So, you are thinking about getting into the real estate business, right? You have a rough plan in mind, and now you want to create a real estate website. That’s great.

The first thing you need is to choose a relevant, and proper domain name for your real estate website. But how do you do that? How can you come up with such domain name ideas?

“If you choose the wrong domain name, then it can be a hassle to switch later without hurting your brand and search rankings.” (WPBeginners)

 

If you choose the wrong domain name, then it can be a hassle switch later on without hurting your brand and search rankings. (WPBeginner)Click To Tweet

 

That is what today’s post is all about. Below, you will find 10 proven tips to choose a fantastic domain name for your real estate business. By the time you finish going through these techniques, you will have several exciting domain name ideas.

So, are you ready to find those fantastic names? Let’s get started.

 

1. Choose a Short Domain Name

 

When it comes to the domain name length for your realtor website, shorter always works best.

Think about the websites you visit every day (hint: Google, Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, YouTube), and you will find out that each of these sites has only a few characters in the domain name. People can easily remember shorter domain names, and they are easy to type as well.

Ideally, you should try to limit the domain name within 6-14 characters.

However, most of the single word domain names are already gone, and the same thing could also be said to the two-word domain names.

That means you have to apply some tricks and go for a brandable name, which I will discuss next.

 

2. Select a Brandable Name

 

Your domain name needs to be unique and attractive so that it stands out in your visitors’ mind.

Besides, an original domain name will give you a competitive edge over other real estate agents.

In most cases, people are too obsessed with adding some phrases, keywords, or terms to their domain names. While that used to be effective in the past, it has lost the appeal due to overuse.

These days, you cannot expect to brand a generic domain name with keywords in it. Instead, you need to create new words as all the leading brands did.

TheBloggingBuddha.com is a perfect example of a branded domain. It’s short, unique, and catchy but also includes a word describing what the website is about “blogging”.

While you would do well with a brandable domain name, you also need to make sure that it is easy to pronounce. The next tip will show you how to do that.

 

3. Make it Easy to Pronounce

 

You might be thinking it is not that important for your domain name to be easy to pronounce. After all, people will just type the domain name, or click a link to get to your website, right? Not really.

Your domain name needs to be easily pronounceable to take advantage of the word of mouth promotions. The easier your domain name is to pronounce, the better chances you have that your visitors can easily share your website with their friends, colleagues, or others.

It can give a significant boost to your real estate business.

Some people suggest using a slightly misspelled domain name for the sake of keeping it short and memorable. I don’t think that will be a wise strategy because chances are higher that people will never be able to find your site because of the misspelled name.

They will end up visiting the site with the properly spelled-out domain, which might be one of your competitors.

 

4. Don’t Use Numbers or Hyphens

 

Since most of the good domain names are already claimed, it is really hard to find a suitable domain name that is short and memorable. That might tempt you to use a number and hyphen in your domain name. But that also is not a good strategy.

First of all, adding a hyphen to the domain name makes it harder to pronounce. Most people will forget the hyphen and end up visiting another site.

Adding a number also does the same thing. When people hear the name of your website for the first time, they will wonder whether the number is spelled out or written in the numeric form.

Along with being short, brandable, and easy to pronounce, it is also important to choose the right extension for your domain name. Read on to know how to do that.

 

5. Go for a .Com Domain Extension

 

Whenever we are talking about a domain name, most people will assume that it will have a .com extension.

This is the most recognizable domain name extension that is well-known to all of your potential customers.

What’s more, if they enter your domain name on the address bar of their browser and hit Ctrl+Enter, they will automatically be taken to the .com extension.

For all these reasons, you should always try to get a domain name with the .com extension.

In case the .com extension for your chosen domain is already taken, you can consider other common extensions like .co, .net, .biz, etc. What’s more, there are some cool new domain name extensions out there as well.

My next tip shows you how to experiment with these new extensions.

 

6. Experiment with New Domain Extensions

 

On some occasions, you might find it more useful to go for other domain name extensions.

For instance, if your target customers are located in a specific country, you can go for a local extension like .de (for Germany), .in(for India), .fr(for France), and so on.

Besides, there are lots of cool domain name extensions that can be great for your real estate business. You can try extensions like

  • .realestate
  • .realtor
  • .rent
  • .land
  • .builders
  • .apartments
  • .condos
  • .home
  • .house
  • .properties
  • .property
  • .villas
  • etc.

On the other hand, short domain extensions like .io, .it, .is, .fm, etc. allow you to be creative with the domain.

Such as www.WeSell.it as a listing site.

While trying out different domain name extensions, you should be careful about trademarks and copyright issues. Check out the next tip to know more about these.

 

7. Avoid Trademarks

 

You should avoid trademarked terms and phrases to avoid legal issues down the road.

You need to make sure that your chosen domain name is not confusable with any existing trademarks.  Read more about the difference between a corporate name, business name, domain name and trademarks here.

Knowem allows you to check out the USPTO trademark database for this purpose. If necessary, you can talk to a trademark attorney or legal professional for further clarification.

Besides, choosing a domain similar to any existing business will not be good for your branding anyway. New customers might become confused between the existing brand and your business.

Now that you know the importance of checking out the trademark issues, let’s not forget about the social media usernames as well. The next tip talks about that issue.

 

8. Check Out Social Media Availability

 

It is always great to have the same name as your domain name and the social media username.

That means you need to check out the availability before purchasing a domain name.

Luckily, you don’t have to do it manually. The same Knowem site can help you in this case as well.

This tool will help you to search 25 most common social media networks for your preferred username.

In some instances, you may find a proper domain name but couldn’t find the exact social media usernames. In that case, you can add a number or hyphen to your social media username. Unlike the domain name, people won’t actually type the usernames to visit your social profiles, which makes it a safe strategy.

9. Use Domain Name Generator Tools

 

Coming up with unique, relevant domain name ideas is not an easy task. Fortunately, there are some domain name generator tools to help you create lots of cool domain name ideas.

For example, Name Mesh enables you to search different types of domain names like common, new, short, extra, similar, fun, mix, SEO, and so on.

If you are looking for a brandable name idea, Panabee can suggest various ideas by merging vowels, dropping or swapping letters, mixing syllables, spelling backward, etc.

Some other popular domain name generator tools include:

  • Impossibility
  • Lean Domain Search
  • Wordoid
  • Domainr
  • Domains Bot

Most of these tools will show the domain name availability and various registrar options to buy your domain right away.

 

10. Check Out the Expired Domains

 

Expired domains are the domains that were registered by someone but weren’t renewed later.

You will find such domains in:

  • GoDaddy Auctions
  • ExpiredDomains.net
  • FreshDrop
  • DomCop

Who knows, maybe you will find a suitable domain name in one of these places.

However, before you go for an expired domain, there are some precautions.

First of all, you should check the domain in Archive.org to make sure that the site was not related to any spammy, offending, or illegal activities. Also make sure to check out the backlink profile, AdSense ban, or any manual penalties issued for the domain.

While there are some risks associated with expired domains, they can give your website a head-start regarding search engine ranking.

Since they used to be existing websites, search engines will not treat these as new sites and probably won’t sandbox them.

 

Final Words

 

Because your domain name will represent you, and your real estate business on the internet, it is crucial to choose a proper domain name.

Now that you have read this in-depth post, you know the best ways to find out such domain names.

So, how did these tips work for you? Let me know which tip worked the best for you. And if you use any other technique to find great domain name ideas, share those in the comments below.