A Cautionary Note

Picking a domain name is like getting married. You are going to have to stick with it till bitter end. People use your site will come to know it by domain name. Repeat visitors will often simply type in domain name to get to site, better known as “type in traffic”. As an example, do you search for “Amazon” when you want to buy a book or do simply type in amazon.com? If Amazon were to change its domain name to Desert, there would be a lot of confusion. The same goes with your domain. Once you pick something, stick with it.

Your Choices

Well, obvious choice is your business name, but it may not be best. There are four significant issues to consider.

First, is there something about your business name that makes using it as a domain an unwise choice? This situation typically arises if you have a long business name or have plural words. “Halstatt’s Rip’n Marketing Campaigns, Inc.” is going to be a horrible domain name. Clients are going to find it difficult to type in such a domain name.

Its amazing how many businesses have spent good money on website design and still are getting little or no return on this investment. Try answering these simple questions.

How much have you spent on you website? Maybe £5,000 ($10,000) or have you gone for all singing all dancing £15,000 ($30,000) site with animated pictures, frames and rolling pages. But question remains - what business benefit are you deriving from your site?

How much more business are you getting because you have your website? Can you quantify and track incremental business you have received for investment you have made.

When you search on what you consider a key word or phrase associated with products/services that you provide, where does your site appear in page rankings? Try Google, MSN and Yahoo, and try and find your site. If you are not on first page, ask yourself question - how many people searching for my key word/phrase will bother going to second page of results?

.Now look at companies that are getting a high position in results - do you know why this is? These organisations are your key competitors and are taking business off you every day of week, in fact its 24/7 because net is always available across globe. The Answers