Recently I have had the pleasure of working with a few new clients who have great website ideas, but no website yet. Naturally one of the first steps in the process is to pick a domain name. Unless you have a specific domain in mind (name of your existing company, proper noun, etc.) the options are endless. Sure, millions of domains have already been reserved by others, but there are still plenty of good ones out there to choose from. For checking the availability of specific domain names, I recommend instantdomainsearch.com, which gives you nice ajaxy features to, well, instantly search domains.

If you’re not quite sure what you want to call your website, I like makewords.com. This site allows you to seed domain searches with keywords, then makes recommendations based on availability, theme, and related words.

Here are a couple tips I recommend when choosing a domain name and what to do with it once you have one:

1. Make it short. Preferably 1-3 syllables, easy to spell, and memorable. Travel sites are good at this. A few good examples: hotwire.com, sidestep.com, orbitz.com, kayak.com, priceline.com. (Sure, I violate my own rule #1 with 5 syllables in my domain, but bustout.com was taken and the owner was not willing to sell it.)
2. Pick the right top level domain. A top level domain is what comes after the dot in the domain name, as in .com (commercial), .org (non-profit organizations), or .jp (Japan). Each TLD has a specific purpose. There is a trend towards using creative top level domains to make catchy domain names, such as mir.aculo.us and vita.mn.
3. Buy more than you need. If you want mydomain.com, go ahead and buy multiple variations to protect them: mydomain.net, my-domain.com, mydomainonline.com, etc. Domain names are cheap. At the time of this writing, domains are going for about $9 per year at registrars such as godaddy.com. Some hosting companies like dreamhost.com offer free domain names if you host your site with them.
4. Don’t give up. If the domain you want is taken, it’s not the end of the world. If the domain registration is public (most are) you can find out who owns it by searching WHOIS. If you’re lucky, the domain is not in use and is about to expire, or perhaps the owner is willing to sell the domain to you.
5. Sub-domains are good. Depending on needs, the use of sub-domains can be helpful to your business. When I build websites for clients I often setup secure sub-domains such as http://myclient.bustoutsolutions.com so clients can review the site while it is in development.
6. Personalize your email. To me it looks unprofessional when I get a business card with a Yahoo or Gmail email address on it. Once you buy a domain name, set up email addresses to brand your company or organization. jeff@bustoutsolutions.com looks much better than bustoutsolutions@gmail.com although I own that email address too!

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