Articles

December 2008 - E-marketing Minute - Picking a Domain Name

They say availability is the mother of invention... or is it necessity? Whichever it is, when you’re choosing a domain name, you may not get your first choice. What’s the next best thing? It’s time to get creative.

Your domain name should mirror the image you want your company to project. The URL you choose can have an impact on brand identity and help with keyword ranking. Choose carefully.

One Lakenetwork client, Healing High Rise Inc., chose www.healinghighriseinc.com. But people couldn't seem to remember the "inc" at the end, so they'd end up at the wrong site. We changed the URL to www.learnefttoday.com, EFT standing for Emotional Freedom Technique, an energy healing method taught by the company. The company still uses its business name in the header on the site. A bonus to using learnefttoday is that EFT is in the domain name, therefore helpful in getting search engines to pick it up. 

Something else to consider when deciding on your domain name is to choose one that describes your company or its product or service. Lakenetwork designed a site for a pest control company called Green Pest Control. The owner came up with www.stopthecrawling.com, memorable with a humorous twist.

CamelotHomeInspections.com wasn’t available when Erick Miller, president of Camelot Home Inspections, Inc., was registering his domain name. Miller chose www.weinspectforyou.com for the Willoughby, Ohio company, leaving no doubt as to what service they offer.

“I tried to make it coincide with what the company does, something that was catchy and easy to remember,” said Miller.

Here are some does and don’ts:

Don't use free e-mail accounts for business such as Yahoo!, AOL or Gmail. Instead use your business domain name for all business communications. For example, use JoeSSS@AcmeWidgets.com instead of AcmeWidgets@yahoo.com or JoeSSS@yahoo.com.

Do purchase multiple versions of your domain name, including .com, .org, .net, .biz, hyphenations between words, and common misspellings. You could also purchase alternate domain names such as product names, brand names and any other keywords that might be typed in randomly.

Remember, a name that makes perfect sense to you may be too hard for other people to remember. Is your domain easy to say? Is it hard to spell? Do you have to explain why you chose it? Keep it short and memorable, use keywords in your business name, and don’t use underscores. Register your domain name for five to 10 years at a time rather than renewing every year, because some search engines give more credence to a company that has confidence it’s going to stick around.

More ideas can be found at http://www.searchengineguide.com/stoney-degeyter/the-best-damn-web-marketing-checklist-fo.php.