Some businesses settle for second rate domain name because their first choice has been taken. Unfortunately, choosing a poor domain can be a costly mistake which can make it difficult for your business to succeed on-line. This article explains four ways a bad domain can hurt your business.
1.Lack of credibility
Owning a premium domain in your industry helps position you as an expert in your field. Since domains are registered on a first come first served basis, people assume that businesses using a premium names are well established industry leaders. Choose poorly and you risk looking like…
- You haven’t been in business long
- You aren’t tech savvy and familiar with recent advances
- You don’t value your business enough to buy a ‘good’ domain
2.Poor search engine rankings
Owning the exact match domain in your field makes it much easier to achieve a number one search engine rankings. It’s no accident that companies with premium domains tend to dominate the search engines. Why? Because search engines arrange their results in relevancy order, placing sites which are the best match at the top of the results. Specifically, Google commonly rewards exact match domains with top rankings. Here’s why…
Two of the important factors for achieving a number one ranking on Google are…
- Having a premium domain name with the exact keywords that are being searched for. Only Google knows the exact reason for this, but it’s probably because they want to return the best results possible for each search. Just as ‘Pepsi.com’ is the best result for a search for ‘pepsi’, it’s more likely that ‘Keyword.com’ is the best match for ‘keyword’. Google is also aware that exact match names tend to be used more by established companies.
- How many trusted sites link to a site and the words they use in the link. Google counts incoming links as ‘votes’ of quality for a site. This gives businesses using exact match names a two-fold advantage. Webmasters, bloggers and the press are more likely to link to and send traffic to authoritative sounding sites. And links are usually hypertexted using the domain itself which provides an added quality boost. For example…
Imagine two companies, both selling gift baskets. One is using their company name, AmysBaskets.com. The other is using GiftBaskets.com. GiftBaskets.com is more likely to be linked to and mentioned in the press. Someone who links to ‘GiftBaskets.com’ is telling Google that they recommend the site and that it is about ‘gift baskets’. Compare this to links to AmysBaskets.com, which tell Google that the site is a good match for ‘amys baskets’, a phrase that very few people are searching for.
3. Using a difficult to remember domain can sabotage your traditional advertising.
Radio, TV and print advertising is expensive and has to be carefully crafted to be cost effective. If you aren’t using a good domain in your advertising, you may be fighting an uphill battle. Why? Because poor domains are difficult to remember – making your ads less likely to be acted on. This can decrease the number of new customers your ad campaigns yield – and may be the difference between successful and failed campaigns.
4. Failing to prevent your competitors get hold of the premium domain for your field
If you fail to secure the premium name for your field, your competition can buy it and use it to outrank you on search engines like Google. This can save them thousands in SEO and advertising fees and allow them to have a steady stream of new customers (that could have been yours). For this reason, many companies defensively purchase premium domains to lock out competitors for years to come.
Summary
On the Internet, first impressions count. Most business owners wouldn’t run their business from a run down building or have their salespeople greet customers in a t-shirt and slippers, but surprisingly many businesses spend thousands of dollars on web design and advertising, only to use an unprofessional, second rate name. Sure, quality businesses can use poor domain names. But they typically compensate by spending thousands more on traditional advertising and costly SEO services.
Online your competitors are just click away. Unlike traditional advertising, purchasing the .com version of your name is an investment that can pay dividends for years to come.
Acquiring the right domain can…
- Enhance your credibility
- Improve your search engine rankings
- Guard against sneaky competitors
- Enhance your traditional advertising efforts.
Not bad for a digital asset which has an annual renewal cost of less than $35 – regardless of it’s initial acquisition cost.
