The domain name you select for your food truck website is just as important as the name you choose for your mobile food business.  After all, your website is the face of your food truck online. Before you go out and purchase the domain name for your food truck website there are a lot of things to consider.

7 Domain Name Considerations For Your Food Truck Website:

  • Is It Available
  • The More Specific The Better
  • Be Relevant
  • Make It Memorable
  • Keep It Short
  • Which Domain Extension To Use
  • Numbers & Dashes

Some are more important than others, but take them all into consideration. Now let’s talk about each one.

Is It Available

At the end of the day availability is the most important because if the domain name you want for your food truck website isn’t available, then it doesn’t matter how good it is.  The best way to increase the chances of the domain name you want being available is to get specific.

Check out these domain name vendors: You can check on domain name availability and is available, register your domain with your choice of vendor. Here are some well-known, domain name registrars:

  • 1&1 Domains
  • Network Solutions
  • Domain.com
  • Register.com

The hosting providers also have domain sales solutions:

  • Bluehost
  • Inmotion Hosting

The More Specific The Better

In our example, let’s say that you’re a food truck in the Chicagoland ares and the name of your mobile food business is The ACME Food Truck.  Let’s work our way from general to specific to try to find a good domain name.

  • Foodtruck.com or Foodtrucks.com: Way too general.
  • IllinoisFoodTruck.com: Still too general, but getting there.
  • ChicagoFoodTruck.com: Better, but Chicago is a large city, so it’s still too general.
  • ACMEChicagoFoodTruck.com: While Chicago has a lot of food trucks, if your food truck primarily serves in the Chicago metro area, this domain name might be a good fit for you.  Not only would people find your website when searching for truck’s name, but you’d also get a boost when prospective customers who search for “Chicago food truck”, since those words (called keywords) are in your domain name.

The more specific you get with your food truck domain name, the higher the chances that it will be available.

Be Relevant

We all want a relevant domain name.  For example, you should try to mention food truck or catering somewhere in the domain name to let customers (and search engines) know what you do.  This also ties in with being specific because the more specific you are, the more relevant we are as well.

Make It Memorable

It’s important for your domain name to be memorable, especially when trying to build a local food truck brand.  Besides, if your website address isn’t memorable it will make it harder for customers to recommend you by word of mouth.

You need to make it as easy as possible for your customers to recommend you to others.  A along with great food and service, a memorable domain name makes your truck easy to talk about.

Keep It Short

When it comes to domain names for your food truck website, typically the shorter the better.  Not only are they easier to remember, but they look better. That said, this isn’t a hard and fast rule, it’s just another point to consider.

When choosing between two names of similar quality, go for the shorter one.  But don’t let trying to make a domain name as short as possible overrule the other factors mentioned above.

Which Domain Extension To Use

The .com domain is the best choice for your food truck website domain name because it is the most common and memorable.  If you buy a .com, some vendors may also try to purchase the .net and .org versions if they’re available (they’re only $10/year) and redirect them to your primary website on the .com.

If you can’t find an available .com, .net and .org are acceptable. But if you use a .org or .net your customers might not find you if they type in .com by accident.  It’s shouldn’t be a deal breaker, but just something else to consider.

Numbers & Dashes

If possible, avoid using numbers and dashes in your food truck domain name (please ignore our url, lol).  While they’re not bad, they’re often used incorrectly.  This often results in making your website less memorable.

So as a general rule I recommend food trucks from staying away from dashes and numbers if possible.  One popular exception is using the area code of the area you serve in.

RELATED: 5 Mistakes To Avoid When Building Your Food Truck Website

The Bottom Line

Picking a domain name for your food truck website is hard because it seems like all the ‘good’ names are taken.  But since every mobile food business is unique, there plenty of relevant, specific domain names available that are a great match for your business. All of the factors we’ve discussed should be considered when choosing your website name.

Based on your situation you may disregard some to focus on others, and that’s fine.  These factors will help you make the best choice for your food truck from the available options.

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