A simple guide to choosing a domain name for your business

So, you’ve made the decision to start up a website, great! Next step is to buy your domain.

What is a domain anyway?
A domain is basically where your website lives, it’s the name of your website address. It’s important as it’s the thing that distinguishes you from everyone else, and compliments your brand. Take a look at the top of your browser screen. See that part of the URL bar? Starts with ‘https://’? the second part of that URL is the domain, in our case it’s creative-asset.co.uk. It’s important as it’s the thing that distinguishes you from everyone else.

So, let’s pick a domain name! It’s easy…. right?
Domains can be the one thing that completely stumps business owners, and possibly the longest part of the creation of the website.  The sheer amount of domain endings you can have, for example, .com, .co.uk, .net, .org can send anyone’s head into a spiral. It begs the question – what do these mean, and what is right for your business?

Choosing a domain extension
The most well-known extension has to be .com. It used to be acknowledged as the extension for commercial websites registered in the US (.com = short for .commercial), however, since there is no restriction on who or where the owner of the domain can be, .com is widely used all over the world. In fact, 52% of ALL websites are now .com sites.

The other extension you might also be familiar with is, .co.uk. This extension implies that the website is a commerical UK company. It’s the most-widely used extension in the whole UK.

The benefits of using a .com or .co.uk extension is that they’re easy to recall when forwarding your website onto clients.

Still not sure which extension to use?

Here is a quick summary of the extensions and their main uses;
.com – The most popular domain extension, over 52% of all websites use this which can be used for any type of website, with no restrictions.

.co.uk – Implies your business is UK based, and the most popular domain extension within the UK.

.org.uk – Non-Commercial UK organisation.

.net – This extension is commonly used by technology companies, however, no restrictions apply and can be used as a play on words if your business name ends in ‘net’.

.org – Short for .organisation, and is mainly used by non-profit groups.

.biz – Used for small business websites, however it is not as widely used as the other extensions.