The Importance of the Right Domain Name

Just how important is the actual Domain Name in your decision process when building your website?

The average man on the street never really understood domain names in the early 2000’s. However,  I now feel that most people I speak to, when they ask what I do for a living, now strongly grasp the concept of domain names and websites. They now realise that they are indeed valuable and are as important as the company name above a shop window.

Still, small business owners, the bread and butter of the commerical world, will not spend enough time and attention on developing the best domain for their needs.

Common Mistakes

Let’s use the example of a fictional Double Glazing window company, based in Berkshire, England run by James Smith and his brother, Peter.

The worst mistake of all is when they simply take the company name, register the nearest domain to it and then do absolutely nothing in the way of promoting it. They would register jandpsmithwindows.co.uk

Now, thats great as a company name but as a domain, with no further promotion or SEO work, it really won’t get them a great deal of extra business. Sure, if they fill it with some great unique content then it should attract some visitors via some search engine interrogation.

Surely, in their case, where they particularly wish to attract local visitors, they should be thnking of a domain like BerkshireWindows.co.uk . This has 2 major keywords and may well replicate what their potential customers are typing into their browser. They should then follow this up by having clear references to ‘Berkshire Windows’ and ‘Berkshire Double Glazed Windows’ througout the site to really get their site high up in the natural search results and lessen their need to spend a fortune on local Google Adwords targetting.

The other route

Strong keywords is one way, an easy way, of helping your natural search engine rankings. The alternative domain name registering policy is pretty much the opposite and go for Branding over keywords.

Strong Brand examples are Yahoo, Google, Bing, Twitter, etc. Clearly, these will do absolutely nothing on their own, all other things being equal, in the search engines. However, the clarity and shortness of the domain name offers it’s very own benefits, such as a super strong identity and ease of recall. This will lead to moew visitors typing that domain name back in their browser for a return visit. It is also fairly obvious that you either have a massive budget, with which to promote your brand, which will then bring in backlinks to the site, as the word gets round, or that a very strong SEO strategy needs to be implemented.

Which solution one goes for therefore really comes down to company size, contacts and budget.

Best of both worlds?

Perhaps a good middle ground is merging the two concepts together and going for a combination of brand and keyword solution.

The brand part of it can in fact be a strong adjective, such as CheapWindows.com, PremierWindows or AxisDoubleGlazing.com (remember the A for local direcory searches!)

These domain will offer decent natural search engine results are only require some reasonable SEO work to make sure the other keywords like ‘Berkshire’ are placed in and around the pages.

Summary

A domain name represents your showcase to the world. It is a very important decision on so many levels. It is also potentially disastrous to change your mind on the domain name down the line and lose a lot of the goodwill built up over time.

Keywords or Brand is up to the small business owner as is how much time and money they feel they should be spending on the usual SEO factors.

Personally, I find the Brand option a lot ’sexier’ but without proper marketing, having a domain name on your business card called ‘Vindar.com’ really does not get accross what your actual business is. This is the crux of the decision so take your time and really focus on which one would work for you.

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