Read Part 1: What's in a Domain Name: How Your Domain Name 
Can Ensure Your Online Success

The right domain name can solidify your business identity, permanently imbed it in user's psyche and garner more attention than a 30-second spot in the Super Bowl. For better branding results, your domain name should be memorable and easy to remember. 
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Here are six guides on how to choose an effective domain name:

1. It should be short. When it comes to domain names, the rule is: the shorter, the better. Since users will have to type into the keyboard the domain name, it should be both short and easy to spell. Long generic names, in particular, can be confusing and hard to remember. The consulting firm PriceWaterHouse's ebusinessisbusiness.com is both complicated and long. Thus, it is not hard to imagine that the 65-character domain names never catched on. Who could remember (much less have the patience to type correctly) names such as learnthemarketingsecretsintheworld.com? Long names are simply too cumbersome for the Internet.

2. It should be simple. To increase recall, a domain name should be simple. Simple domain names are those that use few letters in the alphabets and arrange them in an easy to use way. While a domain name may be short, it does not necessarily mean that it is simple. Some also combine numbers with letters, resulting in hard-to-remember domain names such as Click2Asia.com and Opus360.com. Combining names and numbers makes it much more difficult to recall and these domain names usually make poor brand names.

3. It should be suggestive of the category. Some successful online businesses use domain name that use the best of both worlds: it is a proper name, but stops short of being generic. AOL or America Online is suggestive of its category - which is the Internet. CNET is short for computer network. PowerHomeBiz.com is play of the home business category.

4. It should be unique. Your domain name should be unique to be memorable. Examples of unique names are the search portals Altavista and Lycos. The name AskJeeves.com, manages to suggest the function of its site, while being memorable. Another example is the MySimon.com, a price comparison site. Common or generic names are not unique, and thus can hardly be memorable.

5. It should be easy to say. Similar to the offline world, word of mouth is a potent communication medium. Qbiquity.com, a relationship marketing application software provider, may be a short name but it is by no means simple and definitely not easy to say. Try pronouncing that name and remembering the spelling!

6. It should be personalized. If the situation allows it, you can name your site after an individual, maybe even you. Using a personal name for a domain assures that you will be using proper name and enhances the publicity potential of your site. DrKoop.com, for example, capitalized on the good name of the former U.S. Surgeon General. Dell.com is named after their founder Michael Dell's name. Even personal coach Lynn Berger uses her name for her lynnberger.com site.