The right domain for your practice website

Your website is about to be created and you want to show your best side in the truest sense of the word? There are a few things to consider so that your website can be easily found and accessed by patients. These include the choice of Internet address or domain. What do I need to consider here and which domain should I choose in order to be as high up in the search engine rankings as possible? We will provide you with a few facts - as well as valuable tips from our personal experience, which we have gathered from many successfully realised practice homepages for our customers.

How is a domain actually structured?

Which second-level domain should I choose?

dr-mustermann(.de) or rather zahnarzt-musterhausen(.de)?

Once you have decided on a suitable extension (e.g. .de), the question of the second-level domain arises. We have summarised the aspects you should pay attention to when making your choice in the following checklist:

Short & simple

The name should be kept as short and simple as possible, without using too many special characters or numbers. This also makes it easier to use for users with smartphones or tablets and correspondingly smaller screen and keyboard sizes.

• Good examples:
  • zahnarzt-berlin.de
  • dr-schmidt.de
  • GP-in-kiel.de
  • heart-mrt-hamburg.com
• Bad examples:
  • psychotherapist-for-children-and-adolescents-bremen.de
  • zahn-arzt-praxis-am-flughafen-hamburg.info
  • drschmidthamburg.com
  • best-dentist-ulm.de (see "Legal aspects" further down)
  • der-kardiologie-koeln.de (see "Legal aspects" further down)
  • botox-in-kiel.de (see "Legal aspects" further down)

Easy to remember & simple pronunciation

Check whether the name of your website can be easily recommended by word-of-mouth or audio advertising without causing comprehension problems.

Uniqueness & distinctiveness

The domain name stays "in people's heads" and has a certain recognition value.

Simple, error-resistant spelling

The selected name is easy to write and therefore not prone to typing errors.

Implementation of individual keywords

The appearance of specific keywords within the domain can bring several advantages. Although keywords are much less important for search engine rankings today than they used to be, they can still have an impact on click-through rates, visitor trust and branding. For example, if a user searches for a "dental practice in Munich", the keyword "dental practice" within the domain name suggests promising results and increases the likelihood that the website will actually be accessed.

Keyword, place name or doctor's name in the domain?

Our recommendation: Department + city name + .de

Many customers ask us what should ideally be in the domain in terms of Google ranking: praxis-mustermann.de? dr-mustermann.de? zahnarzt-musterstadt.de? Or is it completely irrelevant?

Based on our experience, we actually recommend placing keywords in the second-level domain wherever possible in order to help the website rank higher on Google. By keywords, we mean terms that are used particularly frequently by patients in Google searches. In the case of a dental practice, these are the terms "dentist + practice location", e.g. "dentist Hamburg". The resulting domain could then be zahnarzt-in-hamburg.de, for example. Another example: For a dermatologist from Berlin (Wedding), we would suggest the domain hautarzt-berlin.de. If this is not available, hautarzt-in-berlin.de, ihr-hautarzt-berlin.de or hautarzt-berlin-wedding.de could be considered.

Of course, domains in this style are often already in use and no longer available - especially with the domain extension .de. But with a little skill, you can still find good available domains for your website. The best way to do this is to use the domain search tools of well-known providers such as United Domains.

Important: Pay attention to legal aspects

Even if the search for a suitable domain is basically "first come, first get", there are also legal pitfalls here that you should be aware of.

Brand names:
Do not use any brand names in the domain unless you are the owner of the brand yourself. For example, the domain should not read "botox-muenchen.de", as Botox® is a registered trade mark of the company Allergan. In practice, the situation is often different and there are many examples of infringements. Even if the rule here is where there is no plaintiff, there is no judge, you should not let it come to that.

Unique selling proposition:
If a doctor conveys a unique position with his domain, this is legally contestable. This is the case, for example, if the domain used is "the-orthopaede-in-koeln.de", whereby the word "the" leads to the unique selling proposition. If the domain were "orthopaede-in-koeln.de", this would not be a problem.

Promotional terms:
Advertising terms in the domain such as "best-zahnarzt.de" or "more perfect-kardiologe.de" are inadmissible and should therefore also be avoided.

Lawyer Noëmi Löllgen offers a more detailed and at the same time illustrative look at the legal aspects under the following link: https://kurzelinks.de/jd9p 

Google optimisation is more than just a suitable domain

However, the domain is only one piece of the puzzle for a good Google ranking and, of course, top rankings can also be achieved without keywords in the domain. The best example is us: No keywords appear in our domain, but we can still be found via many search terms that are relevant to us.

You can find extensive information on what is important for Google optimisation on our page SEO for doctors.

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