How To Choose Website Domain Name (2024)

Picking a suitable domain name can be a challenge.

You need to think about whether to use a brand name, your personal name, or something specific to a niche. You need to fit it in two or three words, so it’s not too long and ugly.

Even if you narrow down to a few names, you check and many might not be available.

In this post, I’ll show you what I’ve learned about choosing a suitable domain name. And hopefully it helps you pick one for your website without getting frustrated and spending a lot of time on it.

Let’s get started.

Make sure to select a COM domain

Before you can start selecting your domain name, I want to mention that always try to get the .COM domain name.

Many times you’ll find that the .COM domain is not available but other options like .NET, .CO, ORG, etc. might be available.

I recommend getting the .COM because most people recognize the .COM as part of your brand. There is more trust in a website that has a .COM domain.

When searching for domain names, you’ll find the option to select that you want a .COM domain. Make sure that you always select that during your search.

Now that we have cleared this, let’s look at how you can go about selecting the domain name for your website.

Select domain name based on your personal brand

The benefit of using a personal brand is that people identify the brand with you. It helps build trust than a generic niche website.

The drawback is that a personal brand is tied to your name. So it becomes difficult to sell the website if you later want to. People identify the brand with you and it’s difficult for someone else to take it ahead.

So, the first thing you need to do is decide if you want to go with a personal brand name for the website. Or you’ll select a niche related name.

If you decide to go for a personal brand name, then keep reading on how to do this. Or skip ahead to the next step in deciding a niche related name.

I think this is the easiest way to choose a domain name for your website. Just use your first and last name to create a desirable domain name. E.g. My website is kevinrod.com that is made using my first name (Kevin) + last name (Rodrigues) + .COM

You may have to adjust the name a bit if the domain you want is not available. In my case, the domain name kevinrodrigues.com was not available. So I picked another one that is good enough called kevinrod.com.

So, some ideas you can use to choose a brand domain name are:

• <First name> + <Last name> (e.g. kevinrodrigues.com)
• <First name> + <Few letters of last name> (e.g. kevinrod.com)
• by + <First name> + <Last name> (e.g. bykevinrodrigues.com)
• <First name> + guide (e.g. kevinsguide.com)
• <First name> + <middle name initials> + <Last name> (e.g. kevinprodrigues.com)

Select domain name based on your niche

Maybe you don’t want to use your personal name for your domain name. You need something that represents the niche.

I would recommend you don’t be very specific when picking a domain name based on the niche. You want something broad so it can be easier to expand to other sub-niches in the main niche.

So, for example, if my niche is gardening, I don’t want to have a domain name such as gardeningproductreviews.com. Or floweringplants.com.

I would rather pick a domain name that is related to gardening such as epicgardening.com or simplifygardening.com. So you can start writing content for a gardening sub-niche such as gardening tools or flowering plants. But later you can continue adding other gardening sub-niches.

Because the domain name is related to gardening ‌it means you are not limited to one sub-niche of gardening forever.

Some examples of general niche domain names are:

• epicgardening.com
• incomeschool.com
• projectlifemastery.com 

Use tools to get ideas for your domain name

The problem I faced is that with so many websites in each niche, it becomes hard to get the domain name you want.

You want something that is relatable and contains up to three words maximum. Anything beyond that becomes hard for people to remember.

You could just start writing domain names that you may have thought about. But then you’ll need to check if they are available.

This takes a lot of time and can be frustrating when you realize many domain names that you prefer are not available.

So, a better option is to use tools that will give you ideas about the domain name based on input you provide. It will help save you a lot of time.

Let’s look at some tools that will help you figure out your domain name.

BrandSnap.ai

BrandSnap.ai is a tool created by the guys at AuthorityHacker. It’s an AI tool that takes your prompt and spits out potential domain names. 

Here’s an example prompt I gave the tool, “I’m creating a website that will be about growing houseplants and succulents indoors”. And below are some of the domain names it gave me.

The benefit of using this tool is that it only gives you domain names that are available. It also shows you how readable the domain name is based on its length, readability, and recall index.

It shows you which social handles are available with the same name. E.g. for YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

You can also check if there is any trademark existing for this domain name by clicking the “Check trademark” button. I highly recommend doing this and ensuring there is no existing trademark for any domain name you choose.

Namy.ai

Nami.ai is another AI domain name generator tool that is easy to use. You enter the prompt and it will generate several ideas.

Check the “Only show available” box if you only want to see domain names that are actually available to register.

I gave it the same prompt as before, “I’m creating a website that will be about growing houseplants and succulents indoors”. Below are the results.

DomainsGPT

Let’s look at one final AI tool that will help you pick a suitable domain for your niche. DomainsGPT is a bit different where you start with selecting from different categories as below.

I would suggest selecting the Two-word combination category. It then proceeds to the page where you can provide your prompt.

I again gave it the same prompt as before, “I’m creating a website that will be about growing houseplants and succulents indoors”. You can also select the length or words to include.

Clicked the idea icon, and it gave me the below results for domain names.

So I would say this tool gives limited results compared to the others. I even tried the random option, and it gave me two results. But check it out as it might give better results for your niche and prompts.

Check if the domain name is available

Once you have selected your domain name, you need to check if it’s available with the domain registrar to buy.

Now, if you use a domain search tool such as one of the AI tools I mentioned above, it already has the option to check that the domain is available or not.

Otherwise, you’ll need to check the availability with the domain registrar. Just go to namecheap.com, put in the domain name, and hit Search.

If the domain name is available with the registrar, you’ll see the results as below. There are also suggested options, but I would recommend sticking to the .COM domain.

But wait! Don’t just purchase the domain yet. You need to check if the name could be trademarked.

Check if the domain name is trademarked

You don’t want to use a domain name that is related to a trademark. Because there could be a legal issue where you need to change it later.

And changing a domain name comes with a big risk that your ranking pages would have issues and lose out on the rankings.

So I suggest you check the domain name you choose does not have any trademark associated with it. Usually, this is not an issue but you don’t want to take a chance.

Go to the US Trademark Database Search and search your domain name. I would recommend doing two searches as below. So if your domain name is thegardennook.com, search twice as:

• thegardennnook
• the garden nook

If there is no trademark registration for the name, you’ll get the result as below. Then you are clear to buy this domain name from a registrar.

Register your chosen domain name

I buy my domains from Namecheap and recommend you use the same as well. I like Namecheap because you get the Domain Privacy for free.

Domain Privacy is important because it hides your name, address, email and phone that you provide when you register the domain. If you don’t get Domain Privacy, you’ll get attacked with a lot of spam.

With most registrars like Namecheap, you’ll also get a good discount for the first time you use their services to register a domain. So make sure to use that.

Conclusion

I hope you found all the information on choosing the right domain name for your website.

I would recommend you decide whether you want to go with a personal brand name or something related to your niche.

Once you’ve done that, it becomes clear to search for the domain name that is ideal for your website goals.

If you have questions about choosing a domain, please comment on this post or send me an email. And I’ll be happy to help you out.