Domain Names - Make sure you safeguard your business

So you’ve got a great idea for an online business. You’ve spoken to your friends, your family and your bank manager - everyone agrees it’s a winner. You’ve thought about how the website should look, you’ve developed some ideas about branding and you’re basically ready to go. You’ve registered the company name and trademark, and now you've started looking into how to build a website.

And then, after all this time, after months and months of planning, you finally do a search for your chosen domain name - and find, to your horror, that someone has already registered it and that your whole business plan needs to be revised.

Domain names are cheap when new, but hold tremendous value if you get the right one. And if you miss out on the one you want, it can be an expensive and tiresome business trying to secure it further down the line. Domain names should be factored into a business proposition early on, before registration of company or trademark. If you’ve got an idea, go and search for relevant domain names. At the same time you will get an idea of what is already out there and who your competitors might be.

Note that there is some value in choosing a trademark that does not have direct meaning in relation to the product or service which is being provided. Consider successful online brands such as Amazon, Ebay and YouTube. The Trade Marks Registry tends not to register marks which are descriptive of the goods or services which will be provided under the brand. A benefit of choosing a mark that is, at the very least, creative in the way it describes what you do, is that you may well find it easier to register the corresponding domain name - since descriptive domain registrations already saturate the market (eg sellmycar.com, bestfootwear.com). In the online arena you are competing for people’s attention. Punchy memorable domain names are desirable.

Don’t forget to consider the media through which your marketing campaigns are going to be delivered. For instance, the Home Office recently had to curtail a radio campaign advertising a website that promoted safer online browsing for minors. The only problem was that the spelling of the domain name could be misinterpreted when heard, and some potential visitors to the site found their way to decidedly inappropriate material. Sometimes you need to consider registering alternative spellings of a domain name - and even misspellings in some cases, to prevent what’s known in the trade as "typosquatting".

If you are starting a business in the UK, you should definitely register both the .com and .co.uk versions of your chosen domain name to start with. You should also consider .net, and the new .eu, which signifies a European presence - this will help protect your potentially valuable brand. If your brand becomes huge, you will pretty much want all available versions of your domain name in order to prevent cybersquatting. You don’t want someone who’s trying to find you being led to the "wrong" kind of site! Or having to pay out a large sum of money down the line in order to protect your intellectual property.

About the Author

Written for Bytestart by Alex Shepherd, Marketing Manager Easily.co.uk

Easily has a domain name search tool that will allow you to see whether the great idea for a domain is available. Domain checking is free and domain registrations start from £4.99 per year, so just click on the Easily logo and find that perfect domain name.

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