Monday, August 9, 2010

Choosing the Right URL is Crucial to Your Online Success!

Choosing the right name for your business is always important to any new venture. If you're selling shoes, you wouldn't want to name your company Fantastic Dreams! Fantastic Dreams has nothing to do with shoes. You want something that is easy to remember and when someone thinks of you, they think of your company name as well. When they think of your company, they automatically think of you. You can address this important issue by looking for relevant keywords, that relate to your business opportunity.

When I'm doing a promotion for my clients, many times I will spend as much time researching keywords, as I will in drafting the actual business promotion plan. Everything regarding promoting your business, will be a direct result of what keywords, you use in your Title, Meta tags and content of your website. Your URL is the first thing your customer and the search engines see's, when they look at your site.

If in this process you can come up with a catchy name that is relevant to your business opportunity and easy for the customer to remember, that would be your best case scenario. That doesn't happen too often, so be creative and come up with a name that will work for your specific business. Large companies spend literally million dollars per year, coming up with catchy names and sayings to capture the potential users attention. Once you can make an M in the form of an arch recognizable and people can tell you what it stands for, then you've nailed the right combination.

Many of the real clever names and slogans have already been taken, however, you must tailor make your name and business opportunity unique, to your particular business needs. Putting a lot of thought into this process will save you loads of time and money in the future. It's difficult to make any changes to these two critical elements, once you've started to become recognized on the internet.

We mentioned earlier about having some keywords in the name of your company. This will make it easier for the general public to relate to your opportunity. Many people I talk to will remark that all the good names are already taken. Not really! You can take an existing name you like, and personalize it a bit and that domain name may be available for purchase as a domain name. A good example would be Ford.com, that name is already taken by Ford Motor Company and let's say your last name is Ford, what are your options? Use your imagination a little here. A good take off on the word Ford might be http;//af-ford-able.com or a take off on any specific word you want to focus on. Get creative and you will find countless names that can be applied to your business efforts.

There are various factors that must be considered when choosing that unique name for your business. Is your business local, national or international? What is the focus of your business? Are you a specialty business or is there a lot of competition in your industry? These are all questions that should be considered when putting your whole marketing program together.

If your focus is going to be more on the local area, you might want to put the name of your City and State in the URL. Targeting a particular geographic area can become a powerful way to beat your competition.

As we pointed out earlier, you are unlimited in your options with the use of dashes and periods since the search engine looks at them as spaces. One piece of advice is to use at least one keyword in your domain, however, don't use more than three keywords, because the engines may consider that you are attempting to spam. By doing your original keyword research you will be able to use many different combinations to your advantage. Ask your family and friends to help you in this selection process. Ask them what they would search for, if they were looking for your product or service.

The use of dot com, dot biz, dot net is a matter of preference. There are no hard fast rules here. My feeling is that most people will always think of a URL ending in a dot com symbol. Other symbols may be used and can possibly be effective, however, I recommend getting the dot com if at all possible.

Another consideration is the age of your domain. If you have an old domain that will work for your current project, then by all means us that domain. The search engines will put more credence in an aged domain over a new domain. Since many new businesses fail in the first year or so, there is a feeling that an aged domain has already shown stability and longevity.

Another factor you must consider would be how many links your aged domain has pointing to it. Does your aged domain truly reflect your current business objectives? Sometimes an aged domain can be used if you use the aged domain by adding a third level domain. This way you can used an aged domain with the third level domain referring to your current opportunity. If you're uncertain about some of the concepts we discuss here, don't hesitate to contact our Search Engine Optimization Marketing Specialist.

Links are important for any website, regardless of the age of the domain. Both quality and quantity of the links are important, and each of these segments has a different weight factor with the search engines. The primary goal is to have as many back links pointing to your website as possible. Link building is a long term process and will take months, and sometimes even years to develop enough links to really stand out above the crowd and your competition.

Keep in mind your present goals, as well as any future plans you have for your business when you're naming your business. If your thoughts are to expand in some kind of associate business later on, you might want to consider some kind of title that will cover your existing situation as well as your future plans, without changing your name a few months or years down the road.

A Search Engine Optimization Specialist can help you in this critical phase of building your business.

The eBiz Solutions Team is standing by to assist you in your keyword, title and name search of your new opportunity. Call today for your free 30 minute "no obligation" consultation.

"Let's Build Your Business Together"

Larry L Miller SEM/SEO Consulting

Private Line: 321-594-4405
Skype: larrylmiller121

The Most Powerful Link on the Internet!

No comments: