These domain name tips are brought to you by Web Genius, Web Site Designers in Melbourne.

Choosing an appropriate domain name is harder than it looks, a couple of things to consider, a good domain name should

Be easy to spell
Short
Easy to remember
Appropriate to your business activities
Include your business name
Include your product name or type

You can see how this can be difficult. Usually it is impossible to satisfy all of these criteria, but you should aim for as many as possible. Once you have the name you then have to see if it is available, obviously many of the best names are taken. Using an online domain name availability checker is the quickest way to go through a bunch of variations of your preferred domain name. We use a number of these, one of the most convenient is Instra. You can use Instra to check on a number of different domain name types (i.e. .com, .com.au, .net etc) at the same time.

To register an Australian domain name (with a ".com.au" on the end) you will need to be entitled to register the name, that means it must be "derivative" of a PTY LTD or trading name which you own. You can register a trading name for around $70 per two years, so whilst this is not a huge impediment, it is another step in the process you need to be aware of. This charge is, of course, in addition to the actual cost of registering your domain name.

Domain Names