Choosing
your domain name
URL's can be fleeting (at least it can
seem so since you are basically renting them a year at a time). The
effort, angst and MONEY you will invest in PROMOTING AND ADVERTISING the
URL is not. The only time that choosing your URL is not an important
issue is if the site or business fails. In all other cases, this is a
decision you will have to live with for a long time or, should you
decide to change, could result in considerable expense.
The domain name you choose should be
based on one single issue... What do you want to accomplish?
For professional help choosing your URL contact Web transitions.
If your company has a nationally known
brand, the obvious choice is to use the brand. You've spent a lot of
money developing the brand... you need to have a URL that takes
advantage of it. You will always want your "brand" URL to be a
.com if possible. Most people are much more used to typing .com than
.net or .org or .biz.
If most of your marketing is done through
traditional channels you will want a domain name that is as short as
possible and that is easily recognizable and remembered. It should also
be easy to spell. Using phonic representations or hyphens could be a big
disadvantage if your primary marketing is audio. XSmoney.com sounds the
same as excessmoney.com or excess-money.com. If your primary marketing
channels are visual phonic representations may be OK as long as the
phonic representation is OBVIOUS. Any time the surfer will have to
physically type in the URL it should be short, easy to remember, easy to
spell and easily recognizable.
If, on the other hand, most of your site
traffic will be generated by search engines or other online marketing
(banners, email, etc.) your domain name can be just about anything. If
they don't have to type it in, you can use any domain name up to 57
characters long (not including the www. or the .com). The type of URL
(.com, .net, .org, .biz) is less important with URL's that will be
advertised this way because they will get to your site through a link
most of the time. NOTE: Only consider anything except .com if the
.com URL is unavailable.
Use those characters to your advantage.
Many search engines and spiders give a better position to URL's that
contain the same words that were used to search. In other words, if
someone uses "part time employment" as a search phrase and
your URL is "www.part-time-employment-service.com" you will
probably place better in search engines than if your URL was "www.BakerandBaker.com".
This does not guarantee that you will be at the top of the list but it
will increase your ranking by some degree in most search engines.
With all of this in mind, it is now time
to start looking for your domain name. Get a couple of involved people,
decide on the type of URL you want (easily remembered or attractive to
search engines), set down with a wipe-off board and begin brainstorming.
If you are looking for that perfect keyword filled URL it is important to remember that in many cases the people closest to the
business are not the people you want making all of the suggestions for
URL's. People closest to the business will probably not use the same
search words as your customers will. Remember, you want to use
the most important search keywords in your URL and you want to
use the very best keywords at the beginning of the URL.
One great source for "effective" keywords is
www.wordtracker.com. This site
uses other web sites using the keywords you enter to locate other keywords. Once you have the list, WordTracker will also
tell you which keywords are being used in searches and which ones are more likely to reach the top of search listings for individual search engines. This is a good place to invest a few dollars to help you generate keywords that may be useful.
If your need help with the keyword research contact sales@webtransitions.com
The success of a brainstorming session is
based on atmosphere and the ability of the group NOT to make judgmental
comments during the brainstorming process. Brainstorming is about open,
out of the box, thinking. A fun, easy atmosphere will allow people to
say things that they would never say in a formal, business-like
atmosphere. Don't say "that's a good one" or "that
doesn't make any sense". Keep your comments to a minimum. You
should make this clear to the group before you start. One method of
minimizing judgmental comments is to place a water pistol in front of
you and let everyone know that if they make a judgmental comment they
will get blasted. You can use this to keep the atmosphere light by
making some judgmental statement shortly after the beginning of the
session, picking up the water pistol and shooting yourself.
Once you have the long list, you can
begin to pare it down using a simple "grading" technique.
Create a short list of "priorities" for the URL. For instance,
you may decide that the URL must be easy to remember, easy to spell,
short and funny. Create a chart to keep track of your
"grades". As you go through your long list of possible URL's,
each person "grades" the URL by each of the criteria on a
scale of 1 to 4 (4 being the best).
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