Domain Name Marketing Strategy

My domain must be gone by now. It’s tempting to think like that. The truth is there are millions upon millions of domains still out there. With over 735 active TLDs and a recommended URL max length of 255 characters, the combinations are endless. In fact, it’s a 735 x 25526 level of endless.

You’ll never know if it’s too late to find a domain if you never look. Taking the time to search for and discover a range of different domains is the first thing you need to learn to do.

Find a domain registrar; it’s that simple. There are many out there and on the face of it, they all work. There will be a search bar somewhere on the page, all you have to do is type in your desired domain, and odds are a few options will pop up.

It might seem simple and easy, but like with any service there are those who strive to satisfy their customers, and others that view them as sponges that need to be wrung out dry.

Permission to Spam: Watch out for cheap companies. Low rates and special deals are great, but they could be masking other revenue sources. Often, in order to make up for their unbelievably low rates, these businesses sell your email to others without your knowledge, or they will sell you other services by spamming you themselves. That $0.99 domain might come in exchange for 9,000,000 spam emails. Look closely at the terms and conditions, if you see language explicitly stating that they won’t share your private information you’re safe. If you don’t, then assume a spammer will be getting your name soon.

Recurring Fees: When you register a domain, you agree to pay a one-time annual fee. Many registrars will offer the option to automate this. A year is a long time and it’s possible that they’ll just reregister your domain each year. This does facilitate the whole process, especially if you have a few registered domains. However, businesses that don’t explicitly mention that they’ll automatically renew your domain or give you an easy opt-out function are best avoided. The automation of fees is meant to help you, not give a registrar a renewal fee because you forgot about it. Basically, multi-year renewal.

Sneaky Fees: Some of the less savoury registrars will have additional fees that pile on and on to your domain. Suddenly that $0.99 a year name has an administration fee, a onetime activation fee or any other fee that the company makes up is required in order to get your low price. Additional services are not the same as sneaky fees. Many accredited registrars will offer hosting, email or web support as well as other services.

Transfer Conditions: Fees to transfer domains aren’t unusual and are normally quite acceptable. However, be aware of special conditions, like when and where you can transfer a domain to, or exorbitant transfer fees.

Remember you own the domain; it’s your property, as long as you keep paying the renewal fee, and the registrar is there to facilitate. You want one that will work with you, not against you. For example there might be some charges for items were the registrar has to do some work like making your name private, forwarding to another website or even hooking a website up to it. However, charges that prevent you from accessing your domain are a gigantic red flag that the registrar is just trying to squeeze money out of you.

The short answer is somewhere between $10.00 and $20.00 CAD. Supply and demand will play a role in the game though. A premium domain will cost more. E.g., cars.com is always going to be worth more than cars-in-vancouver.com.

If someone else is holding onto a domain, you can reach out to him or her and negotiate a fair purchase price. Note: this will not get you out of the annual fees to a registrar; you’ll still be liable for those. The second you go down this path you are stepping outside of the system and we can only speculate. If you do, it’s probably better that you contact us (section VI) and see if we can help you. Quality registrars can help you acquire a domain as a third party or agent. This is a common approach used by larger organizations. Often by going through an agent, they can obtain the domain for less than you could do on your own.

Beyond those third party services, it’s worth pointing out that we are a registered and accredited domain company and have been since 1997. Simply contact us, and we’ll check to see if everything is available. We’ll also put together a quick report showing you the potential for other domains and, upon request; we can put together a comprehensive domain marketing strategy. We also have domain asset management and auditing services.

Having a domain isn’t the end of the process. In order to get a website up and running, you’re going to need a hosting company. This is outside of the domain marketing strategy but it’s still worth exploring, if only to show the connection between a domain and a website.

Hosting is the term used to describe a server that houses a website. In its simplest form, a website is a collection of HTML documents stored on a server. When someone types in a URL, the domain connects with the server and pulls out the HTML documents.

Over the years, we’ve discovered a few nifty tricks to help you select your domain. Sometimes the perfect domain isn’t available but all is not lost, there are a few ways to work around it. In addition, when it comes to building your domain marketing strategy, these tricks will become vital when selecting a wide range of domains to capture additional traffic.

