7 Strategies to Choosing an Effective Domain Name
|
|
|
| 1.7/5.0 (3 votes total) |
|
|
|
Donna Gunter November 27, 2006
|
Donna Gunter |
Online Business Resource Queen (TM) and Business Coach Donna Gunter
helps self-employed service professionals learn how to get more clients
online. To sign up for more
FREE tips like these and claim your FREE gift, TurboCharge Your Online
Marketing Toolkit, visit her site. Read about running an online biz
at our blog. |
Donna Gunter
has written 1 articles for DomainInformer. |
View all articles by Donna Gunter... |
A friend of mine calls me the "Domain Queen", since at one time I
owned around 50 domains. I've let many of them go (I own only 22 now)
as my business has changed and developed, or I've just simply lost
interest in the project. I'm often asked how I go about picking
effective domain names, so as the "Domain Queen", I'll share my thought
process with you.
1.What's the purpose of the domain name? Are you planning on
using this name as the main website for your company, as a one page
sales letter site, or squeeze page site? If the domain name will be
your primary company website, try and find the closest version to your
company name that you can. If you're just starting out, choose your
business name and domain name with care. When I started my virtual
assistant practice, I chose the name SOHO Business Solutions, as I
thought everyone knew that SOHO stood for Small Office, Home Office. I
think I've run into 2 people in my 7 years in business who knew what
that acronym stood for. If I had it to do over again for this business,
I would choose a business name and domain name with virtual assistant
in the title, like InternetMarketingVirtualAssistant.com, a name I just
recently purchased.
If the purpose of a domain is for a one-page sales letter site
or a squeeze page, think ahead as to how you might promote this site.
Because content is king in today's internet marketing world, there's
little chance that either of these types of sites would be picked up by
the search engines on key words. Therefore, your best promotion
strategy is PPC, or "pay per click", where you're buying keywords for
placement in search engines. If you're buying keywords from Google, for
example, the paid listings appear at the top of a search in a blue box,
or down the right-hand side of your screen. You want to be sure that
the info displayed there is compelling enough to get someone to click
and visit your site. So, for example, I've created a squeeze page,
GetMoreClientsOnline.com, which has a compelling solution to a common
problem that my clients have, as a side door gateway to my
OnlineBizCoachingCompany.com coaching website.
2. Brainstorm a list of ideas of the problem you're trying to
solve or the solution that you have. A domain name that clearly
indicates what you do, or a problem that you solve, or a solution that
you have to a problem will give a visitor a fairly clear picture of
what s/he'll find on your website. What I typically do is go to my
domain registrar, www.UltraNetDomains.com, and just start plugging in
the names I'm brainstorming until I come up with 3 or 4 that are
available. If the domain name that you type in isn't available, the
service will come up with 10 or so alternates for you to consider. I
found this alternate listing quite helpful recently in picking the name
of an article directory site that I want to create.
3. For SEO (Search Engine Optimization) purposes, it helps to
have your keywords in your domain name. Marla Regan, who's a
professional organizer, has put two keywords in her domain name,
OrganizedTime.com. Retirement Coach Lin Schreiber has her keyword niche
in her domain, RevolutionizeRetirement.com. Consultant John Reddish has
the desired outcome keywords in his domain, GetResults.com. I own a
domain that I haven't yet developed for house sitters,
BecomeAHouseSitter.com. Before buying your domain, make a list of
keywords that someone might use to find you online. This list could
include your industry, your target market or niche, a problem your
target market has, or a solution that you can offer.
4. Shorter is better, if it's to be your primary domain. I
haven't always followed my own rules here, as I tend to have business
names that are quite lengthy. If the domain name is going to be your
primary domain where your primary email address will be housed, you
want your domain name to be as short, catchy, and memorable as
possible. After a few times of spelling out your lengthy email address,
you'll come to appreciate the beauty of a short domain name. Your
domain name can contain up to 67 letters and numbers, although I would
encourage you not to have one of this length, and can contain no
special characters other than hyphens.
5. Purchase your your given name as a domain name. I typically
tell my clients not to try and brand their given name as their business
name, as that takes many years, much money, and lots of hard work to
have the name recognition of Oprah, for example. However, it still pays
to purchase your given name as a domain name, as well as any common
misspellings of your name. Many people think my name is Donna Gunther,
with an "h" in the last name, but I've been unable to register that
common misspelling of my name, as a photographer in Venice, CA, has
owned in since 2000. Once you've purchased your name as a domain, you
can redirect it to your primary website. This means that when someone
types in a domain, they land at the website to which you pointed that
domain. So, currently DonnaGunter.com redirects to
OnlineBizCoachingCompany.com because I don't want to use my name as a
website, although that might change in the future.
6. Buy the .COM version of the name if it is available. When
people hear a domain name, they "hear" .COM whether it's .NET or .BIZ
or .ORG or whatever. So, it pays to find a domain name that you like
that is part of the .COM family. If you just can't get the name you
want, try a hyphenated version of the .COM name. For example, when I
was seeking a domain name for my Self-Employment Coaching Gym, I really
wanted SelfEmploymentSuccess.com, but it wasn't available. However,
Self-Employment-Success.com was available, so I grabbed that. Many SEO
specialists state that search engines like hyphenated names, and many
online business owners use hyphenated keywords in their domain names to
be more attractive to search engines. I don't have a clear answer as to
the validity of this theory, so I just advocate going this route before
having to resort to the .NET or .BIZ of the name you desire. Some
domain name holders may be willing to sell you the domain name that you
want. You can find out who owns a domain name by checking the WhoIs
Registry at Internic. For info
about country codes (two-letter) top-level domains (.UK or .CA, for
example) visit Uwhois.com.
7. Consider owning other versions of your primary domain name.
If you are registering the .COM version of a domain for your business,
you may also want to secure variations of the name, alternate
spellings, common misspellings, and the .NET and .ORG versions of your
domain and repoint them to your main site to keep them out of the hands
of your competitors. You can also go broke very quickly by purchasing
all of these variations, so exercise some restraint in your purchases
and don't go crazy with purchasing every single variation of your
domain name. For my coaching company site, I own both the
OnlineBizCoachingCompany.com and OnlineBusinessCoachingCompany.com and
decided that was good enough.
Your domain name is the beginning of the establishment of your
presence online, Take some time and put some thought into the process
so that the domain name serves you well in the years to come, and is an
effective tool for helping you get more clients online.
Copyright 2006 Donna Gunter
|