Okay so everyone has a
website these days. Web sites are now necessity just as a phone
book ad is. Believe it or not what you pick for a domain name
will affect how busy your site is and how well you rank
with a search engines.
Now if your IBM, Microsoft
or Dell, you don't have to worry about how people will find you...and
you probably can stop reading this now. Because what we have to say
doesn't apply to you. Who it applies to is small and midsize
businesses that want to increase your exposure. Who it applies to are
companies who want to be accessible to their customers and vendors.
The Internet has been
called the great equalizer and honestly where else can small companies
compete on a leveled playing field with its bigger competitors.
With this said, let's cut
to the chase, if you make widgets put widgets in your domain name.
If you make bricks, put bricks in your domain name.
So why would you do this
or how do you execute this. Think of ice-skating, search engines are
based on a scoring system called algorithms. Your domain name is
equivalent to landing a triple jump. If your domain contains the most
important component of your business, you will rank higher than
if you don't include it.
Lets take Acme Inc. They
make bricks. We would recommend to this person a two-step process.
First, pick a domain containing the word bricks, e.g...bricksrus.com,
acmebrick.com, acmebrickandmortarsupplies.com any of these will
substantially increase the chances of a successful search engine
placement. Why?...because if someone is looking for brick and mortar
supplies, if its in your domain, it is a pretty good bet your web site
contains information on brick and mortar supplies. So you are scored
higher. Now does this work for Yahoo...yes and no...the domain is more
likely to get noticed by the human that reviews your site than a site
that doesn't contain any information other than acme.com. Remember
each site in Yahoo is review by a human. So make sure it looks good
and has no broken links.
Okay now there is
something else to consider, letterhead...yes letterhead and business
cards and envelopes...get the picture. acmebrickandmortarsupplies.com
is just too long to put on a business card. So here's what you have to
do...you have to decide...do you trade off your search engine ranking
for a better looking business card...do you pick the long name that
will be hard for customers remember. Or, do you use two names...one
for search engines and one for business cards.
What we advise our clients
is you should purchase both names...and put a pointer, something that
redirects the long name to the short name. Now many hosting companies
don't offer this service for free (hint, hint. we do because we think
its was best for our small businesses).
Our second approach is to
place a copy of the site on both domains...that part isn't free of
charge but what we do is offer a deeply reduced price on the second
domain. You will still have full service for the discounted space. It
is just a courtesy to our customers. The second space is as little
as $7.95 per month. Remember we have also reduced the domain cost so
you can make a informed decision and not have to pay a premium price.
Take our advice and try
it...you can purchase a 1 year domain for $11.50. What do you have
to lose!
