When you want to build a website, choosing a domain name is the first, and possibly most important, decision you need to make. No matter if you’re building a website for your business or organization, or just want to create a website to show off some of your hobbies, choosing a domain name shouldn’t hold you up from getting your website up and running. Below are some helpful tips to follow to make sure you choose a domain name that’s perfect for you so you can get to building your website quicker.
Short domain names are: a) easy to remember, b) easier to spell correctly, c) faster to type, d) easier to read, e) fit better on advertisements or business cards.
In a past study done on the top 1 million websites as ranked by Alexa, Gaebler found that sites became less popular as their character length increased, and the top 10,000 domains in the list had 8 characters or less. So, if you choose a domain name that is short, you’ll be much better off in the long run.
If you’re choosing a domain name for your business, go with your company name over something generic about your product. This will also help you keep things shorter and more memorable, which is easier to promote.
Choosing a domain name with hyphens or numbers may seem like an easy workaround to getting a shorter domain, but these make the domain harder to type and remember. Numbers cause confusion (is it spelled out or just the number?) and hyphens can easily be forgotten when someone is typing out your domain name.
In some industries, the majority of a company’s business will come from online leads, so having specific keywords in your domain can help you rank higher in searches for that product or service. For example, you can register Plumbing.xyz for your plumbing service, instead of settling for something like BillsHomeRepairServices.com
If you’re creating your website for a localized audience, you can connect with them by including your city or state in your domain. Securing MikesPizzaLA.xyz or LawyersNY.xyz not only show that regional audience that you are serving them, but can also help you improve your organic search rankings.
One of the essential places to promote your site will be on social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Unfortunately, just as it can be a struggle to get the domain that matches your brand before it’s gone, the same is true for getting your social media handles.
Using your domain extension in your social media profiles (like @PublicSpace.xyz or @TheLushLife.xyz) ensures you’ll get the handle that matches your brand, and also doubles as a promotion of your website.
Before you choose a domain and put down the money to register it, make sure that the name you want isn’t trademarked or copyrighted by someone else. You could end up dealing with a legal battle for the domain and potentially lose it for good.
To be safe, check that the domain you want to choose isn’t something already registered in the Trademark Clearing House.
On the flip side, if you have trademarked your business name or slogan, make sure you’ve secured the domain to match it. As mentioned in the last tip, there are legal avenues to follow if bad actor is using a domain named after a trademark you own, but it’s easier to avoid the whole mess in the first place by securing your brand and registering your names before the bad actor can even get to it. Plus, if you’re struggling to choose a domain name, it’s always a no-brainer to register your brand name and trademarks!
Choosing a domain name can seem like a daunting task, but following these tips will ensure that you choose the domain name that’s perfect for you, and one that you will be happy with for as long as you own it. Feeling like your ready to choose a domain name and get your website online? Get your own .xyz domain for just $1 with promo code “NAMEXYZ” at checkout.
If you missed any of our past Internet “How-Tos” on ‘How to build a website’ and ‘How to design your site using “mobile first”’, be sure to catch up on them and make sure you’re prepared to not only choose a domain name, but build a fantastic website on your domain! We’ll see you again next month with a new helpful internet “How-To”!
Fluxauto.xyz – GoDaddy customer (India)
In the classic film Back to the Future, they travel through time to the year 2015 where they witness tons of futuristic gadgets, including flying cars. While we aren’t quite at flying cars yet, the world is making many advances in the world of self-driving technology. In the past, we’ve brought you our own Starship.xyz, creators of the self-driving delivery robot. But now we’re excited to bring you another .xyz member in the autonomous industry: Fluxauto.xyz
Fluxauto.xyz is 16-person startup based in Bangalore. They were excited about the new opportunity of commercial companies using self-driving vehicles but discovered that major companies like Uber and Tesla are developing vehicles and technology that are far too expensive for most trucking companies to use. So the team set out to develop their own affordable tech that can allow any type of truck to be turned into a self-driving vehicle. The company plans to have 2500 of their kits in vehicles by August 2018. Fluxauto.xyz is already receiving a ton of attention from news outlets such as TechCrunch and The Economic Times, and came in 9th place for TECH30’s 2017 “Top 30 promising technology startups from India”.
To see Fluxauto.xyz in action you can check out their test footage video here. We love seeing another #GenXYZ member not only developing the future of technology, but also using their skills to benefit less financially-able companies. We’re always looking for more innovators like Fluxauto.xyz, so if you fit the bill go ahead and lock down your .xyz domain now! And keep on the lookout for more great #GenXYZ members every Wednesday.
When you’re at SXSW you can always count on getting to eat delicious food, listen to great music, and bust a move with the #XYZsquad! This year Team XYZ went back for our 3rd annual trip to SXSW, where we talked to festival goers about .xyz, helped them register their own .xyz domains, and got hundreds of entries in our scavenger hunt for the Nintendo Switch, Helicopter Drone, and PublicSpace.xyz swag.
The winners of the scavenger hunt have been drawn and we’ll be announcing them soon, so stay tuned to our Instagram to see who won! To see everything Team XYZ and the #XYZsquad got up to in Austin, check out the video recap below.
Every day since our CEO Daniel Negari launched .xyz back on June 2, 2014, all of us here at Team XYZ have put our heart and soul into spreading the message of .xyz to internet users around the world. In the years since that day, we’ve been overwhelmed at how much the #GenXYZ community of users has grown, and it now spans to over 2 million domains registered by end users from over 230 countries and territories.
But it wasn’t just our passion that helped .xyz grow into one of the most popular domains in the world. We never could have accomplished what we have without our registrar partners and the avid adopters and supporters of .xyz in the #GenXYZ community. That’s why today we want to show you our gratitude by celebrating Client’s Day for the first time in the United States.
For us, Client’s Day is about not only celebrating our wonderful registrar clients and end users who share our vision and bring it to life, but also saying thank you for inspiring us and the millions of other .xyz supporters across the globe. We promise to always match your innovative spirit by using our voice in #WebsiteWednesdays and on social media to bring your sites to a larger audience, and by ensuring .xyz is truly the domain for the next generation of internet users.
So here’s to you #GenXYZ, Happy Client’s Day!
If you’re looking for guidance when building your website, the thing you’ll hear most often from website designers, developers, and even savvy business owners is “mobile first”. But what does mobile first mean? And why do you need to care about mobile first for your website?
To start, mobile first refers to a strategy you should employ when building your site; think about how it will look on mobile first, then work your way up to designing for bigger screens. Mobile traffic dethroned traditional desktop traffic as the main source of internet usage back in 2016, and has only been steadily (and rapidly) rising ever since. You need a mobile first approach because your website is most likely going to be accessed using a phone or tablet. No matter how great your site looks on a desktop, an ugly mobile site will lead to less page-viewing time and higher exit rates.
For help building your website with the mobile first approach, below are some important guidelines to follow.
These recommendations come directly from the biggest search engine in the world, Google.
Building your site using a mobile first strategy is a wise choice, because not only will your site be ready for the majority of traffic you’ll see right after launch, it will also be prepared for the much larger mobile-using internet market that is taking over online. Mobile first requires a slightly different approach than traditional site-building for desktop, but if you follow these best practices your site will be optimized to keep visitors on your page.
In case you missed it, be sure to check out the first installment in our “How To” blog post series, last month’s post on “How To Build a Website.” And be sure to come back next month, when we’ll cover “How to Choose a Domain Name”. Until then, you can see more internet “How To’s” on our YouTube channel!
