The creation of a domain name is one of the most important decisions your organization will make as it strives to compete with a wide variety of other businesses internationally. The competitive nature of web searches will also only continue to increase as the internet expands upon the amount of websites it offers its users. As a result, your domain name choice will significantly impact your website’s success, especially as it pertains to Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Social Media Marketing (SMM). We will further elaborate on just how domain names impact these important marketing strategies in the sections below.
Designing Keyword Based Domain Names:
If your mentality is similar to that of many other business owners, you may currently be operating under the belief that purchasing a domain name that takes advantage of well-researched keywords will ultimately increase your profit margins. With Click-Through Rates (CTRs) and search engine rankings on Google at stake, it is vital to understand whether this method of choosing a domain name is still as effective as it once was.
In SEO professional’s circles, many SEO strategists would have once suggested the purchase of Exact Match Domains (EMDs) to be the single most effective way to improve CTRs, get your company recognized, and ensure your spot at the top of the most popular search engines. If you are still having difficulty understanding exactly what an EMD is, consider the following: if a keyword search shows promise of “rejuvenate your website” as a set of words that will increase the amount of times your website shows up on a search page, then you would likely seek to purchase a domain name that uses the title RejuvinateYourWebsite.com. This method of selecting domain names holds a few different advantages, which include:
- The presence of the keywords in the website’s name assists your website in being located online.
- Other webmasters are inclined to include your domain in their searches due to the keywords in its title.
The greatest setback with this strategy however is the dependence placed upon search engine companies to retain their original algorithms so that they remain favoring your organization’s original domain name. If history has taught us anything, it is that we must continue to adapt in order to survive, which means search engine companies must do the same. As a result, the aforementioned strategy is no longer as helpful as it once was! In fact, current search ranking statistics indicate that EMDs have gone from around #13 in search results to #26, a significant decrease! While this may detour you from selecting an EMD alone, note that selecting an EMD while deploying other strategies will still increase your domain’s ability to be found online.
Selecting Keyword Domains that improve Click-Through Rates
With an increased click-through rate, your organization will benefit significantly in terms of your bottom line profits. Owning a premium keyword domain can help in that regard, especially as it relates to ads. With numerous studies conducted regarding the relationship between ads and domain names that increase CTRs, it has been found that ads featuring generic domains that match the product performed much better than other ads that featured more generic domains. Domain names such as DivorceLawyer.com that were featured in ads had a significantly higher CTR due to their generic nature.
When designing your domain name, it is also important that you consider these factors:
- The search volume will be important to consider. As a note, you can perform a keyword search to find out the exact volume of a phrase. This will help determine whether you would like to use the keyword or not.
- Consider the cost of your domain and whether it is worth purchasing. If it is already in use, purchasing the domain may be absorbedly expensive and not worth the investment.
- If your domain name is not a .com, you may wish to reconsider. The .com domain extension is the original website destination and as a result significantly more popular.
Select a Domain that you can easily Brand
While having EMDs that match your organization’s target keywords provides you with some initial benefits, those domain names are not always brand friendly. If you are seeking to increase in size, scope, or recognition, you must be able to brand your domain name effectively. Designing your brand will take time and careful thought, so do not rush into any decisions. It is important that your users are able to find, remember, and share your company information with their friends and family online. If they can easily recognize your brand, your company is on the path to success! The benefit behind branding is made clearer when you consider the fact that search engines seek to promote legitimate businesses. With that understanding, do not waste another second, start branding your domain name today!
Developing a Domain Name you can Brand Successfully
There are organizations in existence today that have selected to develop a domain name without considering whether their domain name will easily fit into their company’s branding efforts in the future. If you have yet to embark on this route, you are in luck because you can benefit from some of the information contained below, which will help you successfully brand your domain!
- Select an Extension that Matters
The number of domain extensions has steadily increased over the past few years to include extensions such as .org, .gov, and .edu. While these are viable options for domain extensions, .com is still the best extension to choose due to the fact that it accounts for over 75% of all extensions.
- Test your Domain Name’s Relevance
- The words you select for your domain name will obviously mean something particular to you and your colleagues. However, to really determine whether your domain name expresses what you intend, you may wish to seek out other people’s understanding of what your business offers, based purely off of your proposed domain name. If the two don’t match, you will likely want to reconsider your domain name so that you are portraying what you intend.
- Seek to be Remembered
- With many companies offering similar services, it is vital that consumers are able to easily remember your domain name. If your domain name is not catchy, it is less likely your organization will be remembered, which will likely result in a decrease in website visits. Ultimately, this impacts your bottom line!
- Beware of Spelling Mistakes
- If your domain name is not easy to spell, you may wish to reconsider using it. The same holds true if you are using numbers in your domain name. Oftentimes with numbers, you will want to purchase the same domain name without the number (ex. 2step.com —> twostep.com).
- Use a Unique Domain Name
- Competition between businesses requires that you create a domain name that stands out. If you have to continuously explain who you are and your domain name is not easy to remember, chances are it may not be as unique as you think.
- Demonstrate your Authority through Competence
- In order to be taken seriously in the business world, you must first demonstrate your competency through your domain name. If your domain name is downloadcomputerviruses.com, chances are you will not be pursued because that domain name sounds like it can cause people significant computer issues.
How To Find A Great Domain Name
If you scoured the internet, even briefly, during the creation of your company’s initial name, you were likely met by the reality that some other organization already had that name or one that was very similar. Instead of seeking options to purchase their domain name, which would likely be a time consuming and expensive task, consider setting up a brainstorming session with your colleagues to create several usable domain name ideas.
- Using some of the following strategies can help you develop a domain name that your company and consumers will gravitate towards for years to come.
- Use existing words to design website domains that people will select to visit. These can be words as simple as “cat” or “dog” and combined with words like “grooming” to create web domains like CatandDogGrooming.com. The advantage with selecting this type of name is that people are already familiar with the words.
- The design of new words can be an enticing route for designing your new domain name. If you look hard enough online, you may find websites with names like visex, a word you may never use in your daily life but exists as a website domain.
- Combining names of two ordinary words is another plausible option in domain name creation. Several popular websites such as Facebook combine two words to make their websites work. If you think you can combine two words and make a great sounding domain name, go right ahead! Many successful businesses have done it in the past!
- Using one of the services like namesmith.io can be handy to help create useful names.
While the process of deciding upon an excellent domain name takes determination and many nights spent researching, it is well worth the effort. You will find, almost immediately, that your efforts help you rank higher in search engine findings, attract more visitors to your website, and ultimately increase your bottom line! With those increases, you will undoubtedly be able to expand your business, which results in you realizing your dreams! That sounds fun right? So, get to work! We wish you the best!