Domain names are how people find your nonprofit on the internet. Determining your domain name is a very important decision. You domain name should be something easy and memorable. Something like www.chicagocatshelter.org is easy to remember and instantly communicates where you are and what you do. Good domain names all have a few things in common: Short Nonprofit Domain Names As a rule of thumb a good charity domain name should not be more than 30 characters. A domain name like www.chicagocatshelter.org is a perfect size. As always, the shorter the nonprofit domain name the easier it is to remember.
Describe Your Charitable Organization A perfect domain name should describe what it is you do and where you do it. Here are a few examples of domain names that do just that (fake nonprofits):
www.utahbirds.org www.savejonesbay.net www.floridamanateerescue.org www.helptallmanpark.net
501c3 Domain Name Extension The .org domain name extension is used primarily for nonprofits, .net is also an acceptable extension. The .com extension is used primarily by for-profit organization but can be used in the case when the .org or .net extension is unavailable. There are no legal laws that say you have to use a certain extension for your nonprofit website.
Easy To Remember When trying to make your charity domain name easy to remember think about the person seeing it on a billboard while they are driving 60 miles per hour, you only have a couple of seconds so make it count. Also, when people are talking about your charity your domain name should not need explanation or to be repeated on the phone.
Here is a test. Which domain name is easier to remember?:
www.tampacares.org OR www.100best-free-web-space.com/FL-Users/TampaNonprofit%09.html
The answer is easy, www.tampacares.org is a lot easier to remember and communicate with people. As an example, one of the easiest nonprofit domain names to remember is www.one.org.
Make Sure Your Charity Domain Name Is Available No matter how good the domain name is, if someone else owns it - you can’t use it. To find out if the domain name you want is available, you can visit www.godaddy.com and type your desired domain name in the search box and hit the “GO!” button. This will query the domain name and let you know if it is available or not. You can also buy your nonprofit domain name at GoDaddy.
BONUS TIP: If you have brainstormed a lot of domain names and want to see which ones are available – you can use the “Bulk Register” feature in GoDaddy to query them all at the same time. You can query up to 500 domain name choices at once!
Bad to Good 501c3 Domain Names Below are a few fake charity domain names with better domain name alternatives. Use this to evaluate your (good and bad) charity domain name choices:
www.protectthetexasblackspottedhawk.org Much too long. People will have a hard time remembering all of that. Here is a better alternative: www.texashawkprotection.org\
www.blackmanateesaredying.org You should stay away from having negative words in your domain name - such as dying, death, murder, toxic, etc… give it a positive spin instead: www.perfectmanatees.org
www.donatetothesickchildren.net Try not to beg for funds in your domain name. It might also help if the location of these sick children were in the domain name. The word “sick” could mean different things to different people. “Sick” could mean “brain cancer” to some people or it could mean runny nose” to other. Use something like this instead: www.helpbostonsfuture.org
Your Charity Website Now that you have a great domain name that is memorable you’ll need to create a nonprofit website for it. Your website should educate the general public about who you are and what you do. Your website should also be able to accept Donations to your charity, process online ticket sales to your charitable events and allow people to join/renew your Membership.
Ian Anderson is co-founder of Intersection360. Ian specializes in hosted application architecture and GUI design. Intersection360 offers a wide range of non-branded web applications for the small business/non-profit markets. Some of Intersection360 products include: CharityHelper360 - secure forms processing for non-profits (Get a 7 DAY FREE TRIAL - limited time offer), WebEdit360 - an online website editor and more.
Learn more about how you can sell Intersection360 products as your own with the Intersection360 Partner Program at http://www.intersection360.com/partners/index.htm.
