3 Tips for Choosing Your Domain
Choosing your website domain doesn’t need to be stressful. I’ll give you 3 tips plus examples to get you started.
3 Tips for Choosing Your Domain Name
Keep it short. Think Walmart or Target.
In general, try to keep your domain under 15 letters. When counting, don’t include the www or .com in your count.
Avoid numbers and hyphens.
Use your name or company name, if possible.
The nice thing about using your name as your domain is that it can grow with you. You can add on as many different aspects of skills and product offerings as you’d like— from choreography to knitting! If you ever leave dance, you already have online real estate to start from.
But, If your name is not available, try adding “dance” or “ballet” at the end. See the example below.
Remain consistent with your branding between your website and your brand’s social media
Go for the .com, first unless you are an organization. There are plenty of new options available, but most people default to typing .com when searching an address.
If .com isn’t available, try .dance
Let’s try some examples:
Amelia Mignonette Thermopolis Renaldi AKA Mia Thermopolis {Princess Diaries, anyone?} is in need of a website domain to support her dance endeavors.
Version 1: miathermopolis.com- 14 letters (ideal)
Version 2: miathermopolisdance.com -19 letters (getting long)
Version 3: miathermopolis.dance (if the dot com isn’t available)
Version 4: thermopolisdance.com - 16 letters. Works, though it may sound like a dance company instead of an individual.
Choosing a domain for your personal dance brand is not the moment to go for a creative name. Keep it easy to remember and straight forward.
Now, if Mia has a very well-known alias like Princess Mia of Genovia, or professional name, she could try:
PrincessMia.com (11 letters)
GenoviaRoyal.com (12 letters) Sounds like a certain Duke and Duchess we know, doesn’t it?
Let’s look at it from an organizational perspective
A domain needs to be easy to remember.
Let’s say Eva Rodriguez got tired of dancing for Jonathan at ABC. She’s ready to embark on the creation of a new project company.
Eva retains evarodriguez.com for her own personal use. She’s a budding actress as well. :)
Before she selects the name of her company, she considers domain availability:
Rodriguez Dance Company
Version 1: rodriguezdance.org- 14 letters
EVADANCE Theatre
Version 2: EVAdance.org 8 letters
But, sadly 1 was already taken and 2 felt too similar to Ron K. Brown’s Evidence Dance Co.
So, she uses a domain generator like this one from Shopify and comes up with both her domain name and her new company name.
EvaRoeDance.org- 11 letters and easy to recall
An organization that is named after a location can use it to their advantage.
Let’s try the fictional Boiling Springs Youth Ballet.
Version 1: boilingspringsyouthballet.org- 25 letters OK, but long
Version 2: boilingspringsballet.org- 20. Better. Why? Because people who live in Boiling Springs are likely to search for ballet classes under the terms “boiling springs ballet classes.” Therefore, this website is likely to come up first in a search.
Version 3: BSYB.org- If the organization regularly uses their acronym, they could try this approach.
Conclusion
Keep it short.
Use your name, if possible.
Use the .com or .org, if available.