Selecting the Right Web Address
Selecting your web address (domain name) is the first step in developing your website. You might even say it's the most important step. Your goal is to select a name that will be easy to remember and reflects your business.
Should my web address be MyBusinessName.com?
If you are able to purchase your business name, I would highly recommend it. Most people who are searching for your business, will type in yourbusinessname.com'. Owning this address allows you to continue the brand name recognition that you hopefully have already established. If you are starting a new business, you might want to consider what web addresses are available before you finalize your business name.
What do I do if MyBusinessName.com is already taken?
We have run into this situation with many of our clients. You have two options.
Option One, you can try to buy the address from the current owner. In many cases, the owner has no desire to sell the address. If he or she does want to sell, they might ask for thousands of dollars. We had a client who wanted to by a 3 letter abbreviation. The seller was asking $30,000 for the address. We had another client who paid $15,000 for a web address. So depending on the selling price and your budget this might be a solution.
Option Two, Let your creative juices start flowing. Our client Ambush Paintball needed to be creative. He wanted ambushpaintball.com but that name was taken and the owner was not selling. Our client came up with many other options including: ambush-paintball.com, ambushpb.com, ambushpaintballpa.com, ambushpaintballfield.com and ambushpaintballgames.com. All 5 of these names were viable options.
Here is how we came to our final decision.
Ambush-paintball.com - We were concerned that people would forget to type in the dash. In many cases, the web address would be promoted verbally over the phone or the radio. We felt that it would be too challenging to have to explain the dash.
Ambushpb.com - We liked that the address was short. However, we felt that we would have to explain that pb was short for paintball.
Ambushpaintballpa.com - We liked that we had the entire name in the address. However, we were concerned that the pa would be confusing and would limit the scope of business.
Ambushpaintballfield.com - We really liked this address. It said exactly what the business was all about. It was longer than we originally wanted. Our biggest concern was that people would misspell the word field.
Ambushpaintballgames.com - This is the address that we selected. We liked that it said exactly what the business is about. It promoted the fact that this is a game and therefore is fun. It also made it easy to grow the site from an informational site to an e-commerce site.
Should my web address be short?
I would recommend that you buy the shortest address possible without making the address hard to remember, read or pronounce. Web addresses can be up to 67 characters long. I would suggest that you can find one with 25 characters or less.
Should I use acronyms or initials?
Acronyms are great if that is how people commonly refer to your business or if it spells another common word or is easy to remember. We have a client AIC Auto. His web address is aicauto.com. This fits his business because the initials are the name of his business.
If it is complicated like xsczpt.com (I made this up), I would shy away from these addresses.
Should my address be a common word?
This is a difficult question. My answer 7 years ago was yes. Because, at that time you could buy addresses like curtains.com or marketing.com. Today, these addresses are already taken.
Should I buy a web address with dashes?
As you saw in our example with ambush paintball we ruled it out because the address would be verbally communicated. If the address is strictly going to be promoted on the search engines or in printed media, buying an address with dashes will work just fine.
Should I buy an address with an extension other then .com?
There are many other extension such as .net .org .biz .name .us and then all the country codes. Dot Com is still the most widely used. However if you are a non-profit organization, I recommend that you purchased the .org as well as the .com. As more businesses and organizations buy web addresses we will see more and more of them using these new extensions.
Should I buy my web address as a plural?
In many cases it is a good idea to buy your web address as singular and as plural. It is difficult to get into the mind of your customer and how they will think of your web address. So to cover all your bases, I would recommend that you buy both.
Our customer Musser's Markets had this very dilemma. He covered himself by purchasing mussersmarkets.com, mussersmarket.com, mussermarkets.com and mussermarket.com.
How many web address should I buy?
This is a difficult question to answer. I would recommend that you purchase as many as make sense for your business. If you are trying to protect market share or protect a brand you might want to buy as many variations as possible.
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