Domain Name

Your Domain Name is Extremely Important

A lot of people haphazardly create their domain name after everything (such as the logo, slogan, company name, etc.) has been decided. This is the wrong way to go about things if you want to do your primary marketing online. I believe that you need to consider your domain name before you do almost anything else!

The reason is simple: the only thing you’ll be saying more than your company name is your website address. Your website is the first place people will go to learn about you, so the name of it matters.

Domain Name Factors

Here are a few different things to consider when it comes to selecting a domain name:

COULD IT STAND ALONE?

If you had the opportunity to use the biggest banner space in your city, but the only thing you could put on it was your website address, how much business would you get from the advertising? If the answer is anything but, “ALL THE BUSINESS!” then you have a problem. People should know who you are and what you do from your address alone.

ARE IMPORTANT KEYWORDS USED IN IT?

Most people think that your keywords are the last thing you add to the articles and content you put online (or worse yet, they don’t think about the keywords at all!). This is incorrect. You need to think of how many times people are looking up your potential keyword before anything else. This is especially true of your domain name; your domain name will make a difference in regard to how every single page on your website is ranked. You want traffic coming? Get a good domain name.

DOES IT SAY WHO YOU ARE?

A good website address will say a lot about the business. The best website addresses will say who you are, what you do, and even where you are located. This may sound impossible, but mess around with them and you’d probably be surprised.

CAN PEOPLE REMEMBER IT?

You may only have one chance to capture someone’s attention, and that could be in person or online. Your website address needs to be something that people will remember, even at a glance. If your address is too long or requires someone to add an unnecessary word (like “AGoodFitnessWebsite.com” instead of “GoodFitnessWebsite.com”), you may lose that new reader/customer.

CAN PEOPLE SPELL IT?

Cute, incorrect spellings of website names literally make me angry. Yes, it’s very neat that you used a “K” where a “C” belongs or how you combined two words into one (like “NeaTeam.com” instead of “NeatTeam.com”) but you’ll automatically lose traffic to the smarter person who used the correct spelling, I promise.

IS IT AVAILABLE?

While you can hit all of the other elements of a good website address, it might not matter if that address is already being used by someone else! Before you get too excited about a new domain name idea, look for it on a service like GoDaddy.com to see if you can even buy it.