Your business’ domain name is an integral part of your business. It’s one of the first things your online visitors and potential clients will see about your business online. How well your domain name supports your business will determine how well your business, your brand and your online presence as a whole is perceived – but why is that? Your domain name seems relatively insignificant in the scheme of things, but it actually plays a major role in defining you and your brand. Let’s take a look at some reasons why.
Why your domain name is important for your business
Reasons why your domain name is one of the most important aspects of your business’ design include:
1. It establishes your credibility.
Think about it – what’s the first thing you do when a business or product piques your interest? Do you go online and do a quick search? Well, having a domain name that matches your brand and/or product establishes your presence. That is an addition to your credibility – no one in today’s market wants to do business with a company that doesn’t own a website.
On the other hand, owning a domain that includes too many other irrelevant words or phrases discredits you and makes your website sound less trustworthy. For instance, which site would you trust more: Ikea.com or SwedishIkeaFurnitureShop.com?
2. It increases recognition.
People don’t always land on your website intentionally. But, when they do stumble across it, having a prominent name, logo and credible domain will be what keeps them there. Your domain name will help drive people toward your website and also plays a major role in developing and maintaining strong SEO (search engine optimization).
3. Search engines will love you.
Big search engines like Google love websites that have their own domain names. As a matter of fact, they rank websites with their own domain names higher than those put on free servers. Also, the longer you own a domain, the more “respect” you will get from the search engines. This doesn’t mean buying an old, high-ranking domain name and publishing weak content will create traffic for your business, though. You will still need to work had on your SEO campaigns.
4. It helps create professional email addresses.
We often forget the professional email addresses we use are made possible only because we own the domains. Otherwise, we would all be stuck with Gmail or Outlook email addresses, which, while not bad, doesn’t say a lot about your company.
5. It increases your longevity.
Owning your own domain name means no one will be able to take it away from you as long as you continue to renew your subscription or registration. Now, imagine sitting on a free domain only to find it suddenly gone, along with your entire website. This would be disastrous to your business, especially if you put time and energy into creating a name for yourself using that particular subdomain name. You’d have to start your advertising and marketing from scratch. With your own domain name, all you would need to do if your web hosting provider goes under is move to a new one and have your domain name point to its new home.
How to ensure you have a great domain name
So what makes a great domain name? Keep these simple tips in mind when picking out your URL:
- Easy to remember – Don’t opt for complicated names when simple ones will do.
- Short – Have the shortest length possible, which helps make it memorable and easy to navigate to.
- Words only – Whenever possible, avoid numbers in your domain name.
- Special characters are bad – Using hyphens, dots or other special characters will only complicate things.
- Built on keywords – Use your brand or product name in your domain. If possible, make it the only thing in your domain.
Follow these tips and you will end up with a great domain name that will help boost your online presence, establish your brand and generate a healthy income for you.
