Choosing Your Website's Address and Link Names

By Jeff Colburn
Posted Monday, June 21, 2004

One of the most important things you will do when creating your website is selecting its web address. When you choose a web address, you want to make it descriptive of your company name, or the service you offer. Let's say you own a company called Acme, Inc. and you make widgets. Your first choices would be (www.Acme.com) or (www.Widgets.com). Other options could be (www.AcmeWidgets.com), (www.WidgetsByAcme.com), (www.GreatWidgets.com) and so on. You want to be sure that the names you're considering are as short as possible, easy to remember and relate to your company. While descriptive, you wouldn't want your web address to be (www.TheGreatestWidgetsInTheWorldAreByAcme.com). This is just to long for people to remember, and rather egotistical.

You'll want to have several names picked out in case your first, or second or third, choice is already taken. You may easily do this with minor changes in spelling or word order. So (www.PearlPrideOnions.com) could be changed to (www.OnionsbyPearlPride.com) or (www.Pearl-Pride-Onions.com). You could also change the .com to one of a different extension. Other extensions most often used are:
.net - Like .com, this can be used by anyone.
.org - This is used by non-profit organizations.
.biz - Businesses and corporations use this extension.
.us - This signifies a company or person based in the United States.

Once you have several names selected, then you need to go to (http://www.whois.net/) to see which of these names are not being used. After you have found a name, then you need to register it through your web host company.

Be sure not to use one of the many free sites. You don't want your site to be (www.YetAnotherFreeSite.com/Acme.com). This looks very unprofessional, is difficult to remember and does not instill people with confidence. You can have your site hosted on a web host for about $8 a month. So what kind of a message are you giving to a prospective client when they see that you can't afford this minimal fee? Would you trust someone to deliver a product you ordered, or with your credit card number, if they couldn't afford such a low month?

As you start to add pages to your site, you want to be sure to keep using short, descriptive names. If you have a links page, call it (www.Acme.com/links.shtml), not (www.Acme.com/InterestingPlacesToVisit.shtml). Besides being too long, does this go to a links page, a travel page or some other obscure place?

If you keep your website and link names simple and descriptive, visitors will be able to find you site on the Internet, and navigate your site easily. As always, think of your visitors first, and they will show their appreciation.

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