Choosing a domain name can be daunting. Research the subject (after all, you're the type of marketer who researches, right?) and you'll be hit with a landslide of opinions, most contradictory. There is, however, two points that everyone agrees on:

Pick your domain before you launch your business.

This is especially true if your market niche has lots of competition. Research your domain before you commit to a business plan.

Don't wait too long if you like a domain.

While you're researching, you'll likely come across a couple of domains that attract you. You might be tempted to wait, since you haven't finalized or refined your business plan. Don't. A handful of domains isn't going to cost you much at an affordable registrar like GoDaddy, and once they're gone, they're gone. Chances are you can even resell the rejects at cost, if not a profit. Or "develop" them with unique content and point them to your main site for extra traffic.

Now that we have the easy part of the way, let's wade into murkier waters.

Q. Which TLD (top-level domain) is best?

A. If you're a juggernaut in the business world with a giant ad budget, the answer is dot-com (.com). If you're a smalltime business struggling for search engine positioning, the answer is still dot-com.

People do disagree on the value of a dot-com TLD. Some assert that dot-coms have no particular value in the search engines, which may be true.

However, the fact is, if you haven't yet seared your brand on the collective brow of the planet, dot-com makes you easier to remember. If you eschew dot-coms, then in some deep dark place inside, people will remember you as "that hard-to-remember URL with the ending that isn't dot-com." What's worse, if you pick an otherwise memorable domain ending in dot-net, -us, or (God forbid) -tv, some of your traffic will end up at that competitor who snagged the dot-com version of your domain. Okay, that's settled. Now for the controversial stuff. Which is best: the "keyword" domain, or the "creative-genius, snappy and brandable" domain?

Keyword Name vs. Creative-Genius Brandable Name

A Keyword Name is the boring, workhorse kind of domain. You seem them everywhere. They bristle with hyphens: "best-anchovy-pizza-in-siberia.com." Or "super-labrador-accessories-and-golfballs.biz." On the face of it, they're hard to brand. They're hard to fit on business cards. They're really hard to explain over the phone to Aunt Martha.

On the other hand, a Creative-Genius Brandable Name is the sexy kind of domain. The successes are sparkling: Yahoo!, Google, Amazon.com. You can shout these URLs across the room and the other guy will probably get it right. But note: the dot-com road is littered with hip, snappy business who failed to brand their product successfully, or get listed high in the search engines. Now their URLs all point to the same page: "server not found