Will they come back?
To be profitable and celebrated, yourย website needs returning visitors. Now, the content you provide on your site will have the biggest impact on whether or not people return, but there are other factors too. One such factor is your domain name.
Have you ever read an article you really liked or found an interesting fact online, and then forgot where you found it? You may try to Google it, but sometimes you just can’t find it again.
You don’t want that to happen to your site.
You want people to visit your site, be struck byย the brand name, and never forget it. This will make all of your promotion a little bit easier.
Just think, if you do a great job picking your name, every single thing you do will be a little bit more successful. Pretty exciting, isn’t it?
That’s why it’s so important that you take your time, and choose an excellent name for your business.
In this guide, I’ll showย you:
- six tactics for a more memorable name
- a tool to generate additional name ideas
- how to check if the domain and social profiles are available
Get a note taking app or pen and paper out now.ย Your brain is sure to be buzzing with ideas by the end of this.
Unforgettable Domain Name: Yes! That’s possible with little work
Keep it Short and Sweet :
When it comes to rememberย anything, seven is the magic number.
Based on famous research by George A. Miller, we know that people can reliably remember about seven thingsย at once, give or take two.
In the study, the research subjects could recall a set of five random wordsย aboutย 50%ย of the time.
What does this mean for you?
You should use as few words as possible in your domain name.ย If you use more than five words, it will start to get hard to remember.
In general, the fewer words the better.
Use Simple Words
To build upon the first point, you also want the words themselves to be simple.
The five words memorized in the study were all monosyllabic (like cat, dog, or phone). Use monosyllabic words in place of more complex words whenever possible. A domain with more words may be easier than a shorter one if the words are simpler.
For instance, the domain name antidisestablishmentarianismvolcanologist.com is terribly hard to remember, while a name likeย learnhowtoblog.com might be easier to remember, despite having 100% more words.
Make it Novel
In Moonwalking with Einstein, by Joshua Foer, he explains that memory is moreย a practice of creativity than anything else.
We remember things that are novel. Things that stand out because they are different from what we normally experience.
For instance, I can never remember if I’ve taken my allergy medicine. It’s hard to recall because it’s so mundane, and my brain knows it. We don’t remember things that are mundane and unimportant.
On the other hand, when something is surprising and unique, we remember it quite easily.
For instance, you’ve probably seen thousands of trees. You strut past them without payingย heed, but if you saw a golden tree, or a tree a hundred stories tall, or a tree that grew reverse into the ground, you’d never forget it.
Add an element of surprise in your name, and people won’t forget it.
Add Emotions
When we experience strong emotions, we are more likely to remember those moments.
Every American can tell you where they were on 9/11, but most of us have no clue whatย we were doingย on October 11, 2001. Or, any other October 11 since then, for that matter.
Obviously, you want your brand to be associated with positive emotions, andย luckily, positive emotions do tend to be more memorable. The degree to which emotion affects our memories depends largely onย how well our mood matches the emotion from the event.
Try adding terms that evoke strong emotions when read or said aloud. Use words that areย uplifting, satisfying, or awe-inspiring to create a positive connection with your brand.
Attach to Existing Memories
One of the best ways to remember something new is to attach it to an old memory.
This is the basis of the memory palace technique or Method of Loci.
Briefly, the technique involves mentally navigating through a place you know well, puttingย the items you need to remember at different points in the space. For instance, you could easily remember a longย string of random digits by mentally walking through your house, and placing large, physical numbers in different places.
What does this have to do with your domain name?
You can attach the name of your site to a memory people already have solidified. This can be as simple as adding a familiar term to the name of your domain, or hooking into an existing concept.
This will help people quickly identify with what your site is about and remember it.
Trim the fat
At this point, you’re probably well on your way to creating a memorable name, but I’ve got one last tip for you: trim the fat!
Take out any non-essential words in your domain name. Unnecessary words clutter the name and make it harder to remember.
For instance, removeย any stop words like, “to, “of”, and “for”. People are likely to forget these termsย and grow frustrated trying to recall your site’s domain name.
Generate a Large List with name generators
Now with your list of terms and potential names, it’s time to generate a larger list of potential names.
Why create a large list of potential names?ย Because the best way to find a good domain name is to come up with a lot of domain names.
Don’t worry about picking your favorite yet. Keep all potential candidates in your list.
With your list at hand, use the following tools to come up with many more potential name ideas:
- Business Name Generatorย –ย adds additional random terms to your domain to find available names.
Run your ideas through these tools and come up with as many names as you can.
Check availability of desired name
Once you’ve got your final list of potential names, you can check to see which ones are available.
Namecheap has an availability checker right on the homepage, includingย a link to their bulkย domain name checker. Use the bulk availability checker to narrow down your list to only those that are available.
Once you have your list of available domain names, you’ll want to check which ones still have their matching social profiles available.
Useย namcheckr to quickly check the availability of your name across a wide variety of social sites.
When you’re done checking, you’ll have a just handful of options left out of your initial list. Now all you need to do is pick your favorite, register the domain, and claimย the social profiles.
Conclusion
In their excitement to launch a new site, new many webmasters rush the domain selection process.ย Once you pick aย domain, you’re going to be with it for a long time.
Take your time with each of the tips above. Create the largest possible list of names you can – no list is too large!ย Then, weed out the unavailable names, leaving only a few killer names left to pick from.
This process takes a real investment of time, butย you’ll thank yourself later when your visitors come back time and time again,ย compliments toย your awesome name.
It is always great to get short length domain but hard to get it. This is great article for them who really need helps on domain selection.
A truly great article Ben!
You are very right in saying that choosing the right domain name for you and your brand is extremely important; for like you said, you want people to remember not only who you are but what your brand is all about as well. That is why, when it comes to choosing an unforgettable domain name, I think itโs important to not only focus on the left of the dot, but to also consider the right of the dot as well. Now of course, .COM is rightfully where many tend to put their focus on, but with over 1000 new gTLDs having been introduced to the internet realm (and with many more to come in the future), finding your perfect domain name has become much more creative, and no longer leads you to a โdomain name unavailableโ notice.
To further add to your list of name generator tools, I also find Panabee and Name Mesh to be extremely helpful useful as well.
Again, this was a terrific read. Thank you for sharing your tips with us! ๐
Getting a memorable domain name is really a hard to accommplished but just gotta keep finding…