WHO WHAT WHERE
WHEN WHY?
The most effective way to brainstorm for ideas is to define your self, business, organization,
etc and write out what you do. Add to your list any of the following that would apply to
your situation and peice together a name that is easy to type, easy to remember, and quite
frankly one that makes sense for the content you'll soon have.|
Keyword Ideas
Proper Name
Field or Industry
City and State
Slogans
Mission Statement
Client Base
Synonymns for each |
Top Level Domains
(common extenstions)
.aero : Air transport industry
.biz : Business use .cat : Catalan language/culture .com : Commercial, unrestricted .coop : Cooperatives .edu : Post-secondary education .gov : Governments agencies in the US .info : Informational sites, but unrestricted .int : International organizations .jobs : Employment-related sites .mil : US military .mobi : Mobile device enabled sites .museum : Museums .name : Families and individuals .net : Network infrastructures, unrestricted .org : Organizations, non profit, unrestricted .pro : Certain professions .travel : Travel agents, tourism bureaus, etc. |
Also consider:
Variations on spelling can help you overcome instances where phonetically you have a teriffic name,
but its already taken. Consider changing consonants or removing vowels to give the favorite name another chance.
Similar to the above, consider abbreviations to the name you've chosen. The obvious,
States, Saints, & etc but also consider creating an abbreviated accronym for the site.
One example we have done ourselves is imapa.org. Standing for International Models and
Photographers Association, imapa is short, simple, to the point, and even after you know
the proper name, the shortened imapa sticks a lot easier in the brain.
Things to avoid:
Search engines read hyphens as spaces so while you can get an easily searchible name with hyphens,
common sense says to avoid using them on a primary domain name since they make names long, hard to remember
and too easy to mistype if you're the visitor. Use hyphen imbedded domain names only for redirects.
Stick with the guidlines and examples from vetern wesites in regards to the extension you choose.
".com" was intended for "com"mercial use and though its most common and easy to use, you may find
more availability with other extensions if you're not intending your site for commerce.
Did you know?
If you're wondering where we came up with Doubledub, it stems from siblings Simon and Katie.
Both having the same last name Welter, we were "dubbed" no pun intended, as the
Double "W" team or phonetically shortened, Doubledub. Although our name has nothing has no
reference to web design, our redirecting domains do. But lets face it, its a more user friendly
and less coercive than say stlouiswebdesigners.com for example.