Be King of Your Domain
Domain marketing is still one of the biggest secrets in the business world, despite multi-million dollar sales of domain names. Or maybe it’s because of those large domain sales that most people think there’s no room for the little guy. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
While it’s not quite free, a mere $8 could buy you the ticket to a constant stream of new customers. And, in a very real sense, you will have zero competition for all those leads.
Let me explain…
Say your business is Skateboard Madness, and your main website is at skateboardmadness.com. Say your business is selling skateboards, especially all terrain skateboards. This is a niche market, but nonetheless there are roughly 1000 people each month searching that exact term – and maybe twice as many if you include all the variation of the term (such as “skateboards for all terrain).” These 1000-2000 people are all interested in getting information about a product you specialize in. Wouldn’t it be nice if, when they went to Google to find that information, the first website they clicked on was yours? Now, if you are handy optimizing your site for search engines, or you have an SEO specialist to do it for you, you could try to target that term with a page from your website at SkateboardMadness.com. However, if you really wanted to not only lock up the top position, but also attract the greatest number of clicks, the clever domain marketer would instead build a separate small site at allterrainskateboards.com.
Why go through all this trouble? Three reasons:
- You will have an easier time of getting – and keeping – the top spot if your domain name exactly the matches the keywords being searched for. While your competitors can try to knock you off the top spot through all kinds of SEO ninja tacticcs, the one thing they will never be able to do is to have the exact keywords in a dotcom domain. That’s because you were smart enough to beat them to it. No matter what they do, this is one edge that you will always have over them. This is an edge whether you have an extremely competitive keyword you are after, or if you are in a less competitive niche, such as all terrain skateboards. In the less competitive niches, the domain will have a dramatic effect. I have seen websites with almost no content on them make it to page one of Google on the strength of the domain name alone.
- Even if you aren’t at the very top, web surfers will be more inclined to click on a domain that is named after what they are searching for. An exact match in the domain name has been shown through several tests to outdraw related but non-exact domains – both in the organic free listings, and even in the paid listings. More traffic to your website either way. When someone is searching for all terrain skateboards, and they see skateboardmadness.com and allterrainskateboards.com, guess which one gets clicked?
- The domain will make you king of that search term. You can lure in the web surfers, greet them with a page that tells them everything they might want to know about all terrain skateboards. And then. you guide them to your main website to close the deal and make a sale. All automatically.
Domain marketing is the smartest and least appreciated investment out there.
Now, you may not get your name $8. You can always try for a dotnet. Or you can try to buy the domain off the owner. Godaddy premium domains and Sedo offer many great domains, some at outrageous prices, some at bargain prices. A few hundred dollars for a domain will be made back very quickly, and pay for itself many times over. That is, assuming it is built as described above.
For your own product go to Google’s keyword tool (search “keyword tool” on Google). Enter your product or service, and you’ll see a list of related search terms. Find one with good numbers, and see if the name is available. Simple as that. Depending on your business, even as few as 50-100 searches per month could be good numbers. If you operate on smaller margins, though, you’ll want to go for considerably more.
Domain marketing can be done across your entire product/service line. Just make the landing page especially to answer the query, and then guide the visitor to your main site for more information.