Everyone's familiar with the saying that, when it comes to buying property, the three most important things are location, location and location. There's no doubt that "First Floor, Alpha Business Centre" is a more impressive trading address than "13 Cherry Close", or "PO Box 123". Your postal address says a great deal about what type of company you are, and the exact same principle applies to the internet.

An internet domain name is the first part of the website address which a visitor will use to call up your website. It can say a lot about your company, and it's important that it's memorable, punchy and appropriate. People come into contact with domain names in a number of different ways, and the medium used to promote a website does have a bearing on the choice of domain name. For example, if you were conducting a radio advertising campaign, you would definitely need something short, directly related to your product, and something which is impossible to spell wrong by mistake. Consider these alternatives for a company advertising flowers :

joecarruthers.ltd.uk
bloomingmarvellous.com
flowersdirect.co.uk
1800flowers.com
surprisegifts.com

The first name has little to recommend it, except that you can tell that the company is UK based, and that they're a limited company and therefore (perhaps) one of the larger florists. It is difficult to remember, and easy to spell wrong. The second name is quite amusing and therefore memorable, but not everyone will spell marvellous correctly the first time, and they may give up after the first attempt. Also, the appeal of a ".com" (ie international) domain name is important if you're a multinational, or if you're targeting European or US markets, but for a florist, you would want someone local. The third name is the best so far, because it's impossible to spell wrong, it is catchy, and contains the "UK" part. The fourth choice would be very interesting for a US based company, because toll-free numbers are much more important there than here, and incorporating the alpha-numeric phone number as the domain name would make sure that people remember your phone number too, in case they happen not to be near a computer when they want to send flowers. Lastly, the "surprisegifts.com" is nice for a company which intends to diversify beyond their core market at some point in the future. A classic example of why this is a good idea is the World ISP "America Online", who obviously had no initial plans to extend their market beyond North America, but who're now a global player. Of necessity, they now refer to themselves as AOL, which is not nearly so punchy sounding as "Earthlink" or "Net Benefit".