searching for a specific service, search engines rank websites based on how relevant their domain extension is to the relevant industry.

How to choose the right domain name:

• Relevance: Need I say more? I cannot emphasise enough how important it is that your domain name and extension match your business. For example, camera brands and budding photographers can choose .camera or .photograph addresses, which are closely linked to their field. Recommend short and catchy addresses from the range of TLDs to your clients, starting with generic ones such as .today, right through to industry-specific ones like .shoes.
• Ease of recall: An intuitive domain name helps people remember your website better. An easy-to-remember domain and a business-relevant extension will undoubtedly help you make a deeper impression on your customers. Naturally, all of this is also very useful from a brand-building perspective.
• Demographics: If your target market is local or specific to a particular country or region, it may be a good idea to register a domain name that reflects this, such as europetours.eu.
• Special characters and symbols: The domain name system does not permit the use of special characters and symbols (apart from the hyphen) in the part of the domain name preceding the extension.
• Don’t be put off by the price: The relevance of the domain name and its extension is the most important factor when looking for the most fitting domain name for your business. That is why, in business, the relevance of domain names is more important than their price. Consumers will search for products based on your domain name or brand. The right domain name and extension will therefore attract customers.

We hope you enjoyed this article! We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments section. If you have any questions about the article, please get in touch with us – we’re happy to help!

• choosing a domain
• domain endings
• seo
• business