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Choosing the right domain name for your business is a critical decision. Since it's what people will type in to get to you on the Internet, having a bad Web address is tantamount to a bricks-and-mortar storefront in the boondocks, hell-and-gone from major highways.
In the documentary "Startup Dot-com," fledgling CEO Kaleil Tuzman and his business partners agonize over what to call their Internet company, finally settling on govWorks.com. As well they should have. The stakes are higher than the pre-Internet days, when your business name was not necessarily linked to how people were going to find you. (Although the occasional "Aardvark Company" did pop up in order to be listed at the top of the Yellow Pages).
Anirvan Chatterjee discovered the importance of selecting a good name when he launched his site for finding books as "MX BookFinder," hosted at www.mxbf.com. He realized the name and URL were cumbersome and hard to remember, but he hadn't realized the role of good naming practices starting out.
"I finally made up for my naming mistake by spending $1,500 on buying the "bookfinder.com" domain name - possibly the best purchase I've ever made," he said. The site relaunched as BookFinder.com in December 1998, and it is now one of the best online resources for book-related ecommerce and a dot-com survivor.
So what do you need to keep in mind when you name your company? First, you need to think of something that makes sense. Simplicity is always good. "There's something to be said for a good, clean, short, sober name," said Naseem Javed, founder of ABC Namebank International http://www.abcnamebank.com, which specializes in corporate nomenclature. Javed is also the author of Naming for Power. "Those silly names such as Purple Frog, etc., were okay when everybody was making money. Now, it's terrible. They look deceptive, as if you're trying to fool people. That's why sober IDs are settling in for corporate or product names."
And, of course, simple, un-clunky name will make it easier for customers to bring up your site. "If you're going to go through the trouble of maintaining a corporate Web site, you better make sure people can find it," says Javed.
You also want to make sure the name is not already taken, and won't expose you to any legal conflicts. David Steel, CEO of Zoovy, Inc. http://www.zoovy.com, said his company name was initially Verities, Inc., and their Web site was Verities.com. "Verities, of course, means truth, and we really liked that name," said Steel. "Unfortunately, it was too close to "Veritas," which is a software company, and our corporate attorneys thought it would be better to change it." The name Zoovy was also registered, and they been using it as the code name for their software platform, so they just switched names.
Steel said one of their developers found the name Zoovy. "He wrote a program to look for five-letter domains with the most vowels. Zoovy as it turns out was the last five-letter three-vowel domain."
It seems to have worked out well for Zoovy. (I told Steel the name reminds me of a combination of "zoom," implying speed, and "groovy," both words with good connotations. It's also not too long and clunky.
The downside to a name like Zoovy is that it is not a real word, and doesn't intuitively tell you what that company does or sells. However, if you are spending money to build your brand, and your customers can find you, that is the main thing.
OK, so you've got a few candidates for names in mind. Now what?
Javed suggests these steps:
First, look up your Web site address on Google http://www.google.com. If the results turn up more than 100 other sites using your corporate name or portions of it, rest assured that consumers will have trouble finding your site.
Second, check your site's name on DomainSurfer http://www.domainsurfer.com. Enter your domain name here, and all other registered domain names using all or portions of your name will pop up. The number of look-and-sound-alikes might surprise you. Consider this a reality check, because at the end of the day, your domain name must be a unique, one-of-a-kind title that is also easy to remember. Otherwise, you may as well write blank checks to your competitors.
Third, check your domain name on NetworkSolutions http://www.networksolutions.com. Look for the "ID Names" link. The site conducts a search in up to 40 countries so that you can see how many others are using your name overseas. You can also check other suffixes such as .biz, .info and .net to see if there are opportunities to expand your Web presence, or if, perhaps, it would be prudent to try to buy someone else's license.
What about those poor stepchildren of the Internet: alternate suffixes such as .biz, .net, .tv, etc.?
"Some registrars spent hundreds of millions of dollars in trying to get the user's psyche to accept .biz, .info, etc., and they all bombed," said Javed. "So on a global scale, research has shown that .com is the key." He pointed out that if somebody is using .biz, it arouses curiosity as to why are they not using .com. Will you be sending your customers the message that you are too cheap to get .com, or that you are not a viable business?
But Zoovy's David Steel suggests you go ahead and register multiple suffixes: "Register .com, .org, and .net as well," he said. "Purchase a few years at a time as it is less expensive overall and easier." This will also hedge your bets if the .biz, etc. suffixes take off in public acceptance in the future.
Steel also advises name-grabbers to make sure the name is not too long, is very easy to spell, and also to register the misspellings if they are available.
But the bottom line for a domain name is that it works for your company. "A name is a name, whether it's for a portal, or a big or small company. At the end of the day, your objective is to create clicks on it," says Javed.
What about a trademark search? Do you need to do one? Javed doesn't think you do, unless you've crossed the "million-dollar line" in your business. However, MyEZsale will be taking a close look at trademark searches in an upcoming article, so stay tuned for more information.
NOTE: See sidebar:
http://www.myezsale.com/cab/abu/y203/m06/mes0002/s04
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