Registering a domain name is an important step towards building a successful online business.

Learn why you should register your own domain name!

Why domain registrations are important

Registering a domain name is a great way to build your brand online. It’s also a good idea to register your own domain name before someone else does. This will give you control over your website and ensure that no one else uses your name.

It’s important to note that in South Africa, the domain name and business name registries are not synchronized or aligned in any way, so registering your business name does not provide protection against someone registering the name of your business as their domain name. While this may be petitioned, the process may not only be lengthy and frustrating, but may delay you getting your business online.

How to choose a domain name

If you’re looking for a domain name that will help you build your brand, there are several things to consider. You need to make sure that the domain name you select not only represents your brand or business name, but also has good search engine optimization (SEO) potential. This means that it also needs to be easy to spell and easy to remember.

It may sometimes also be beneficial to register a domain name that represents your flagship product, if the product name is well-known in the marketplace. While you may see the merit in registering several domain names, be careful of hosting providers who encourage you to register multiple domains that are not directly relevant to your business.

Know what keywords you’re targeting

If you choose to register a domain name that contains keywords representing your products or services rather than the name of your business, then it would be wise to register a second domain using your business name to guard against someone else registering it. You can then ask your domain host to point the one domain to the other, so that both will show your website content.

If you’re thinking of registering a keyword-based domain, then be sure to check that the keywords you assume would bring you traffic are actually the ones people are searching for to find the products or services that you offer. Using a keyword research tool, will reveal how popular certain words are and whether they’re relevant to your niche.

Choosing a .co.za or .com domain

While registering the local country domain (.co.za for South Africa) may count in your favour for local search (depending on the user’s search preference settings), registering a .com domain (the most popular international domain extension) may also be wise as .com domains may rank above local ones when search preferences are not set to the local country.

We prefer to register both the .co.za and .com domain names for our customers. We then ‘park’ the .com under the .co.za so that the website content is visible on both. This does not incur additional hosting fees.

Domain names build trust with customers

While you will have to register a domain before being able to have a website, registering a domain from the day you start your business will help convey a professional image, as you will then be able to have email addresses that include your domain name. For example: yourname@yourbusinessname.co.za

Having a domain name with linked email addresses shows that your business is a formal one, in the same way as having a website instils confidence in potential customers who are considering whether to do business with you.

The bottom line…

Registering a domain name is an important step towards building a successful online business and establishing credibility with customers.

Click here to find out more about registering a domain.

Post penned by the Cadiz Digital team.