To choose a good domain name, pick something short, easy to remember and to say out loud, close to your brand, with a clear extension like .ch, .fr or .com depending on your market. Avoid awkward hyphens, likely spelling traps and overly long names, check that it's free, and expect to pay around 10 to 20 francs a year to register it. It's a decision you make once and keep for years, so it's worth getting right the first time.
In this guide I'll explain how to choose a domain name that works for you instead of holding you back, which extension to pick, where to buy it, how to check it's available and which mistakes cost you dearly. It's written for independents and small businesses launching or rebuilding their site who want to start on solid ground.
What is a domain name?
A domain name is your site's address on the internet, what people type into their browser to find you, like yourcompany.ch. It's the online equivalent of your postal address, except it follows you everywhere and it carries your image.
Technically, the domain name points to where your site is stored, your hosting, but what matters is simpler than that. It's your online identity, the address you'll put on your business cards, your emails, your social profiles and your flyers. A good domain name sticks without effort and gets passed on without mistakes when someone recommends you out loud. A bad one, on the other hand, gets lost the moment you try to dictate it over the phone. That's why this choice deserves a few minutes of thought: it'll stay with you for as long as your business does.
How do you choose a good domain name?
A good domain name is short, simple, easy to say and to write, and it fits your brand. The better it passes the phone test, meaning you can dictate it without having to spell it out, the better it is.
A few simple rules save you regrets. Aim for brevity: a short name is easier to remember and leaves less room for typos. Avoid hyphens, numbers and plays on words that don't come across out loud, because they sow confusion the moment the name is spoken. Test it out loud, in fact: say it to three people and ask them to write it down. If they manage without hesitating, you're onto a winner. Also check it doesn't look dangerously close to a competitor's and carries no awkward double meaning. Finally, think ahead: choose a name broad enough to follow your business if it evolves, rather than one glued to a single product you might drop one day.
Which extension should you choose: .ch, .fr or .com?
Choose the extension that matches your market: .ch if you mainly target Switzerland, .fr for France, and .com if you have international ambitions or want the most universal image. The extension is part of your address, and it sends a signal about who you are.
For a local business, your country's extension reassures and even slightly helps local ranking: a .ch for an activity in Switzerland feels natural and close. The .com remains the best-known extension in the world, seen as serious and universal, and it's often people's first instinct when they type an address from memory. Many businesses take both, their national extension and the .com, so a competitor can't settle on the other. Be wary of the cheap, trendy exotic extensions like .xyz or .online, which inspire less trust and are easily forgotten. When in doubt, stay classic: a well-known extension beats an original one nobody remembers.
Should your domain name be in French or in English?
Choose your domain name's language based on your customers: French if you target a local French-speaking audience, English if you're talking to an international market or a sector where English dominates. What matters is that the name speaks to the people you want to reach.
For a local business in French-speaking Switzerland or France, a French name is understood right away and feels close. An English name can sound more international, but it risks being misunderstood or misspelled by customers who aren't fluent, which is exactly what you want to avoid in an address. The right instinct is to start from your customer, not your personal taste: if they search in French, speak to them in French. If your business is mixed, a neutral brand name that works in both languages is often the best way out, because it spares you the choice and ages well whatever the market. Avoid mixing the two languages in a single name, which almost always gives an awkward, hard-to-remember result. And remember that a domain name doesn't need to be translated like your site's content: one clear address is enough, even if your site then exists in several languages.
Should you put a keyword in your domain name?
Putting a keyword in your domain name can help a little, but it's no longer the magic factor it was long believed to be, and a strong brand name almost always wins. Google has greatly reduced the weight of keywords in the address itself.
A few years ago, the advice was to cram your activity into the address, like plumber-geneva.ch, to climb on Google. Today that kind of name often looks generic and forgettable, and the ranking gain has become minimal. A distinctive brand name, by contrast, sets you apart, sticks in the mind and is far easier to protect. If you can naturally combine both, for example a brand name that hints at your trade, all the better, but never sacrifice the strength of your brand to force in a keyword. Ranking is won in the content of your pages, not in your address. So choose first a name you'll be proud of in ten years, and let the ranking work happen where it actually counts.
Brand name or descriptive name?
Favour your brand name as soon as you have one, because it's what makes you unique and recognisable, and keep the purely descriptive name for cases where you don't yet have a strong brand. Both approaches have merit, but they don't aim at the same goal.
A brand name is a proper name that belongs only to you, like your company name. It can be protected, it's memorable, and it grows with your reputation: the more you're known, the more value it holds. A descriptive name, which describes what you do, has the advantage of being clear right away, but it blends in with your competitors' and locks you into a single activity. For most businesses that want to last, the brand name is the better choice, because it becomes an asset over the years. The descriptive name can do the job for a tightly focused project or a secondary site, but as the main address of an ambitious business, it ages fast and narrows your room to manoeuvre.
Where do you buy a domain name and how much does it cost?
