Domain Buying Guides
-
How to Buy a Domain Name
-
How to Buy a Domain Name Owned by Someone Else
-
Negotiating a Domain Price
-
What is a Premium Domain Name & Why You Should Buy One
-
How to Choose a Domain Name
-
How to Value a Domain Name
-
Domain Names for Startups
-
How to Buy a .com Domain Name
-
Things to Watch Out for When Buying a Domain
-
Domain Name Investing
-
Buy & Selling Domains
-
Best Domains to Buy
Name Experts provides premium
domain service to:
Choosing a brand name for your startup? Need a great domain name to match? NameExperts.com Director Joe Uddeme shares his top tips.
Having the right domain name for your startup sounds like common sense. However, it can be a challenging endeavor. Your organization’s name might not translate into a good domain name. Or maybe everything suitable appears to have been taken.
Regardless of the challenges, it is absolutely essential that you have a fantastic domain name so customers can find you. It can also help increase brand awareness and the long-term success of your business.
So how can you actually buy a good domain for your startup? Let’s investigate.
Key Takeaways
- The power of brainstorming
- The golden rules of a great startup domain name
- Do your research
- Consider alternate endings (TLDs)
Brainstorm Your Startup Domain Name
When acquiring a domain, you need to start by doing some brainstorming. Consider:
- What’s the name of your business?
- What services or products are you selling?
- What industry are you involved in?
Develop five terms or phrases which can best answer those questions and can describe the domain name that you’d wish to acquire.
For instance, if you wanted a domain name that involved “advertising,” you could use related terms like “online marketing,” “digital marketing,” “advertising,” or “sales marketing” as a starting point.
While this may sound obvious, you also need to remember that your domain name ought to be related to your organization.
For example, if your company name is Joe’s Electronics then you would want a domain name to reflect that name.
If the website was called joesawesomewebsite.com, clients would not know that it was really an electronics site, which means you’re losing out on business because customers can’t find you.

Keep Your Domain Name Brief, Unique and Easy to Remember
While brainstorming domains, you also wish to bear in mind that the shorter the better. Shorter domain names aren’t just easy to type, but also easier to remember. If you heard the domain from a friend or on the radio, would you be able to spell it correctly?
Try and settle on a domain that’s unique. The last thing that you need is for your domain to get confused with another site. This will also ensure you won’t encounter any ownership issues.
Research your Startup Domain Name
Now that you’ve found a domain that fits your brand, you need to be 100 percent sure it is available. One option would be to explore checkdomain.com, Domjax or copyright.gov.
The best-known names are usually .com domain names – these are widely accepted. It also means that they are likely to have a premium cost to them if you are looking to purchase them. Check the whois information on the domain you are trying to buy, or reach out to a seasoned domain name broker who will have years of experience in sourcing owners and negotiating deals.
Add Modest Words Before or After Your Domain
While you should keep away from pluralizing or hyphenating words, as that will create confusion (“best” or “top” are also a little overused, too), there could be some minor alterations to make your domain stand out.
Let’s say you have a car rental business located in Phoenix. You could search for a domain name that was on the line of phoenixrentals.com.
Use Other Domain Extensions/Endings
Ideally, you would like to secure a .com domain. It’s the best option for branding and type-in-traffic, which is essential for any site. However, there are other endings or extensions (TLDs) that could benefit your brand as well. Take the .info extension for example. It could be an alternative if you are running an informational site.
Another choice is to localize your own domain. If your site is based out of the United Kingdom, you would want to utilize the .uk or co.uk extension. Not only does this open the door to additional possibilities, it differentiates you from an international website.
A website like name.com is an excellent resource for searching for domains and extensions.
View Auctions for Domain Names
You can also hit auctions to purchase a domain name which was/is previously owned. There are numerous sites that have been acquired by investors as a means to monetize a site. They will purchase a domain and fill the website with lists and links to other sites simply for lead generation.
Contact A Domain Broker
There are instances when somebody had a domain and did not do anything with it – or the business didn’t work out and the domain name has expired. In cases like this, the domain name is now available for purchase.
If your preferred domain is not up for auction, you could work with a domain name expert or broker to contact the current owner.
If you decide to go it alone, make sure you gather any information that can assist you in ultimately determining if this is the right asset for your brand.
If the owner is considering selling the domain, you’ll want to do a little investigating to learn how much it’s worth. Our domain broker services can complete a professional domain name appraisal to determine how much traffic is visiting the website.
It may not be the only element in determining the site’s value, but it’s a powerful indicator. Another thing we’ll look at is sale prices of comparable doman names. Some great names, such as Cars.com, have gone for astronomical sums.

About the author
Joe Uddeme is Director and Principal of Name Experts, one of the world’s leading domain name brokerage services. He has overseen domain name sales and acquisitions totaling more than $150 million and is renowned worldwide as a go-to expert in buying and selling premium domains. Contact us at: [email protected]
Need help buying a domain? We make the domain buying process easy.
Subscribe for More Domain Buying & Selling Advice
Related posts
What Is the GoDaddy Domain Broker Service, and Is it Worth It?
Everybody’s heard of GoDaddy, whose services include quick, cheap registration of available domain names. In this post, NameExperts.com Director Joe Uddeme explores their other services – and whether they’re the right option for premium domain name buyers. GoDaddy is the world’s largest domain registrar, with over 90 million domain names registered and counting. Thanks to never-ending marketing, the average person likely thinks of GoDaddy when they want to buy a new domain. It’s common for people to visit GoDaddy, type the domain they want to buy, and see that someone else has already taken it. But GoDaddy doesn’t leave the user hanging– it suggests an alternative domain name or advertises its domain broker service, as seen in the image below:
How We Helped Monday.com Secure the Perfect Name for their Rebranding
Discover how Name Experts’ premium domain buying service played a key role in the rebranding of Monday.com. As the business goes from strength to strength, Monday’s rebranding is a testament to the power not just of a world-class brand name but of a powerful, memorable domain name, too. We’ve all heard of Monday.com. They are one of the biggest project management tools on the market. But that was not always the case. Before Monday.com was Monday.com, they were daPulse, a name that ultimately was a hindrance to their growth. The daPulse name was out of sync with the project management business and limited their ability to scale. Changing to Monday.com was a sound decision that contributed to the company’s massive success. It demonstrates how naming a brand is as essential as product development to any technology business. I was approached by the two founders, Eran Zinman and Roy Mann, to pursue a rebranding project. They wanted to buy a domain name that was both generic and memorable. One that ended in .com and could be used as a solidified brand. One of the names that stuck early on was Monday.com. After contacting the owner, the domain name negotiation and engagement was flawless, and ultimately, Eran and Roy were ecstatic with the result. Early on, however, I remember some of the feedback was, “What the heck is Monday.com?” But, with fantastic brand marketing, the team has done an exceptional job at growing and scaling the company. As with most great business ideas, it all starts with the foundation or a solid domain name asset to help build a brand. Here’s the story… In 2012, a group of Israeli entrepreneurs launched a company named daPulse. daPulse launched as a platform for enterprises to organize project management and collaboration between their workers. Though it started in 2012, daPulse didn’t launch commercially until 2014 after significant product testing and development.
Why Work with Name Experts
Name Experts offers personalized domain brokerage services, assisting clients in buying or selling premium domain names with expert appraisal, negotiation, and complete transaction management while ensuring confidentiality.
Some of our most
successful stealth acquisition and sales
