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Your domain name matters, read that again! The first domain name was registered more than 30 years ago. Since then, over 330 million domains have come into circulation. With that kind of competition, choosing the right domain name for your business is imperative. A memorable domain name makes all the difference when it comes to creating a successful online presence. In simplest terms, a domain name gives people an easy-to-remember name and address for your website and allows for brand consistency.

The Importance Of A Good Domain Name

Domain names establish a unique identity for your website and represent your brand. Does it matter if your domain name is different than your business name? Yes! A targeted domain name that matches your company name is critical for avoiding brand confusion, so the ideal situation is to have your domain name match your business name. If you’re just starting your business and haven’t yet decided on a business name, you may even want to adjust your business name to match available domains. For example, suppose you were planning to name your business Shoe Palace, but the domain name shoepalace.com is taken. If shoeemporium.com is available, you could change your business name to Shoe Emporium.

A strong domain name does more than identify your brand. It serves to strengthen your brand’s credibility and enhance your domain SEO.

Things to Avoid When Choosing a Domain Name

1.Domains that are too long

You want the domain name for your website to be something that’s short and to the point. This is what’s going to make it memorable and encourage people to visit it.

In an effort to make your domain name unique, you might be tempted to go with a name that’s on the longer side. But this could lead to people typing your domain name wrong when attempting to visit your site and cause you to miss out on traffic.

2. Domains that are difficult to read

Make sure your domain name is easy for people to read and, maybe more importantly, easy for them to say when they’re discussing it with others. Your audience should have to wonder if they are pronouncing your domain correctly. Also, avoid using any words that might be hard for the average person to spell.

3. Domains that contain numbers

This is almost always a bad idea since it often leads to confusion when people go to visit websites. Let’s say that you want to sell the fact that you own the best gym in town. You might be tempted to make your domain name something like number1gym.com. To you, this might seem like a perfect domain name. But what’s going to happen when half your customers try to visit your website by typing in numberonecarwash.com? Unless you buy that domain name, too, and have it redirect people to number1carwash.com, you’re going to miss out on a lot of potential traffic. It’s best to leave numbers out of the equation altogether.

4. Domains with hyphens

Adding hyphens to a domain name can be tempting because it opens up so many possibilities by giving you access to a domain name that you wouldn’t be able to get without hyphens in it.

But here’s the problem: You’re going to have to work really hard to get people to remember to put hyphens into your domain name when trying to visit your site. Many of them will end up typing your domain name in without the hyphens and visiting a site other than yours. You’re better off coming up with a different domain name than trying to squeeze hyphens into bad domain names.

5. Domain names different from your business name

When you start a business website from scratch, SEO is very important. SEO, or search engine optimization, can give your site a big boost and help it land higher on search engine results pages.

There are a variety of ways to improve the SEO of your site. You can fill it with high-quality content that contains certain keywords that are important within your industry. But one of the simplest ways to improve SEO is by making your business name and domain name the same. Google has been known to give businesses that take this approach to creating domain names a slight bump in the SEO department.

6. Avoid using an extension other than .com

A .com domain name is the most common extension and still generally carries more significant value for companies. That’s because most of your customers are going to assume your website is [your business name].com. The .com extension will also have a direct impact on your search rankings. Google prioritizes this extension because Internet users default to .com domains. People expect sites to use the extension – many associate real businesses with .coms, and Google tends to play on user assumptions.

There are a few exceptions to the rule. For example, the .org extension is well-known and trusted. The .org stands for ‘organization’ and is the primary choice for charity or non-profit websites. Website with he extension .edu are required for educational institutions.

With a good domain name, you can set your business up for success. Make sure that you avoid the types of domain names that we mentioned above. The future success of your website and business could very well depend on it.

Looking to learn more about coming up with a great domain name or need help with other marketing aspects? Give Hyve Marketing a call. As a true, full-service marketing partner, we can manage all aspects of your marketing needs: branding and design, website development, digital marketing, social media management, paid search, content management, photography, and video production. Contact us today for a complimentary marketing analysis of your existing collateral.

