What makes a good domain name?

With the hundreds of marketing messages that we are exposed to every day you need to ensure that you stand out from the crowd.

A generic domain name, apart from vastly improving your search engine rankings, represents a superb branding opportunity and could save you a fortune in marketing expenditure.

Companies waste millions of pounds a year advertising domain names that people never remember. Think back to when you last heard a great radio ad, but can't remember the phone number, website, or even the name of the company. Clearly a memorable domain name would dramatically increase response rates to any form of off-line advertising.

It would be rather naive to think that people would remember your company name more readily than your product. Even the largest of household names use generic domains when promoting their websites.

E.g. B & Q's website address is diy.com

Everybody looking to import a new car is familiar with the phrase " car import agency ". It is a generic term that describes every car import agency.

Surfers would naturally 'stumble' across your website just by guessing your address, and be unlikely to ever forget your web address once having seen it - even six months down the line!

A good domain name should be:

• Memorable
• Generic
• Descriptive

An example of how powerful a simple, generic name combined with good website design and search engine marketing would be www.CarSupermarkets.co.uk.

CarSupermarkets.co.uk is one of the most popular motoring websites on the Internet, does exactly what people expect, and provides huge numbers of high quality visitors to the companies that advertise on it.

The name is clearly very descriptive, memorable (if not unforgettable!), cannot be incorrectly spelt and also acts as superb bait for search engines.

N.B As many domains as you like can be pointed to your website. Domain names are not case sensitive.