1. Know your target audience / visitors and how they might relate to your website. Choose domain names that you think clearly and succinctly express your company (this will also depend on the impression you are trying to convey about your website and your company). Think about how you might search for your website and see how companies in a similar line are using their domain names.

2. Keep domain names short and simple and you'll make them memorable. Remember that people may misspell your domain if it's too long and complicated but that by registering different combination of domains with various spellings you may catch wayward visitors trying an otherwise incorrect spelling of your domain. If your domain contains more than one word think about adding '-' between the words to make the separation more obvious - it's easier for visitors to remember a domain if they can recognise the individual words which make up the domain. Acronyms are generally not a good idea - particularly if they are complex like xwprn.com (would you remember that as a domain name?).

3. Try and make your domain name as close to your company name as is possible if your company name is already well established outside the Internet. Many visitors may try to guess your domain name based on your company name (e.g. www.yourcompanyname.com), and by increasing the possibily of they finding it without having to resort to search engines, you can increase your traffic.

4. Try and register names with different extensions (e.g. .com and .co.uk). Particularly if you are aiming at a regional audience as well as a global one. If you are a UK based company then a .co.uk domain will give your UK based audience the confidence that they are dealing with a company 'close' to them as well as ensuring International audiences are aware of the fact that you are a UK based company, while a .com will ensure that you will attract casual visitors as much as provide your site with an International profile. Remember also that if you don't register a particualr version of a domain, there is the possibility that someone else will, and people may mistakenly visit their domain rather than yours.

5. Use words in your domains which can be visualised. You want someone to remember your domains above all others and words like red, hot, etc... can prove to be more memorable than simpler names but there is the danger of over-doing it and names like easythis.com and easythat.com can become tedious - adding to a negative reflection of your site from the first visit.

6. Be focused with your domains. You are trying to attract people to your site with a particular purpose and your domain names should clearly reflect this. People will be visiting your site in the hope that it will offer something different over others in a similar vein and your domain names should encapsulate the essence of what your site is all about.

7. It's commonly perceived that you should stay away from using words that are spelt differently globally. For example rationalize.com (USA) and rationalise.com (UK) or color.com (USA) and colour.com (UK). However by combining domain names of various spellings you may actually improve your chances of catching visitors who may try different domain spellings in their browser as well as improve your chances of higher ranking in regional search engines.

8. The right domain names will help improve the profile of your brand and ensure you strengthen it on the Web. The wrong domain names can cause the reverse to happen. As you will probably be using your domain names for email as well as other marketing you will need to ensure that they are both memorable and enduring. Like any brand name, logo, or trademark, your domain name represents your business identity the World over!

9. Don't get caught out by using domain names that infringe copyrights, trade-marks, or names of existing trading companies. It is very tempting to use words or names of companies similar to your business but this could land you in hot water legally and give your identity a negative focus of attention if it is perceived that you are simply piggy-backing off someone else's success.

10. Registering a long domain name containing a list of relevant words for your web site may achieve a higher ranking in some search engines. Several of the major search engines rank web sites much higher if the search terms are contained in the domain name. This is a useful trick which is becoming increasingly popular as a way of optimising indexing within a broad range of search engines.