People seem to get caught up & confused in buying the perfect domain name for their business or new website. We like to take a lighter approach regarding the selection and purchasing of domain names. Don’t sweat it! There are some simple rules we like to tell our clients to follow when selecting a domain name.
- Shorter is better
- Make it memorable & fun
- It doesn’t [NEED]to be your business name
- Key Words are good
- Get several related ones
If you follow these 5 simple guidelines, you’ll find the selection & registration process very easy. Don’t stress out over it, it’s not rocket science and it shouldn’t be that stressful. Chances are that the perfect domain name that you’re thinking of is already taken, so have fun with the process.
[Short is good]
Use a short memorable domain name to attract visitors
www.artbyjack.com is better than www.jacksmithartstudiosandgalleries.com Why? Obviously it’s short & memorable. NO ONE is going to type www.jacksmithartstudiosandgalleries.com into a browser address window or even remember it. The key to the length of your domain name is to ask yourself: (1) is it too long to put that on my business card? and (2) is it too tedious to type into a browser window?
[Memorable & Easy]
Have fun. Make it memorable. Using the above example, www.jackedupart.com would be fun! People will remember that. Consider this: if you are in your car and saw a sign or bumpersticker with a website address, which name would you remember? Would you remember www.jacksmithartstudiosandgalleries.com or www.jackedupart.com? Yeah, us too.
[No Business Name Needed]
Now don’t get us wrong here, getting your business name in your domain is a good idea. Getting a brand name as your domain is another great idea. Just don’t get too hung up on using your business name as your primary marketing domains. For example, Jack is an artist. His legal business name is jack Smith Art Studio & Galleries. Of course you can (and maybe should) register www.jacksmithartstudiosandgalleries.com but we wouldn’t recommend using that address in your marketing. Jack’s ‘brand’ is hip, modern and grunge art. He’s coined the phrase ‘Jacked Up Art’. Now THAT is a great domain name! People will remember (and be more inclined to visit) www.jackedupart.com
[Don’t Forget Key Words]
Driving traffic to your website is key, everyone wants that. So how do you make that easier? Well, with our friend Jack the Artist, he wants people to visit his gallery and buy his art. He lives in Seattle. So what would people Google or search on to find Jack if they didn’t already know his url or domain name? Put yourself into the mind of the searcher here. You would probably search on ‘Seattle Grunge Art Galleries’ (if there existed such a thing, LoL there probably does!) A good domain name with keywords in mind might be: grungeartseattle.com or grungegalleryseattle.com as examples. You can get several as you’ll learn below.
[The More URL’s the Better]
OK, so you’ve got a nice short memorable domain. GREAT! Now buy more! Yes, compliment your primary domain with additional url’s that you can use for marketing. We have several clients with their primary domain eg. www.jacksartstudio.com that are complimented with a few supporting domains that they use to drive traffic. In this example, www.jackdoesart.com, www.jackedupart.com, www.findseattlegrungeart.com and www.seattledowntowngalleries.com are all great complimentary names. Point them all to your main site or even better, use landing pages with those domains to funnel traffic to your primary site.
Total Web Plus can help with landing pages at a very affordable cost. See here for more information: http://totalwebplus.com/pricing/
Oh and our last piece of advice? Get .com’s only (unless your running a business that requires a .org, .us or .co). Dot COMS rule. People will remember (and naturally type) .com versus any others, even if your url is jackdoesart.net. Avoid anything but .com’s unless required.
Ready to search for your domain? Use our handy tool here: http://secure.excytrix.com/domains/
Need even more help? Total Web Plus builds professional, fulled managed, WordPress websites for a fraction of the cost of what you’ll be quoted from design firms. Call us at (877) 397-6689 or visit http://totalwebplus.com/ today!