Domain Names and Their Importance

Two of the most important things to consider when building a site for your company is the website design and the domain name. Today we will be looking at the importance of a good domain name and how it can help your rankings.

When it comes time for a company to choose a domain name, most tend to look at website names such as Bing, Google, Digg,Flickr, YouTube and on and on. If you notice, none of these domain names have keywords built into their actual domain name, but these companies also had a unique plan or product that they could afford to have a name unrelated to what they actually do. Imagine Google being called GoogleSearch.com... kind of weird. Their success is due largely to a strong marketing plan with great implementation that led to their success. If you're just a local company, trying to rank in your market this is the wrong way to go about it.

You need to remember that your online company is not your standard brick and mortar location. There is no visual for a first time customer that can easily tell them what your company is or does. If you see a hardware store, you know it's a hardware store. Just because companies like Bing and Yahoo have gibberish domain names, it doesn't mean you need to have one also. Unless you have a product that appeals to the masses or is extremely unique, you should stick with a keyword rich domain.

There are two main reasons why you should: Local optimization and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Remember, if you are trying to appeal to customers in your area, they will be searching for companies like yours by typing in key terms into search engines. Therefore, when it comes time to choosing a domain USE KEYWORD TERMS that relate to your business. Tell people what you do upfront. For example, if you are a hotel in Carmel Valley, your best bet is to get a domain such as the "CarmelValleyHotel.com". Now of course domains like this may be taken, so you will need to get creative. This is especially important for online startup companies or brick and mortar locations breaking into the online world. Of course this is only one part to the ranking process, but now you know just how important a domain name is and you are ready to take the next step in launching your new website.

Chris Placencia
Founder
Jason Paul Marketing
Direct: 858.922.2611
Email: chris@jasonpaulmarketing.com
Web: http://www.jasonpaulmarketing.com/