Choosing a Domain Name: How do you get to choose the right domain name?

What should you consider, and what are the benefits of choosing a specific domain name? These questions can be baffling even to an experienced domain internet nerd.

There are hundreds of domain name extensions that are in use today. Making a choice between different domain name extensions can be a hard call considering that there are hundreds of options to choose from.

We would want to explain to you a few factors to consider when choosing the perfect domain name.

#1. Popularity

One of the most common trends in life is to go with what is popular. This is usually the case with domain names.

There are hundreds of domain name extensions that one can choose from but there are some that are very popular. The most preferred ones are the traditional Top Level Domains as opposed to the new domain name extensions. These include:

• .COM
• .ORG
• .NET
• .CO
• .US

The above domain names are the most popular and most people will identify them at first sight.

#2. Industry Specific

There are some Domain names that are specific to certain industries or professions. These help the associated websites to be identified as serving a certain industry.

There are hundreds of such domains and examples include

• .law
• .edu
• .engineering
• .blog
• .music
• .tv

#3. Geographic factors

Geography is important when it comes to domain names. This is because many times we are targeting people in a specific location and our websites are meant to serve people in certain locations.

This is not always the case but many times we need a domain that servers a specific location.

Country Code Top Level Domains (ccTLD) is the most ideal for targeting a specific country.

A website with a .CO.ZA domain name would be targeting people from South Africa while a .CO.KE targets people in Kenya. This works well for Search Engine Optimization and having such a geography-specific domain name can help you reach specific people.

Here is the list of all the ccTLDs for different countries.

There are also other regional specific domain names that are meant to serve people from a wider geographical location than just a single country. Examples of these include:

• .EU for Europe
• .AFRICA for Africa

#4. Availability

Getting a domain name is also a function of availability. You can only acquire a domain name if it is available.

In many cases, people start with a name in mind. This could be the registered business name or just a name with some special attachment such that we would want to use the name. If you find that the name is taken in most popular domain names, you have to choose a different domain extension or even buy the domain name from the one who has it.

Buying can be expensive. One of the most expensive domains ever sold is CarInsurance.Com which costs $49.7 million. Depending on who owns a domain name and the expected traffic which the domain can fetch, the cost of a domain name can vary greatly.

This leaves the best option for getting a suitable domain name is changing the domain extension depending on availability.

For example, if you are looking for a .com domain and you realize that it is not available, you could opt for a .CO.ZA domain or any other extension that has it available.

How do you register a website domain name?

A website domain name is the address that you use to access a website online, usually by typing it on the address bar of a browser. It usually goes in the format shown in the image below.

An example of a website domain name is www.google.com, or even www.truehost.africa, which is the domain name you are using to access this page!

What you Need to Know Before Registering a Domain

When acquiring a domain name, one important thing you may need to put in mind is that one is  more of leasing a domain name than buying one. This is because you have to keep paying for the domain name renewal every year. If you do not renew the domain, it will be deleted and any other person will be free to acquire the domain.

You also need to put in mind that while you can change a domain name any time you want by buying another one, that will be like changing the physical location of your office/shop. You will need to let everybody know that you have moved. This is harder to do online because of emails and people are likely to keep sending you emails using your older domain name.

This is why it is important to ensure that you have the best domain name possible for your website and you will not need to keep changing it.

So, how do you ensure that you register the most fitting domain name for your website?

Considerations When Registering a Domain Name

Before registering a domain name, keep the following important factors in mind.

• A short domain name is easy to master and remember. Try to keep it as short as possible. This might be a bit hard when using the .COM extension because most of the names are already taken. However, you can opt to use other Top Level Domain names or country code top level domain names such as .za where more names will be available.
• Get a domain name that is descriptive of your work or brand. This will help you get more traffic from search engines. For example, if you have a shop in Durban that sells dairy products, ensure that your website domain name has the keywords Dirban and Milk.
• Choose a suitable domain name extension depending on the intended use of  your website and your location. For example, if you are in South Africa, you can consider a .co.za domain name in order to benefit from South African traffic. If you are planning to use the domain name for a blog, you can consider a .blog domain name extension.

Process of Registering a Domain Name

To register a domain name for your website, follow the following process.

Decide on a Name

Decide on the domain name that you want for your website. You can use the guidelines above to come up with a name, then use Whois service to identify a suitable domain name that is available. If you are having trouble identifying an available name, try to use a different domain name extension such as .africa, .co.za, .joburg or any one you would like.

Find a Domain Name Registrar

A domain name registrar is the entity that provides domain name registration service. When you are registering a website domain name, you are the registrar and the institution that keeps a record of all domain names is called the registry. To register a domain name for a website, you need to go through a domain  registrar which acts as the link between the registry and the registrar.

There are hundreds of domain registrars such as Truehost Cloud that operate all over the world, and local ones that operate in specific locations. You can find the  list of the leading domain registrars in South Africa on this link.

Order your Preferred Domain Name 

To make an order for the website domain name of choice:

1. Visit the registrar’s website.
2. Search for the domain name that you want.
3. If the domain is available, click add to card.
4. If need be, add web hosting or any other service need.
5. Specify the Name servers that you will use with the domain name. These should be from the website hosting service provider.
6. Proceed to checkout and make payment.
7. Once done, wait for your domain to propagate. This could be immediate or might take a few hours depending on the domain extension.

