subject: Choosing A Potent Domain Name [print this page] The selection of a powerful domain name for your business can be daunting. You should research the subject, as all successful marketers will do, and you will be rewarded with a landslide of viewings, many of which will be totally incongruous. Nonetheless, there is one thing most people agree upon, which is that you should choose your domain name prior to launching your business.
This is more especially the case if there is a great deal of competition within your market niche. Undertake research for your domain name prior to committing to a business plan. If you find a domain name you especially like, do not wait for too long. You are sure to come across perhaps one or two you think will be particularly appropriate and may want to wait whilst you think about it. Dont! If you see a domain you like buy it, because even if you purchase two or three, they are not going to cost that much. Once they are gone, they are gone. You may even be able to sell domains you do not want later at a profit! Alternatively, you could develop them with unique material and then point them to your main website to achieve extra traffic.
Now we have dealt with the easy part, we can deal with more difficult issues which type of domain is best? If you are a juggernaut in business with a huge budget then you should elect to get a dot com domain. If you are a much smaller business and desperately want search engine positioning, then still purchase a dot com domain. People have differing views on this issue. Nonetheless, if you have not as yet made a real name for your company, dot com will be much easier for people to remember. If you select an unmemorable dot net, etc. then you run the risk of some of your web traffic ending up with your competitors who grabbed the dot com version of your web name.
You then have to decide upon whether you want a keyword domain, or a brand orientated domain.
You will see names like best-steaks-in-london.com or wondrous-dogfood.com. They may be difficult to brand, but they often work. Examples are Google and Yahoo. As a small business, you will wonder how people will find you? Will it be via billboards, word of mouth, sponsorships? Probably not. They will find you via search engines. However, this does not automatically imply you need to have a keyword domain. There are advantages and disadvantages to both types of domain name.
Most of the best domain names have long gone, but if you can create a unique concept for your brand, you may be able to buy the dot com name for it. If you can achieve this, you will benefit from type in traffic, i.e. when somebody hears about your company, they can probably find you by typing in your domain. The name, of course, needs to be catchy.
Ultimately, the name must be available as a domain and preferably without any of your competitors having similar names. The domain names with one word followed by dot com are great, but you may well not be able to afford one of these. If you purchase best-steaks-in-london.com for example, at least the domain will probably be available. It may be a hideous name, but at least something like this will help you to get a good search ranking. The search engines may only give a small amount of credit for having a keyword domain, but all of this counts. Reserve your name as early as you can, as brand orientated names will disappear fast. In the long run though, a keyword domain will probably be the fastest route to success for the smaller business.