You buy your domain name from a registrar, often the same provider as your hosting, and it generally costs 10 to 20 francs a year for the common extensions. It's a tiny budget you should never try to dodge.
A domain name isn't bought once and for all, it's rented year after year: as long as you renew, it's yours. Settle the risk of forgetting to renew once and for all by turning on automatic renewal, because an expired domain can be snapped up by someone else, sometimes to sell it back to you at a high price. Be wary of one-franc first-year deals that then renew at a steep rate, and keep an eye on the real cost over several years. Handy too: taking your domain and hosting in the same place simplifies management, though it isn't required. And above all, keep the access to your domain account safe, because you're the one who must stay the owner, never a passing provider.
Should you have a domain name for your professional email?
Yes, your domain name lets you have a professional email address in your own name, rather than a free gmail or hotmail address that instantly looks less serious. It's one of the perks people often forget when registering a domain, yet one of the most useful day to day.
The difference comes down to trust. When a customer gets a message from an address on your own domain, they see an established, polished business. When they get a quote from a free personal address, doubt creeps in, even unconsciously, and that can be enough to make them hesitate. An address on your domain also reinforces your image with every email you send, like a small brand signature repeated hundreds of times a month. Technically, email is set up with your host or through a professional mail service, and it costs little. The ideal is to create at least one general contact address and one in your own name, and to use the first one consistently on your site and your documents. Setting it up once and pointing it at your existing inbox means you barely change your habits, you just send and receive from a name that finally matches your business. If you're still running things from a free address, it's one of the fastest and most profitable changes you can make to look more professional.
How do you check if a domain name is available?
You check a domain name's availability by typing it into a registrar's search tool, which tells you immediately whether it's free and suggests alternatives if not. Do it early, before you get attached to a name.
Most good simple names are already taken, which is normal, so prepare several ideas before you search. If your first choice is occupied, you've got options: try another extension, add a short relevant word, or tweak the name slightly. Before deciding, check two things in parallel that matter as much as domain availability: that the name is free as a trademark in your sector, and that the matching social media handles are available, to keep a consistent image everywhere. Never register a name in a rush without these checks, because finding out later that a competitor already owns the name is a costly surprise to fix.
Should you register your domain name before you have the site?
Yes, register your domain name as soon as you've found it, even if your site isn't ready yet, because good names go fast and securing it early costs next to nothing. Waiting means risking someone else taking the name in the meantime.
A domain name takes a few minutes and a few francs a year to register, while a site takes weeks to build. So there's no reason to wait until the site is finished: as soon as you've settled on the name and checked it's free, take it. While you wait for launch, you can put up a simple coming-soon page that announces your arrival and even collects a few early contacts. Use the moment to grab the matching social media handles too, so you keep the same identity everywhere. One last tip: avoid publicly announcing the name you're after before you've registered it, because opportunists sometimes register a name they've spotted just to sell it back to you. The rule is simple: secure first, communicate second. Think of the yearly fee as cheap insurance, a handful of francs to make sure the name you've built your plans around is actually yours when launch day comes.
Should you protect your name with several extensions?
Protecting your name with a few key extensions is a good idea as soon as your brand has value, but there's no need to buy up the entire planet of extensions. The goal is to stop a competitor or an opportunist from settling on an address close to yours.
In practice, many businesses register their name on the two or three most relevant extensions for them, for example their .ch and their .com, and redirect the others to their main site. That stops a visitor who picks the wrong extension from landing on an empty page or, worse, on a competitor. There's no point, on the other hand, collecting dozens of obscure extensions out of fear: the cost climbs fast and the real risk stays low for most small businesses. Keep it simple: secure your country's extension, the .com if your name deserves it, and maybe an obvious variant of your name people might type by mistake. Beyond that, you're mostly spending to reassure yourself.
What mistakes should you avoid when choosing a domain name?
The worst mistake is choosing a name in a rush, without testing it out loud or checking it's free as a trademark, and having to change it a year later. A few classic traps cost you dearly and for a long time.
Choosing a name that's too long or littered with hyphens makes it painful to dictate and easy to misspell. Tying your name to a single town or product locks you in the day you grow or move. Failing to check the trademark exposes you to an unpleasant legal clash. Leaving the domain in your provider's name instead of yours makes you dependent on them, and taking back control becomes a headache. Forgetting automatic renewal can lose you your address overnight. And changing your domain name once the site is launched loses part of the ranking you've earned and confuses your customers. The good news is that a little thought up front is enough to avoid all of it, and that time pays for itself quickly.
Where to start to choose your domain name
Choosing your domain name is a small move with big consequences: it's the address that'll carry your image for years, so it's worth a few minutes to get right. A name that's short, clear, true to your brand, with an extension suited to your market, checked free as a domain and as a trademark, and set to renew automatically: that's the recipe for a healthy base.
The best starting point is to jot down three or four name ideas, say them out loud to the people around you, then check their availability before deciding. If you're launching or rebuilding your site and want to start on solid ground, from the domain name to the site itself, let's talk about your project and build something that looks like you.
