Just because you have a business name does not automatically give you the right to use that name as your domain name. Someone with a similar business or organisation name may have already registered that name or a similar one, and be entitled to use it under normal intellectual property law.
Or they may be a squatter, hoping to resell it to you at exorbidant fees. They might be trying to syphon traffic from your web site either to sell similar products, or to score hits on pay-per-hit ads.
For example, the National Australia Bank (NAB) is at www.nab.com.au.
However, www.nab.com is not the NAB.
Whether this is a real web site, or someone hoping the NAB will pay big bucks to get that domain name I leave to you to decide. But I bet the NAB would like to get their hands on it!
Your domain name is an important part of the public image of your business or organisation. Choose a name that is based on your business name, and also register a few that look a bit like it.
You should be registering your domain name as soon as possible after securing your business name with the relevant authorities. Otherwise, you may have problems with squatters (see side bar at right).
I can help with registering your domain name, but it is a simple process. For the .au domain names, the registration process is regulated by .au Domain Administration Ltd (auDA). Their web site contains a list of approved registrars who can arrange a domain name for you in Australia. Many of these registrars will also arrange names in other doman name regions, for example .nz, .uk or the ubiquitous .com.
It should not cost a lot, less than printing your first set of business cards, and probably a more valuable asset. There is typically an annual or biennial renewal fee.
Do make sure that you are the registered owner of the domain name. If your ISP offers to get one free for you, be suspicious, they may make themselves the registered owner, and when the business you set up in your garage becomes a multi-million dollar success, and you need an ISP with bigger, better servers, you may find yourself being asked for big bucks to transfer what you thought was your name. There are regulations to protect your domain name in these circumstances, but better to avoid the problem in the first place.
In Australia (.au) there are currently eight second level domain suffixes in use:
For a brief history of the .au top-level domain name, see the Wikipedia article on .au.