Choosing a domain name may not be at the top of the list when starting your business, but it can be difficult when it comes to choosing. A lot of good can come with the right name, and a lot can go wrong later if you don’t do it right. It is therefore crucial that you make the right decision. This article will discuss the psychology behind choosing good, bad, and ugly – and how to avoid it to help you make an informed decision.

Related: 8 things to consider when choosing your domain name

Good

Since the beginning of commerce, there has been branding. Branding, a powerful marketing concept, manages how your target audience perceives your business. Your brand is your business identity. A positive perception of your business that your audience could relate to can make all the difference.

Branding is the key to selecting a successful domain name. Because of the value, your domain name is tied to your brand as it is usually the first thing your target audience will hear and type in to visit your website. Most importantly, your domain name will be part of your business email address.

Consistency is the key to effective branding. What we’ve learned from successful brands is that the vast majority of their brand names match their domain, and some have abbreviated versions of their brand name as their domain. Some have gone to great lengths and paid a premium to acquire a corresponding domain name. This highlights the value of a branded domain name. And your domain doesn’t have to match your brand name as long as that decision is part of your branding strategy and consistent with your brand.

Here’s how to choose a successful domain name by focusing on these four characteristics: relevance, ease, adaptability and differentiation. If you see through the lens of these four characteristics, you will end up with a durable and customizable domain or even a brand name.

• Relevance: A meaningful name that reflects your company values, products/services or any part of your business. For example, if you look at the name “Google”, it looks like someone just pulled it out of nowhere. But it wasn’t random at all. During a brainstorming session, Sean, a friend of the company’s founders, pitched the name “Googol” (a mathematical term for the number one followed by 100 zeros), a relevant name for a tech company. . When they tried to check the availability of the Googol domain, they mistakenly typed Google and thought Google sounded much better.

• Facilitate: An easy-to-communicate domain name is crucial, while the opposite could cause your customers to lose interest, make mistakes or forget about it. Avoid using hyphens, numbers, made up spellings, or anything that makes communicating your domain name difficult. A good practice is to involve your family, friends, and colleagues and use different scenarios, such as giving your email over the phone, to determine how easy it is to communicate your chosen domain name.

• Adaptability: Over time, businesses progress, evolve and grow. That’s why many companies spend a fortune on rebranding. To protect your business from growing your domain name, think ahead. Visualize what your business will look like in the next ten years, then draw your conclusion. For example, Jeff Bezos named his company “Amazon”, the greatest river, based on his vision of being the largest retailer on the Internet, even though his company initially only sold books.

• Award: It’s about making your brand memorable. A distinctive domain name will help your customers remember your brand. On the other hand, choosing a popular generic keyword as your domain will confuse your customers. Exact generic popular keywords will be all over Google search results in your competition’s title tags and meta descriptions, making it harder for your customers to differentiate your business from your competition. A distinctive domain with popular extensions such as dot com, dot net, and dot co will also likely be available, since the domain already taken is often the case when registering.

Related: How to Choose a Descriptive Domain for Your Business

The bad

SEO is a daunting task for brand new websites. This might lead some to find a way around the problem thinking that naming their domain with a popular keyword will boost their website’s ranking on Google. This might have been the case many years ago, but Google’s search algorithms are constantly evolving and can tackle any attempt at manipulation. In recent years, John Mueller, a senior search attorney at Google, has repeatedly stated that keyword domains have no effect on rankings and don’t get any special bonuses. They will have to go through the process like any new website.

Related: 3 Keys to the Right Domain Name to Build a Brand

The ugly one

Not knowing the history of your chosen domain can have devastating effects. If it has a previous owner, it will have a history. As with any purchase, you’ll want to know the quality of the domain making sure it hasn’t been associated with anything that goes against your company values ​​and hasn’t been penalized by Google for spam.

There are several free tools available that will help you learn more about your domain history. Tools like Wayback Machine allow you to see screenshots of the website(s) that existed before. And the backlink checker tools will let you see what other websites have a link to your domain on their sites. This information will create a clear picture and allow you to troubleshoot issues, if any, firsthand.