Choosing the best domain name for an eCommerce website isn’t as simple as just thinking something randomly and then going with it (even though you could come up with something amazing). Most of the time, this is a process and actually quite difficult especially if this might be your first time doing this. By the end of the article you will have all the steps on How To Choose A Domain Name For eCommerce, so pay attention…
Your eCommerce store is a representation of you and who you are, not just as a person, as a business, and with this in mind, the best name for an eCommerce website has to stand for these 3 essential things (especially in the eCommerce space):
- Trust
- Reliability
- Security
If you think about it purely as a domain name instead of a business, which domain would your users feel more comfortable buying from?
- Dogscorner.com
- Billsdogstore.com
You would go with the first one, well I hope you would, and the reason being is it just sounds more professional and there are a lot of scams in the retail industry and your customer is aware of this.
Bills Dog Store sounds like he is a single person who created a website, to sell stuff he has, it really doesn’t promote trust, reliability, and security. When you miss these things out, you lose money.
Whereas dogs corner sounds familiar, comforting, secure and a place where you probably will find what you are looking for, you would be happy to click on this domain name if you saw it appear in the search engine results.
What Will I Learn?
Choose a domain name that helps your SEO
And that leads us to the next point. Making sure that when you pick a domain name for your e-commerce site it is actually good for SEO or search engine optimization. Meaning it will help you when someone sees it and clicks on it.
If someome sees this site eASEAN, they can tell what it is about, eCommerce in the ASEAN region.
With the Bills Dog site example, it’s not going to help people click on it, which means it is bad for a thing called Click Through Rate, or CTR, and means that it’s bad overall for SEO.
What Types Of Domains Are There?
There are 4 different types of eCommerce domain name ideas that you can choose.
- Exact match domain names
- Partial match
- Branded domains
- Personal domains
Exact Match Domains – EMD
EMD’s are domains that basically are the exact word that you are after to rank in the search engines, like: rubyengagementringsforcheap.com
And while they might have been good back about 5-10 years ago to buy, in this modern day of the internet they are not good and people have become aware that many of the sites created using them are spammy, and would be better if you steer clear of them.
Partial Match Domains – PMD
Next is PMD’s and my personal favorite for e-commerce domain names. And what I love about these is they are niche-specific without any red flags that might be associated with an EMD.
An example of this would be dogscorner.com.
It is in the niche of dogs, and a person seeing it will know what it is about, and trust it because it actually sounds like a brand. A quick search of the domain name tells me that it is on sale for nearly $3,500 as someone has already worked out the potential value of the domain (don’t worry there is a never-ending supply of domains like this).
Branded Domains – BD
Branded domains are great domains too. You know these, Amazon, Wish, Lazada, etc, and also very good when starting your eCommerce websites. But, better to use branding like this if you are going broad niche from my experience.
Personal Domains – PD
Personal domains are the final ones, and these are like the Bill example above. I have come across this so much, people get frightened when starting out online and are worried they will pick a bad-sounding domain name, so instead, choose a domain with their name in it, it’s safe (to them).
Your domain name is synonymous with your brand
If you are planning to start and build a professional eCommerce business that customers love, then don’t use your name in it. The domain name that you choose becomes synonymous with what you are, who you are, the quality you provide, so making sure that you have chosen a great one that people can get behind is key.
Remember there are so many eCommerce businesses on the market, and you have to use every single trick in your marketing arsenal to make sure you create the perfect image for your customers.
How do I buy the right domain for my online store?
Ok, so there are a few things that you need to take on board when buying your domain for your store. You have already decided that using a PMD will probably be the best choice (I hope), now the next step is looking at length.
Choose a domain name: Keep it short
There are a few reasons why you want to keep your domain name as short as possible.
- The longer is it the easier it is to forget,
- The longer it is the easier it is to make a mistake in it,
- It’s easier to make a mistake when typing for your potential customers,
- It gives you less room to optimize your URL,
- It’s less attractive,
- It’s less brandable.
So, there are many reasons that you want to keep it as short as possible.
The shorter the better really, but, you aren’t going to find very many PMD’s with 6 character length, our recommendation is to look for a PMD under 10 characters.
Avoid Slang or “cute” Spellings and Numbers
The reason that you do this is again, because it is easier for people to make a mistake when typing it in, and that means that you lose traffic to your website.
