The first thing customers type about you. Choose it like it matters, because undoing it is the hard part.
The radio test
Here is the only test that matters: if someone hears your domain on the radio, can they type it without asking how it is spelled? That question alone rules out hyphens, invented respellings, and whatever clever thing your friend suggested at a barbecue. Short and slightly dull beats clever every time, because an address is an address first and a brand second. Before you pay for anything, text it to a friend and have them pass it on. Watch where it breaks.
.co.za, .com, and whose name is on it
For South African businesses the practical split is .co.za and .com. The .co.za says local and earns trust here; the .com is what people type when they forget to think. Register both, point them at one site, and stop worrying. It costs almost nothing and it covers you against the competitor who registers whichever one you skipped. Now the part nobody checks until it hurts: whose name is on the registration? If your developer or agency registered the domain in their own account, they own your business address, and switching providers becomes a ransom negotiation. Register it yourself, with your own card. Hand out DNS access later if you need to; never hand over ownership. Then turn on auto-renew and make sure the renewal notices go to an inbox your business controls. Companies lose real domains every year because a reminder landed in one person's personal email and that person moved on.
Register it properly
Olorun Cloud registers .co.za, .com and .africa domains with instant activation, in your name from day one, and puts the DNS and hosting close enough to your customers to keep the site fast where it counts. If you already have a domain and no idea who actually holds it, ask us and we will pull up the WHOIS record with you.
And while you are at it: if the renewal notice for your current domain arrives at an inbox only one person can open, fix that this week. It is the cheapest disaster in business to prevent.