Internet Marketing: Four Mistakes to Avoid When Procuring Domain Names
By Zach Hoffman, CEO and Founder, Exults
The business of domain names continues on an upward surge. Not only has it become a profit making endeavor for domain name traders and savvy entrepreneurs, but domain name procurement is also a critical component for a company’s internet marketing strategy. In fact, according to DNJournal.com, some notable domain name sales this year have included PersonalLoans.com for $1 Million (2/29/12), Jackpot.com for $500,000 (4/18/12), BowlingBalls.com for $225,000, PhoneMarket.com for $180,000 (4/4/12) and Frame.com for $148,000(1/11/12).
When used correctly, obtaining a domain name can be lucrative to any business plan. Though at times, there are a few common mistakes that many marketers who are new to this game might make. To prevent confusion with brands and their identities it is important to make sure your clients and/or your company has procured the right domain names. We have listed some common misconceptions that you might want to be sure that you are NOT doing when setting up your websites:
Mistake #1: Buying a .net or .org when the .com is sold already.
When the website you want is taken and your domain registrar asks you if you would you like to buy the .org or .net version, say no! This will confuse consumers and your brand identity. Having a CompanyA.com and CompanyB.org will not have the same effect; in fact, it will steer traffic away from your site and go to the other company site. The best thing to do would be to create a new website name that is available and both the .com and .net/.org sites. If one is taken and not the other then think of a new website name that is available.
Mistake #2: Putting all of your cards on the table.
Do not contact the owner of the URL name that you wish to purchase, as they may inflate the price of the site. Instead contact a domain register, such as sedo.com, TDNAM.com (owned by GoDaddy.com), BuyDomains.com where consumers and marketers can either purchase or bid on domain names for their company’s sites. There are even websites, such as DomainCapital.com, which currently finance the larger dollar amounts for site purchases.
Mistake #3: Hyphenating your domain name.
Hyphened domain names don’t have the best effect when it comes to Search Engine Optimization. Most people do not even type the hyphen when searching for a business thus will probably get the name wrong when they are typing the URL. Having a hyphen is not as effective. But if you must have the hyphen buy a domain name that also does not have the hyphen so that you can redirect the site to the correct version of the spelling.
Mistake #4: Just having one domain name.
Smart marketers not only need to purchase the domain name for the name of their company or brand, but it is also important that they lock-up domain names that are related to their business services, product offerings and variations of spellings. For example, Barnes and Noble owns Books.com, American Express owns Open.com, Bayer owns Aspirin.com and Bass Pro Shops owns Hunting.com. These companies had the foresight to either have consumers immediately redirected to the company’s main site, or to the “generic named site” which is in fact a sub site or landing page for the main corporation.
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As CEO of one of South Florida’s leading internet marketing firms, Zach Hoffman can offer up-to-date information on trends in Internet Marketing and advises on different strategies being used today. For more tips, tricks, and internet marketing trends you can check out the Exults blog at http://www.exults.com/blog. Exults recently worked with serial entrepreneur, Warren Struhl on Poster.com.
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Another piece of advice… make sure the domain name can’t be read in two or three different ways now that it’s spelled as all one word. You can have some unfortunate gaffes, especially if the new word can be read as something off-color.