There are three necessary items you'll need to do when beginning your own website. I will discuss the first major decision which is to pick out your domain names. [The other two are choosing a host and choosing a publishing application.] Here are some of the key points to consider, concerning the name(s) of your domain(s) as you prepare to get you company or self online.
Pick a domain name that exemplifies what you do, or demonstrates what you want to show the public. It is important that you own a domain that is your company name if possible, whether you use it or not. For example, let's look at Joe Greeney and his fictitious company, Joe Greeney Landscaping. First he will check with a domain registrar like Domainsite.com and see if his name is available. In the search box he'll type joegreeneylandscaping. No need to put the.com in. [Tip: If you are a commercial enterprise (IE not educational, an organization or non-profit association, or a network like a service provider) always buy the.com if it is available. While.com's are better, they aren't necessarily picked up by the search engines more easily. I like.com's because that is what people think about, but.net's and.orgs rank well too.] The registrar will show you all of the variations available. For this example, let's say he is in luck. Joegreeneylandscaping.com is available.
There are many registrars, each with a slight variation of services and amenities. I use Domainsite.com for my registrar. It is a very good and easy to use registrar. One of Domainsite.com's perks is its $0.50 per year price for privacy. Privacy keeps you anonymous, otherwise all your personal info such as address and phone number is available to the public. When you purchase privacy, if anyone wants to get in touch with you, for say, an inquiry to buy your domain, they must pay a fee to the privacy company and the privacy company sends you an email with the request. Buy privacy for all your domains.
Getting back to domain names, is one domain name enough? It can be, but more are better. Look at our example of joegreeneylandscaping.com. That is a long name with the potential for misspelling or it may not be easy to remember. He might consider jgl.com (good luck on that one because short URL's are hard to come by), greenlandscaping.com, joegreeneyland.com, greenland.com (another unlikely candidate), greenlawns.com, your-city-landscaping, such as charlottelandscaping.com, or charlottegardening.com, or charlottelawns.com, or charlottelawnservice.com, wecutbetter.com, acutabove.com, lawnsrus.com, landscapesrus.com, etc. As you can see, not all of these domains indicate who you are, but they do demonstrate in most cases, what you do. If all these were available I'd choose lawnsrus.com, charlottelawnservice.com and acutabove.com, besides the name of the company, joegreeneylandscaping. The reason I'd choose the others is that they are memorable, easy to spell and tell something about your company. That can be more valuable than the name of the company. For example, let's say someone searches for charlotte lawn service. Since one of your domains is exactly the search verbiage, it is very likely that your company name will be in the number one position, even if the main site is joegreeneylandscaping.com.
Another consideration, when buying your domains, is to buy variations of your name. For simplicity's sake, let's choose a short name, such as RomanHairstyles.com. You might consider buying roman-hairstyles.com, romanhairstyles.net, romanhairstyles.org, and romanhairstyles.biz, since Roman hairstyles are the rage these days, and someone could "hi-jack" your valuable and well-known name with these variations.
You don't need to buy all the domain variations I am suggesting, but you should at least be informed about the domain market. Domains are the new real estate, so sometimes it is best to "buy the lot next door" to protect yourself. You will make your decision based on your business and how competitive it is.
Here are two options on the use of his multiple domains:
Option 1: Joe could choose one of these domains to be his main web site domain for his website, and redirect the others to his home page. Redirection is simply when you type in one address, you are taken to another website or page. When a domain (lawnsrus.com in this case) is redirected to his Home page, and someone enters lawnsrus.com, they would go directly to joegreeneylandscaping.com if joegreeneylandscaping.com was his home page.
Option 2: He could set up informative websites using his other optional domains he bought, all of which can link back to his main web site. This can be very advantageous, but trust me, it is a lot of work. For one thing, the optional sites will lose page ranking (or good standing in the grace of the great Google) if you don't regularly put fresh content (articles) on them. A static site that has any competition to speak of, will soon become invisible to the search engines, and will be of little value to you.
[Tip: 42% of people will click on the first item in a search list, while only 3% will click on the last search item on the first page. And it gets much less likely they will find you beyond page one of a search. So you want to be at the top of page one of a search list.]
In summary, choose a domain with your company name with a.com suffix if it is available. Then look at a few other optional names that you can either redirect to your main site or use as your main site name. When you buy the domain from your registrar, buy the optional privacy add-on so that your personal information (address and phone number) are not revealed.
Author: Randall S. Soules
Randall S. Soules is a 38-year construction veteran. He publishes remodeling news and tips on RemodelerBiz.com to help builders, remodelers and those in the trades, build a more rewarding career and lifestyle. At Remodeler Biz you'll find helpful articles on niches, marketing, graphic standards and the design-then-build field. Remodeler Biz is a place where everyone that is in the residential construction field, can get together, learn and share with their peers.
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