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 $19.00. What do you have to lose!
Please enter your domain choices
below and register your new dot com today!
