7 Tips to Choose the Right Domain Name
Selecting the perfect domain name for your therapy practice is a pivotal first step in establishing a compelling online presence. In this guide, we offer seven expert tips to navigate the complexities of domain selection, ensuring your choice not only embodies your practice’s ethos but also sets you apart in a crowded digital landscape.
Acknowledging the challenges—from the overwhelming options to the risk of choosing a name that fails to attract your ideal clients—we leverage our expertise in digital marketing and mental health to streamline this process for you.
Tailored for therapists, counselors, and mental health professionals, this guide aims to bridge the gap between your services and the needs of your clients, turning potential pitfalls into a unique opportunity to tell your practice’s story.
With our guidance, you’ll secure a domain name that not only avoids common mistakes but also positions your online presence as a beacon for those seeking your support, setting the stage for growth and meaningful client relationships.
Sidenote: Why is choosing the right domain name important?
When it comes to building a brand that connects with your ideal client, your domain name acts as a representation of your private practice website. It is the first impression potential clients have of your services, and it sets the tone for the therapeutic relationship you aim to cultivate. Therefore, it’s essential to choose a domain name that accurately reflects the essence of your practice and aligns with your target audience’s needs and expectations.
Additionally, a well-chosen domain name enables potential clients to find you easily in the vast virtual landscape of the internet. By incorporating relevant keywords or phrases into your domain name, you can optimize your website’s search engine visibility, making it easier for those seeking therapy services to come across your practice when conducting online searches. This increased visibility not only boosts your website’s traffic but also enhances the likelihood of attracting a steady stream of potential clients.
Here are our top 7 tips to ensure you choose the best domain name for your therapist website.
Tip #1: Use keywords
Without diving too far into the massive world that is SEO – search engine optimization – it’s still important to mention that using the right words in your domain name can significantly help both human searchers and Google’s bots better understand what your website is about before ever even visiting it.
The algorithm Google uses to determine your site’s ranking is undeniably complex, but including important keywords about your industry in your domain name is something that can exponentially help your chances of a good ranking.
Some good keywords to use in your private practice domain name might include:
- Psychology
- Psychotherapy
- Therapy or Therapist
- Counseling or Counselor
- Mental Wellness
- ‘Speech therapy’, ‘physical therapy’, or the other specific type of therapy you offer
If we perform a search for “boulder therapist,” you’ll see that 6 out of the 7 local listing results that show up have the word “therapist” or a synonym in their domain name. This highlights the significance of choosing a domain name that clearly communicates the nature of your therapy domain. By incorporating relevant keywords in your domain name, you can enhance your online presence and improve your visibility to potential clients.
It acts as a clear signal that your website is dedicated to offering therapy and counseling services. This can be particularly beneficial in a competitive market like Boulder, where there are numerous therapists vying for the attention of potential clients.
Web strategist Wes McDowell had this to say in his video on domain names, and as marketers ourselves we agree:
Despite some opinions suggesting otherwise, exact match domain names still offer a competitive edge. My recommendation is not to choose an exact match domain like BestPlumbersInOrlando.com but rather a partial match domain that incorporates your business name and your top keyword phrase, even if only partially.
For example, if your business is All Clear Plumbing, you might consider AllClearPlumbing.com or possibly ACPlumbingOrlando.com. Both options maintain your brand identity; it’s a matter of deciding how aggressively you want to pursue keyword integration. Having even one broad keyword, like “plumbing,” can aid your SEO efforts, not as powerfully as “plumbing Orlando,” but it will still position you better than having no keywords at all.
If you’re not sure what the best keywords are for your therapist website, check out this post: How to Do Keyword Research for Your Private Practice Website. Or if you want to learn more about search engine optimization, check out our SEO Checklist for Therapists.
Tip #2: Use your location
If you are a location-based therapy practice, consider adding your city or state to your domain to help clarify your service area.
Once again, this will also help improve your search engine ranking because Google knows where most of its searchers are geographically located – or at least where they’re connected to the Internet from. So when someone searches for a service in a city and then clicks on your link from their results page, that will only help further prove that your location-based domain was relevant to their query. It signals to Google that your location-based domain is relevant to their query. This can contribute to boosting your visibility in search results and attracting more potential clients.
