Domain Names that Work
by Vern Clinton
For a large company establishing an online identity their domain name should clearly reflect their company name. IBM.com, Symantec.com, etc. For an ecommerce site the name has similar impact. Mortgage.com, Realtor.com, Toys.com, etc.
Not so for an individual real estate broker or associate. Their object in choosing a domain name is twofold.
- First that it be memorable to your existing clients and prospects so that when they wish to get information from the net, your site is easy to remember.
- Second it should reflect the interest of your target market. Often it is not possible to satisfy both of these goals with just one domain name
- Third it should be memorable in the context of your advertising.
For instance: If your business is principally in Tampa, Florida a name that would be very advantageous for your search engine registration might be tampafloridarealestate.com, tampa-florida-real-estate.com, realestateintampa.com, etc. Since most such simple names are already taken, you might have to settle for some variation of that such as homesintampa.com, etc.
The downside to such a name is that while it tends to indicate where you do business to new users looking for real estate in your area, it is not particularly memorable to your own clients and prospects. To be easily remembered and associated with you it should be something like MariaJones.com.
Then there’s a third consideration. To be competitive you will need to actively promote your site in local advertising and would want a name that lends itself to that marketing strategy. When people are reading your ad about your site and they make a mental note to check your site. It should be easy to remember in the context of that advertising. Such a name should relate to what aspect of your service you are pitching.
For instance: You may be advertising a horse ranch in Provo, Utah. An ideal name for this might be provohorseranch.com, or if you want to emphasize that you are a buyers agent it might be ProvoUtahBuyersAgent.com.
It is virtually impossible to find one single name that will satisfy all of these considerations so the obvious solution is to have several domains, not one. The cost of doing this is minimal. About $15 to $35 per year per domain name. You can have your secondary domains "piggyback" on your primary domain so that someone going to “foresthillhorseranch.com” actually goes to your main site at "mariajones.com."