Domain Name Strategies You Can Use for Your Marketing

Domain Name Strategies

When you decide to create a website and present it on the Internet one of the first things you have to pay attention to is the quality choice of names for your site.

Maybe you are starting your first company, or decided to make a new brand or take your existing company finally on the web? Either way, you need a website, and you need a domain name for your site.

You might have top-notch content, all the right keywords but this would all be for nothing if you don’t have the proper domain name.

Don’t make the usual mistake and think of your domain name as just an address for your website.

Domain names have a significant impact on your web presence, such as your click-click-through rate, SEO, social media results, brand image, and even your offline advertising efforts!

See now? There’s an enormous wealth of places that your domain name affects your brand and your online marketing strategy, and you sure as hell can’t ignore that!

After all, your domain name is what your audience will be typing to get to the website. It can make a difference if you win a new customer or lose it instantly.

And that is why your domain name needs to be given much attention. It is your identity on the web; you want to make sure you choose a name that not only fits your business but a name that is also easy to find and promote.

Meanwhile, when you register your domain, that is short, catchy and relevant to the market your business is targeting, you need to think about it as your primary domain. Your primary domain is powerful and foundation for your brand’s online presence.

While it’s hugely important, your primary domain is only the beginning of your domain name marketing strategy. You can think about it as a great start.

After a great start, you need to start thinking about other complementary domain names that might strengthen your online presence.

One vital area you should be focusing on is how you can use additional domains to increase your marketing efforts.

Online marketing is still a very creative and highly competitive field, and business needs to get innovative in using their domain names to get more options for promoting their products and services.

In this article, we will explain leading domain name strategies that you can use in your marketing sphere.

What is a domain name?

A domain is your property in which you show what you do in your business and basically what’re all about.

In its purest form, domain marketing strategy is taking the time to think about how your domain will affect your website visitors, your brand and SEO. It’s your online business card that will attract potential customers and result in better sales.

Registering a domain name is the first road on your journey to starting your online business and branded website. However, before even enrolling it you need to think about important factors of your domain name.

Your domain can be one of the first initial contacts you make with your visitors and potential customers. You do want to leave a good first impression?

The goal of any promotion and advertisement is having your audience remember your brand. That means that is worth having a catchy and easy memorable name that your audience will easily associate with your brand.

The same thing goes with your domain name to inject a sense of familiarity.

When it comes down to picking a domain name, keeping it short and sweet is one of the best rules, as it makes it easy to remember and associate with.

There are a few other things you need to an eye on, such as relevant keywords, to be intuitive and so on, and we will explain everything now.

How to create a domain name strategy?

 1.    Your domain should represent your brand

Your domain name is almost like the face of your brand. That’s why you should make it sound like a brand. When visitors type and see your domain, it should remind them of your brand.

The rule here is – less is more. Target a unique name that will fit your business, and it will be easy to find and promote.

This doesn’t mean you have to spell out precisely what your company does with a laundry list of keywords, but instead, try to capture the essence of what you do.

2.    Easy pronunciation

You are surely thinking “but why is pronounceability important, my visitors aren’t going to say my domain out loud?”

Yes, it’s true, most people will just type it or click on a link to get to the website. However, it matters because of the process of information in our brains.

If your domain name is easy to pronounce, it will be easy to remember. Simple as that.

Because most people will give up when they need to search and spell your name too many times to find you. Moreover, in that way, you will lose much potential traffic on your site.

3.    Keep your domain name short and memorable

Length of your domain matter because of the easy memorability of your domain. It also has to have something to have the natural fluency that we talked about earlier.

The shorter the domain is, the easier it is to type, say out, share, explain and the less likely it gets shortened on social media.

But, consider being brief rather than cutting your name or parts of words of.

4.    Use a relevant domain extension (.com)

When it comes to extensions, stick to the good old .com. You may think we are old fashioned, but .com is the most recognised and the easiest to use.

If you want your brand to be a globally recognised one, use the .com extension. If you’re going regional and targeting specific countries, it is always good to adapt to the extension of the country such as .de for Germany or .nl for Netherland.

5.    Avoid any trademark breach

You need to be careful when you think and create your domain name.

Of course, you need to be unique. But do not confuse your domain name with the name of another site or brand.

