- How to Choose a Domain Zone
- How to Choose a Domain Name for a Website
- What Characters to Use in Domain Names
- Is It Worth Ordering a Domain and Hosting from the Same Hosting Provider
Choosing a domain should be taken as seriously as choosing a company name. It will identify your brand online and, with proper positioning, will become just as important an element as a logo, font, or brand color.
But today, choosing a domain name is not an easy task. According to Domain Name Stat, there are currently 761 733 408 registered domains. Every owner has tried to make their web resource address as easy to remember and spell as possible, which has led to a constant decrease in the number of available options.
Fortunately, we know a few secrets that will help you choose the right domain without spending too much time. We will reveal them in this article.
How to Choose a Domain Zone
All domain zones can be conditionally divided into four main types: national, regional, international, and thematic. Each of them has its own characteristics, level of trust, and scope of application, which should be taken into account when choosing a domain for a website.
A national domain is intended to indicate a site's affiliation with a country. For example, .ua is used for resources related to Ukraine, .eu for the European Union, and .jo for Jordan. Some national domains have become popular beyond the country they were created for due to their similarity to abbreviations or words. For instance, .tv, originally indicating affiliation with the Polynesian country Tuvalu, is now used for television company websites.
A regional domain is similar to a national one but is intended to indicate a site's affiliation not with a country, but with a city or region:
- .kyiv.ua — websites related to Kyiv or the Kyiv region;
- .vinnytsia.ua — to Vinnytsia or the Vinnytsia region;
- .kh.ua — to Kharkiv or the Kharkiv region.
An international domain is intended for websites whose audience will consist of people from different countries. Initially, it was used to identify specific types of organizations. For example, commercial companies registered .com, and non-profit ones — .org. Today, the international zone is used without restrictions based on company type.
A thematic domain is intended to emphasize the theme of an online project or the type of company activity. For example, websites for tattoo parlors or portfolios of tattoo artists are created in the .tattoo zone.
A thematic domain zone should be used in the following cases:
- you do not aim to position the company as one related to a specific country or region;
- you want to attract users' attention — the thematic zone became popular about five years ago and still arouses interest among internet users;
- the chosen name is already taken in national, regional, and international zones.
Choose a zone depending on the region and theme of your blog, online store, or portal. So, if you are considering which domain to choose for a website that will be visited by users from different countries, pay attention to the international or thematic zone. If you plan to sell goods only within the territory of Ukraine, register .ua, .com.ua, .co.ua, or .biz.ua.
How to choose a domain for a website of any theme that offers goods or services within a single region (a locality or region)? For example, it could be car service station services or a city forum. Of course, choose a regional domain: it will indicate your location to Internet users and search engines.
How to Choose a Domain Name for a Website
First, make sure the domain name does not contain the name of a registered trademark. If you want to create an informational website where you talk about how to promote a brand on Facebook, we do not recommend choosing an address like facebook-promotion.com. Using the name of the social network for such purposes is prohibited, and if you ignore this ban, you risk losing not only the web address but also money on lawyers and penalties.
Do not use numbers and hyphens. A person who hears a number in a web address may have difficulty understanding how to enter it in the browser address bar. For example, instead of 1-club.ua, they might type odynclub.ua or odyn-club.ua.
Don’t forget to check how easy the domain name is to pronounce. It’s not easy to figure out how to type a URL dictated as “novyi chas top” — novyychas.top, novyjchas.top, or novyichas.top. But with a web address pronounced as “chas top”, there’s no such confusion, since there’s only one way to type it — chas.top.
Use keywords. This trick helps future visitors and search engines understand the website’s topic. For example, by looking at the web address RemontSumok.ua, it’s clear that the company repairs bags.
The domain should be short. A long web address takes more time to enter, is harder to remember, and increases the chances of making a mistake.
It’s important to understand that a domain is not the website itself. To make your online project work, you also need to rent hosting — a place to store its files. In other words, a complete website = domain + hosting. All data will be stored on the hosting provider’s servers. For example, at Cityhost you can order hosting in Germany or Ukraine — depending on where your target audience is located.
What Characters to Use in Domain Names
A website name can include Latin letters, numbers, and hyphens. However, a hyphen cannot be the first or last character. As mentioned earlier, using numbers and hyphens can make a domain harder to remember and correctly perceive by ear. It’s much more natural when the name consists of letters only.
In some domain zones, Cyrillic can also be used. Cyrillic web addresses have both advantages and disadvantages. The advantages of Cyrillic URLs include:
- easy to read, write, and remember. In addition, such links look good as part of visual elements in online and offline advertising;
- many addresses are still available. For example, подорож.укр, гаджеты.укр, кошельки.укр were still available for registration at the time of this article’s publication;
- they do not harm SEO.
However, before buying a Cyrillic domain, you should analyze its disadvantages:
- difficulty of typing from a keyboard without a Ukrainian layout;
- encoding issues. Since most online services work properly only with URLs written in Latin letters, they convert Cyrillic into a Latin-compatible encoding. As a result, a nice name like Ситихост.укр turns into xn--n1afbccp1jb.xn--j1amh. The second version will have to be used everywhere when working with the site, including in the robots.txt file settings. This slows down development and causes many inconveniences;
- non-Latin URLs confuse foreign users. Therefore, the audience of websites with such web addresses is limited to users who understand Cyrillic.
Considering the above characteristics, Cyrillic domain names are best suited for web resources targeted exclusively at a Ukrainian-speaking audience, such as local online stores. However, for an international audience, it is better to choose a Latin version — this will simplify understanding and memorization.
Read also: Drop domains: how to buy a domain with a good history and why you need it
Is It Worth Ordering a Domain and Hosting from the Same Hosting Provider
Ordering a domain name and renting a server from different hosting companies can sometimes help save a bit of money. For example, when one host launches a promotion with discounts on hosting, and another offers discounts on domain registration. But saving money comes at the cost of spending time setting up DNS servers, as well as constantly switching between the hosting control panel and the domain admin panel.
It is more practical to buy a domain name and hosting from the same hosting company. For example, you won’t need to spend time "linking" the web address to the server — this will happen automatically. In addition, if you have questions about both the hosting and the domain at the same time, you’ll get answers by contacting just one technical specialist.
Now that you’ve read this article, you’ll be able to choose a domain for your website without any trouble and without spending much time. And if you follow all our recommendations, your web address will be easy to read and remember, and won’t raise any issues with search engine bots.
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