Having a website is quite normal in these days. Not only company needs it, personal website gets more and more popular as well. But what is the first thing you need to do to have a website? Many assume the first step to starting website is design, but actually, choose a right domain name to match your needs is equally important, or more important in my personal option.
Words have meaning and names have power. To have a meaningful or branded name is becoming more and more important in the age of internet marketing and branding development. How you know the name you want is available or not? There are many web services you can use online to find available domain names. Such services will let you know the availability status of your desired domain for different extension like .com, org, .net, etc.
After choosing your domain, you can start to think about web hosting and web design. Get your brand assets ready for designers, since they need to make sure your website match with your branding. Meaningful domain name and well-aligned branding will create a really strong first impression and make your site a lot more professional. Here we will showcase some successful examples of carefully picked domain and their sites.
For personal use, it pretty simple to use just your name as domain. However, if your names happened to be taken already, here are some alternatives:
- Check for different extension. Especially for personal site, you might register a domain with your country domain such as .jp, .it, .uk
- Add a middle initial. If JohnSmith.com isn’t free, maybe JohnZSmith.com is.
- Get creative. Matt Mullenweg uses the domain ma.tt for example.
Brian Nathan Hartwell – http://www.briannathanhartwell.com/
Olia Gozha – http://www.gozha.net/
Graphisterie – http://www.graphisterie.lu/
Michele Mazzucco – http://michelemazzucco.it/
For public use, there are many factors need to considered. If it is a company site you want the domain is exactly your company name. If the site is intended to provide some service, you might choose a meaningful domain which reflects the service you provide.
Coca-Cola – http://www.coca–cola.com/
Sony http://www.sony.com/
Baby Center – http://www.babycenter.com/
Food Network – http://www.foodnetwork.com/
