What makes Netfirms the right choice?
With over 1 million customers, Netfirms is the best choice in the UK for domain names and web hosting.

The .uk domain name register has passed the seven million mark.
The increase in .uk registrations is further evidence that British Internet users recognise the value of having a .co.uk address. A recent survey of 2,352 Internet users, carried out by Opinion Matters, also shows that 72% of users are more likely to choose a .uk rather than a .com address when looking for information online.

Top tips for choosing a great .co.uk domain name for your business
Choose a name that people will remember. After all, the right domain name will increase visibility, inspire trust and attract customers. Here are some great tips to help you through this process.

1. Choose your domain name quickly
.uk domain names are being registered at a rate of one every 20 seconds and allocated on a first-registered, first-served basis, so a delay in decision making could mean someone else gets there first.

2. Choose a name that suits your business
You should choose your domain name so that it best represents your company's interests. Bear in mind the brand, what you offer, your unique selling point and the implications of being alphabetically listed. Think about domain names that solve a problem or names that describe the products or services your company provides e.g. 'marketing solutions'. Either way, your name will help drive targeted traffic to your web site if you take this approach.

3. Keep it short and memorable
Short memorable brand names are effective, especially if relevant to the personality of a business brand. If you keep the name short and snappy it is also less likely that people will misspell it and more likely that they will remember it and pass it on via word of mouth. For the same reasons it's a good idea to keep the number of words in a domain name to 2 or 3 at most.

4. Think about keywords and branding
There is some debate about whether it's better to choose a domain name that contains keywords (that will increase your search engine optimisation) or to focus on a name that is more generic or related to your brand. If you are particularly interested in attracting customers via search engines it is advisable to choose a name that is a keyword. Choose keywords that are the names of the products or services you will be offering on your web site. You could then use specific keyword software to see how popular your potential domain names are to customers using search engines.

5. Hyphens: Good or Bad?
If your ideal choice of domain name is not available, you might consider using a hyphenated version. One advantage of using them is that hyphens are said to identify keywords to search engines more clearly. The disadvantages of using hyphens are it makes your domain name harder to remember and more difficult to tell to a customer (e.g. on the telephone).

6. Take account of misspellings
Don't use words that are difficult to spell, as people are likely to misspell your domain name, which may mean they don't arrive at your web site. It's also a good idea to avoid words that are spelt differently in some countries. However, if you have a company name that is difficult to spell, it is worth registering domain names with common misspellings of it. You can of course point several domain names to your web site.

7. Before you register it, ask other people for their opinion
You might think your domain name is great, but what about other people? Ultimately you will be relying on whether other people find it memorable, understandable and useful in terms of attracting traffic to your web site.

Free with all Netfirms Domain accounts:

1 E-Mail Account  25MB for a Basic webpage  Domain Forwarding

Subdomains  DNS Management  24/7 Support