Okay, so you think you've settled on a domain name. You may even have broken out your old Scrabble set so you have a bunch of tiles to manipulate while you figure out what looks and sounds right. You've considered what associations the domain name brings to mind, and you're all ready to buy it. So it's time to make the purchase, right?

Not so fast. You might want to try searching for your prospective domain name in Google. It's not to see whether someone else already has the domain name, or something similar, though you may have already checked that by this time. You need to see how Google treats your domain name. If you're using more than one word, put both the phrase and the single word versions into Google. With an earlier example I gave, the site owner would have put therapist finder and therapist finder into Google, without quotes.

Does Google consider your domain name to be a typo? If it does, you could be in trouble before you get your business off the ground. If a visitor puts your domain name in Google (and many people will do this) they may get confused when they see Google's Did you mean? typo message. So you just might lose that visitor. Here's a point to keep in mind, though: once your site makes it into Google's index and starts getting external links, Google may no longer consider it a typo. I've read information online from site owners who have had both experiences.

Does Google turn up a lot of sites that are much better branded than yours is likely to be? Look at the top results when you put your domain name into Google. SEO Smarty uses the example of tourwiki.com. Put tour wiki without quotes into Google, and the top site is Wikipedia. That's not a site that a business just starting out will be able to beat in the SERPs easily.

I've already mentioned that you should parse your domain name several ways to see whether it has any bad associations. You should also check such things as the Urban Dictionary online, or ask Google to define the word, or even do a search on eBay. SEO Smarty notes that lex means Rolex in street slang an association I personally never would have made. (Words are my living and my passion; to me, it's obvious that lex is short for lexicon!).

Finally, you may want to consider registering both the singular and plural versions of your domain name, just to be on the safe side. You don't want traffic that is trying to reach you to go somewhere else - especially if that somewhere else is a competitor's site.

None of these tasks will take very long, but they'll go a long way toward giving you peace of mind. They should also help you create a memorable domain name that will stick in visitors? minds and help them return to your site again and again.