Your domain name represents your business address on the Internet so it’s worth spending some time brainstorming for the best possible one for your business.

To start with you want your domain name to be short, memorable and relevant. When I say short, one word is ideal, but they are becoming hard to find and so you might have to go for two or three words in your domain name.

Next, make sure that your domain name is easy to remember. Finally, make it relevant. Remember that places like Google or Amazon had to invest lots of money and effort to associate their domain name with their service and they probably only did it because domain names like search.com or books.com were not available.

Next, when you register a top level domain the question is whether you go for .com or .com.au. The rule here is that if you are running a local business by all means register a local domain name but keep in mind that as your business expends and you enter the worldwide market you will want to have the .com as well. So, it is best to register both to start with and only then consider domains like .net, .org and .biz. From the technical point of view, .net is as good as .com. However, .com domains are always perceived as being more valuable, and therefore it is a good idea to register ".com" first.

One thing to consider when you register your domain is whether to go with a hyphen or not. Search engines actually prefers hyphenated domain names because it makes their parsing easier, whereas people prefer domain names without hyphens. Again, if you want to fully protect your intellectual property, a good idea is to go for .com, .net, .org, .biz, hyphenated and not hyphenated versions of your domain, and also singular and plural versions of your domain name.

Next, make sure that you register your domain name for at least two years. It’s better to register for longer periods like three, four, or five years, but two years is the minimum that you should consider. There is an important reason for that. Search engines can easily determine the expiration date of your domain, and a period of more than one year shows commitment - and therefore results in better rankings. Low quality websites typically register for only one year.

Finally, make sure to match your domain with your web hosting. For example, if your audience is located mainly in United States then go for .com domain and make sure that your website is hosted in United States as well. For Australian businesses it is better to go for .com.au and to make sure the business is hosted in Australia. This will result in higher search engine rankings and faster loading of your pages when they are visited by your target audience.