Much like picking a name for your business, picking the right domain name can make things much easier when it comes time to market your business. With the large number of good domain names that have been taken, this can be difficult to do but if you take a few key things into consideration, you can get closer to the ideal.

• You should be able to tell someone your domain name over the telephone without having him or her ask you to spell it out. If you have to start spelling your domain name for people, it’s too complex.
• Try to get a .com. If you are solely focused on Canada, a .ca can be very good as well. If you start to go to other domains, you will reduce the likelihood that your customers will be able to remember your domain name.
• Don’t use hyphens. People don’t expect hyphens in domain names. If your customers try to enter your domain name and don’t put in the hyphens they will end up on someone else’s site.
• A shorter name is better. It’s easier to remember and it makes email addresses based on your domain much shorter. Imagine trying to fit “your.name@thisisanincrediblylongdomain.com” on a business card.
• You domain name should include your business name or a portion of it. I’ve seen people use domains that describe what they do instead of their business name and they can be hard to remember.
• Don’t skip letters or vowels. Flickr may have been able to establish a huge brand while missing an “e” but it doesn’t mean that you are going to.

You might think that your domain name isn’t all that important because people will just use Google to find your business. Remember that when people search for your business, the search results will likely display the websites of your competitors as well. Would you rather have customers go to your site directly because it has a memorable domain, or do you want them to look through Google search results, and hope that they don’t get distracted by another listing?