The Right Domain Name Can Win New Clients

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The Right Domain Name Can Win New Clients

Thomas Gaudio 7/28/2008

Companies should choose a Web address that is short and to the point

When Kimberlee Williams, co-owner of marketing consultancy Femworks LLC, tried to register http://www.femworks.com as the companyâ€™s domain name, she ran into a problem familiar to small-business owners. Someone who had already registered the name, but was not using it, was selling the Internet address for an inflated price, referred to as the after-market.
The person was â€œnot going to sell the name for less than $2,500,â€ says Williams. She and Tamara Fleming-Cooper, co-owner of Newark-based Femworks, which provides marketing services to companies trying to reach the lesbian and gay community, opted instead to register http://www.femworksllc.com. The charge is $1.99 for a year.

Williams considers the name to be â€œless intuitiveâ€ than the companyâ€™s first choice for those trying to find Femworks online, but she doesnâ€™t think it has impacted business significantly. Last month the company spent $10 to renew the Web name through domain-name registration firm GoDaddy.com for five years, Williams says.

With it becoming routine for people to search online for companies and their offerings, domain names are something that businesses should â€œgive a lot of thought to in their early stages,â€ says Mark Beck, vice president of The Boulevard Group, Inc., a Web site design firm based in Long Valley, whose clients include lawyers and retailers. â€œThatâ€™s your business name on the Internet.â€

American Photographic Instrument Company, Inc. got a lesson in online marketing several years ago when Richard Roberts, owner of the Passaic-based maker of aluminum telescopic products, registered a domain name for the company.

He says he tried to register http://www.apic.com but it was taken,

so he instead registered http://www.x-tendtechnologies.com and branded the company online as X-Tend Technologies. â€œI figured X-Tend, like â€˜extend,â€™ meaning we deal with tubing that extends,â€ says Roberts.

â€œI thought I was going to be cute. In the end, Iâ€™m not quite sure that was the best way to go,â€ he says, noting that customers may have a hard time finding the company online.

Shorter is usually better when it comes to domain names, says Anita Campbell, owner of small-business consultancy Anita Campbell Associates Ltd. in Medina, Ohio. But most of the three- and four-letter names for the inside portion of the domain name, known as the second-level domain, with â€˜dot-comâ€™ at the end have been taken, she says.

Beck recommends using â€˜dot-comâ€™ at the end of domain names, the part known as the top-level domain. Dot-com is â€œfar and away the most popularâ€ choice for a top-level domain, and itâ€™s the most recognizable, he says. Other top-level domains include â€˜dot-net,â€™ â€˜dot-biz,â€™ and â€˜dot-org.â€™

Femworksâ€™ Williams says the â€˜dot-netâ€™ top-level domain â€œlooks cheap to me. It looks second-rate.â€

Another factor to keep in mind when choosing a domain name is making sure it is â€œeasy to remember and say,â€ says Beck. â€œAvoid names you have to explain like http://www.widgetsforless.com. Is it f-o-r, the number four or the number four spelled out? The more time it takes you to explain, the more ineffective it will be.â€

He says using a domain name like http://www.discountyarn.com â€œwill help to a certain degree on search engines like Google. But I always caution clients to not make major business decisions based on what search engines are doing now,â€ Beck says. â€œTheyâ€™re famous for changing their algorithms [formulas used to order search results]. They tweak them regularly.â€

Using keywords in a companyâ€™s domain name could be beneficial if the business is trying to grow locally and mixes in a geographic reference such as http://www.newjerseydentists.com, although a company should probably use a smaller area than a state, says Campbell.

Itâ€™s also a good idea to register the same second-level domain with different first-level domains, and common misspellings of the second-level domain, as â€œdefensive measuresâ€ against unscrupulous people looking to siphon Internet traffic, she says. But beware the danger of â€œgoing too far. You donâ€™t want to be domain rich and cash poor,â€ Campbell says.

Campbell says to register your own name as the second-level domain if youâ€™re â€œholding yourself out as an expert, for purposes of personal branding.â€ Potential clients, who may not be aware of the company name, are probably â€œsearching [online] for your name.â€

She practices what she preaches. The domain name for Campbellâ€™s business is http://www.anitacampbell.com. â€œThere are a lot of Anita Campbells around. I want to be the Anita Campbell.â€ With that domain name, if someone punches â€˜Anita Campbellâ€™ into a search engine, http://www.anitacampbell.com will likely appear higher than, say, http://www.anitapcampbell.com, she says.

Some larger companies have Web sites and domain names for specific brands such as Proctor & Gambleâ€™s http://www.tide.com, which is dedicated to the companyâ€™s line of Tide laundry detergent. Although the strategy can be expensive and may not make sense for every business, Campbell says small companies should register domain names for products and services if they â€œwent to the extent of getting trademarks.â€
Williams says Femworks has registered another domain nameâ€”http://www.reachbuildempower.comâ€”because it was a way to incorporate the companyâ€™s slogan, â€˜Reach. Build. Empower.â€™ into â€œour Web presence.â€ The site is not currently active, but Femworks plans to use it to offer industry information and connections through blogs and other online social-networking tools.

Femworks may not have been willing to pay for the original domain name it wanted, but Campbell says buying an expensive Internet address in the after-market could be worth it. She says one of her clients, The Karcher Group, a Web site developer based in North Canton, Ohio, paid $15,000 for http://www.tkg.com from an individual who had owned the name for a couple of years. The Karcher Group felt it was worth the price because they wanted to use the short name in traditional marketing efforts, such as billboard advertising, so potential customers would have something to â€œquickly remember.â€ â€œIf youâ€™re going to do a lot of offline promotion, it might be worth it to spend $15,000 for a better name,â€ Campbell says.

Beck says small businesses can save money by having their â€œcredit cards in handâ€ when domain-name shopping so they can scoop up available addresses before theyâ€™re taken and re-sold at higher prices.

Companies that register domain names include Network Solutions, based in Herndon, Va.; The Go Daddy Group, Inc. of Scottsdale, Ariz.; and New York City-based Register.com, Inc., according to Marina del Rey, Calif.-based Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the not-for-profit that accredits domain-name registering firms.
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IDN, Jul 28, 2008 IP

perfect_square Active Member

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#2

haha

"the â€˜dot-netâ€™ top-level domain â€œlooks cheap to me. It looks second-rate.â€"

Sad but true.

Now would you rather have a dot com name with a dash in it or a .net two word name without a dash

YourSite.net
-or-
Your-Site.com

You decide.

perfect_square, Jul 28, 2008 IP

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#3

perfect_square said: ↑

haha

"the â€˜dot-netâ€™ top-level domain â€œlooks cheap to me. It looks second-rate.â€"

Sad but true.

Now would you rather have a dot com name with a dash in it or a .net two word name without a dash

YourSite.net
-or-
Your-Site.com

You decide.
Click to expand...

Most domainer like -
dot com without dash than dot com with dash

But for a developed website, then its domain name with dash or not will not important as a 'pure domain name'...

IDN, Jul 28, 2008 IP

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