This is an excellent question. Let’s say I am starting a
brand new online venture. I have decided on my company name
and it is already confirmed as registered. For example I
have named my company Joe’s Trading Inc and I sell cheap
widgets. I now need to get my domain name. So what do I
choose?
Firstly let’s begin with the actual company name. My company
is called Joe’s Trading Ltd so it makes sense that I should
register joestradingltd.com or joestrading.com or
joestrading.co.uk right?
Nope…this is not the best choice…
When I register a domain name there are some major factors
which I need to take onboard. Firstly, what is the purpose
of the domain? Is it’s purpose corporate branding or is it
to drive traffic to my website?
Well if I am running ‘IBM’ or ‘MacDonalds’, then for sure
branding is a clear consideration but ‘Joes Trading Ltd’
simply wants to make sales of blue widgets online and
hopefully many, many sales. My real priority is to generate
as much targeted website traffic to my site to convert to
sales
My business is selling widgets. This is my target market
and my unique selling position is that they are really
cheap. But what has this got to do with my domain name?
Well…Everything!
The domain name itself is a huge factor which search engines
consider when they automatically decide the importance of
sites they decide to index in their search results.
on search engines. And today, search engines provide 90% of
web site traffic. In fact in recent studies, it has been
discovered that the domain name counts for 30% of all
factors which the search engine decides is important for
ranking a website.
The domain really is THAT important!
So what makes a higher ranking domain name? Well, firstly
shorter the better. There is a clear correlation between
the length of the domain and its ranking is the search
results. Secondly, the domain must include the keyword for
which you wish to rank high. In this case Joes Trading Ltd
sells Widgets so the domain should contain widgets. The
widgets are cheap so the domain could be cheapwidgets.com.
This domain is going get higher ranking in the search
engines for the search term ‘widgets or ‘cheap widgets’
than ‘joestrading.com’ could ever hope to achieve
Higher ranking means more traffic which in turn means more
sales & profits. So when it comes to purchasing your domain
make search engine ranking your number one priority.
