How Your Domain Name Attracts Customers
The quickest way to getting eyeballs on your business these days is by establishing an online presence and central to establishing a powerful online presence is choosing a domain name that will attract the right customers.
Somehow, there hasn't been enough emphasis placed on choosing a domain name that attracts the right customers, so allow me to expound on this subject with some tips you can put to immediate use for your next website or blog.
- Choose A Descriptive Domain
What your website offers should be clear from the domain name. Don't make your potential visitors guess at what they'll find on your website.
For example, if your name happens to be Sue Brown and you own a hair salon called Sue's Hair Salon, get a domain name like, www.sueshairsalon.com instead of www.suebrown.com. Seems pretty obvious, but you'll be amazed at how many business owners use their personal names as domain names instead of choosing one that specifically describes their business.
Also, try to keep your domain name within a range of 13-15 characters, as shorter domain names tend to stick in people's minds. It also makes it easier for them to type out your web address in their browsers without too much head scratching.
- Select A Keyword-Rich Domain Name
It's becoming increasingly important for business owners to have their websites indexed and ranked well in search engines like Google.com, MSN.com and Yahoo.com. And it helps this cause tremendously if you have a keyword-rich domain name. The reason for this is simple: Your potential customers search using specific keyword phrases to find what they're looking for.
Spending the time to research your keywords and find a domain that uses them, while still meeting the first criteria (descriptive, short as possible) is well worth the time.
There are plenty of other things you'll need to do to get good rankings in the search engines, but your domain name sets the foundation for everything else. Also, avoid using dashes in your domain even if it makes it easier to find a keyword-rich name. Hyphens are believed to hurt your rankings in some search engines.
- Must A Domain Name End With .com?
Yes and no. You could use other extensions like .net, .biz or .info but it's not the best choice. Everybody knows .com but if your site uses something else, you're going to have to market it a lot harder to get the correct extension in people's minds. And if someone else already has the .com version, they'll probably get a lot of traffic from people looking for you.
How would you like your potential customers to end up on your competitor's client list thanks to the time and money you spend on marketing?
If you're setting up a website for specific types of organizations, a non-profit group for example which should use .org, the best way to go is to stick with .com.
Don't rush into picking a domain name. Take the time to research your market and find keyword phrases that people actually search for. Websites such as Wordtracker.com and GoodKeywords.com can help you with this. Taking the time to plan correctly in the beginning will pay off well in the long term.