Picking The Right Domain Name

Posted by Nick Niesen on November 1st, 2010

What?s in a Name? In today?s world where hundreds of millions of businesses are online the name can affect how many visitors you get and how much money you make. The name can make all of the difference in branding your product and helping people to remember that you exist.

The right domain name is important to let your potential customers know what your business is about and where to find you. The easier it is for them to figure this out from a glance the better off you are. For example, a business that helps websites gain exposure through writing and submitting articles would do much better under the name article-agent.org then blogpublishingandmarketing.com

Let us analyze the information for a second. The domain name article-agent.org has the word ?article? and ?agent? in it. ?Article? means that the site has something to do with articles, writing articles or hosting articles while ?agent? has the concept of someone working for you associated with it. Therefore, together it means that the site is doing something for you with articles. It seems like it fits with the overall concept of gaining visitors with articles.

If we looked at blogpublishingandmarketing.com the three words that jump out are ?blog?, ?publishing? and ?marketing?. It sounds as though the site publishes blogs and helps market them instead of marketing websites. The concepts are completely different and therefore may confuse your customers. They won?t know what your website is really about and may never actually visit it.

Therefore, the name that you use in your website address is important so that it tells the potential customer and visitor what you actually do and why you do it. The closer the name to the actual function of the site the more visitors you will see and most likely the more customers you will get.

The website domain address should also be short. The longer it gets the more difficult it is to remember. This can create a potential problem for customers who want to write down the site, remember it or try and type it in the address bar. For example, the words ?dog food? in the domain is much better then ?dog food lovers and people interested in dogs?. One will make your head spin while the other makes sense.

The right domain name will enhance your marketing strategy a few times over. For example, marketing is all about getting your message out. If your message, your images and your domain name are in parity you will be providing your customers with a single and obvious message. This obvious message will serve them when evaluating your business.

Marketing is about using all the tools you have in front of you and developing a few that you didn?t know existed. You can spend loads of money on your website but if your domain name is not congruent you will loose these potential customers. Your reputation, your businesses success, and your income depend on your messages. With this in mind you should not forget that your domain name is part of that message.