Domain Names

Selecting a domain name (e.g., www.your-domain.com) requires careful thought and a little research. People often think a domain should be related to their company name, but sometimes there are more effective alternatives.

Domain names should be chosen to fulfill these goals:

• Help potential customers find your site, even if they don't know the address
• Be short and simple to remember
• Have an obvious relationship to your company and what you do
• Help your site ratings with search engines

We can help you evaluate alternatives so the domain you choose will do the best job possible. While companies usually register a domain ending in .com (stands for commercial), you may also want to register the same name with the .net and .org endings to avoid competitors or detractors from using those versions. Nonprofit organizations usually register a name with .org. There are new domain endings available, but we don't recommend using them at this time.

Once the choices are narrowed down, you will need to find out if the domain name you want is available. We've provided a handy Domain Lookup Form for this purpose. Next, you need to register the domain, and pay the annual registration fee. Dotster.com offers reasonable prices and provides easy access when you need to make changes.