Picking a name for your children is easier than selecting a name for your online web presence. Why? Because you can have as many Tommys, Billys, Madisons, Taylors, Sarahs, Robbies, and Jeannes in the world but only one TomBritt.com. Only one. Finding that unique domain name that is as easy to remember and spell as “Tommy” is harder than you think.

Domain names are registered, or leased, in one-year increments through various online providers like GoDaddy.com, Register.com, and NetworkSolutions.com. They all charge different prices for doing the exact same thing. Some services charge $4.99 per year while others might charge $14.99 per year. Why do they charge a different rate? Some people like the ease of use with one provider over another or they like sexy girls on Super Bowl commercials. That might not be the answer you wanted to read, but that’s the truth.

Some general guidelines for selecting a domain name are as follows:

• Buy a .com whenever possible: People inherently think of every domain as ending in “.com.” Having a domain end in something other than that will give people two things to remember: your domain name and the extension. Buy a dot com and don’t tax people’s already over-taxed memories.
• Avoid hyphenated domains: While “John-Smith-Author.com” might be available, you will have the toughest time getting anyone to remember your online name. It looks good in a brochure, but the hyphens become speedbumps when you are trying to describe how to find yourself online: “John hyphen Smith hyphen Author dot com.”
• Avoid commonly misspelled words: My first local portal was (and is still) called atGeist.com. People that live in the Geist Reservoir area where I live know how to spell “Geist”, but folks outside of the area or not native to the area often times misspell it as “Giest”. The old “I before E” thing doesn’t apply for Geist. What did I do? I bought “atGiest.com” as well and pointed it to the same website. Ask a few of your friends and family to spell your domain, you might be surprised at how a word is easy for you to spell but harder for others.
• Book titles are not the best domains: Many authors purchase the name of their book as their online domain name. This is handy to have and I certainly wouldn’t discourage you from doing this. But what if you decide to write a second, third, or fourth book? What if your book title is really long (i.e. “HowtoLeveragetheInternettoMarketYourBook.com”)? What if you get a cease and desist letter from another publisher claiming you can’t use the word “dummy” in your title? Think twice about using your book title as your domain name, it might sound good now, but you could grow out of it in a few more books.