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The domain name is your business address on the Internet. Even though the process acquiring a domain name is simple, most small business owners will quickly learn that it the management of domain names is far more perplexing. In this blog, I will attempt to break down the entire process into several key concepts; here is PART 2 of "Choosing a Domain Name".
This is the easiest part of starting an online presence. Simply put, a domain name is word or phrase that describes your business; it is also followed by an extension. For example, we chose “sitebento.com”, but we could have done something like “maine-website-design-and-hosting.com”. Our client “Benkay Japanese Restaurant and Sushi Bar” chose “sushiman.com” as a short, easy, and universal domain name for their business. There are two core areas that will be impacted by your domain name choice:- Search Engines: fundamentally rely on a domain name to rank search results. Therefore, a law firm with the word “law” in their domain name can benefit in rankings. On its own, the domain name will not guarantee rank, but when all else is equal, domain names to present a benefit to their users.
- People: people will rely on your domain name for two things: website and e-mail. Therefore, the domain name should be easy to spell out. Using two or three letters in a row, or something that’s just hard to write, will put your business at a disadvantage with human beings. After all, “bobloblawlawblog.com” (thank you “Arrested Development”) is just a mouth-full.
Extensions: these are the DOT something portions of your internet name. There are many choices, like ".com", ".net", ".org", ".biz". To search engines, they make no difference (with the exception of geographically sensitive ones like those used by other countries). However, people's perceptions vary - and are changing - so having a ".com" for business or ".org" for non-profit is perceptually preferred.
Word of Caution: Make sure you Google the desired phrase before you committ to registering it. Ultimately, your domain name will be affiliated with some set of search results - be sure to know who the top-10 results are. I recently worked on a project where the top-10 results are adult-themed websites; my customer's baking business is far from it. On one level, we can view that as a good thing: it's easy to penetrate that set of results with seeming unrelated content. On the other hand, people may have issues visiting a website that is listed among so many un-appetizing results. The classic example, present on the internet since 2003, is Senator Rick Santorum's frothy "google problem", where a adult-themed definition has dominated the search results. In the latter example, the adult-themed definition quickly penetrated a result-space that was once occupied by political content.