You dictate a domain name over the phone, people copy it off a van, and it prints on a quote. These three uses say everything about what it should be. This is the fourth of the five decisions listed in create a website for your business, and the only one that is not easily undone.
The five rules that matter
Short. Under twenty characters if possible. Every extra syllable is an opportunity to deceive.
Pronounceable. Take the test: dictate it to someone over the phone, without spelling. If it is necessary specify “with a hyphen” or “two Ls”, change the name.
Close to your sign. The visitor who saw you pass will look for the name written on your sign. vehicle, not a slogan.
Without hyphens or numbers. Written, they slip the mind; spoken, they vanish.
boulangerie-du-parc becomes boulangerieduparc in half of the attempts.
Royalty free. Check that there are no registered trademarks bearing this name in your sector. A Dispute always arises after you have printed the cards.
Choose your extension
The extension is not a formal detail: it implicitly indicates who you are addressing.
| Expansion | For whom | Note |
|---|---|---|
.be, .fr, .ch |
Customers from a specific country | Reassures locally, often still available |
.com |
International or online activity | Recognized everywhere, often already taken |
.eu |
Cross-border activity | Useful as a fallback when the national is taken |
.shop, .studio |
Recent brands and projects | Reserved for young or tech-savvy audiences |
To decide according to your market rather than according to habit, consult the detailed comparison between .be, .fr and .com.
If someone already holds your ideal name in .com, no disaster: a local business loses little to
take the extension of his country. However, avoid falling back on a variant close to a known
competitor, you would send them your own customers. The sheet domain name already taken: what to
do? ranks the alternatives from the simplest to the most
expensive.
The five minute test
Before you decide, have three candidates go through these four tests:
- The telephone test. Dictate it to a loved one. If he scores it flawlessly, it’s a win.
- The search test. Type the name into an engine: if a known company occupies already the first page on this word, you will leave with a handicap, that the local referencing will put long time to catch up.
- The trademark test. Search for the name in your country's trademark registers.
- Future-proofing. Will the name hold up if you add a profession, a city, a range?
The name that passes all four is almost always the right one. There remains the fifth test, the only one which
or binary: is it still free? Type it in our
domain name checker, it queries the official registers of the
.be, .com, .fr and other extensions at once.
A “free” result, however, excludes neither an earlier trademark nor a homonymous company. Follow the controls on the sheet how to know if a domain is available before saving it.
What not to do
- Reserve ten variants “to protect yourself”. They cost each year and are not used never. Two are enough: the main one and the extension of the neighboring country if you work there.
- Letting a service provider register the domain in their name. This is the biggest mishap frequent and the most expensive. The name must appear in yours.
- Forget the deadline. An unrenewed domain becomes available, and automatic buyers take it are lying in wait. Enable auto-renewal.
You cannot always win back a lost domain. It is the only building block of your online presence that we cannot reconstruct identically.
Plug it into your site
The technical part comes down to two DNS records to add to the domain host: a record that points the address to the server, and a record of verification which proves that the domain is indeed yours.
The usual procedure is as follows:
- You add your domain to your site dashboard.
- We display the exact two lines to copy to your host.
- You paste them, then click Verify.
- The HTTPS certificate installs itself, and your site responds to your address.
During propagation, which takes from a few minutes to a few hours, your site remains accessible at its temporary address. No cuts, no broken links.
And the email address?
The domain also serves as the basis for contact@votreentreprise.be. It's the same name, so nothing to
buy back, and this is what makes a quote sent from your company look like a quote
business. See the professional email address] page for details.
With us, every paid plan includes the domain name, free for the first year. The free
formula publishes a real site on an address in .wobelio.com: from what to start
today and plug in your name when you choose it.
Once you settle the address, only the site itself remains: the essential pages of a showcase site says which ones, and in what order.
Frequently asked questions
Should you use a .com, a .be or a .fr?
Take the extension of the country where your customers are: .be if you work in Belgium, .fr in France. She reassures local customers and often remains available. The .com makes sense if you target several countries, and it is prudent to reserve both when the budget allows it.
Can I put the name of my profession and my city in the domain?
You can, and it is sometimes readable, but the effect on SEO is negligible today. The risk is to lock you out: plumbing-namur.be becomes annoying the day you open a second agency elsewhere.
Do I own my domain name?
Yes, as long as it carries your name and not that of a service provider. Check this point before entrusting the registration to someone: a domain registered in the name of an agency is a dependency whose cost you only measure the cost on the day you want to leave.
How long until my domain works?
Allow a few minutes to a few hours after adding the requested DNS records. During this period, your site remains accessible at its old address: there is no interruption.
