Before you rush out and choose your domain name or name your website,
you might want to consider the following points:

1. Your Domain Name Should Be Your Website Name
Naming your site after your domain may seem obvious to some of you, but you'll be surprised to learn that not every website is named after the domain name even when the webmaster owns that domain name.

Naming a site after its domain name is important, for the simple reason that when people think of your website, they'll think of it by name. If your name is also your URL, they'll automatically know where to go.

Imagine if your business (or website) is called "Acme", but somebody else holds that domain name. Instead, you have some obscure domain name called, say, "mybusiness.com". What happens when your customers, recalling that Acme has a product they want, type "www.acme.com"? They'll wind up at your competitor's website. One lost sale.

In the modern world of the Internet, where people automatically turn to the Web for information, it pays to have a domain name that reflects your site or business. There are just lesser things for your customers or visitors to remember.

What if you cannot get the domain name of your choice? It really depends on how committed you are to that particular name. If you have an existing brand name that you're known for, you'll probably not want to ditch that name just because you couldn't get the domain name. After all, it took you a lot of time and money to establish that name. If so, you might simply want to try to buy over the domain name from the current owner. Check up the "whois" information for the domain, and contact that person listed to see if they're willing to sell it. You probably should be aware that they are likely to want to charge a higher fee than you'd normally get when buying new domains (assuming they want to sell it in the first place).

On the other hand, if you're just starting out, you might prefer the cheaper alternative of trying to obtain a domain name first, and then naming your website (or business) after the domain that you've acquired.

2. Generic Names Or Brand Name Domains?
I know that a number of people seem to think that your domain name really must be some generic name like "cars.com" if you are selling cars. But, if you were looking for a car, you'll probably already have some brands in mind, and you're more like to try out things like generalmotors.com or toyota.com rather than just cars.com.

For that reason, a domain name that matches your brand name is very important. The very name that you use to advertise your product is the name that you will want for your domain, because that is the first thing that people will try in their browser. It is also the easiest thing for them to remember, and whatever that is easily remembered, will be more likely to be tried out than the obscure domain name.

3. Long or Short Domain Names?
Domain names can be of any length up to 67 characters. You don't have to settle for an obscure domain name like syhn.com when what you mean is SellYourHomeNow.com.

Some argue that shorter domain names are easier to remember, easier to type and far less susceptible to mistakes.

Others argue that a longer domain name is usually easier on the human memory - for example, "gaepw.com" is a sequence of unrelated letters that is difficult to remember and type correctly, whereas if we expand it to its long form, "GetAnEconomicallyPricedWebsite.com", we are more likely to remember the domain name.

Which should you go for? Go for the shorter name if you can get a meaningful one. Avoid extremely long names verging on 67 characters. Aside from the obvious problem that people might not be able to remember such a long name, it would also be a chore typing it and trying to fit it as a title on your web page.

4. Hyphenated Names?
Should you get a hyphenated name? There are a few things to consider here:
a. Disadvantage: It's easy to forget the hyphens when typing a name. Many users are used to typing things like freecpluspluscompilers.com but not free-c-plus-plus-compilers.com. They'll probably leave out the hyphens and wind up at your competitor's site.
b. Disadvantage: When people recommend your site to their friends verbally, having hyphens in your domain name leads to more potential errors than when the name does not contain hyphens. For example, how do you think your visitors will refer to your site if it is named "sell-your-home-now.com"? They might say, "I visited Sell Your Home Now.com yesterday. It was fabulous." Their friends, remembering that comment later, might type into their browsers "sellyourhomenow.com". Oops.
c. Disadvantage: It's a difficult to type.
d. Advantage: Search engines can distinguish your keywords better and thus return your site more prominently in search results for those keywords occurring in your domain name.
e. Advantage: The non-hyphenated form may no longer be available. At least this way, you still get the domain name you want.

5. Plurals, "The", and "My" Forms of the Domain Name
Very often, if you can't get the domain name you want, the domain name registrar will suggest alternate forms of the name you typed. For example, if you wanted website.com, and it was taken (of course it is), it might suggest forms like:
thewebsite.com
mywebsite.com
websites.com
and the like, if they were not already taken as well. The question is, should you take them?

If you take the "the..." and "my..." forms of the domain name, you must always remember to promote your site with the full form of the name. Otherwise, people are likely to forget to affix the necessary "the" or "my".

7. In Conclusion...
The main point of this article: GET THAT DOMAIN NAME before you start your site or business. Don't make the mistake of attempting to retrofit your domain name to your business or website.