How to choose a domain name for a contracting business

Start with your real business name

The simplest domain is your business name plus .com. When someone hears your name from a neighbor, the name they heard is the first thing they're likely to try. A domain that matches your trucks, your invoices and your Google Business Profile also makes it clear they all belong to the same company.

If the name is taken

Common names are often gone. Reasonable ways to adjust:

• Add your trade: yournameconcrete instead of yourname
• Add your town, region or state abbreviation, if you plan to stay there
• Add a short word like "co" or "crew"

Before you settle, look at who uses the similar name. If another contractor nearby has nearly the same one, pick something clearly different. Looking too much like a competitor confuses customers and can lead to trademark trouble. If you're unsure, ask a lawyer.

The phone test

Say the domain out loud to someone and ask them to type it. If they get it wrong, customers can too. Things that tend to fail:

• Hyphens, which you have to say out loud as "dash" every time
• Numbers that could be digits or words (4 or four)
• Words with more than one spelling, or made-up spellings like "kwality"
• Doubled letters where two words meet, as in "glassservice"
• Names too long to fit on a truck door

Which ending?

.com is the ending people tend to assume, so it's the safe default. If the .com is taken, endings like .co, .net or a trade ending such as .construction work fine technically. The risk is that someone types .com out of habit and lands somewhere else, so look at what sits at the .com version first.

Keywords and towns in the domain

A domain stuffed with keywords, like best-roofer-plus-your-city, won't by itself put you at the top of Google, and it reads like an ad instead of a business. One trade word or one town is fine if it's part of how you describe yourself. And don't rename your business on Google to match a keyword domain. Your profile name should be your real name.

Register it yourself

This matters more than the name. Register the domain in an account you own, with your own email and payment method. It's usually a small yearly fee. If a web designer or a former employee registered it under their account, it can be hard to get back if you part ways. A designer can still do the setup: you give them access, and you keep the keys. More in owning your domain and website.

• Turn on auto-renew and keep the card on file current
• Use an email you'll still have in ten years
• Turn on two-step login for the account
• Write down where it's registered and keep the note with your business papers

Use it for email too

Once you own the domain, you can set up email on it, such as "office" at your domain. It stays with the business when staff change.

Don't overthink it

A plain, slightly long domain that matches your name is easier to live with than a clever one nobody can spell. If you're hiring someone to build it, ask who will own the domain before you pay. With our contractor websites, the written terms you accept before paying spell that out.