Have you ever heard about Domain or Domain Name? In this article, we will show you in deep, what is domain name and why domain name is important to business’ online marketing and email marketing.
Why Domain Name is Important
Domain name is the words used to identify a website (sometimes we called it URL). In the address bar, it’s the part that starts with “https://”. In our case, it’s feriors.com. Every time you type the domain name on the address bar, your browser will ask your DNS server what is its IP address and bring you to the website by using that received IP address.
Basically, every website is identified by a unique series of numbers called an IP address. This series of numbers set is uses to connect you to the server where the website data lives.
Think of it like a mobile phone, when you need to call your girlfriend, then you need to enter your girlfriend’s number to call her. But instead of typing your girlfriend’s number, so you simply click on your contact “Girlfriend” and dial your girlfriend’s phone number immediately. Domains are connected to IP addresses in the same way.
These series of numbers are great for a computer, but it’s not easy to remember by people like us. This why we uses Domain Name instead of IP address. This might be basic reason why domain name is important. However, you might be wondering why domain name is important for my business, brand, store, online marketing, email marketing, or blog? Right?
First, as you can see, the important part of a domain name is an identity to make people go through the website without remembering your IP address. In 2000’s every brand need a website – If your brand has a website, it needs to have an address to allow visitors to come to your website for any reason.
Don’t have a website? No problem! You may have or don’t have website to use your domain name. You can point your domain to your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube or any other social media.
A second reason why domain name is important is the benefit of having custom email address for your business. Custom email is much better and more trusty. With your business domain, you can have an email address like “[email protected]” instead of “[email protected]”, for email marketing and business contact. For many cases, using @gmail as a company email look totally scam.
Parts of a Domain Name
Domain name can be separated into 2 parts which include Top Level Domain (TLD) and Second Level Domain. From our website FERIORS.COM, “.com” is Top Level Domain (TLD), while the part with “feriors” at the left of the dot is the Second Level Domain.
Top level domain is the part of a domain name to the right of the domain. For generic top level domains .com is the most well-known. However, there are 3 main types of top level domains. Included Included Generic top level domains (.com, .net, .org, .xyz), and Country code top level domains or ccTLDs (.us, .co, .uk, .me, .tv).
- Generic top level domains – These are TLDs that are three letters or longer. For generic top level domains .com is the most well-known.
- Country code top level domains – ccTLDs are two letters and are assigned to countries. For example, .us is the country code domain name for the United State of America (USA).
Other than that we also have brand domains (.google, .sony) and topical domains (.money, .insure). However, these top level domain doesn’t popular as Generic top level domains and Country code top level domains.
Second level domain is a domain that identity of your branding, blog, business, or store. In our case, the second-level domain is “feriors”.
Believe it or not, now there are over 1,500 top level domain (TLDs) names active on the web, this means it’s easier than ever to find an available domain to register. Although, there are over 1,500 top level domain to choose. However, many people still prefer the familiarity of older extensions like .com.
How to Choose a Domain Name for Your Business
To create a domain name for a business basically just use your brand’s name as a domain name with .com TLD, such as ferrari.com, porsche.com, or berkshirehathaway.com. However, you don’t need to use the full name of a company for your domain. You might use something that can reflect a brand name such as shortened name or abbreviation.
- Abbreviation – bcg.com (Boston Consulting Group), ft.com (Financial Times), nytimes.com (New York Times), hbr.org (Harvard Business Review).
- Shorten name – mckinsey.com (McKinsey & Company), bridgewater.com (Bridgewater Associates), and tiffany.com (Tiffany & Co).
However, if your brand domain is not available you might need to create a new domain for your brand on the internet. This is idea for a good domain name (choose only one method).
- Add an articles (a, an, the).
- Add any prefix or suffix that relate to your brand.
- Add your industry to a domain name, like standardhotels.com.
- Use other popular generic TLDs or ccTLDs (that match your business) such as .io, .tv, .us, .net, .co, .yourcountrycode, etc.
List of Domain Registrar
Once you can choose the right domain name for your business, the next step you need to register a domain name with a domain provider a.k.a domain registrar. There is a list of my domain registrar that I’ve used before (no sponsor). However, this is not all domain name registrar in the market, but at least it’s not a scam website.
- Cloudflare
- Domain.google
- Namecheap
- Porkbun
- Dynadot
- GoDaddy
- Name.com
- Domain.com
Choose a domain provider to register your domain. On a domain registrar website, you can use their search box to search availability for your domain name. If it’s available, then you just finish your purchasing order and point your domain to wherever you want.
References: Domain names and their influence on SEO – Yoast, What is a domain name? | Domain name vs. URL – Cloudflare, All About Top Level Domains – Namecheap, Domain name basics – Google
