How to Choose the Right Domain Name for Your Business
Your domain name is often the first thing a customer sees about your business. Here's how to pick one that works.
Picking a domain name feels like it should be simple, until you sit down to actually do it and realise the obvious ones are already taken. Here's a straightforward approach that works for most small UK businesses.
Keep it short and easy to say out loud
If someone has to spell it out over the phone or type it from memory after seeing it on a van or a leaflet, shorter is better. Aim for something you could say once and have a customer type correctly first time. Long, clever, or pun-based names might look good on a slide but tend to cause typos and mis-hearings in real use.
Match it to your business name where you can
Consistency between your business name, your domain and your social media handles makes you easier to find and harder to mistake for someone else. If your exact business name is already taken, try a close, natural variation (adding your town or a simple descriptive word) rather than something unrelated - customers searching for your actual name should still be able to find you.
Choose the right extension
- .co.uk - the safest default for a UK-based business. Customers instinctively trust it and associate it with a real, local company.
- .com - worth having too if you plan to serve customers outside the UK, or if it's available and your .co.uk isn't.
- .uk - a shorter alternative to .co.uk, increasingly common, and useful if your exact .co.uk is already taken.
- Newer extensions like .shop, .online or .biz can work for a specific niche, but they're less instantly familiar - only use one if the more common options genuinely aren't available.
Avoid hyphens, numbers and hard-to-spell words
"best-plumber4you.co.uk" might feel available and cheap, but hyphens and numbers are easy to mistype and hard to say aloud. If your ideal name is taken, it's usually better to rethink the name slightly than to bolt on a hyphen or a number just to get something free.
Check it isn't already trademarked or too close to a competitor
Before you commit, do a quick search to make sure you're not accidentally choosing a name that's trademarked or that's confusingly close to an existing, well-known business in your industry. It's a five-minute check that can save you a rebrand later.
Secure it before someone else does
Good, available domain names don't stay available for long, especially once you've started telling people about your business idea. Once you've settled on a name, register it - even if your website isn't ready yet, holding the domain costs very little and protects your name from being taken by someone else.
Not sure what's available? You can search for your domain and see live pricing on our domain search page - and if you don't have a website yet, we'll build you one free when you take hosting with us.