Come Up With Memorable Domain Name Ideas

Reposted from Easily.co.uk on January 28, 2010
Original Article can be viewed at: http://easily.co.uk/blog/2010/01/come-up-with-memorable-domain-name-ideas/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=easily

What is in a domain name? Apparently many things, it is your internet identity, a marketing resource and it is where people will find you. As it is with a physical business address, more business comes to those who have addresses that are easy to find and remember; otherwise the potential customer will take their business to somewhere more convenient. So it is with domain names, they are very important addresses that web users use to find you. Your address has to be just right to reflect what your business is about and to attract traffic.

Lower level domain (LLD) names are very important, they can be the driving force that motivates web surfers to visit your site and influence search engine rankings. Creative thought should be placed to this endeavour.

Your name should be appealing and not too hard to spell, otherwise you may drive traffic away from your site. Hard to spell names and names with dashes or unusual spelling can be a deterrent to potential users. If you realise that your particular name is already in use and you want to differentiate with dashes, exercise caution while doing so, web users may not remember to put in the dashes and may visit your competitor instead. So my-name.com will probably not be a good domain name idea if myname.com is already taken.

Another option, if your name is already taken, is to shorten your company name but make sure that it is catchy and conveys your business idea. So if bricklayers.com is already taken you could consider bricklay.com. Another great idea for a domain name is to include key words that your audience may be searching for, so if your business is about pets, a great idea would be to include ‘pet’ in your domain name e.g. petsrus, petfood, petnames. As part of the ranking process search engines will often credit words in the domain name. So if your domain name includes popular keywords that your target audience is searching for, you will have that added advantage.

If you are starting a new business, a good idea is to research popular keywords. This will help you to analyse what names you can register before you brand your new business. This takes the hassle out of the process of registering your business first and then finding that your domain name is already taken.

After you have put much thought into both your top level name and your lower level name, and you’ve paid attention to your spelling and what you want your name to convey about your business to web users, you may want to search that someone else hasn’t beaten you to registering the name. If no one has, then congratulations, you now need to register your domain name through an accredited domain registrar or your ISP provider.

There are many reputable companies that offer domain registration services; a simple search for such services will reveal many options. You can either use your name instantly or ‘park’ (reserve) it until you are ready to use it.

Creative Twitter Uses: TweetTracker Map

I recently ran across two fun articles that listed creative uses for Twitter. The first, 10 Examples of Creative Twitter Uses and the follow up article, 10 MORE Examples of Creative Twitter Uses written by a company called Search Engine Marketing Group. Both of these blog posts contain interesting and sometimes even amusing utilizations for marketing tactics via Twitter.

For those of you just getting into the social networking scene, Twitter is a free social networking and status update service that enables its users to post and view messages known as tweets which has been gaining daily popularity exponentially. Twitter's core functionality is simply a way for a company, group, organization or individual to comment on their passing musings or microblog about their daily details. However, with any great utility it ultimately inspires creative reinvention. The Twitter service it seems has become a muse.

On reflection, I decided to share some of my recent finds from across the globe of other creative uses for Twitter.

TweetTracker Map:
Stamen Design, a San Francisco based design and technology studio, that has been developing some truly innovative interactive projects is responsible for the TweetTracker map that displays recent tweets about Hope For Haiti Now and mentions of Haiti from around the world displayed from MTV's website. The animated map serves as a powerful visual representation on global awareness and as a creative way to showcase the essence of viral conversation globally using data from Twitter posted tweets.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Written by Jaime Palmer, Website and Creative Director for Black Kat Studio on February 3, 2010.