The Quest for a Memoriable Name
9.08.2007 | Marketing, Startup Resources
You may have noticed that I have yet to mention the domain name of the new autos website on this blog. The reason is simple really… I’m still not satisfied with the 3-4 autos related domain names that I have acquired.
For new businesses that do not have huge multi-million dollar backed brands, there are two trains of thought in the business/web world with regards to domain names.
1. Pick something simple, obvious, and one that people will likely type in when they want the product of service. (e.g. sex.com, books.com, cars.com, meetup.com, overstock.com, etc.)
2. Make up a random word and hope that A. the .com version of the domain is available B. hope that the pronunciation of the word is catchy enough that people will brand it once it becomes huge. (e.g. google.com, yahoo.com, squidoo.com, digg.com, flickr, de.licio.us, etc.)
There are a couple of HUGE benefits with the first method:
1. Search Engines assume that your domain with the keyword relevant to the search is also selling products relevant to the search; and therefore places you in the top of the organic search results. (e.g. cars.com = sells cars and not poker supplies or sweet tea)
2. People who don’t use search engines but are searching for products may just type in keyword.com to see what comes up so again, you’ll be benefiting from receiving a lot of typed-in traffic that you don’t have to pay for.
I remember when I was trying to start my babysitter finder site I had inquired about buying babysitters.com from the person who owned it. The guy wanted $120,000 for the name and this was at least 2 years out from the dot com boom. As much as I’d love to have that kind of cash to invest in just a name, it was definitely out of my reach.
The down side to the keyword domains is sometimes these names are very hard to brand and if you’re a brick-n-mortar company, the names may be hard to take with you off-line.
The second method above is a bit more complicated and somewhat outside-the-box. However for the most part, I think these random names are spawned from last-ditch, desperate attempts at securing a .com name. It’s not that these letter combinations necessary sound cool or that mis-spellings are cool but for new businesses who want a place online, these left over letter combinations are what’s left from the pool of good, solid word names. Imagine coming to a dinner party late… you end up picking the plate of what’s left. Now imagine starting a business 10, 25, 50 years from now; I wonder what brand choices they’ll have by then.
The sad truth is .com names are still many times more popular than other domain extensions. Try as they may, companies that use .us, .net or .biz just doesn’t have the same “professional” feel as the ones that end with .com’s.
It’s because of such and the highly competitive nature of autos related websites that I’m still hunting for my next .com name even though I already have a couple of .net’s and odd .com’s in my pocket that could potentially do the job. I guess time will tell if I end up making the right choice and if the money I spent acquiring these names will be worth it.
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