The shorter and more descriptive your domain name the better. Something like www.whattoseeanddoinlincolnshire.co.uk may adequately describe the nature of your business, but people typing it into their web browsers are more likely to get it wrong and be misdirected.

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Ensure the domain name you are considering isn't similar to that of an existing company. Registering www.allaboutus.com when there is already a site called www.allaboutu.com could mean your visitors inadvertently navigating to the wrong site. Check all similar domain names first (see point 10).

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Imagine giving your web address to somebody over the phone. If it's just too hard to describe it's probably worth considering a simplification. For example, www.linx-2us.co.uk - "www dot linx with an x...no, L..I..N..X, then a hyphen, followed by the number 2, then us, without a space, dot co dot uk".

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Try to incorporate a popular keyword into your domain name, even if it's not a part of your company name. For example, Smith's Flooring may choose www.smithsflooring.co.uk, where www.carpets4less.co.uk may be more effective. Having a keyword in the domain name can result in better placings in search engine results. Try to imagine what words people searching for your product are most likely to use.

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Be careful when using numbers instead of words, as in www.phones4free.com. They can be catchy, memorable and very effective, but you don't want your customers accidentally visiting www.phonesforfree.com, your rival!

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Hyphens in a domain name may make the address clearer (www.local-events-search.co.uk) but again, may confuse matters when visitors come to type it in. It's much easier to tell someone "www.localeventssearch.co.uk, all one word" than the equivalent hyphenated explanation.

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There are many different suffixes available nowadays (.com, .co.uk, .biz, .info etc) though it is generally better to stick to .com and .co.uk where available. If visitors can only remember the first part of your domain name, they're likely to assume it's either .com or .co.uk. If it's not, and someone else has either of these suffixes, they'll be intercepting your customers.

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If you want to really cover your bases, register more than one domain name and link them together to all point to your homepage. This is especially useful when you want a descriptive name (www.discountcars.co.uk) as well as your company name (www.bobsautos.co.uk), or when you want to use more than one suffix (www.bobsautos.com).

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Always ensure that you either register the name yourself, or your webmaster registers it in your name. This allows you to keep control over it should you decide to use another designer, avoiding any costly name changes and re-branding.

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Use a domain name checker (such as Instant Domain Search) to see whether the name you are looking for is available, or if there are competitors with similar names which you need to avoid.