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In today's globally connected world, it's great to have a fabulous product, service, or idea.
But it's not enough.
Unless you build a product the world simply can't live without, you'll need a website.
Not an app, social media page, or YouTube channel.
In order to effectively plant your wares firmly on the consuming public's radar,
a website is a must.
If your website performs well online, your business is on its way to success.
Conversely, if you don't have a website that performs, no matter how many ads you buy on Facebook or Google, you'll struggle to succeed.
In short, digital success starts with a great website...and a great website starts with a great domain name.
While you may feel tempted to race off and visualize your overall web design concept or strategize your site's color scheme, it's not where you launch your project.
You start by choosing (or creating) a killer domain name.
Not prioritizing your domain name or picking the wrong name for your site altogether can have dire,
long term brand consequences, so don't risk it.
Go into the online name game armed with everything you need for optimal success.
The not-so-good-news? Getting the domain right can be tough, especially given the fact that many .com versions are already taken.
However, if you do get it right, the payoff is absolutely worth it.
A solid URL yields a multitude of benefits, including:
Ready to get started on your million-dollar moniker? Keep these key tips in mind to ensure you choose a website winner:
Typos happen. While you can't control the occasional fat-finger mishap, you can minimize confusion on exactly what people should be typing when pulling up your site.
Omit slang (using '4' instead of 'for') and eliminate words that have multiple spellings. Additionally, avoid:
You get the general idea. In short, make it virtually impossible for online surfers not to find you.
Your website isn't only trying to wrest attention away from your industry competition; it's actually fighting to be seen amongst millions of other registered domain names. Catchy and clever are must-have features. Test out ideas with friends to see if they love them as much as you do.
Using long, overly-complex domain names also increases the risk of typos or misspellings (or boring your audience completely before they even finish typing). Keep it short and sweet by using just one or two words, max.
Need more ideas? Check out 8 Smart Tips For Choosing A Winning Domain Name
Despite the very best of branding intentions, bad domains happen
.. a lot. You already know several things to avoid
However there are a few more ''don'ts'' to consider when choosing a URL so you sidestep website catastrophe.
When selecting your name, don't:
Buzzwords are great as long as you somehow manage to select a buzzword with staying power.
We've all witnessed how quickly today's trendy catchphrase can morph into tomorrow's awkward tagline
(''Wazzzzzup,'' anyone?)
If you find yourself jumping on the fad bandwagon with certain words, phrases, and misspellings, you may be trending towards an epic domain name fail. Even Flickr finally had to purchase flicker.com to stop the misspelling madness and, chances are, you're not Flickr.
Also known as, ''don't accidentally string together words that could create other, possibly unsavory, phrases.''
One actual (and more G-rated) example: itscrap.com -- an IT company that also offers a hardware scrap program.
Apparently the company has realized that the world at large isn't clamoring to partner with an itscrap firm and changed its URL to regencytechnologies.com.
Some sites try to hitch their domain name wagon to someone else's well-established branding star. Sure, www.lootsuite.com may trick a few people into calling on you because they assume you are HootSuite. However, this tactic can quickly backfire and become a major nuisance. Be original and let your unique name build its own online marketing momentum.
You've avoided the bad name pitfalls and pinpointed the world's most perfect domain name .. only to realize the .com version is already taken.
No, you don't need to rethink your entire brand. It's not over yet.
First, if you notice that the name you've chosen is taken, but looks inactive, find out who actually owns the domain. There are several online sites that can help pinpoint who owns it and when it will expire. If the date is close, you may want to bide your time and see if becomes available. If the expiration date isn't close, you can reach out to the owner of the name to see if they are willing to sell it.
Determined to not modify your domain name? You may want to consider using an alternative top-level domain (TLD).
Yes, .com should always be your first choice whenever possible, particularly if you're planning to go big, nationwide, or international with your new brand.
Many business owners assume they can always get their .com version ''later'' Unfortunately, as their business grows, so does the price for the .com name they want.
