Choosing Inferior Domain Names Can Ruin an Online Business

A website by any other name, would not be so sweet….or so says the cyber-bard.  Many times when we’re picking a site url, we fall prey to classic mistakes – here are the most common – and how to avoid them:

1. Buy a .net instead of a .com – and you will most likely send more than 15% of your potential repeat busineess to the .com – most likely a huge competitor.

2.  Not buying the .net, .org, .info, etc of your own name – to protect it on down the line.  Serious online businesses should own all, and all should point to the .com.

3. Using a number in your domain name, such as FreeAdvice4Life, but not purchasing the freeadviceforlife.com address.

3. Keep it short and sweet – urls of less than 7 letters or digits work well.  Others are very forgetable.  Phone numbers are 7 digits for a reason – and the world isn’t getting any better at paying attention to details or retention.
3.5  Begin to branch out to other countries with a name that doesn’t translate well.  Nothing worse than being an url that gains traction here and then becoming a whole new entity in another country – it is, after all, the world wide web.

4.  Using two different names – one for your company – one for the web address.  Consultants R Us as the name, then CRUS.com as the web address…or worse yet – with hyphens consultants-r-us.com.

5. Getting too close to the bone on a new name – or too closely emulating a trademarked name with cache value – and a large legal department.  Doing so can crush a young company.  Just when you gain momentum, they notice you – and you go away.

6. Trying to come up with a word without a current meaning and then expecting people to recall it without spending millions on new ads. 

7. Forgeting that a name online has to “paint a picture” – Sam’s Bikes On Main doesn’t work online.  Trying for something that is online oriented works much better than simply transfering a brick-n-mortar name to the internet.

8.  Buy only the singular or plural of bikes.com or bike.com – try for both and stop sending your clients to the competition.

9. Working on a new company name without first checking for the url availability.  There is nothing worse than hitting paydirt on a great name to find out the url isn’t available.  Check all of them before presenting.

10.  Not buying potential mispellings – especially if your web address is something easily mispelled.  Most people count on the average web surfer to be a deft typist, and it simply isn’t the case.

So, there are some tips on choosing an online name.  For more info, please feel free to connect with me via phone at 404 516 4204 or via email at andygreider@comcast.net with “naming my website” in the subject line.

Thanks!