An example of this would be dogscorner.com Vs dogzcorner.com
While they might look similar, which one do you think people would type in if they heard the name in passing?
Yep, it would be the real spelling, and the guy’s at dogzcorner.com would lose all the potential word of mouth business because of bad spelling choices.
Also, avoid the use of numbers in your domain name also. Think innov8.com Vs innovate.com, again which can lead to too much confusion and lost traffic.
Be Relevant To Your Niche
I think this goes without saying, but make sure that your domain name of choice is actually relevant to what you are selling. You don’t want to be sending people to dogscorner.com and you actually sell cats products, that doesn’t make any sense.
Understanding Top-Level Domains (TLDs)
The next thing you should look at is how your domain ends, which is called domain extensions. What i mean by this, is it a .com, a .rg, a .asia or a .sg?
Dot Com is the main global domain name and the one that inspires the most trust worldwide. On the other hand, if you are in Singapore, then your domain is .SG.
Here is how I want you to look at it, and it all comes down to your store and what you plan to do when it comes to your business growth.
Do you plan on offering your products and service to customers externally from Singapore?
If you do, then choose a dot com domain name. If you only plan on targeting and selling to Singapore, then choose a .SG domain name.
So here is what you have now.
The Perfect Singapore Domain Recipe
- Keep it short, under 10 characters if possible,
- Avoid cute spellings or numbers in the domain names,
- Be relevant to your niche,
- Choose the correct TLD for your online business.
So you know this now, the next step is to do some brainstorming.
Make a list of a few words that are synonymous with your niche, if we stick with the idea.
Dog, dogs, doggy.
Now, even though doggy sounds cute, it is in the dictionary and used in regular everyday use.
Finding Your eCommerce Domain Name
After you have your list you are going to want to do some searches for your domain. The place that I find is the easiest is called Leandomainsearch. Now, this is only for the dot com domain extension but it is such a great marketing tool to help you find a domain name that with lead to increased clicks and increase sales.
The process is super simple:
Just enter your words one at a time and see the results that lean domain name search give you. You can then sort by:
- Popularity
- Length
- Alphabetical
- Starts with the search term
- Ends with the search term
Then you just go down through the domains and see which ones suit you and then make your decision. It is a good idea to have a few different keywords to use as this gives you more options to find a better domain name.
I found dogsdome.com, doggymob.com (I like this one). So I know this is available now, so when I go to register it, I will have no issues.
So, once you have found a good strong domain name for your new business, that is related to the industry that you are going to enter and has your keyword in it, the next step is going and buying the domain.
Buying Your Domain Name
A word of warning here. While you might think that buying a domain name from an eCommerce online software provider is a good thing, or perhaps you might get it free, you don’t want to do this, and the reason is simple.
If you tie yourself to that platform and you at some time in the future decide that you want to change the software you use, whether to upgrade to a new host or use the domain in another way, you will have a difficult time moving it from that place.
It is much better to purchase from an external domain name registrar, and my favorite one is called Namecheap.com.
Domains here range from $0.99 to $9.99 per year for a dot com, plus you get free domain privacy. Domain privacy basically means that no one can see that you are the owner of the domain (as this information is shared publicly if you don’t have domain privacy).
- Go to namecheap.com,
- Enter your domain name (you already know it is available),
- Click add to cart,
- Follow the instructions to set up your first Namecheap account,
- Pay for the domain (at least 2 years),
- You now have your first eCommerce domain name chosen, and ready to use with your e-commerce store.
Be aware of trademark and copyright
Do not infringe on anyone’s trademarks or copyright or you have the potential to have the domain name taken from you or sued or both.
An example would be if you like UFC don’t buy a domain name with UFC in it. Use something like MMA instead.
A final note:
Examples of good existing domain names/brands
If you are looking for good domain name examples there is a very easy way to see many different eCommerce businesses that are active now by doing a simple Google search.
- Go to google.com,
- Type in site:myshopify.com “dogs”
- Replace with your own niche keyword,
- This will bring up all the live eCommerce stores that sell dog-related products/services,
- Click on them and see their domain names.
- Also, this is a great way to find potential products to promote.
I hope you find a great domain name for your new eCommerce business, drop me a comment below to let us know how you do.
