Struggles of Small Business
When a business mints the idea of launching a business website, the first thing that runs in mind “Get a .com domain name” same thing happened to Joe from Arizona, a friend & client of ours who had been doing business with us for a decade. As we open the site of domain registrar & started looking for the new domain name, what we saw is
“ Domain Name Not Available”
“.com extention is not available”
Why is .com a preferred domain extension with the business?
- Being popular web users by default, look for .com extensions.
- Business finds this professional.
- Users find easy to remember.
- People associate with the brands easily.
- Users find it trustworthy.
- There are no geographical limitations, this is prominent globally.
Frequent question by business if .com is already taken
1. What to do if my domain name is already taken by other user?
2. Will it hurt the business if I do not have a domain name with .com.
3. What are popular .com alternative domains ?
4. Shall I buy from domain auction website. I do not mind paying extra dollar.
5. What are Best com alternatives for my business?
Domain name registered in the last few years are in hundreds of million there are good amount of chances that domain name you are looking for has already have taken by somebody else. But since few years there has been a lot of new .com alternative that have come out, making a lot of options available for business. With these new domain extensions, you can find domain name which are location specific, business or professional specific & country specific.
When a perfect domain name is not available, most business rush to create a domain name with random dashes. Making a weird-looking domain name that is hard to explain over phone or sharing by mouth further extremely hard to remember. This random strategy could create a mess in the long term for your brand & SEO. So we created a guide to find an alternative domain name.
With domain name, get creative make sure you may it easy to share & remember. Here are 7 strategies that you can use to acquire domain extension name you desire for your business.
7 .com Alternative Domain Name Extentions
- Struggles of Small Business
- “ Domain Name Not Available”
- “.com extention is not available”
- 7 .com Alternative Domain Name Extentions
- 1. Get country specific domain name / Country based Top-Level Domain (TLDs)
- 2. Get profession / business specific domain name
- 3. Get Creative add verbs or trade details or short forms or synonyms in your domain name
- 4. Look for next most available contenders
- 5. Use hyphen or dash in the correct way
- 6. Use numbers in domain name
- 7. Look for buying out domain using outreach or marketplace buy now / bidding
- Consclusion
1. Get country specific domain name / Country based Top-Level Domain (TLDs)
Some of the popular country specific domain name are us, in, co.uk, co.au & you can look for more on Wikipedia.
Before registering country specific domain names, it is important to check if domain registration requires you to check if you are a citizen of that country.
Like ‘au’ or Australia-based domain name registration extension requires you to be registered business in that country. So a person based outside the country can’t register the domain name.
These are some good alternative option if your business focus is locally. There have been some good local city specific domain names also have come up like .miami or .capetown.
There are few domain names like .cn & few others that are frequently associated with SPAM. So just be careful while you choose.
2. Get profession / business specific domain name
Some of the popular professional / business specific domain name are lawyer, shop, accountant, sport, club & several others.
These domains TLD were only recently made available. They are yet to gain popularity. But they definitely provide.
Professional approach to local business, as it makes easier to attach trade name as extension. Making it clear to visitor & google about service provided.
3. Get Creative add verbs or trade details or short forms or synonyms in your domain name
Brand+Trade(Eg: Tesla Motors, Tata Motors)
Brand+CountryName
Brand+Software
Brand+APP
Go+Brand
Get+Brand
Adding some alternative word before or after makes the domain available. Only thing is it should be catchy so people can remember your brand name. Verbs like get, go are popular several business use with their brand name. Some of the biggest brand names use this. You can find synonyms on Thesaurus.com
4. Look for next most available contenders
Popular sites like clutch.co uses alternative domain.
Here are some popular domain name extension that you would like to consider in your next domain name search net, cc, co, online, web, page, xyz, info, biz.
Just make sure that the domains are not spammy in nature.
5. Use hyphen or dash in the correct way
Many advice against this.
But some popular site uses it like. Popular dictionary website merriam-webster.com uses hyphen in domain name.
So it is all up to you when it comes to using dash in domain-name.
6. Use numbers in domain name
This is nice hack some interesting number associated with your business could be used in the domain name. There are few examples, but few are available. Here is one local business that uses that uses a number in the domain
name
212tax.com – a CPA Accountant in NYC uses numbers in domain name
7. Look for buying out domain using outreach or marketplace buy now / bidding
There are some domains that are acquired & not used for. So there are two different ways to acquire this kind of domain name.
a) Outreach
Find a Whois record, get an email address, reach out to a domain owner with an offer to buy out. Be clear about your budget with some space to negotiate.
b) Acquiring domain name in auctions
There are some great domain name marketplaces that have some nice listed domains. Auctions range from a small amount of USD 12 to thousands of dollars. When you are bidding, be clear about your budget and limits you have set to acquire domain name. Do not get into bid war.
c) Acquiring domain name at fixed price
There are certain domain names available at a fixed price. If they are available at a specific price & that makes sense to your local business, then go for it.
The above strategies also include domain transfer process as well. Once should have some basic knowledge of how the entire thing works, else chance is there you may feel confused. So we recommend it to have a good broker or marketplace like GoDaddy.
Consclusion
There are plenty of TLDs / extension that you could choose for your web address. So selecting perfect domain name should not be a problem.
Next Step
Once you are done with selecting your domain extension, it is time to move register a domain with the registrar.
Here are few domain registrars that you could choose from for your next website project
a) GoDaddy
b) Namecheap
c) Enom
d) TuCows
e) Network Solutions
f) DynaDot
Ideally, you could also look for excellent web hosting & SSL Certificate for your website.
Once you are ready share your project details with makeyoursoftware. We will help you with web design project. We work with client all over the world
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