Why is it important to reserve or register domain right now?
As soon as you have the idea of starting a company, you should reserve and register your domain name as soon as possible. If you wait a day or two, it can be too late. It can be reserved by someone else.
The reason behind this is that more and more businesses are founded each day. Each of them needs a domain name. If you wait too long, someone may register the name you want.
You want a domain name as close to your business as possible.
Domain name should be short, rememberable, your business name or closely related to niche. For example, we use fi domain called wordpresskotisivutyritykselle.fi as our site domain as it is as keyword in our niche. The only negative is that is is too long, which is why we may change it in the future to wpky.fi. But it took us couple of hours and checking over 20 different domains before we found one available.
As you can see often, the domain name you would like to get is reserved in the first place. You research and come up with the perfect alternative name, which you may or may not like, but decide to wait a day or two to think it through. Until you wait, this can be gone as well. It is a worst-case scenario, but it happens often.
So, to avoid someone else taking the perfect and available domain name and have completed the checks we will discuss here, register domain immediately.
You may also want to read our blog about how to purchase a domain and all other important things you need to know before and after it.
Steps to Domain Reservation and Registration
- Come up with a list of domain names
- Choose the right domain name
- Select a reliable domain registrar
- Check domain availability
- Check that it’s not protected by intellectual property
- Complete the registration process
Booking an FI domain:
The first thing that every Finnish company should do is register a fi domain, which can be done with Finnish domain brokers such as domainhotelli, zone or hostingpalvelu.
Even if you plan to sell internationally, it is always best to reserve your home country, Finnish domain. So, in case you ever want to use it or want to avoid anyone else using it.
.com domain reservation
Secondly, we advise reserving the .com domain for your business regardless whether you want to use it now or not.
In most cases .com domain is good when you want to sell internationally or in English countries. But, if you are not at the moment, in the future, you might want to. Worse would be to find out then that the .com domain name for your business is not available.
You can purchase .com domain from Finnish or foreign domain brokers with better pricing, such as:
It is always best to shop around to find most affordable pricing, but do not overlook the renewal prices, as these can be a lot more than the first year, especially with foreign companies. Not that much with Finnish companies.
Bear in mind that if you choose a foreign domain broker and mostly sell in Finland, it is best to have a hosting provider from Finland. Because the closer the hosting is to your visitors, the faster your website content is downloaded in their browsers. Of course, you could and should implement CDN regardless of where you deal business as it distributes the cached version of your content in servers around the world, making your site fast for everyone.
Common mistakes to avoid in domain reservation and registration
Mistake #1: Delaying the process of registration the domain
Perhaps you have found a perfect domain name and want to wait until you are 100% sure you want it. While it is not inadequate to digest the name certainty, the internet is full of competition, and thousands of domains are reserved daily. You do not want to lose your domain. But when you delay the process of registration of your domain, you increase the chance of someone else reserving it.
Mistake #2: Choosing branded domain name
Before you register your domain, you should check that it is not protected by intellectual property rights.
In Finland you can do that by going PRH trademark search at Tavaramerkkitietopalvelu. Enter the name and see if a brand has protection on it. You may also want to check International trademark search, especially when you sell internationally.
If you plan to sell internationally, have an international name, or just want to make sure there isn’t any restriction, you should also check other countries’ trademark databases to avoid the risk of being sued.