If your domain name has any trademark infringes you could be sued and have legal actions against your business.

Before you register your domain, check if it violates any trademark regulations.

On the other hand, if your domain name is too similar to another brand, your visitors can get confused and so can search engines.

6.    Make your domain name intuitive

A good domain name strategy gives people a firm idea of what your website and business are all about.

Being able to glance at a domain name and intuitively conclude what the company is about is a big win.

Choose a domain name that is going to let customers know what they are in for from the moment they read it, without the need to guess.

Also, the instant perception of what is the website about gives extra memorability points to your brand.

7.    Use keywords in your domain name

Keywords in a domain name can help with SEO and smooth memorability of your site. If you can get a targeted keyword in your domain name that will help state the obvious (and that is what is your website about), go for it.

But, avoid using generic keywords and exact matches. Generic keywords are hard to remember, and they don’t carry any valuable SEO benefit.

They don’t tend to help your search engine position and have some wrong impressions for users (spam and low-quality sites).

8.     Modify your domain if needed

You prepared all of our tips above, but the domain name is unavailable?

Don’t fall into despair; you can always modify a little bit your domain name.

You can always add a prefix or suffix and that way change just a bit your desired and well-designed name.

For example, if you run a pasta shop and you wanted to name your domain: pastashop.com, but it’s taken, consider adding thepastashop.com.

Best domain name strategies to use for your marketing

Many businesses are finally taking the smart advice of spreading out their web presence across multiple domains.

They know that just registering one domain name alone keeps your online existence really narrowed.

Owning multiple domains can be used to diversify your marketing strategy, and that’s why you should think about it

Let’s talk about additional strategies you can use with other domain names to increase your marketing presence.

Highly targeted campaigns

If you are launching a one-time marketing campaign that targets a particular and narrow audience, that is distinct from your core audience, consider using a different domain. This domain will lead to a new landing page.

This campaign could be related to a giveaway, special event, loyalty program, trade show or even a commercial.

This all would be good examples of scenarios when you may want to buy a unique domain name and landing page that is separate from your main website.

The new domain name will benefit you in many fields. It would allow you to:

  1. Adapt content specific to your targeted audience.
  2. Try out new and creative ideas.
  3. Test messages that are different from your main content
  4. Quickly track your campaign’s results.

Specific products and services

When you have specific products or services, it makes sense to brand them separately and open its domain name and website. A great example of particular product branding with domain names it Coca-Cola, where many of their product have their own websites such as dietcoke.com or dasani.com.

If you have a product that is location-based, register a new domain name with that specific market in mind, and leverage it with a different looking website, social media channels and overall branding strategy. You will surely not go unnoticed.

Getting creative

Being creative at a right timing is a win-win situation in nowadays marketing. You have several options when it comes to creating a domain name that will help boost your efforts, especially in user memorability and search.

If you want to stand out from your competition think about using:

  1. Particular day domain name – www.blackfridayshoesdeal.com
  2. Specific season of holiday – www.winterdestinations.com
  3. Locations – www.bestshirtshopinsyndey.com
  4. Campaign motto – www.impossibleisnothing.com

In conclusion

With rapid technology, growth branding has evolved too. When you are building your online presence, every aspect of it, even domain name is an opportunity to strengthen your brand. Deciding on your domain name is equally important as selecting your company name.

Many people neglect the importance of choosing a valuable domain name for their website and don’t think of domain name strategy as an attractive digital asset.

Domain name is one of the critical elements of online representation and a vital part of a brand at all, as well as generating traffic onto your website.

It’s your online personality, and it’s the way people will find you and promote your business.

With a tiny bit of creativity and our advice in mind, you can find a domain name that gives your company a stable, unique online existence.

Choosing your domain name can be a very challenging task at first.

With so many websites present today on the internet, the amount of domain name choices become fewer as each moment passes by.

Keep in mind that you don’t need to register thousands of domain names to succeed in today’s aggressive marketplace.

Still, with a good domain name strategy, you can use additional domain names to help enhance your marketing efforts.

This, in turn, could help create more opportunities to grow your business and keep your existing customers and land new ones.

About Murray Dare

Murray Dare is a Marketing Consultant, Strategist and Director at Dare Media. Murray helps UK businesses find better ways to connect with their audiences through targeted content marketing strategies.