Since your domain is your public face, it’s important to think about it. You wouldn’t throw on an old suit and go into an important meeting. The same goes for your domain. The good thing is you don’t have to pay hundreds of dollars for a tailored domain name. Always purchase your legal name and any trademarks. Even if you don’t want to use it as your primary website address having that domain is important. Also, look for similar products. A specialty butcher might want to include bratwurst.com as well as currywurst.com.

A space looks like %20 to the internet. Suddenly, great store.com would be great%20store.com or greatstore.com, it’s best to separate words with a hyphen. There is some debate as to whether a hyphen (-) or an underscore (_) is the preferred method to separating out words in domains. We have found that using a hyphen is a better practice. It looks and reads better.

First and foremost, copy should be readable. Second, it should look good. This prioritization is key. A short and simple domain is more memorable than a creative, but convoluted one.

This is good when your preferred domain isn’t available. Adding an extension word such as web, online, digital and so on is a great way of finding a domain that works. The best extension words are terms often used in your industry. A mining equipment supplier that uses mining-digital.com might want to think of mining-resources.com or mining-global.com.

It’s no surprise to anyone that .com is the most common TLD around. It’s also the TLD associated with the United States. If possible, aim for a .com. It might be the American TLD, but it’s also very much an international TLD. If .com isn’t around, then your country’s TLD is best. If that’s not available, then region specific TLD are also available.

It’s important to make sure you own all the different TLDs for your main domain. If you own www.example.com you’re also going to want www.example.ca, www.example.net, www.example.org and so on. This will ensure that your competition or similarly named companies cannot take your brand away from you. Imagine you’re lucky enough to get your company’s name as a .com. It’s a great find. However, your competition can simply buy up yourname.ca and throw in a redirect so that any mistaken visitors who type in yourname.ca are sent to the competition. Having all the TLDs will prevent this.

Keep a list of URLs and TLDs you have or could have. This first step will help you organize everything and show you potential gaps, exploits, and domains of which you could take advantage.

So we’re going to build a big long list of potential domains. Starting with a long list of different TLDs is a great first start. The next step is some research. If you already have a list of primary keywords for your business then you are off to a great start. If you don’t then it’s best to consult some SEO experts and they’ll point you in the right direction. Think of variations on those keywords, common misspellings, synonyms; even an antonym or two might be enlightening. Think of all the ways that keyword could be used.

The point of all this research is to let ideas fly. Even if the domain seems outlandish and silly write it down, write down everything. Just build that spreadsheet. Even go as pedantic as pluralizing or hyphenating different parts of your domain; e.g., poutineinmontreal.ca, poutine-in-montreal.ca, poutines-in-montreal.ca. At this point, you are not looking for the right domain you are building the foundation that will lead you to the right domains. Just build that list and once you think you’re done, add ten more lines.

See section II for more information on registrars in general. Finding a reliable registrar is important and especially if you are going to register multiple domains with them. Dealing with one domain at a rotten registrar can be a nightmare, imagine ten or a hundred.

This is why we recommend finding a registrar that is aware of domain marketing. The big and famous registrars tailor to a very wide audience. They are great if you are looking for one domain for a personal project. When you are dealing with that huge spreadsheet of domains you’ve compiled, a more niche approach works best. A person at the other end who can look through it, give feedback and then register everything for you could make the process easier in the long term. Plus, owning all those domains will mean some micromanaging on your part.

At this point, you’re trying to achieve two main things. The first is to use the registrar’s database and access to ICANN. The second is to whittle down that list. It’s probably blotted and full of domains that’ll never be of any use. After the brainstorm, it’s time to clean up.

All you need to do is type in your domain to see if it’s available. If it is then great, it stays on; if it’s not, then bin it. Many registrars will give you the opportunity to contact the owner, so even if the name isn’t available for purchase then you can privately arrange to buy it.

Alternatively, we are a domain registrar ourselves and if you send us your list, we’ll be able to bulk search the availability of all the domains. It’ll save you all that time taken to type in domains one after another. Plus we’ll also be able to point out which domains are worthwhile.

Once you’ve finished that step the next is to cut. This is where the previous sections play an important role as well as the quality of your brainstorm. A domain marketing expert will help in this regard, as they’ll be able to really chew down that list. Fortunately as domain marketing experts, we can point out the big things to focus in on. How experienced you are in dealing with domains will play a huge role in finding the gems amongst the junk.

Cut anything that sounds unusual when read aloud: URLs that made sense when read on a screen could have a completely different meaning when said aloud. Imagine saying your domain name to a client; the domain had better translate from speech into text easily.

