Choosing a domain name can be really daunting nowadays as many of the valuable .com domains have already been snapped up. By valuable I mean domains that make sense or matter. For example, a company like Facebook would want a domain name that represents their brand and hence have the domain name facebook.com, and people like you and me who want a presence online, place value in domains that contain our names, something like johnsmith.com.
Naturally, when I began searching for a personal domain name 2 years ago, all the “Daniel Lim” related .com domains had already been snapped up and I eventually had to settle on the domain “thedaniellim.com”.
No Filler Words!
What I didn’t realise at that time was how much my subconscious mind hated that domain. Also, being new to the whole domain buying game, I had no idea that words like “the”, “a” and “by” added no value to a domain name. In fact, domains that contained these filler words were considered less valuable. Take for example, daniellim.com looks, sounds and feels much better than thedaniellim.com.
I hated that my previous domain contained the word “the”. As the “The” made it sound cheesy and also made me sound really narcissistic.
So when I recently started on round 2 of my personal domain name hunt, I made sure that I had a list of important traits I wanted my dream domain to have and not have.
Here are some traits that were in my wish list and dump list:
Wishlist
- Domain must contain some combination/permutation of my name
- Easily read
- As short as possible
- Easily typed
Dumplist
- NO filler words
- Must NOT be easily misread for something else
Keeping these rules in mind, I then spent a period of two weeks brainstorming for a possible domain name that could represent my presence on the Internet. It was only after two weeks of patient brainstorming, searching and seeking advice from professionals out there that I decided on this domain name, danl.im.
I’m really happy to say that I love my current personal domain name, danl.im. I love how it looks. I love how it accurately represents me. I love that it only has 6 letters. And I love how every letter of the domain has been put to good use because it doesn’t have a .com. My only concern is that it’s a little difficult to type on the keyboard, but I figured that the pros heavily outweighed the cons so I bought it anyway. The rest is history.
What are you waiting for?
I really encourage those of you out there who don’t yet have a personal domain name to search for and buy one for yourself. Registering a domain for a year nowadays costs less than two coffees at Starbucks. And the potential of that domain is almost limitless. You can use it to display your online resume, a personal blog, share your photography portfolio, etc. There are so many things you can do with a website these days.
If you’ve always been interested in getting a personal domain for yourself but needed some confirmation as to whether doing so was a good idea. I’m telling you now to wait no longer. Domains are being snapped up as we speak and for all you know, the domain that contains yourname.com might just have been registered by someone else.
Tools
Domain name availability checker: Domai.nr
Domain name combination generator: BustAName & Impossibility
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You can easily reach me on Twitter if you need any more advice.