Web Podcast - Episode 3: Domain names - get your name right!

Read the transcription of this podcast:

It’s a simple episode today guys, episode three, we’re going to talk about domain names.

Selecting a domain name for your new website, or if you already have one, there’s things to consider if you want to change it.

It’s important you domain is short, the longer it is the longer people have to type out. The more complicated it is the more complicated it will be for someone to write down and maybe remember how to spell it.
Try and keep your domain name as simple as possible.

What I mean by domain name is the .co or .nz or .com TLD with the suffix. So what’s the suffix of your domain? Is it bobslawnmowing.co.nz? That’s a bit too long. Is it some abbreviated term like bsa.co.nz? Keep it short if you can, if you have a long company name don’t try and fit it all in. most people will find you through Google or click on you through social media.

So it’s not critical that the name is spelled exactly as your company name. It doesn’t matter. It’s more important for that if it’s on your business cards or vehicle signage so it’s easy to remember.
So don’t have a word that’s complicated.

Also don’t have a word that’s spelled differently to how it is spelled in the English dictionary. You see a lot of words with works, I’ve seen works spelled with a Z at the end. People won’t know that unless you tell them. So it can be confusing if your domain name is spelled workz. You’ll end up having to tell people every single time.

The best thing is to keep it simple.

Once you’ve picked your domain name you can set up your website. You can also set up emails on it. Same principle with emails. Keep it simple. Unless you’re a company with 500 employees all of you company emails should be the person's first name. Even initials. It’s hard as people have names that are hard to spell, or they are spelled in a few different ways. Like my name, Matt or Matthew. My name can have one or two Ts. Usually it’s two Ts, but it can confuse people and they may spell it wrong.

What you can do in most hosting environments, you can set up an alias. An alias is attached to an email address. I can have an address that’s matt@razorweb.co.nz like I currently have. I can also have an alias of that which is mat@razorweb.co.nz that way if someone spells it wrong I will still get the email, which is important.

I see far too many people with complicated domain and emails, or the wrong spelling on emails and then their emails don’t come in so they miss out on business.
As you know, business is money.

Keep it simple. I’m referring back to this term over and over again. Most people have no computer literacy. It’s just a fact. They don’t know how to do things or know that you have to try different ways.
It needs to be simple.

Drill that into your head.

That’s episode three. Next episode we will talk about the million other areas of web design.

I’m Matt Reid and that was the RAZOR Web Design Wire Podcast.