One of the first decisions when planning your startup is finding the best domain name. After all, the domain name is essential to just about everything else related to brand identity, marketing, and public relations.
After choosing a name for your startup, your choice of domain name to deploy is the 2nd most important decision. The domain name is needed for your website address, emails, and general branding.
There is a broad category of domains that go beyond the .com, .net, and .org domains that you are most familiar with. They are generally referred to as new top level domains or nTLDs. There are over 1000 new types of domains that cover approximately 20 categories listed below, along with respective examples:
- Business: .ltd, .group, .partners, .services
- Education: .academy, .college, .education, .mba, .school
- Entertainment: .casino, .dating, .events, .studio, .video
- Financial: .capital, .cash, .credit, .money, .tax
- Amusing: .cool, .exposed, .ninja, .life
- Health care: .care, .clinic, .dental, .dentist, .doctor, .veterinarian, .vision
- House and construction: .repair, .tools, .builders, .work,. supply
- Legal:. legal,. lawyer,. lawyer
- News and information: .chat, .fyi, .tips, .news, .media
- Photography: .camera, .gallery, .graphics, .photos, .pictures
- Politics and military:. democratic,. republican,. army,. air force,. navy
- Immovable: .apartments, .camp, .farm, .house, .ground
- Sports and fitness: .bike,. coach, .football, .expert, .fan
- Style and fashion: .boutique, .clothes, .fleurist, .gold, .style
- Technology: .tech, .computer, .engineer, .solar, .software
- Travel and geography: .travel, .city, .guide, .holiday, .cab, .world
- Purchasing and Retail: .good deals,. inexpensive, .sale, .market,. auctions
- food and drinks: .café, .kitchen, .pizza, .vin, .fish, .pub
- Marketing communications: .agency, .digital, .marketing, .media, .social, .studio
Essentially, there is no real reason for you to get stuck on complicated domains when you can register much simpler domains that are most relevant to your startup. With a very creative mind, you can come up with some very impressionable areas for your startup.
Another proof of concept is the fact that over 27 million of these domains are currently registered as of November 2021.
A brand name doesn’t have much value if no one remembers it. So, it is very important to find a domain name that is simple, easy to pronounce and evocative. It’s ideal to keep it short and simple, and to make sure that the name you choose can be easily spelled and searched online.
The wide range of new top-level domains makes it easy to find the most suitable domain name for your startup or business while keeping it short and simple.
Short domains usually consist of a single word with the end of the domain.
Here are some random examples of startups using new types of short domains and the amounts they raised in 2021:
- Torus Biosystems (uses torus.bio) raised $ 25 million
- Poparazzi (uses poparazzi.xyz) raised $ 20 million
- Ramon.Space (uses ramon.space) raised $ 17.5 million
- Orbit (orbit.love) raised $ 15 million
- Origin (uses origin.bio) raised $ 15 million
- Oliver Space (uses oliver.space) raised $ 13 million
- Rikkei Finance (uses rikkei.finance) raised $ 5.6 million
- Vev (uses vev.design) raised $ 5 million
- Pandora Finance (uses pandora.finance) raised $ 2.4 million
- babbar (uses babbar.tech) raised $ 2.1 million
The above examples only show what is possible with new short domains and do not necessarily imply that those domains have helped fundraising for the respective startups.
In addition to registering new domains, there is also the option of purchasing existing domains for your startup, when there is a compelling reason to do so.
Premium domains fall into two broad categories: unregistered nTLDs and secondary market registered domains. The latter is much more common.
Some of the most expensive and publicly reported domain sales are listed below:
- CarInsurance.com – $ 49.7 million
- Insurance.com – $ 35.6 million
- VacationRentals.com – $ 35 million
- PrivateJet.com – $ 30.18 million
- Voice.com – $ 30 million
- Internet.com – $ 18 million
- 360.com – $ 17 million
- Insure.com – $ 16 million
- Fund.com – £ 9.99 million
- Sex.com – $ 14 million
The importance of the right domain name can never be overlooked in the process of choosing the best domain name for your business. You can find the best possible domains on Web4Africa.
Established in 2002, Web4Africa is an ICANN accredited domain name registrar offering over 300 types of domains (among other web services) to clients worldwide.
