Choosing Your Domain Name
A bad domain name can seriously harm your web site, whilst a good one will contribute to its success. In this article we help you choose a great domain name for your practice.
What is a domain name?
A domain name acts as a pointer to a computer somewhere on the internet. For example, my domain name is soothed.com.au. My email goes to something@soothed.com.au, and my web site is at www.soothed.com.au. If you type www.soothed.com.au into your browser address bar, you’ll see my web site; and if you send me an email, it will be delivered to my mail server (where I can read it and reply).
There are quite a few different endings for domains - .com (meaning commercial) is the most common. Other popular ones include .org (meaning organisation, usually non-commercial), .net (meaning network), .gov (meaning government), and .edu (meaning education). There are also country-specific endings, such as .au for Australia and .uk for the UK. As a therapist, you’re most likely to be interested in a .com, a .com.au (Australian business), or a .co.uk (UK business) domain.
What makes a good domain name?
In many ways choosing a domain name is like choosing a business name, but there are a few extra considerations for domain names. A good domain name is:
- Easy to remember. Ideally you'll be advertising your web site as a way for prospective clients to find out more about you. People may not be online when they come across your web site address, so your domain name needs to be easy to remember.
- Easy to pronounce and spell. Once again this relates to offline marketing. You want people to be able to tell their friends about you, to give out your web site or email address over the phone, and for prospects to type in your address without making a mistake.
- Not too long. A shorter name is easier to type and usually easier to remember too. If you want (or need) to use a multi-word domain (e.g. Nutrition Naturally), I recommend running the words together to make 1 longer word (e.g. nutritionnaturally.com), rather than using hyphens (e.g. nutrition-naturally.com). There's less scope for typing errors with the single word version, and you can always capitalise each word (eg. NutritionNaturally.com) to make it easier to read (domain names are not case sensitive). Although short names are generally better, avoid using an abbreviation unless it is well recognised (e.g. atms.com.au (meaning Australian Traditional-Medicine Society) is probably OK, but jbnn.com.au (standing for Joe Blogg's Nutrition Naturally) is not instantly recognisable.)
In addition, you may want to make your domain name:
- Keyword rich. For some search engine keywords with a lot of competition, it may help to include your main keyword(s) in your domain name (e.g. meditatateinsydney.org). Read more on search engine keywords and optimisation.
- Country specific. A domain ending in .com.au, or .co.uk can be beneficial for online marketing, as it instantly tells people that you're catering to an Australian or UK market respectively. There is also generally less competition for these domain names, so you might find it easier to get the name you want. However, if you have an international customer base (or you are a US based therapist) then .com may be more appropriate.
Brainstorming names
There is so much competition for domain names that you may struggle to find one that's available to buy. We'll talk more about how to check on this later, but for now go ahead and think of as many ideas as you can. Some ideas to get you started include:
- Your business name (or part of it)
- Your therapies, or product names
- Your location
- Your target market
- Related words or concepts around health, your therapy or product
What options are there around a keyword? (e.g. massageme.com, thebestmassage.co.uk, massageinsydney.com.au, massagebacktohealth.com)
You can also make up a word or choose something unrelated, but this tends to work best for bigger companies (e.g. google, amazon) with a big budget to market the brand.
Remember to judge each name you come up with on the good criteria listed above; and avoid names which are trademarked by others - you don't want to get sued later!
Is your choice available?
The easiest way to check whether a domain name is available is to use a domain registrar to search for it. Domain registrars are companies which are legally allowed to allocate domain names. Here's a list of Australian accredited domain registrars as well as a list of international domain registrars . Simply go to a registrar's website, and enter the domain name you want to search for to see whether it is available.
When you've found your perfect name, go ahead and register it!
Like to read more?
Enter your email address below, and we'll send you our free newsletter - Therapist Marketing Monthly. Each issue is packed with tips and strategies to help you market your practice!
Your privacy is important to us. We don't share your email address with anyone else and will cancel your subscription whenever you request it.