Probably one of the most important decisions that you will make in setting up an online business or information site is the choosing of a suitable doamin name.

You should aim to choose adomain name that clearly indicates what you do, or a service that you provide will give a potential client a fairly clear idea of what they will find on your website. For example NetDesignAndHost.com would indicate that the site DESIGNS and HOSTS websites for the use on the interNET.

Try our domain name finder on the right to see if a name is free.

Are you planning on using this name as the main website for your company, as a one page sales letter site, or squeeze page site? If the domain name will be your primary company website, try and find the closest version to your company name that you can. If you're just starting out, choose your business name and domain name with care.

If the purpose of a domain is for a one-page sales letter site or a squeeze page, think ahead as to how you might promote this site. Because content is king in today's internet marketing world, there's little chance that either of these types of sites would be picked up by the search engines on key words. Therefore, your best promotion strategy is PPC, or "pay per click", where you're buying keywords for placement in search engines. If you're buying keywords from Google, for example, the paid listings appear at the top of a search in a blue box, or down the right-hand side of your screen. You want to be sure that the info displayed there is compelling enough to get someone to click and visit your site.

Before buying your domain, make a list of keywords that someone might use to find you online. This list could include your industry, your target market or niche, a problem your target market has, or a solution that you can offer.

For example if you were setting up a dance school and you wanted to have a website to promote you, your list of keywords might include...dance classes / learn to dance / ballet for beginners...all of which might form a domain name...danceclass.com / learn2dance.com / ballet4beginners.co.uk

If the domain name is going to be your primary domain where your primary email address will be housed ie. you@domainname.com, you want your domain name to be as short, catchy, and memorable as possible. After a few times of spelling out your lengthy email address, you'll come to appreciate the beauty of a short domain name.

Your domain name can contain up to 67 letters and numbers, although we would encourage you not to have one of this length.

The domain name cannot contain special characters other than hyphens.

You may want to look at purhasing your actual name as a domain, the purpose of this is not to set up your website under your name but to provide another way of people who may remember you but cannot remember your company name to find you.

It still pays to purchase your given name as a domain name, as well as any common misspellings of your name. Once you've purchased your name as a domain, you can redirect it to your primary website. This means that when someone types in a domain, they land at the website to which you pointed that domain.

When people hear a domain name, they "hear" .COM whether it's .NET or .BIZ or .ORG or whatever. So, it pays to find a domain name that you like that is part of the .COM family. If you just can't get the name you want, try a hyphenated version of the .COM name.

Many SEO specialists state that search engines like hyphenated names, and many online business owners use hyphenated keywords in their domain names to be more attractive to search engines.

Some domain name holders may be willing to sell you the domain name that you want. You can find out who owns a domain name by checking the WhoIs Registry. For info about country codes (two-letter) top-level domains (.UK or .CA, for example) look here

If you are registering the .COM version of a domain for your business, you may also want to secure variations of the name, alternate spellings, common misspellings, and the .NET and .ORG versions of your domain and repoint them to your main site to keep them out of the hands of your competitors.

You can also go broke very quickly by purchasing all of these variations, so exercise some restraint in your purchases and don't go crazy with purchasing every single variation of your domain name.

Your domain name is the beginning of the establishment of your presence online, Take some time and put some thought into the process so that the domain name serves you well in the years to come, and is an effective tool for helping you get more clients online.