How to choose a marketable (and searchable) domain name

How to choose a marketable (and searchable) domain name by Larry Alton.  Available from <http://www.cio.com/article/3153005/marketing/how-to-choose-a-marketable-and-searchable-domain-name.html> [JAN 4, 2017 5:00 AM PT]

Choosing a domain name for your company, a marketing campaign or a specific product isn’t always an easy process. There’s a lot to consider and you have to make sure you’re taking every important aspect into account. Ultimately, you want to end up with a domain name that’s marketable and SEO-friendly.

Why do domain names matter?

Does a domain name really matter? This is a question that gets thrown around a lot. Despite all the tiptoeing around the subject, the answer is actually quite clear. Yes, domain names matter. They really, really matter.

Think of your website like a house. While you may spend time in a lot of different places, you ultimately spend the majority of your time at home. It’s the only little piece of the world that you own and can do with as you please.

Using the analogy, you may have social media profiles, pay-per-click ads, guest blogging entries and a long list of other aspects, but your website is the only one you truly own and manage.

Facebook could suddenly decide that they no longer like your profile and delete it. Google could remove your ads with no rhyme or reason. While it’s highly unlikely that they would do this, it’s completely within their rights. Your website, on the other hand, is owned and controlled by you. This makes it your greatest digital asset.

But what good is a home without an address? Let’s say you just moved into a new house on the far side of town and want to invite your friends over. Sure, you could give them a long list of written directions and hope they eventually find their way to your house — but that’s not practical in today’s day and age. They need a street address to identify the house without any issues.

A domain name is to a website what a street address is to a house. It’s how people find and identify the website. But in addition to serving as an identifier, the domain name also serves as a descriptor. So, you could argue that it’s twice as important as a street address.

The two key aspects of a successful domain name

If a domain name is that important, then it stands to reason that you should be spending a lot of time brainstorming and strategically developing the right one. But in your pursuit of coming up with the right domain name — something that’s becoming increasingly difficult as thousands of names are swiped up each day — make sure you’re focusing on the two key aspects that really matter:

  • Marketable. First and foremost, your domain name must be marketable. It must connect with your target demographic and properly reflect what your brand stands for.
  • Searchable. Secondly, a successful domain name must be searchable. This means you need to take SEO principles into account and choose a domain name that allows you to maximize search engine performance.

If you can nail these two key aspects, then you’ve done your job. Having a domain name that’s both marketable and searchable will take you a long way.

6 tips for developing an effective domain name

But what you really want to know is how. How do you develop a successful domain name that’s both marketable and searchable? Well, let’s take a look at some tips and best practices.

1. Brevity is preferred

It all starts with brevity. As web developer Robert Mening says, “Short, punchy and clear domain names are much easier to remember. If your domain name is too fuzzy, too long or spelled in a strange way, visitors may forget it.”

This is why one-word domain names are preferred, yet expensive and rare to come by in today’s marketplace. More than likely, you’ll have to go with a two-word domain (which is fine). Just make sure there aren’t an abnormally high number of characters.

2. Make it memorable

How many times have you visited a website that you’ve never been to before, found something of value, and then forgotten the name of the website a few hours later? While there’s a thing called your “internet history” that will allow you to eventually find the site again, are you really going to go through all that trouble?

This is why developing a memorable domain name that can be easily recalled by visitors is very important. It can mean the difference between losing people after they leave your site and gaining repeat visitors.

3. Relatable and intuitive

“If you believe that a member of your target audience could immediately associate the domain name with a good guess of what they think you do, that is a big positive,” explains Rand Fishkin, co-founder of Moz. “Meaning they could look at your domain name and say, ‘Oh, I’m guessing they probably do this. This is probably what that company is up to.’”

The more intuitive a domain name is, the more likely that you’ll attract organic search engine traffic from people who have no familiarity with your brand.

4. Keyword rich

Remember that you want your domain name to be searchable. Well, part of making a URL SEO-friendly involves leveraging specific keywords.

While it’s good to include keywords if they naturally fit into your domain name, don’t go out of your way to include additional words or phrases just because they’re a good SEO fit. It’s way more important to focus on marketability and brevity.

5. Ensure it’s protectable

Just because a domain name is available doesn’t mean you can use it.  “If you choose a domain name that conflicts with any one of the millions of commercial names that already exist, you risk losing it,” attorney Diana Fitzpatrick says. “And if you’ve put money and sweat into marketing your website and then are forced to give the domain name up, your web-based business is likely to suffer a damaging, if not fatal, blow.”

The moral of the story is do your due diligence and ensure the domain name is protectable. If need be, meet with an attorney who specializes in trademarks. This could save you a lot of pain (and money) down the road.

