At Church Plant Media we have served hundreds of churches for over 10 years. In this time we have learned a few things about what a great church domain name should look like and how it should function. To help you sort through the options and opinions, we present these 5 tips for you to consider when making your domain name purchase.

Your church domain name should be…

  1. Easy to remember
  2. Easy to read in print
  3. Easy to say out loud
  4. Easy to spell once heard
  5. Helpful to search engines

Each of these points builds on the others and they work together. Just like other ministries in the church, a great domain should be decided on within the context of community. Always be sure to consult with your team. A good verse to consider is Proverbs 15:22, “Without counsel plans fail, but with many advisers they succeed.” Just be sure not to have to many cooks in the kitchen…

1. Easy to remember

Depending on the name of your church, a memorable domain may be hard to find. Many churches say they have been told to use the full name of their church in their domain. However, it’s never a good idea to have a long domain name, since you’ll want to feature it in your advertising. Shorter is usually better. Although there are new TLD’s like .cc .tv or .info it’s always wise to stick with a standard .com and .org domain since those are easier to remember. Churches are not restricted to the .org, and we serve a large number who use .com domains.

2. Easy to read in print

Many churches do not consider this tip when selecting a domain name. Be sure that there are no hidden words in your domain name that are inappropriate or easily misunderstood (or easily made fun of). Once, we had a new church select a short domain name that unintentionally had a vulgar word that was created from 2 other words within their domain. Something like seeing the word “pinch” or “harp-in-church” in this domain: harpinchurch.org for the fictional, Harpin Community Church. Always try to avoid a train wreck before it happens.

3. Easy to say out loud

Remember that you’ll need to say your domain name from the pulpit and during regular conversations. For this reason, it needs to be spoken and easy to understand when you say it. If the domain is too long or it uses words that are hard to understand, try something different. The best way to test this is with a friend. Do some role-playing and say the domain name within the context of a sentence. Are you able to say it easily without explaining it in detail? For this reason alone, it is never a good idea to use hyphens (-) between words or numbers in your domain, since they require additional verbal explanation.

4. Easy to spell once heard

This is the reverse idea of the 3rd tip and equally as important. People have to be able to sit down to their computer and type in your domain. Here is where a long domain name is also troublesome. The longer the domain, the higher chance it will be misspelled. In the same way, if the name(s) of your town and/or your church are always misspelled, it is not wise to use them in your domain name. Be sure to use words or names that most people will understand and spell easily. The best way to test this is to speak your domain name idea with someone outside the church, to see if they can easily write it down. This might also be a fun way to lead into a conversation about your church and how you hope to serve people.

5. Helpful to search engines

By far, this may be the most important and least considered tip when selecting a church domain name. People no longer look in newspapers or the phone book to find a church to visit. They go to Google or Yahoo and do a search for “church in city, state” to find a church to visit. If you want to maximize your search results, you’ll want to add either the word “church” or your city/town into your domain name. Adding the name of your city into your domain, will help search engines to see that as a searchable keyword when people do a search for “church in city, state”. There are no silver bullets for search engine optimization, but a helpful domain name does go a long way.

On a related note, many churches refer to the church with an abbreviation of the church name or only letters. Although this is very short and easy to spell, unless the church is very well known or if the church has money to invest in pay-per-click advertising, an abbreviated domain name may not be helpful. In the same way, if you are set on using your church’s branding slogan, this may be equally unhelpful to search engines. Although you might be heavily branded with “Grow & Go” as a brand, if you changed the domain growandgo.com to citynamechurch.com that would help search results more since it includes the key search terms.

Still not sure if you understand how to select a great domain name? We would love to serve you and help you get the most out of the web. Feel free to call Church Plant Media anytime at (800) 409-6631 ext. 1, or fill out our contact form.