Having a website that is functional and in line with your brand is critical. In this blog, you’ll learn about eight qualities a website should possess to ensure you are maximizing it as a marketing tool.

Design

You shouldn’t take the appearance of your website lightly. Using your brand guide is critical. Don’t have a brand guide? You NEED one! Consistency in the appearance of your website matters a lot. Ensure that your website maintains consistency throughout, from webpage to webpage, the navigation, the fonts, margins, spacing, color, heading sizes, button styles, etc. As readers go through your web pages, they should feel like they’re in a peculiar space that has a single identity that captures your brand. Your website should not lack coherence. As they go from page to page on your site, the unique identity of your site should still be glaring. This means that you shouldn’t use design elements that look out of place with the rest.

Responsiveness

How responsive is your website? Being able to answer this question correctly is one of the qualities a good website should possess. You are building for your users, and your users do not all use a single device.

Building a website that is responsive across devices is crucial to creating a fantastic user experience. A responsive website will function well on both old and new desktop devices, and on different types of mobile devices as well, be it smartphones or tablets. So, when creating your website, your web designer has to ensure that your site is built with themes that can function well on all devices. In case you didn’t know, Google is now mobile-first, and that means that Google considers how mobile-friendly your site is when calculating the ranking of your site.

Content

Apart from a good design and responsive website, content is equally important. Your design won’t be of much value if you are not sending a clear message to your users. Capturing readers’ interests with good website content can be really challenging. Most visitors will spend just a few seconds on a web page before deciding what to do next.

Good website writing is the key to beating these odds. Well-written content that’s optimized for the web rises to the top of search results and holds readers’ attention. The content must also be consistent with your brand’s personality.

Load Time

Your website loading time is another factor to watch out for. The average load time of your website is one of the qualities that make an excellent website. Optimize your website to ensure it doesn’t take too long to load.

When you have a website that loads fast, you will simultaneously reduce your site’s bounce rate. Website loading time is the speed at which your website loads when a visitor tries to access a webpage on the site. Bounce rate, on the other hand, is how frequent and how quick visitors leave your website when they visit. If your site’s visitors are impressed with what they find on your website, they will spend more time on it, but if they are not impressed, they will leave almost immediately.

Contact Form

Tracking user activity and conversion and collecting user data is a good practice that can be used to improve your website and your business at large. Using a contact form makes it easier for your visitors to enter their details without leaving your website. Your contact form should always be accompanied by a thank you message.

Call To Action (CTA)

A quality website needs to have a call-to-action feature(s), as this can help increase your conversion rate by a large margin. The call-to-action feature can be used to build a mailing list, give out coupon prices or make an actual sale. Call to action is a key marketing strategy; hence you need to have it as part of your website, and you must implement it strategically to get the best results.

Your call to action (CTA) isn’t just a text asking your target audience to make a commitment, it is a pitch, so polish it and make it look appealing and convincing.

Security

The security level of your website is paramount to the users. A good website must ensure proper security measures are in place to shield it from hackers. If your website is insecure, do not expect users to keep their information with you, nor will they trust you enough to make use of your website.

The first thing to do if you want a secure website is to host your website on a web hosting provider that offers strong security. Your website should also have SSL encryption.

SEO

Search Engine Optimization is a crucial part of a quality website, so ensure your website follows SEO rules and guidelines. A website with a poor code structure won’t fare well when it comes to SEO, which reduces the ability to attract traffic from external sources and search engines correctly.

There are several SEO practices you can do to make your site rank well on search engines — good use of keywords, internal and external link building, optimizing your title tags, optimizing your images, etc.

Hyve Marketing is a full-service marketing partner, that offers a concierge approach to tailor solutions to meet your needs. We can manage all aspects of your marketing needs: branding and design, website development, digital marketing, social media management, paid search, content management, photography, and video production. Contact us today for complimentary marketing analysis of your existing brand and collateral.

Your Domain Name Matters