6. Avoid trendy spellings

The final tip is to avoid trending spellings. Because it’s very hard to find the exact domain name you want, you’ll see many businesses and entrepreneurs take off a letter, purposefully misspell a word, change an “s” to a “z”, or use any number of other techniques to secure a domain name that they feel is right. Don’t do this. Trendy spellings will come back to bite you and ultimately cheapen your brand.

Invest in your domain name

There are plenty of domain names that can still be purchased for $0.99 when you sign up for a hosting plan with specific providers. And while there’s nothing wrong with these, they tend to be obscure domains or three- or four-word URLs.

At the end of the day, you’re probably going to have to spend some money to get a domain name that’s both marketable and searchable. It could be a few hundred dollars, or it could be thousands of dollars. You’ll have to make a decision as to how much you can realistically spend. However, know that the ROI on quality domain names is quite high.

Invest in a good domain name today and reap the rewards tomorrow.

How to choose a marketable (and searchable) domain name by Larry Alton.  Available from <http://www.cio.com/article/3153005/marketing/how-to-choose-a-marketable-and-searchable-domain-name.html> [JAN 4, 2017 5:00 AM PT]

The importance of multiple domain names and web addresses

The importance of multiple domain names and web addresses by Lucy Wayment.  Available from <http://startups.co.uk/the-importance-of-multiple-domain-names-and-web-addresses/>. [Updated: Sep 26, 2016 Published: Sep 23, 2016]
Are you doing all you can to drive traffic to your website? Chances are you won’t have tried some of these handy tips…

Creating a solid foundation is vitally important when building your business’s online presence

The first step is to choose and register the right domain name. A .com domain name is especially valuable if it’s time for your company to go global and sell to different markets. If you register a domain name for your business’s main website in an internationally recognised top level domain (“TLD”) such as .com, you won’t need to register a domain name in a TLD that’s suited only for a particular country.

In addition, the familiarity and dependability of .com inspires trust in customers. After all, for more than 19 years, Verisign has maintained 100% operational accuracy and stability for .com and .net.

Once you’ve registered a .com domain name and established your business’s main website using the .com domain name, you’re ready to expand your business’ online presence. Registering multiple domain names will not only help you expand your business’ online presence but will provide you with a variety of other benefits as well.

Registering your company’s name as a domain name in other TLDs, like .net or .tv, can help protect your online space by preventing competitors from using the same domain name in the selected TLD and stop internet traffic otherwise intended for your website being sent to a competitor’s website, thereby helping you reduce customer confusion and challenges in finding your business online.

Capture misspellings and keep the competition at bay

Registering multiple variations of your company’s name as domain names in one TLD, such as .com, can help your customers reach your website even if they misspell your company’s name. Instead of visiting an error page, you can use URL redirection to redirect customers from the improperly spelled domain name to the properly spelled domain name with your business’s main website. As an added benefit, you will also prevent others from registering domain names that are similar to your company’s name.

More marketing opportunities

If your business intends to launch a marketing campaign, you can register domain names to align or support the campaign.

Take comparethemarket.com, for example. The company’s ‘comparethemeerkat’ campaign was a huge success. To complement the campaign, the insurance company registeredcomparethemeerkat.com, an additional domain name with a website that provides quotes and links to the main site.

Whether you direct customers to a promotional landing page or to your main website, additional domain names can help promote and drive results for an existing in-market campaign.

Highlight your company’s niche

Additional descriptive and memorable domain names in the .com TLD can highlight the unique aspects of your business, such as location or speciality.

If, for example, your main website is plumberjones.com but you’re eager to target customers in a specific area, you could register plumberinbrixton.com as an additional domain name and redirect customers from the additional domain name to the domain name with your main website.

Alternatively, you can use descriptive terms to help ensure that potential customers looking for plumbers can reach you – such as registering a domain name like stopleakypipes.com.

Registering multiple domain names in multiple TLDs, like .net or .tv, doesn’t mean you need multiple websites. For example, you can use URL redirecting to redirect internet traffic intended for one or more of your domain names to your preferred .com domain name with your business’s main website. With URL redirection, it will be easier for you to collect, measure and analyse all of the internet traffic destined for your online business since it’s all being redirected to one domain name. Setting up URL redirection with a registrar, such as GoDaddy, 123-reg,names.co.uk or 1and1, is typically an easy process.

Registering multiple domain names in multiple TLDs and/or in .com, with your main website on a .com domain name, is a smart, cost-effective way of increasing your company’s online presence while also creating a variety of other benefits for your business. Use our Find a Domain Name tool to register a domain name.

This article is a part of the ‘Getting Online’ series sponsored by Verisign. For more information from Verisign on how to get your business online, click here.

The importance of multiple domain names and web addresses by Lucy Wayment.  Available from <http://startups.co.uk/the-importance-of-multiple-domain-names-and-web-addresses/>. [Updated: Sep 26, 2016 Published: Sep 23, 2016]