Domains that cause you to strain and stretch when typing should go: A domain should flow. If you ever have to stop, think too much or if typing it feels like a math problem you just can’t solve, then it should go.

Memorable and Short: If you can’t remember the domain you’ve used, do some market research to gauge customer responsiveness to it. Anything that’s too long should find itself under the delete key.

If you already have a primary domain, then you’re in good standing. There are a few questions you might want to ask before jumping ahead though.

• Do any represent my business better?
• Are any shorter and clearer than my current one?
• Do any specify/summarize what my business does?
• Are any SEO friendly?
• Are there any I just like it more?

If the answer to any of the above questions is yes, then you might want to consider changing your primary domain. This will be a great strategy in the long term, but it might cause some headaches in the short term, as odds are you’re going to have to update your existing website, links and any external link sources.

Secondary domains are going to build the bulk of you domain list, these are the domains that you’re going to use as part of your forwarding strategy.

Now that you’ve whittled down that list, it’s time to start buying. Each registrar is different. Some are more involved, but all you really need is a credit card, and an email address; the extent to which you’ll need more than that will depend on the service provider you select.

Now that you own all of the domains it’s time to start implementing your strategy. Unless you have a programing background, it might require the contracting of a developer for a few hours work. For the sake of argument, we’re going to assume that you have the necessary development skills in place to implement your forwarding strategy. We’re also assuming that you’ve found adequate hosting for your domains.

All you are going to do is take each of the secondary domains and add a 301 redirect into them. A domain in its simplest form directs a browser to a server. The browser pulls information from the server (this is why when hosting a website you need a domain and hosting). The domain points at a server and the server sends the browser the information and voila—website.

Those secondary domains will work in the same way by pointing traffic towards your primary domain. They’ll do this with a 301 redirect. There is some debate on the internet, but it’s the internet so it’s assumed that we’re debating about something, as to whether a 302 or a 301 redirect is better.

A 302 redirect is a temporary redirect. It’s best used for when you want to move content temporarily. Like when building a webpage, you might want to redirect the traffic away from the page. It’s particularly important if you’re tinkering with your site’s architecture.

301 redirects, on the other hand, are permanent redirects. They are useful when pointing traffic towards a specific domain. They also have the added benefit of passing on “link juice”. The realm of SEO links create authority and tell search engines that the page being linked to is relevant, and thus worthy of a better PageRank. A page with a 301 redirect tells the search engine that the area it’s being pointed to is relevant. A 302 does not do that.

That’s why we recommend using 301 redirects when building your forwarding strategy. One-by-one you’re going to install a 301 redirect protocol into your servers. This will ensure that all those secondary domains point towards your primary domains. So now those common misspellings, similar domains and all those quality domains you’ve selected will tell search engine and visitors where the real important content is.

In the early days of the internet, some websites who had premium domains noticed that they were receiving traffic that was bypassing search engines. They discovered that users were simply typing in their domains navigating directly towards their websites. By 2005, just as Google was starting to dominate, a report by WebSideStory’s StatMarket division calculated that approximately 4.25% of traffic was a result of direct, type-in, traffic. This is where the origin of domain marketing was born. The more domains you had the more potential direct traffic you could capture. However, 2005 was a long time ago in internet terms. With the advent of the searchable URL bar in most browsers, the role of domain marketing has changed.

Now, simply typing in terms into your web browser will autocomplete a strong domain marketing strategy is even more important.

But doesn’t all of this sound very much like section I stuff? What’s important about this recent development is that keywords within your domain are even more important. The previous sections alluded to caution when thinking of keywords, and it’s true, when it comes to a primary domain. However, your secondary domains won’t necessarily be hosting a fully-fledged website, so go keyword crazy with them.

Because more and more users are using the URL browser bar, using domains that are keyword rich will help to improve the amount of direct navigation traffic your website is attracting. This can be done separately from the research done above or at the same time, but get a list of your strongest keywords. Keywords that currently generate traffic and keywords to target, ones that could generate traffic in the future, are what you want to keep your eye out for. If you don’t have such a list on hand, then contact us and our SEO strategists will have a look for you.

Once you’ve compiled that list, follow the steps talked about above. If appropriately targeted, these domains will naturally capture traffic, especially if those domains are capturing traffic associated with keywords related to your products and services.