How to Buy a URL / Domain Name

by | Feb 17, 2016 | Social Media

This is not a story about politics…this is a warning about your name, URL and digital presence.  For any business owner, author, and/or personality your name is part of your marketing strategy.  Afterall, businesses are built on relationships12742419_1041617589215160_7503443604473955369_n which start by individuals getting to know you and your expertise.  When prospects go looking for you, by business or by name, you want your website to rank in organic search results.  You rank based on how well you have taken care of SEO on your site.  Now, there are several factors that go into SEO – and your website address can play a part of that.

First and foremost, in and of itself, a website address is not going to drive traffic to your website.  But a website address that includes your target keywords is part of a complete digital strategy.  You should have the URL for your name (jennifergardella.com) as well as common variations (jengardella.com).

Afterall, you do not want a competitor to purchase a URL with your name and point it to their site.

Example:  type in JebBush.com and you will notice that the URL takes you to Donald Trump’s website.  A brilliant move on the part of the trump campaign and a signficiant mistake for the folks working for Jeb.  Jeb Bush decided to position his main website under JebBush2016, but forgot to buy just his name JebBush.com.  You may think this is an insignificant detail but look what happens when someone leaves off the 2016.

So what should you do when buying a URL for your website?  My recommendation is to buy several.  For instance, if you are a divorce attorney in Philadelphia look for:

  1. Your name (and a shorter version if your name can shorter like Jennifer to Jen)
  2. A common mispelling of your name
  3. PhiladelphiaDivorceattorney.com (currently available for $10,000 it is so valuable ).
  4. Other URL’s with your core business areas
  5. URL’s that mix your core business areas with geographic locations if that relates to your business.

All of your URL’s should point to your main website, which is the one connected to Google Analytics.

Lots of great information…lots to consider…lots to call me about if you need any help or clarification.

A few notes:

  1. This is not the official Twitter account of Donald Trump
  2. I have tested the URL issue and yes, it does in fact go to Trump’s main website