When choosing your domain name, there are several things you need to consider. The most important thing, one you cannot get around, is whether your choice is free or already taken.
Which TLD (Top Level Domain)
Are you an international company, or do you operate in more than 1 country, then the best TLD is most likely .com. If you operate in 1 country only, and have no plans for going internationally, then the TLD for your country gives your customers more information (they immediately know they are dealing with a local company). Nothing stops you from registering both the .com and the country domain.
Keywords into your domain
When you have considered the TLD, your next step is to find the domain itself. 1 very important consideration to make is how your potential visitors are supposed to find your site...
In general, most web-surfers either type yourname.com directly into their browser (the group that knows what company they are looking for) or they go and search for your site on the different search engines available.
The first group will only be relevant if you have a well known company, with a strong brand. Your domain name should definitely be exactly the same as your company name (or brand). Most companies are not yet in such a position, and rely on the second group of visitors to get to there site. In this case, the keywords a user will search with should be in your domain name. If your company is called "toolittle", and you are selling toys for children, then a possible domain name would be "toolittle.com". But remember that your potential customers won't be searching with the keyword "toolittle", but rather "children toys". A better domain name could then be "children-toys.com". The more your keywords are into your domain name (and the content in of your site), the better your rankings will be for those keywords when people search them.
The hyphen (-)
It's clear you need keywords in your domain name, but remember that any search engine is nothing more than a machine. A domain name like "childrentoys.com" looks interesting at first, but to the search engine, this domain name exists of 1 keyword: "childrentoys" and not 2: "children" and "toys". To make a distinction between the 2 words, it is sometimes common to use the hyphen (-) like this: "children-toys.com". However, when people have to remember the domain name (for mouth to mouth advertising, etc), domains without a hyphen are easier to remember. A solution to this is to use "children-toys.com" when registring with the search engines, and for online advertising, but also buy "childrentoys.com" for those persons who will not type the hyphen. When you take these small tips into consideration, you are sure to find an excellent domain name for your site. And remember, for the small price of a domain name, nothing stops your from registering multiple variants for the same site.
