Firstly as mentioned, you need to decide on the type of business you are going to operate, then try to find a domain name that is associated with the business you have decided upon, this is where some brainstorming is going to have to come in. Write down on a list a number of possible ideas that pop in to your head. Swap the words around and ask friends and family if they make sense to them. Remember your domain name is your business name to the world. It represents both you, along with your business, it is therefore extremely important that you choose your domain name carefully.

Although there are numerous extensions today of a domain name (e.g. .com, .net, and .biz to name only a few), go for a .com as most people think of web addresses that finish with a .com, especially if you are working towards a world wide market. Try to avoid hyphens also, one thing is that some servers don't like to see them, but more importantly for you is that if someone is typing the web domain in to their address bar in the browser, if they forget one hyphen or accidentally use an underscore then they may just be directed to someone else's web site, which may turn out to be a competitor or they just get a cannot find the web page error, the out come of which is you just end up loosing that visitor who could have been a potential customer.

If you have been tempted to use a free hosting service that gives you a domain name as an extension of there own hosting service, (e.g. http://thehostingcompany/nowyourname.com or something similar, DON'T do it, you will loose credibility before you even begin.

I have used many companies in the past to register many of my domain names, now take the company I now use for example. Apart from them being one of the cheapest around that I found, they have many other features that you just could not find elsewhere. One really cool feature I found was when you put in the name you have decided upon and you are checking it's availability, if it's already been taken, it returns many similar names that you can then ponder upon that you may not have thought of beforehand. It also had the facility to register many domain names all at once.

Once you have made your decision on your domain, when you come to finally registering your domain name, you will be presented with the option of keeping your domain name private, an excellent feature that I recommend and one you should take advantage of.

A private domain registration will keep your information (name, address, email address, etc.) out of the global Internet database, and will prevent a lot of spam from reaching your email box. I certainly wish this had been available when I created my first web site.