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When Paul first wrote to me for help he
claimed to have so little progress with his new online business that he'd
have been pleased with 'bad progress'. As one of my subscribers, he knew he
could depend on some help. After looking over everything. I felt he was on
target for almost everything, but I did offer a proposal for his
consideration.
He needed to change his domain name. The URL
did not give even a hint of his business, but even more problematic was his
use of the number one (1). Most keyboards do not differentiate between the
letter l (L) and the number 1 --- both look alike. Eliminating this letter
and/or number in Paul's domain name might avoid the misspelling by a surfer
and getting an "error" page instead of his website.
All online businesses must have a domain name
and that name should contribute toward its image. Just as important to that
name will be the ease with which net surfers locate you. For this reason,
serious thought should go into your choice. Traffic is one of the very
important facts, and if you know even a little about Search Engines, you
know that "key words" are what zillions of inquiring surfers type into that
search box.
If a surfer wants to lose weight, they might
type in health, vitamins, weight loss, diets, etc. A workable domain
name should carry one of these words.
Having said that, let's think about your
business and the possibility of including one of the "key words" that a
visitor would type in the search box resulting in your website listing. The
best way to collect some words for consideration is to think about your
product or service and make a list to work with.
Next, make your domain name as short as
possible and still include one of the key words on your list. Short and
simple makes for less confusion to net surfers. Longer names cause problems
in pronunciation. Something that sticks in the memory is ideal. Today,
domain name limits have been lengthened to 63 characters but personally I
would not advise taking advantage of this.
Entrepreneur is a great word,
but few people can spell it without frustration. I have seen it in many
domain name combinations, but I often wonder how much business is lost
because of a poor choice of words. Make your domain name easy to spell and
easy to remember.
For the best traffic, your domain name should
give some idea of the business you are in and what your program is all
about. While Yahoo! and Amazon seemingly ignored this rule, their business
has exploded through brand name building (mega advertisements) and a deep
commitment to quality.
It wouldn't hurt to also consider the
alphabetical order of the domain name. A directory is no different than
your Yellow Pages; A comes before B, and B comes before C, etc. Again with
traffic in mind, a Z listing will not be beneficial.
Even with a list of all your possible
selections, you will run into that exasperating notice of ---
"sorry, but xxxxx.com is taken". And you type
in your next best, but that is taken also. It will seem like everything you
can think of is already being used; I've had that happen to me. All you can
do is start with a fresh list, and keep trying until you finally have a
short, easy to remember, pertinent to your business, domain name.
© 2004 Esther Smith
About
the Author: Smith has published numerous articles and writes a blog for
all artists:
http://the-self-taught-artist.com/blog.html
She also coaches new students on how to leave the time-for-money trap and set up
Leveraged Income for life.
http://thepermanentventure.com/dcc.htm If you can’t sing or ride a
bull, you better learn how to make your money work for more money. |