Did you ever hear someone’s name that sounded so ludicrous, you wondered what his parents were thinking? Unless we go through the major headache of legally changing our names, most of us are stuck with the one given to us at birth. Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be that way with our business ventures.
Today, choosing the correct name for your online business is the first step in making wise business decisions that will impact you for the life of that business. It’s worth taking a few minutes to review the basics of choosing a name that is impressive, influential and easy to remember. 1. Keep it Short.

A good domain name should be short for several reasons. It is much easier to fit into logos, makes a better brand, is more recognizable, and is harder to misspell. Long, drawn-out, 50-character domain names don’t fit in forms, on billboards, or in Google PPC ads. Be wise and keep them relatively short. Some time ago, Art-U-Frame.com was able to acquire the art.com name for $450,000. Who can blame them? If you were stuck with Art-U-Frame.com, even your mother couldn’t remember your URL. Incidentally, after the name change, their sales doubled.
2. Keep it Memorable

Unfortunately, short does not always equate memorable. We recently spoke with a company who decided to buy the domain name, gwbs.com, the initials for Great Western Business Systems. Gwbs.com may be short, but it is only memorable to your employees. Now if you’re IBM, then using initials for your domain name makes sense — that’s how your customers know you. But most of the time, using initials for your domain name is a most unmemorable and unfriendly approach to business.
Remember those old high-school English classes where you were forced to hack out poetry in Iambic Pentameter? You should have paid more attention: Rhythm and meter can make a business name or domain name memorable as can unique words such as Google or Amazon. Consider fancyfashion.com. It has a kind of singsong quality that makes you remember it. It also brings us to our next topic.
3. Keep it Related to your Business

It’s best if your domain name can be guessed from your company name. But in your search for a domain name, don’t give up if the name for your exact business is unavailable. Search functional names, names that describe your uniqueness or names that express an emotion or attitude. Recently, we wanted to get more information on the famous painter, Thomas Kinkade, so we simply typed in www.thomaskinkade.com and were immediately successful. His core domain is kinkade.info, but we could still log on by just entering his name.
4. Keep it Easy to Spell

It may seem obvious, but you’d be surprised how many domain names are tough to spell if you’ve only heard them spoken. The longer and more complex your domain name, the harder it is for your customers to type it in correctly. Many people are poor spellers. Still others are poor typists. Many names, especially those which end and begin in vowel sounds can be confusing and sound illogical. Take, for example, the name oreillyyulegifts.com. The name does indicate this business probably sells holiday merchandise, but the doubled “y” in the center of the name makes you wonder about the spelling. Could you hyphenate? Yes, but it’s not recommended: Customers have a habit of forgetting the hyphen and typing in the wrong URL. If you always have to explain how to spell your domain name, then you should consider buying another. Which leads us to an important issue
5. Keep All the Alternate Domain Names

The investment in multiple domain names is small compared to the potential marketing value to your company. Consider obtaining all the possible combinations now (including misspellings and the most popular .net and .org versions) before they are taken and your potential customers end up on foreign soil!
But won’t multiple domain names just confuse people? Not at all. You should only advertise one, but you should utilize the others to bring traffic, and point all the domain names to the one site. If you are using search engine positioning and gateway pages to increase traffic, you might consider listing at least some of the gateway pages on another domain. You might gain an advantage on some search engines by using search words prominently in your name. And finally. . .

6. Don’t Keep your Domain Name: Sell it!

Are you calling it quits? Is your domain name close to expiring? Don’t let it lapse without offering it for sale first. Many sites charge only when your domain name sells and some popular domain names have fetched more than $1 million!
Top Ten Wholesale and Skyabove Marketing have partnered together to provide Top Ten Wholesale advertisers unprecedented opportunities for growth and profit. Top Ten urges anyone seeking more information to simply log on to Top Ten Wholesale or call 1-800-928-6710. Information for Skyabove can be located by clicking the services link. Alternatively, please log on to SkyAbove or call tool free at 1-877-435-6022.