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Choosing the Right Domain for Your Website

how to choose the right domain

When a business decides to build its online presence from the ground up, constructing an amazing website is at the forefront of this process. The company website is what will inform and educate people as to what the business is all about. It will also be a place where people can have an awesome user experience, where products and services will be displayed and ultimately where customers can make lots of purchases. Here at NBBC Group, we pride ourselves on helping our clients to embark on a productive journey of building their online presence for genuine marketing success. That being said, it is our unwavering belief that one of the most important components that can make or break a business website is its domain name.

Why Choosing the Right Domain Name Matters

It may not seem like a big deal at first, but companies which choose the wrong domain name for business-related websites are not doing themselves any favors. The domain name a business commits to is going to rapidly become the signature that consumers come to remember that business and its website by. Get this step wrong, and it can spell major disaster for the majority of your company’s online marketing efforts from that moment onward. Yes, it really is that important and here at NBBC Group, we recommend that business-owners get this step right in order to avoid creating unnecessary problems that will prove to be a marketing design flaw. The following are a few tips that might help to avoid this common mistake.

Research to See What Domain Names are Available

When a company begins the task of choosing a domain name for their website, they will often learn that the domain name they want has been taken already by someone else. However, there are often ways around this problem, such as searching to make sure a domain name extension exists that works equally as well, such as .org, .biz, .co or even .us, for example. Another approach is to use an alternative spelling of a company’s name or the domain name they want, but this may or may not negatively impact later marketing efforts, so be careful when opting for selecting domain names using this approach.

Keep in mind that third party individuals often invest in specific domain names with the hope that someone will be willing to pay them a significant price hike for the right to own and use that domain name. Depending on the company’s reputation or operational needs, it may be a smarter business decision to go ahead and make an offer to purchase the domain name from the investor for the higher price. It really depends on how important that domain name is to the development of a business’s interests and the establishment of a company’s online presence. So, be sure to weigh that decision with great care.

Research Other Successful Website Domain Names

Before a company selects a domain for its website, it is a smart idea to take a hard look at the domains chosen by other highly successful companies. There is wisdom in modeling what other successful businesses are doing online, because it takes the guesswork out of deriving the right formula for achieving excellent results. The thing to think about with this approach is to identify which company website domains stick out and are easy to remember. As a rule of thumb, most company websites that dominate their industry have uncomplicated, powerful domain names that become iconic in the public eye.

In the process of researching other successful business domain names, a business owner might learn that a larger corporation has already taken the domain name they want. If this happens, using that company’s domain name may create potentially damaging legal problems. Remember, large corporations actually go through the trouble to trademark names and phrases that they believe are central to their branding and reputation. Even if a person can win that kind of litigating action, the costs of fighting it in the court system could be extensive. It is generally better to seek to use an alternative domain name if at all possible in these situations.

Website Domain Names Should Be Easy to Type

Another reason highly successful businesses have websites that contain uncomplicated, short, powerful domain names is because the end user will likely be typing in a website’s URL into their browser. The more complex and lengthy the domain name for a company website happens to be, the greater the risk that a potential customer will type it in incorrectly. This is why companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon, Ebay and other leading brands use a simple three syllable or less word for their website’s domain name. The last thing a business wants is for sales to be lost over a mistake like this that is so easily avoided.

If a company picks a domain name that is sometimes mistyped, this problem can be remedied by purchasing domain names which are common misspellings of that website domain name. All a company needs to do is forward these misspelled domain names to the properly spelled domain; thus, eliminating a potentially costly problem when marketing their business online. Consider, for example, that a domain name with a numeric value in it, such as two or five, may use the actual numeric value or be spelled out. This will sometimes create confusion that is easily fixed by the above approach. It is also a good idea to purchase common domain name extensions as well to prevent competitors from stealing a business’s marketing thunder and invading on their brand’s reputation. Please keep in mind, this happens all the time to companies operating online and can be a huge detriment to a company’s marketing efforts.

Evoking a Strong Mental Image with a Domain Name

Marketing is always about making some kind of lasting impression on a consumer. The goal of most marketing angles centers around reaching the targeted audience on a deep emotional level. Sometimes this is done in a subtle way, but to pull this off with the domain name of a company website can make a huge impact on potential customers and at the same time be extremely profitable. Consequently, it is always a good idea for a company’s marketing division to spend time pondering what image comes to mind when reading and hearing domain names under consideration for that business’s website.

If a business-owner is not clear on the kind of emotional impact their website’s domain name is generating, it is appropriate to test this factor by seeking feedback from others. The business-owner merely needs to ask if the domain name provokes a certain image or emotion when the recipient reads or hears that domain name. It can be interesting to take notice of how different people react to being exposed to the same domain name, but the idea is to identify the most consistent reactions observed in the data being collected. This will tend to reflect what the average reaction will be by the general public.

Employing Relevant Targeted Keywords in a Company Website’s Domain Name

Sometimes targeted keywords in a domain name are the right way to go for helping a company’s website shine when looking to achieve compliance with search engine algorithms. For example, a store that sells party supplies may want to use the word “party” or “supplies” in their domain name. While this may not lead to a super simple looking domain name, it may still serve to massively boost how that company’s website ranks in highly niche specific search parameters. Consequently, using this approach is something of a judgment call. It also tends to work best for companies that are not trying to be the next online retail giant, but still need to be competitive enough to keep their small, local business pulling in above average sales volume.

If you are uncertain whether such a domain name picking strategy is right for your company, then do not hesitate to contact us today. Our professional SEO experts are ready to answer any SEO questions that arise in the process of choosing the right domain name for your company’s website.

Identifying The Region a Company Serves

When deciding on a domain name, it is important to consider what size of a region the company serves. Sometimes a domain name or an extension will contain the name of the region the business covers. This is very useful for a business that operates in a smaller, more local capacity as opposed to say an international business that is not trying to reach a more specific local market. For example, “LongIslandcoffeehouse” tends to give off that local to Long Island, New York, vibe. Where”Seiver’sinternationalshipping”, on the other hand, gives the impression of a much larger corporate entity that is engaged in business dealings around the globe. Knowing what kind of reach a business is going to have over which type of region is, therefore, one consideration that may play heavily in choosing a domain name that best fits how a business presents itself online to its target customer base.

A Domain Name Should Feature Nicely in Marketing Materials

Try to remember that a company website will need to look professional in ads and even printed marketing materials. When a URL has a lengthy domain name, weird symbols and what appears to be random garbage text, it seriously takes away from the visual appeal of the ad or printed brochure. Avoiding the use of hyphens, numbers and strange symbols is always advised when choosing a domain name that exudes that professional air for use in marketing materials and pricey marketing campaigns.

Do Not Play Marketing Roulette with Domain Names

As a final note, it is important to understand that marketing is not a game of roulette. The last thing a company wants to do is leave the most important decisions of their marketing strategy up to chance and luck. This rarely turns out well. Marketing that gets excellent results is almost always well thought out in every detail. This is why major companies leave decisions like which domain name to go with up to marketing experts, not marketing amateurs.

If you are just starting out and are struggling to find the right domain name that best represents your company in a marketing capacity, then please understand this is sometimes a daunting task even for larger companies who have been at this for a while. Often, this kind of marketing decision is outsourced to third party marketing and SEO companies who specialize in understanding the intricacies behind consumer psychology and how to make the correct impact with a website’s domain name. This is why NBBC Group encourages you to check out our portfolio and learn how we have helped companies who struggled with similar marketing and website performance issues. We help to take the guesswork out of making your company website a marketing force to reckon with in your industry.

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