The Best Domain Name

By Albert Finkell


Creating a new website consists of many different concepts. What style to use? What colors? What about the biggest decision of all? The domain name could be the most important of all these elements. When it's time to choose a domain name you have two general approaches. One is to try and create a domain name that matches what people are searching for when they look for a product or service. The other is to create a brand identity with a domain name. We will discuss both approaches and the pros and cons of each.

For illustration, let's assume that a business named Tiny Treats sells cupcakes in New York City. A potential customer may use various searches to find what they want. If we assume we're not limited to domain names, it makes sense to concatenate a geography to a product or service. Through keyword analysis we might find that a typical person uses "new york city cupcakes" to search. A perfectly matched domain would then be newyorkcitycupcakes.com. Since this domain name matches a customers target search, they are very likely to get the jump on a non-matching domain. This is because the search engines give relevance to domain names and since they match it provides a benefit.

There might also be some adverse effects of going with a search matching domain name. Knowledgeable searchers may see your domain name as an attempt at an advertising scheme. Also, if a domain owner wants to expand their business offerings they will want to still make sense to the selection. Ultimately, the biggest detriment to an exact match is the lack of a brand association since the company name is not involved.

The choice also exists to create a non-matching branded domain name. For a company named Tiny Treats, the obvious choice is tinytreats.com, the name of the company. This creates a clear brand name for a customer who visits the site or wants to visit the site again. Think of companies who have huge branded domain names like Amazon or Google. These names have nothing inherently associated with the services they provide, yet they create a clear brand image. There are also methods of overcoming the non-matching nature of a branded domain name. Typically, a customer may create internal search-matching URLs.

I think most people would want to use a branded name as a domain but often choose a matching name to help their on-line visibility. A site will certainly see a positive gain in the search results from doing so. While these gains might be short-lived due to other search factors, it's evident it helps to some degree. Customer will also find that the obvious domain names are already taken and be forced to create a branded name or risk a silly URL as a result. Ultimately, the domain name should fit a customers needs regardless of which approach.




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment