Ecommerce Web Design Blog

You're ready to open your online store. While you get your suppliers and prices set and take product photos you decide to take the step of registering your domain name so that is all ready to go before you buy your shopping cart software. But the domain name you want is taken. What do you do?

Here are some ways you can generate other domain names that you could use for your business.

• Use your product name in your domain name. If your business is called Elvis Ltd and you sell lighting, the domain name elvis.com.au might be taken but elvislights.com.au might not.
• Create a brand name and register that. If in the above example, elvis.com.au and elvislights.com.au were both taken you could create a brand name of your own called something like 'Lotsa-Light' and register a domain like lotsalight.com.au
• Try hyphens or change the order of the words.
• Add localisation information. Add your country or state to the domain names to help find something unique.

Whatever you register, make sure that when you come to running your store you promote your domain name heavily - in your brochures, in your physical store if you have one, in business cards, trade fairs and at every opportunity you get. This plus building links having an search-engine-friendly shopping cart website on your domain name will help you make your online shop a success.

If you're doing business in Australia, an Australian domain name with a .com.au extension (e.g. oscworks.com.au) is an invaluable asset. It tells visitors to you are an Australian business which can give them confidence and trust in buying from you.

That's because:

1. you need an Australian Business Number or Australian Trademark to register one
   
2. your domain name must be relevant to your business.
   
3. Search engines like Google Australia and Yahoo! Australia can often give precedence to Australian sites in search engine results by Australian web surfers. 
4. You can promote the .com.au domain offline too - on your business cards, in brochures and any newspaper/magazine/other advertising you do.

If you are buying a .com.au domain we often recommend to customers that you also buy the equivalent .net.au domain name to make it as easy as possible for customers to find you, and prevent competitors or others from registering it before you get the chance. If your business name is generic there may be many businesses in Australia who meet the criteria to register a name and in those situations the domain name registry allocates domains on a first-come-first-served basis.

Osc Works provides Australian domain names (e.g. .com.au or .net.au) at highly competitive prices: $37.95 incluing gst for 2 years.

You can still be successful with a .com in Australia

If your website has a .com domain name however, your store can still rank well in Australian search engines as well as the rest of the world. International .com domains often rank well worldwide compared to Australian domains which can be very useful if you are hoping to sell your products online internationally. You can also tell search engines like Google you are an Australian website through the 'Regional Settings' in tools like Google's Webmaster Tools to ensure your website is picked up appropriately by Australian search engines.

Osc Works also provides International domain names (e.g. .com) at highly competitive prices: $16.95 including gst per annum. .co.nz domains are priced at $34.95 including gst per annum.

Note the prices quoted in this article are correct at time of writing (29 Jan 2009) and are subject to change. Please check our domain name checker for current prices.