If you can swing it, it generally always pays to pay a little extra and get a solid .com domain from the beginning.
However, if you're a startup, small, or medium business, you do have other potential options.
If you're keeping things local, using .org or .net or other available choice is a potential solution to your domain name dilemma.
So how come a domain has any value at all?
Simple answer: a domain can help an individual or a company to reach their goals better as they could do without that domain name. How can a domain name help? What determines a “good”domain?
Both domain names are good domain names, Tires.com beiing much better and more valuable as the search queries for keyword “tires” are much higher then “car tires”.
Tires.com is the shorter domain, you’ll lose less visitors misstyping the domain name, it’s easier to memorise and if you talk on the phone, hear it spoken on radio or tv commercial it’s easier to understand.
Tires.com obviously is a very valuable “Premium Domain".
But Tires.com has additional advantages. That domain has “Build In Traffic". People will visit that domain without you spending any advertising dollar.
It will definetely save you money right from the start, as you don’t need to buy those laser targeted visitors. For the keyword “tires” you would have to pay at least $1.50 USD per click at google!!
Aquiring that so called “expensive domain name” can literally save you a lot of money.
Imagine a “tires” advertisement. A Google adwords ad having a display URL of tires.com will scream “tires” and every searcher
will immediately understand that “tires.com” is a specialised internet sender of tires. Your chance of getting a lot of clicks on that ad is heavily increased by the domain name.
Resulting in another big advantage of that domain name:
Your Adword Ads Get Cheaper, as a lot of searchers click on your advertisement.
the google intern so called CTR% (Clickthrough Rate PerCent) rises,
Google Robots understand that you are showing relavant ads to their visitors.
Google wants the searcher to be happy. Your Ad will show at a better (higher) position and that again increases your CTR%.
Your higher Clickthrough Rate, will get you more buyers, your money rises, the domain is earning you money, more money then other less valuable and eventually cheaper domains would have done for you.
That money will stay for a long time period. You pay only once – when you buy that domain.
ebay.com and google.com are – initially meaningless – unique, short domain names, that perfectly fit for “Branding“. Such domain names are best to promote a new company or a new offer on the net in order to increase popularity faster.
That name should be short, it should be easy to be understood at Phone or R adio / TV spot. Think of how you spell an email adresse on the phone.
The value of a domain having a generic meaning, is resulting from the amount of visitors that will come automated to your site.
A generic domain is a domain consisting of one or two terms, that could be searched by a visitor. Thats why they are called Keyword Domains.
To achive brandawareness you always need deep pockets. If your “Branding” is done for the wrong domain, you waste your assets. A short, easily memorisable domain with little or no missspelling options that sounds nice – thats what you want. But supply is limited, so rises value. And in case that domain has a meaning on top it is getting expensive.
The more competition, the more your competitors understand the advantage of a certain domain name, the higher the price gets.
The more money that industry earns, the more that market will be willing to spend for a great domain name.
The higher the Keyword Clickprice at Google Adwords gets, the higher the price for the relating domain name will be. The more searches the keyword has on a monthly basis – the more competative the domain name gets.
Most frequent mistakes, you can easily avoid:
Advertise only on domain names that you own all variants and register the available missspellings as well.
Of course you need the “.com“. You want to register .net and .org as well and get the country TLDs if you do business internationally (.de .at .ch .co.uk .nl).
If you promote a longer domain name, get all the missspellings.
(There are many ways to (miss)spell “Facebook.com” – few of them belong to “facebook inc”.)
If you are in the process to be the founder of a new company, take care to register all possible variations of your domain name, before registering the company and even before you talk in public about your plans.
Personally register the domain in your own name don’t let an employee do it, he may register himself as the owner. You wont get the domain, if the Ex-Employee refuses to transfer the domain.
If you register the domain(s) in the name of your company a transfer of the domain names maybe easier in case your sell the company later on.