Medical Web Design: 6 Great Tips to Choose a Domain Name For Your Practice

Medical Web Design: 6 Great Tips to Choose a Domain Name For Your Practice

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When you’re in the process of launching your medical practice, choosing a domain name might not be at the top of your list. After all, what’s to choose? Isn’t it just “practicename.com” or something like that?

Well, not quite. Your domain name is the centerpiece of your medical web design. While it might be a stretch to say that a domain name will ‘make or break’ your website, it is still a crucial detail that you should put some serious thought into.

Your domain name is the first impression most users have of your website. Heck, even before they hit your landing page, users will see your domain name fill up their address bar.

Have we mentioned that changing domain names can be a time consuming and very expensive process?

That’s why it’s essential to pick the right domain name the first time!

Drawing medical card online

Medical Web Design: 6 Tips to Choose a Domain Name for Your Practice

Below are 5 expert tips for selecting a domain name for your medical web design. The gist is simple: your domain name should be short, catchy, and easy to remember, pronounce, and spell.

It must do this while effectively communicating what your medical practice does and what communities it serves.

Whether your domain name is boring and forgettable or striking and memorable is what we’re here to discuss today.

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1. Use the “.com” Top-Level Domain

Did you know that those things after the period in a URL are called “top-level domains”? Stuff like:

  • .com
  • .org
  • .edu
  • .gov

and so on.

We bring this up for one reason and one reason only: to tell you to always use the “.com” top-level domain!

A website ending in “.com” signifies professionalism and reliability. One ending in “.net” or “.ml” look unprofessional at best, untrustworthy and suspicious at worst.

Remember, illegal sites tend to use unconventional TLDs. Don’t risk looking like an illegal site, even for a second.

Of course, “.com” domain names tend to be more expensive, but that’s only because they’re the most highly sought-after. There’s a good reason for that.

Make the splurge and grab yourself a “.com” domain name.

It will foster trust between you and your prospective clients and easily pay for itself in the long run.

Black friendly doctor demonstrating empty digital tablet screen

2. Keep It Short

They say brevity is a virtue. And perhaps nowhere is that more the case than in domain names.

Why, you ask?

First, because Google and other search engines can only show so many characters of a URL on their results pages. Google limits a “display URL” to 35 characters. Any further characters are replaced with ellipses.

The “www” and the “.com” in your URL add up to 7 characters. This gives you 28 characters before the ellipses take over.

But good domain names are even shorter.

Shoot for 10–14 characters. That’s not our opinion. That’s statistics, plain and simple.

A shorter domain name is fine if you can wrangle it (they tend to be expensive), but don’t go longer.

Study after study shows that users are more likely to click on short domain names in the 10–14-character range.

Dentist sitting by computer at table

3. Make It Easy to Spell and Pronounce