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One in four small businesses has concerns over whether they made the right choice when picking their web address and one in three believes they could bring in extra revenue by changing it to something else, reports New Business.

I’d have to agree. I come across some right stinkers. Although there are very few available names to go around, my personal pet hates are:

Bad TLD (top level domain) choice

To get the right name, many companies move into the massive grey void of the alternative domain choices (.uk.com, .eu, etc.) If you are in the UK, selling to the UK, you should be getting a .co.uk. A person will try and find you automatically trying .co.uk or .com.

You also have to think about the perception that your TLD gives off. For example, I discussed .biz with a group of people recently and the consensus was that it comes across as very Mickey Mouse.

Initials

Back in the early days people had the impression that your domain name had to be short so people could remember it. If you think about random letters, how many can you remember and get the letters in sequence. How about next week, or next month? Isn’t it easier to remember a longer but more memorable name? www.basingstokebusinessnews.co.uk. Another advantage of these domain names is the potential use of keywords in your name - good for SEO.

Hyphens

Tricky one this because there is good and bad use. We have “the-escape” and it does bother me sometimes because when I am telling people my address it sounds like this, “the escape dot co dot uk with a hyphen in, t-h-e-hyphen-escape-dot-co-dot-uk”.

Example of both hyphens and initials: www.m-a-m.co.uk

What To Do

Firstly, I wouldn’t rush into a decision, especially if you have an established domain.

Secondly I would look for variations of your company name and come up with a few options. escapeonline, escapedesign, escapeweb, etc.

Then, test them on people. Leave the names with them to mull over. One may become a grower.

Lastly, if you do change your domain to a new address, you must make sure the proper redirecting is in place so you may transfer your existing domain weight.

Final thought. It may be worth spending the money to buy a good domain name. It may cost a few thousand but it is an important asset. Sedo have lots of names for sale, I’ve just bought one myself.