February 16, 2009

Your Domain Name Describes Your Internet Business

When deciding on a domain name for your online presence, there are a few important things to consider. Having the right domain name will present your business to the world in a way that is positive and enhance all of your other branding efforts. It needs to be clever and easy to remember so your customer can find you. More importantly, you need to keep in mind that for your website to get noticed by new customers it needs to attract the interest of the search engines, and there are a few key ways to do this.

Initially, you should try and find a name that describes your business clearly and is reasonably short and easy to remember. The single, easiest way to get a better result with most search engines is by having a good descriptor about your site in the name. Even though you can apply a lot of other techniques to improve your SEO within the content, this one factor is amazingly powerful. Be careful to not go overboard and pack too many words into the domain name for your business, remember to keep it short. Even though this is a sure-fire way of improving your rankings, it can get annoying. Nobody likes to remember "We-sell-the-best-coffee-on-the-planet.com" if they can more easily find "bestcoffee.com". The challenge is that the web has been around for a while, so most of the domains are already spoken for, creativity is key. The good thing about packing these terms into your actual domain name is that the search engines love this. Just having these terms in the name will really help you get higher in the searches than someone that embeds keywords in their pages.

Try and avoid using dashes, numbers and special characters in your choice as these can be easy to forget for your users and you will probably end up sending them to another site if they enter your address without them. It's also a good idea to avoid clever spellings for your name such as "dogz" or "catz" as this can confuse your visitors. The whole point of having a website is making it easy for folks to find it. It may be tempting to tweak the word since many of the conventional spellings may be taken, but it can backfire on you.

Avoid any terms that may be trademarked. Even words that are derivative of a trademark can get you in trouble these days, so be careful when you settle on a name and make sure you're not trespassing on any protected terms. In the early days of the web, any name you could grab was fine, since a lot of the established trademark law wasn't easily applied to this new medium called the internet. In the years since, the web has become a hotbed of activity for trademark protection and will be enforced, so be careful.

The real trick when picking your name is to be flexible and remember that you are trying to settle on a name that reflects your business name or your type of business. If your business name is Supreme Paints, don't worry so much about trying to secure a domain that fits your name into the URL. Even though this is a good way for your current customers to remember your address, it does very little to drive new customers to your site. Picking a domain name that expands on the concept of paint, would serve you better. Remember that once a visitor hits your site, you can brand it any way you want. So for example, if a customer finds you as "greatpaint.com", you can easily brand your homepage they land on as Supreme Paints so they know who you are. If you are having a problem finding a name that suits your business, most domain registrars have a great search feature to show the names that are available for either a name you want, or terms you want. Even though it would be great to have your name in the ".com" domain, be sure to search the other domains as well. In today's internet, "greatpaints.net" is almost as good as "greatpaint.com".

Picking the perfect domain name is a very important step in helping your business to expand on the web. Following the suggestions outlined can help you pick a good one that will drive traffic to your site and flood you with new visitors. Keep in mind that the name you pick is really the gateway these customers will use to find and buy from your site.

Follow these suggestions:

- Keep it short and easy to remember and avoid trademarks
- Use key terms that apply to your core business to help with search
- Avoid dashes, numbers, special characters, and odd spellings
- Use the domain registrars search function to suggest names

Greg Mangin (Gman) is a professional engineer and a top network marketer coaching a team of profit conscious entrepreneurs to make an income from home. Greg uses systems created by top industry earners, a branded, customizable attraction marketing platform that is totally generic and can be applied to any direct sales or mlm business. Greg can be contacted through his website at http://eza.MLMglobalDomination.com?t=domain or personally at 812-582-0391.

January 17, 2009

Top Tips For Choosing the Right Domain Name

Ask any online marketer what their domain name means to them, and they will automatically tell you that their domain name is their company's identity. It tells surfer everything they need to know: who they are? What they do? What their product/service can do for them.

It essentially acts as a summation of your company's web identity, so making sure you pick one that accurately describes you is vital.

For this reason we recommend that you pick something that is memorable, distinct and original. One that stands out from the rest in your product niche, but also at the same time efficiently reflects your company's products/service.

So how do you decide which is the right domain for you?

Well the first thing we recommend, especially if you are interested in incorporating SEO into your web design, is to pick a domain name that is SEO friendly.

But as with all things, this in itself can lead to more problems when it comes to choosing your domain. You see, you are just one of many companies online, who have undertaken the task of finding a URL that is SEO friendly.

So trying to find one that is distinct to your product niche and that has also been left untouched can be difficult. The competition is fierce.

But you can overcome this. You can offer your domain a uniqueness presence. Take the following details for example. Each can help make your decision easier.

Brand: as we said before your domain name is your websites identity. It represents who you are to the entire marketing sector and what you are trying to achieve as a company.

Saying this, your brand essence can also play an important factor in what domain you decide to choose.

All your brand is, is an extension of your company's identity. It is another means of allowing your surfers to recognise who you are and what you do.

So if for example you are a property investment teaching company, within your domain name it needs to mention the phrases 'property courses' or 'property investment.'

Length: which do you choose? A short domain name that is easy to remember and type into your browser or a long domain name that will enable you to incorporate SEO and explain your product?

Both of these have got their benefits. It is just a matter of deciding which one would best benefit your website.

One way you can have the best of both these worlds is to set a word restriction of up to 67 characters. By doing this, you can give your domain name just enough description length so that it is not obscured, but a clear cut off point.

Saying this, if you can keep your domain name to under 67 characters that will prevent surfers from making any errors when come to type in your domain name.

Hyphens: similar to the length of your domain names, hyphens can bring both its advantages and its disadvantages.

On the one hand, using hyphens can help you to get the domain you want whilst making your keywords more accessible to SEO e.g. propertyinvestment to property-investment.

But then on the opposite end of the scale, if surfers forget to include them, they could either be taken to another company's website, or they won't be able to find your website at all.

Domain name type: when picking your domain name you need to decide what you want your top level domain to be.

All a top level domain is, is your domain names extension for example .com, .net, .org, .us or .biz.

Now most companies choose to go for .com but there is nothing necessarily wrong with using any of the others we have mentioned above. In fact, with .com being such a popular domain source, it can be quite competitive to get your domain name with them so choosing one of the others could ensure you get the domain you want.

So take the time to decide what domain name best suites your website, and make sure you consider all the above pointers. Do that and you can offer your website the best in domain representation.

Caite Scott is a professional copywriter who has been working in the field of digital marketing and new media web design for over 6 years.