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  • butallthegoodnamesarealreadytaken.com

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    Posted on May 18, 2009 at 1:03 pm



    Ok, I finally have my Web site built. Great! I also have a name in mind for it. Oops! Too late. All the words in the dictionary were taken by 1996. Most common phrases were taken shortly after that. The most exotic word combinations are long gone as of this date. So, how do I come up with a good domain name that will help to get my Web site major traffic for those who care about what I have to sell? Christopher Johnson tackles this question in his article posted to Smashing Magazine, “The Effective Strategy for Choosing Right Domain Names.”

    Your domain name could be said to be the important part of your Web site design. It can establish a theme for branding the firm and may very well be the leading search result from Google. Whether by search engine or word of mouth, finding you depends in significant measure on the right name.

    Since many of our clients’ company monikers consist of only proper names, we search first for the firm’s street name. A long string of initials culled from the firm name (even four is too many) is hard for clients to remember (type in bipc to get Buchanan Ingersoll…but what are the other two names you’re supposed to remember?). Failing that, we’ll try to construct a domain name as close as possible by adding “llp” or other designations. Inferior? Yes. Better than imaginative invention? Well, yes again.

    Discoverable names are often reserved for services or campaigns. These types of names rely on “type-in” traffic. The trick to discoverable names is not to be too clever, but to think of what others might type into a search engine; for example, “Sarbanes Oxley explained.” These more creative domain names should be kept short, catchy, memorable and easy to spell.

    For a more in depth look on this topic

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