I guess the most practical and obvious choice when deciding on a name for your church’s website or blog would be to buy a domain name that is the same as your church’s name.
But…
What do you do if you go to register the domain name, and you find that someone else is already using it?
You could…
- Wait for the name to expire and pray that the domain name doesn’t get updated or renewed.
- Contact the owner of the domain and ask them if they want to sell it.
- Or you could just get a different domain name.
I am going to assume…
You cannot get the domain name that you initially wanted and now you have to come up with a new domain name for your website or blog,
I want to share with you the process I went through when deciding on a domain name for GlobalEvangelists.com.
Take from this what you can and apply it to your situation when coming up with a domain name for yourself.
But before I get started…
I just want to point out that choosing the name of your Church’s website or blog is something that will require a bit of planning and serious consideration on your part, You want a domain name that you will be happy with for the long term.
I know how difficult it can be to come up with good ideas on what you should call your site.
and I must confess, that I have been known to fall prey to rash decisions, quickly rushing in and buying a domain name because I thought It was a great idea and then after stopping and thinking about my overall strategy for the website, realized that I may have acted a bit hastily
My advice is…
Take your time when deciding on the domain name for your church website, it is a very important decision that you will have to live with for the life of your website and if your in it for the long haul, that could be a very long time.
Choosing the right domain name can be a real stumbling block when your getting started with a new website.
The way I like to go about choosing a domain name these days is, I like to take some time and think about what the overall theme and concept of the website will be.
I turn the computer off and write out all the ideas I have for my site,(Habakkuk 2:2.3) I try to create a visual image in my mind and on paper and then actually verbalize what it is that my site is going to be about.
What do you actually want your site to accomplish.
For example; my goal or vision for this site is, I want Global Evangelists.com to be the go to site for churches globally to refer to for advice when setting up their online ministries.
I want to create the best resource online for Churches, Christians or anyone else for that matter, who is open to the gospel, I want to use my talents and help Church’s build their ministries online.
The internet is about leverage…
The thing I love about the web is you may say something online once, but it gets read thousands of times over, lives can be changed and souls saved, all because someone started to build relationships with real people through the web.
So before I could choose a domain name I was happy with (and there were a few I were going to use) I had to verbalize and have a clear image of what it was exactly that I wanted this site to accomplish.
Initially some of the ideas I had for a domain name were revolved around building Christian websites and Church website advice, and how to build a church website and so on…
but…
my vision was so much bigger than just being about building a church website.
I wanted to tell the online Christian population that there is so much more to having a website than just putting a few pages up on the net, promoting your Church, or letting people know what time it is that you catch up on a Sunday.
Everyday on the web people are meeting new people.
Relationships are being formed, people are looking for answers and we as Christians need to understand this.
One of the last things Christ told us to do before he ascended into heaven was to go out into all the world, (Mark 16:15), we need to go to where the people are actually at, and for an ever growing population, that is the internet.
So after hours of brainstorming and refining my vision I started down the road of finding a suitable Domain name.
Then spending a few hours, no actually days, doing all of the usual keyword research and analysis, trying to find the perfect domain name using sites like nameboy.com and makewords.com I did what every Christian should do, I prayed about it and I went to the word.
After about one minute of going through the concordance of my trusty old work bible, I saw the word Evangelist, it practically jumped of the page, that’s when I realized that was the keyword I was looking for.
I then came back to the computer to find out what was available. and there it was www.globalevangelists.com Perfect.
If you want some tips on how to choose a keyword focused domain name I will have to share them with you in another article, but for now here are some tips to keep in mind when choosing your domain name…
- Try to keep your domain name as short as possible.
- Choose a domain name that is easy to remember and spell.
- Avoid using hyphens , it is generally considered that a domain name with hyphens is associated with keyword stuffing and spam.
- Don’t use numbers.
- Avoid using a number to replace a word for example don’t use 4 in the place of “for”.(unless you are movies4u)
- Use descriptive words that will say something about your ministry.
- Avoid the use of “churchy” jargon if you are specifically trying to reach the unsaved.(Acts 16:30)
- and above all else…
- Fall in love with your domain name.
As you can see, these are only a few suggestions for you to consider,
I would suggest you look at websites like makewords.com and nameboy.com to help get the creative juices flowing.
Another important tip that I would like to share with you, is to make sure you check out your new domain names history and if their are any copyright infringements in place. you can do that by choosing the Analise option at makewords.com
The last thing you would want to do is to set up your site and then find out that the domain name you purchased has been associated with Spam or Adult content!