You are ready to build your own website but stuck on what name to pick? You are in the right place. In this article, I will walk you through 7 things you need to consider now when choosing the best domain name in South Africa.

But why is this important? Why should you pay attention?

Well, for starters, a domain name is a permanent thing.

What do I mean?

Once you’ve picked and successfully registered a domain, there won’t be another chance to change it. Yes, you will be stuck with it for the entire time, of course, you can stop renewing it, but that’s something.

As such, it matters to be attentive from the start so that you don’t end up with a disaster down the line.

I can’t tell you how many people end up registering a new website name months after starting a website. And you can’t blame them.

Blame haste and excitement.

But with these tips, you should be able to be objective and intentional as far as picking the best domain name in South Africa.

What is a domain name?

For the new beginners, you might be wondering what a domain is.

Well, this can be explained in a couple of ways. But I will take the easy route. You see the website you are about to build, it will have files – think images, articles, videos, audio, etc.

All these files need a place to live – a home.

That home is a server, a special computer dedicated to housing website files, and serves the users whenever they request.

So there are two things here:

The server and the user (a web visitor). One is a human and the other is a machine, but they must communicate.

To make this possible, the server assigns the website an IP address, I’m sure you’ve seen a string of numbers like 193.234.456. That’s an IP address. But there is one problem.

Would you be able to remember all the IP addresses of your favorite websites? I bet not. And that is where the domain name comes in. Its purpose is to mask the IP address, by making it ‘human friendly’ – think easy to remember and read.

You didn’t need all that though but thought you should know. It’s cool stuff.

Moving on, a domain is a web address people use to access your website.

Importance of picking the best domain name in South Africa

I mentioned earlier that you shouldn’t rush things when it comes to choosing the best website name, reason being, it is kind of harder to change things down the line.

Other reasons include:

• It is the first thing people see when they visit your website. Ever heard of first impressions matters? Well, it applies to web hosting too. You should aim to leave a positive impression on whoever visits your website. A bad name can send users running never to look back
• A good website name can help boost SEO efforts. For example, having the target keyword on your domain name contribute positively to your ranking efforts.
• Whatever name you decide on boils down to how much it contributes to brand recognition.

While these are not the only ones, they comprise of the reasons why you should always go for the best domain name in South Africa.

Tips to consider when choosing a website name

1. Decide on the right domain extension

A domain extension is that last part of any domain name.

For example:

Truehost₁.africa₂

1. Domain (website) name
2. Domain extension

There are several domain extensions, but the best and most popular ones include

• .com – a popular extension powering at least 43% of the internet
• .net
• .co.za – this is a ccTLD (country code top-level domain) reserved for South Africa only
• .org – popular with non-profit organizations. Though open to anyone, it is rare to find businesses using it

You should pick an extension from this list. Anything outside here needs much thought.

2. Brandable over generic names

Tell me something, which of these websites would you recognize as a brand?

1. net
2. com

The second one, right?

Why?

Because it is not generic.

Take a look at the first one, HealthInsurance.net. It is a branch from Insurance.com, and there are a thousand of them. They don’t carry any meaning.

It’s easy to find people talking about how much they like Nike.com or CocaCola.com. I can’t say the same for HealthInsurance.net and others like it.

Having said, you may now be confused, what is the difference between the two?

A brandable name is unique and stands out from the rest. On the flip side, the generic website name is hard to remember and often keyword-stuffed. Consider that before the domain registration process.

3. The shorter, the better

Among the best domain names in South Africa, three-quarters of them are short (12 characters long). This is not a coincidence.

Short names are better than longer ones, here is why.

They are easy to remember and always stand out from the noise. Here is a little experiment, think of any website name. Now, look at the length of the name, was it long or short?

I bet it is short.

Pick a name, not more than 6-14 characters.

4. Should be easy to type

Facebook, Twitter, Truehost, CNN, Afrihost, etc.

What do they all have in common?

If you answered easy to type, you are correct.

A website name should be easy for the user to type, or you will lose them to rival websites.

As such, on your conquest to picking the best domain name in South Africa, stop and ask yourself, is it easy to type? Do this, find three people, and ask them to write down the name. Compare the results. If even one of them had a challenge, that should be a sign to pick another name.

5. Avoid the use of dashes and numbers

You see things like Domain-name.com and DomainName2020.com shouldn’t be on your list.

They are hard to remember and very confusing. And that is the quickest way of losing users to other websites.

For example, if your website has a hyphen and a user type one without it, they either get an error or end up somewhere else. In both instances, you lose.

Save yourself headaches and stick to the alphabet.

6. Consider using a keyword on the name to reflect your niche

Look at our name, Truehost. We are a web hosting company, and that explains the ‘host’ in there.

You should do the same. Look at the industry you wish to enter and find a way to incorporate that into the name.

But be warned.

If you overdo it, you risk ending up with a generic name as we had mentioned earlier. So tread carefully.

7. Think about the future

This is the main reason people end up creating a new website – they ended up doing more than they first intended.

Let me explain.

Say you want to start selling mobile phones now, so you build a website and named it mobilephones.com. But as the years pass, you realize that you want to expand and stock other electronics, but your website reads you only sell phones.

In such cases, the only thing you can do is create a new website.

How can you avoid this now?

Ask yourself this, is there any chance you could expand in the future? If yes, what can you do now to make sure that future changes will be within the current choices?

The best domain name in South Africa is the one that does not pin you down but allows room for more in the future.