There is always excitement on starting a new business. Once you decide to run your own business, there is a lot to learn whether your field is accounting, real estate or retail.
Other than the development and delivery of a product/service, you may also need to rent office space, hire employees, list subcontractors or suppliers, publicize, and charge for that particular product/service. But, naming the business should not be forgotten as it becomes much more difficult for a business to progress without a domain name.
Why Do You Require a Domain Name?
NameClerks.com and CouponEzine.com are the domain names used by particular businesses. If you are looking for a custom e-mail address, for example, you@yourbusinessname.com or want to build your website, then you’ll require a unique domain name for your business.
The owner and user of NameClerks.com, Peter Nguyen, is a GoDaddy client and domain name expert from the SG. It is only Peter who has the right to use NameClerks.com until he keeps paying the registration charges for this domain. This domain belongs solely to Peter.
NameClerks has become a business asset today, which could only be sold when Peter desires to sell his business.
Tips to Find Distinctive Business Domain Names
Formerly, on hearing the word ‘google’, people used to consider it from the Klingon language. Like Googol which is a digit 1 followed by 100 zeros and is used for showing the difference between an incredibly large number and infinity, www.google.com has now become one of the top business domain names which gather the universally available information.
The word ‘google’ now comes as the most revered domain name with other top business names including Microsoft and IBM. Nowadays, Google is the most broadly used term for searching something over the Internet. Instead of using the word search or find, people often say “Let me google that for you”.
Achieving the high-level of brand domination like Google takes many years even for the smart business owners, yet you should wish for this position while choosing your business domain name.
If You Still Haven’t Selected a Name for Your Business
Even the most dynamic and catchy business names become useless when they have already been taken by any other businesses. One of the best approaches to check the availability of the desired business names and social media handles is to search here.
For instance, I registered my freelance couponing service named eCoupon.io in 2015. Later, I found out that someone else registered www.ecoupon.com before me. Presently, ecoupon.com is available for sale at the cost of $25,999. Oh well, you live and learn!
Follow these mentioned tips as you explore the choices for your business name:
- Length of the name should be short and don’t make use of numerals or hyphens.
- Select such name which describes the service you’ll be offering to your clients.
- Perform keyword research and make keyword a part of your domain name.
- If you intend to serve local clients, it would be great to add your city in the domain name.
- Be inventive and add a word in your domain name from the art & craft, mythology, and philosophy areas.
Naming your business becomes more exciting once you learn some skills to handle it.
- Join parts of multiple words to create a business name
- Make use of naming tools to generate different ideas
Key tip: Perform a Basic Word Mark Search of the U.S. Patent Office database once you have selected some names for your business. It will help in identifying if any other organization holds the trademark on any of your shortlisted names (click the “live” button before you start the search). Remove the names from your list which have already been registered.
If You Already Have a Business Name
Generally, the business name is given to the new startups. There is a possibility that the business you are now putting online is your family business. If so, your organization must be recognized in the market with some unique name. It would be a great mistake to change the business name only to obtain some trendy web address. It will result in the immediate disappearance of the known name and eventually will confuse your long-term customers, which you certainly wouldn’t want!
In such a situation, the best option for you is to check if there is already a domain name available with exact spelling as yours. This step won’t take much longer than a few seconds. And, if your desired domain name is already registered by somebody else, then you still have many options:
- Search for the owner by entering the domain name in the WhoIs database and then ask that person if he is ready to sell it or not.
- Using the Domain buy service, hire a domain broker to connect with the present owner and negotiate to get that name for you.
Unable to Find Your Business Name in .com?
Undeniably, the .com is universally recognized as the most popular domain extension. For this reason, most of the startups use this extension for their naming procedure.
What if somebody else has the exact domain name with the .com extension you need and, is not ready to sell it or asking for a hefty amount?
Well, we are here to take care of your needs. From the past few years, several more naming options for businesses have been introduced and, now you have more choices than previously. For instance, if you are a real-estate worker, then you can use the .house or .properties extension with your business name. Or, if you plan to set up a hairdresser’s shop, you can use the .salon extension. So, there is a wide array of domain extensions available, suiting every business individually. However, some of them are still unknown to people and haven’t been chosen by them.
Business Domain Name FAQs
While giving your business a name, you have to be very selective yet visionary. So, choose the name wisely!
In case you missed the last question-answer session, we have provided answers to some general questions regarding the business domain names.
Who Can Register a Business Domain Name?
Everyone, around the globe, can register their business domain names only if they haven’t already been registered by someone else.
Some domain extensions including .gov and .edu are for restricted use only. The first extension can only be used by the U.S. educational institutions, while the latter is for the use of the U.S. governmental firms. There are other extensions available as well which have different requirements. For instance, to register a name with .eu extension, the applicant has to be a citizen or worker of a European Union country.
How Much Does a Name Registration Cost?
Domain names are available from the price range of cents to thousands of dollars every year. To be specific, the more valuable a domain name is, the higher it cost.
How Long Can You Own a Name?
Every registered domain name has a different duration; some have the minimum period of a year, while other names can be registered for as long as a decade.
The Foremost Step to Establish a Business
A year later, you’ll recall those moments when you planned to run your own business. Let’s take a moment to understand the business and appreciate every bit of it. But, before consulting an agent, looking for office space, or even choosing a name for your business, it is advised to search for a business domain name.
Take suggestions from people and come up with unique domain names which will help your business stand out in the market and describe the services your business is going to offer as well. It is one of the significant 21st-century skills which will take your business to an advanced level.