Prerequisite information
A domain name is an important part of your website's presence. The domain name is how potential visitors will remember you.
Our domain name is "stretchhost.com". The http and www are not part of the domain name; rather, they are part of the entire web address (called a URL).
So, when you pick your domain name, you don't need to worry about www or http or https. For now, you are only worried about the name.
There are also many variations of .com which you can choose from. The .com is only one of many other TLD's (top-level domains). You can also choose from .net, .org, .biz, .us, and many more you've probably never seen. The major deciding factor is availability (maybe mystore.com is taken, but mystore.net is not taken). The second factor is usually price (.com is typically cheap, .cc is more expensive).
The other name part (commonly called the second-level domain) is where your creativity and originality are needed. Our name is "stretchhost". You can choose any name you want, as long as you don't infringe on some one else's trademark. You many only use alphanumeric characters and hyphens. No symbols or blank spaces are allowed, and hyphens cannot be together.
Good Examples:
mystore.com
my-store-4-u.com
MY-STORE.com
m-y-s-t-o-r-e.com
Bad Examples:
my_store.com
my--store.com
my store.com
www.mystore.com
Notice in the good examples, one domain I chose has capital letters in it. This really doesn't matter because domain names are not case-sensitive. In other words, when you register "mystore.com" you also get "MYSTORE.COM", "MyStore.Com", "mySTore.coM", and any other version where lowercase was replaced with uppercase.
Okay, how do I choose?
So you need to buy your first domain name, or possibly an additional domain, but you're not sure what to choose.
A few questions to ask yourself:
- Is this an online presence for a store (e-commerce)?
If so, then you likely want the domain to be somehow related to the store's name. - What is the purpose of the site?
If this is a hobby site, or a family related site, you probably want your domain name to be related to the hobby or family name. - If your answer is "to make money!", then the subsequent question is "doing what exactly?"
The service or product you are selling needs to be in your domain name. This will help you get better traffic, especially from search engines. (You may like mystore.com, but it doesn't tell me what your selling. A name like rare-electronics-and-lamps.com is identifiable and contains the keywords which strangers will Google to find you.)
