When you're choosing a domain name for your website, make sure you take the following into account:

- Your domain name and the name of your business should, ideally, be the same. If you are already an established business, and your company name won't make the best domain name, consider buying the name of your business as a domain name, but also register a descriptive strapline or slogan as a domain name for your site. That way, both your existing customers and newcomers will be able to find your site easily.

- Generic domain names are search engine friendly and can attract "type-in traffic" (visitors typing your domain name into their web browser address bar on the off-chance they’ll find what they want). However, specific and relevant domain names are better for search engines and your customers than very general terms. For example, "educationaltoys.com" is probably better than just "toys.com".

- Register both hyphenated and non-hyphenated versions of your domain name. Non-hyphenated versions are easier to read, but people might forget the hyphens when they type in your domain name, and hyphenated names are harder to spell over the telephone. Cover all your bases by registering both, so that you don't lose any traffic to the one you didn't register!

- If the domain you want is already registered, you could always check the Whois directory, find the owner's details, and ask them if the domain is for sale. Don't register other TLD versions of the domain name if you can't get the .com or the .co.uk, because you will most likely lose traffic to the owner of the more popular TLD version.

- Short Domain Names are running thin, but they are easier to remember and if you can grab one, it's probably worth having. That said, you should make sure that your domain name is also a real word: a memorable two word combination is better than one misspelled word!

By Natalie Catchpole