For example, if we perform a search for “therapist” from our office that is located in Boulder, Google immediately looks at where we are initiating our online search from and show results that match both the term we searched for and our current location.
As you can see, all of the local listings that showed up for this query have the word “boulder” in their domain, which helps Google understand that these sites are good matches for people performing a search for “therapy” in this location.
Tip #3: Consider using your own name
If you are going into business as a solo practitioner, consider using your own name in your website’s domain. Probably the biggest advantage of doing this is that, unless your name is as common as John Brown, the domain is probably not already taken. Plus it also gives you a more personal connection to your practice and your potential clients.
Even if you don’t plan to open a solo practice, it’s still a good idea to consider registering your own name as a domain. Whether you’re planning to do anything with it immediately or not, it’s impossible to say there’s no chance of you becoming a household name in the future.
Who knows if you’ll end up as a public speaker, published writer, or influential blogger in your field. If that does happen, you’ll be very glad you already have the domain. Maybe now is a good time to learn about the do’s and do not’s of personal branding!
Tip #4: Make it memorable and easy to type
This is the exception to our last tip where using your own name in your domain may not be the best choice. The best domain names are ones that are easy to remember and that you can quickly tell someone without having to stop and spell it out in its entirety. So if you happen to have an uncommon name or one that’s spelled differently, it’s going to be more difficult to remember or spell.
Think of some of the most visited websites – Google, Bing, Facebook, Twitter, etc.
What do they all have in common? They’re all memorable and easy to type!
The last thing you want is for a potential client to mistype your domain name and be taken to a different website.
Pro Tip: Looking for an easy way to test your domain? Tell your potential domain name to 5 people and ask them to spell it for you. If more than a couple of people struggle to spell it correctly, it may need to be changed.
Tip #5: Keep it concise
In general, when it comes to the length of your domain, shorter is better. The shorter a name is, the easier it is for people to remember, say, and type into their web browser.
According to research from DataGenetics.com , the most common domain names are approximately 12 characters long.
So try to shoot for a domain name that is between 6-18 characters, and remember – the shorter, the better. So if you’re an occupational therapist, you may want to avoid a domain name containing the phrase ‘occupational therapy’. Occupationaltherapyhouston.com is a bit of a mouthful.
Tip #6: Avoid numbers & hyphens
Studies have shown that both the use of hyphens and numerical characters in a domain name can make it much more difficult for people to remember. Not only that, even if they can remember it, it’s still difficult to spell correctly.
Think about when Instagram first came out as a new social media platform. Imagine telling your friends about it if it included a hyphen in its domain name …
Have you seen this new photo-sharing site called Insta-Gram? By the way, there’s a hyphen in there between the ‘Insta’ and the ‘Gram’.
If that were the case, Instagram likely wouldn’t have spread nearly as far or as quickly as it did.
The same can be said of using numbers. Consider you’re asked for your website’s address while networking at a conference and you tell someone your domain name is DenverTherapist303.com but then you have to specify that the number is a numeric character – it’s not spelled out.
The bottom line is that your domain name should be smooth and simple. Both hyphens and numbers get it the way of that. So try to stick with letters only when choosing your domain name.
Tip #7: Go with .com
I know what some of you may be thinking. Now that there are so many options out there, why does a .com domain name even matter anymore?
While this is true, the answer goes back to our 4th tip of making it memorable. Sure there may be more domain name extensions today than we can even count. I think the last count was somewhere over 1,500 – you can view the full list here.
But .com is the most widely used one of them all. It is by far the most recognized and the most accessible domain name extension. It’s also going to be the extension that most clients will assume your website will end in, and they will likely remember it that way even if it doesn’t.
You don’t want to miss out on any potential clients just because they went to the wrong website by mistake. If at all possible, try to choose a domain ending in .com.
If you’re not able to find any available domains ending in .com, the next best domain extension we would suggest is .net. But like we said, if at all possible try to secure a .com domain name.
Key Takeaways
Still need help picking a domain name?
At Brighter Vision , our team of professional developers will work with you to pick the best domain name for your practice. Then, we will custom design you a beautiful therapy website to go along with it.
Fill out the form below to learn more about how we can help your practice grow like never before.