How to choose a domain name for your business
Choose a domain name that is short, easy to say out loud, and ends in .co.uk or .uk if you trade in the UK. Your business name is the first choice; if it is taken or hard to spell, use your trade and your town.
Start with how it sounds on the phone
The best test is not how it looks, it is how it survives being spoken. Read it to someone and ask them to type it. If you have to spell a word twice, that domain will cost you enquiries for years.
Aim for:
- Short. Two or three words at most.
- Plain. No dashes, no numbers, no doubled letters where a typo is likely.
- Sayable. If it needs a sentence to explain, it is too clever.
Use your business name if you can
If you trade as "Baxter Plumbing", try to get baxterplumbing.co.uk. It matches your van, your invoices, and the name customers already know. Consistency helps people find you and helps search engines connect the pieces.
If the exact match is gone, do not panic and do not settle for baxterplumbing-uk-2026.co.uk. Try:
- A natural shorter form:
baxterplumbing.uk. - Your town plus your trade:
stroudplumber.co.uk. - Your trade plus your town:
plumberinstroud.co.uk.
Why .co.uk still works in the UK
For a UK trade or local business, .co.uk is the ending customers expect and trust. .uk is a fine second choice. .com is for businesses that trade internationally; it is not wrong, but it is not an advantage when all your customers are local.
Avoid endings that look like a bargain: .xyz, .biz, and similar can read as spam and get filtered by some email systems. The small saving is not worth it.
Do not put keywords in the wrong place
A domain like cheap-emergency-plumber-stroud.co.uk looks like a directory, not a business. Search engines read your page content for keywords, not only your address. Use your name and put the keywords on the page.
The email address matters as much as the website
Whichever domain you choose, you can have email forwarding on it. That gives you you@yourbusiness.co.uk instead of a free mailbox. For a sole trader this is one of the biggest trust gains per pound — a customer is far more likely to reply to a business address than to you1987@.... More on that in business email on your own domain.
Before you buy
- Say the name out loud to two people and have them type it.
- Check the social handles you want are free, or close enough.
- Check you are not one letter away from a large existing brand.
- Register it yourself so you own it, even if someone builds the site.
When Sorted Online sets you up, choosing the domain is part of sign-up: you pick the name, we register it and connect it, and email forwarding is included. It is £15 a month by UK Direct Debit with nothing to pay at sign-up.