10 Common Mistakes In Naming A Website

By Andy Greider

A website by any other name, would not be so sweet....or so says the cyber-bard. Many times when we're picking a site url, we fall prey to classic mistakes - here are the most common pieces of advice people fail to heed:

1. If you buy a .net instead of a .com - you will likely send more than 15% of your potential repeat business to the .com - often a huge competitor.

2. Not buying the .net, .org, .info, etc of your own name - to protect it on down the line. Serious online businesses should own all, and all should point to the .com. This is simple and the cost upfront is minuscule compared to the cost of lost sales on down the line. In addition, buying only the singular or plural of bikes.com or bike.com - try for both and again stop sending your clients to the competition.

3. Using a number in your domain name, such as FreeAdvice4Life.com, but not purchasing the freeadviceforlife.com address. Be sure to buy as many variations as you can afford, at least of the .com.

3. Keep it short and sweet - urls of less than 7 letters or digits work well. Others are very forgettable. Phone numbers are 7 digits for a reason - and the world isn't getting any better at paying attention to details or retention. So keep it short, keep it simple.

4. Companies often choose a name and begin to branch out to other countries with a name that doesn't translate well. Nothing worse than being an url that gains traction here and then becoming a whole new entity in another country - or finding your name insults someone's mother in another language. It is, after all, the world wide web.

5. Do not use two different names - one for your company - one for the web address. A big mistake many folks make is doing something like: Consultants R Us as the name, then CRUS.com as the web address...or worse yet - with hyphens consultants-r-us.com.

6. Be sure you aren't getting too close to the bone on a new name - or too closely emulating a trademarked name with cache value - and a large legal department. Doing so can crush a young company. Just when you gain momentum, they notice you - and you go away.

7. Coming up with a word without a current meaning and then expecting people to recall it without spending millions on new ads or finding you as clever as you did upon naming the company.

8. Forgetting that a name online has to "paint a picture" - Sam's Bikes On Main doesn't work online. Trying for something that is online oriented works much better than simply transferring a brick-n-mortar name to the internet.

9. Working on a new company name without first checking for the url availability. There is nothing worse than hitting paydirt on a great name to find out the url isn't available. Check all of them before presenting.

(check your url's availability: webtivitydomains.com )

10. Not buying potential misspellings - especially if your web address is something easily misspelled. Most people count on the average web surfer to be a deft typist, and it simply isn't the case.