How Important are Domains to Your Online Strategy?

By Chris Crum - Tue, 03/23/2010 - 10:44am.

Domains Can Mean Traffic

SBN sister site WebProNews had a couple of interesting conversations about domains at the Search Marketing Expo - one with Moniker Founder and President Monte Cahn, and one with Senior Vice President, Client Services at Performics, Michael Kahn.

Do you use domains to drive traffic? Discuss here.

Cahn talked specifically about how your domain relates to your brand, and the importance of making sure the right one is available when coming up with a name for you brand. Products have their own brands, and this way of thinking can be applied to those in many cases. Cahn noted that even the big companies make mistakes in this area. For example, you would expect Apple to own iPad.com, but someone else has that domain.

He also talked about the importance of covering your brand in terms of domain names. This means getting all variations possible. Get typos, different extensions and country codes, etc. Use 301 redirects on misspells of key brands (including singular/plural versions). However, when it comes to domain names for different products, he says it's best to build sub-sites around those with their own content, which can help drive link juice, SEO value, and traffic.

Kahn talked more about the fact that people are still going directly to domains through direct navigation.

More WebProNews Videos

"Direct nav and domaining is one of the oldest practices you can have in the Internet and web space," he said. "I think it's been forgotten with all that's happening in search and social, but this is the strategy where you are going out and buying domain names that can be feeder sources of traffic into your main site or because of consumer use of those domains and then typing those into the browser box, you can set up content, and use those to drive consumer engagement with your brand through other means besides your own primary URL."

"Someone could build out a hundred domains driving towards their main domain, in many instances you might do a 301 redirect, if it's a small domain, with not a lot of traffic," he said. "With the bigger ones, let's say you're in the insurance category, and you're Allstate Insurance Company, and you end up with freeinsurancequotes.com as a domain you want to have, you're probably going to want to build out content on that, optimize that for both paid search and SEO, and use it as a traffic driver that also ends up with traffic back for Allstate."

The video of the discussion with Kahn had a couple of good comments:

"Simplifying the name in the domain will help people remember your brand is a positive thing."

"Generic domain names especially command a huge amount of traffic, both directly in type-in traffic and indirectly in the huge SEO benefit an exact term matching generic domain grants for the search term."

It's a good idea for businesses to keep in mind that domains should be easy to remember, not too long, easy to spell, relevant to the brand, and avoid complicating characters such as hyphens. Though there are exceptions, simplicity is key.

News Tags: traffic, domains, online business, videos

About the author:
Chris is a content coordinator and staff writer for SmallBusinessNewz and the iEntry Network. Subscribe to SmallBusinessNewz RSS Feeds.

Comments

By HipSoul Clothing (SBN reader) - Tue, 03/23/2010 - 2:20pm.

Punk...

What he's saying is basically the same as domain squatting... it's a really bad practice marketers use to milk a pittance of traffic to their main website... all the while using up every last good domain name that ever existed.

Have you ever gone looking for domains for your business?

Nowadays, even the most obscure dictionary definitions are taken (because of the tactics conveyed in this article)... the only way you can get these domains now, is by auction... which are ALWAYS overvalued into the $1000's... who wants to pay $1800 for the domain 'analmucus.com' (not real)... nobody, except you and your analmucus business! lol.

Point being, I'd be willing to bet this domain expert still has a fancy towards blackhat spam techniques... while buying the '.net' of your main domain, and maybe an obvious misspelling, is a good idea... whoreing the entire 10 blocks of internet real estate surrounding your market is just a waste for everyone involved.

This article falls under CEO marketing tactics... throw money at it, at all costs.

By Bloke (SBN reader) - Wed, 03/24/2010 - 5:16am.

Spam-a-thon!

I agree with HipSoul Clothing. I've always, always been of the view that buying up domains and putting sites out there solely for the purpose of driving traffic to another site is very bad practice.

Still, there are plenty of people out there who are openly flaunting Google's guidelines and getting away with it so you could be of the view that if everybody else is doing it, why shouldn't we.

Me, I prefer to steer clear of any dodgy practices but hey, if it floats your boat, fill your boots.

By Online Marketing Seattle (SBN reader) - Thu, 03/25/2010 - 1:01pm.

I agree that having the

I agree that having the perfect domain name to fit your brand is very important. The problem with this strategy is that it doesn't really matter what your domain name is, if you don't have the budget or proper seo applied to your site your competitors are still going to blow you out the water.

Let's take the keyword "business cards" as an example. You'll notice that http://www.businesscards.com does not rank #1 for this keyword, it's not even in the top 3. For the most part this should never happen if you own the actual keyword domain. But again, without the proper seo for your site or brand you can easily be left out. I bet these guys pull their hair out everyday because they are not #1.

My point is, don't be so quick go out and grab a bunch of domains if you don't have all of the tools needed to make it successful. I see to many small businesses making this mistake, they put all this money into buying up domains but they don't even have their main site in order yet.

Domain buyers need to also think about the fact that the only people who actually use the address bar when searching for something are those who have little or no computer knowledge when it comes to search. Most people these days use some form of search engine to find what they are looking for. In other words, once the older generation dies off and today's generation takes over, these kind of domains will only be good if you can actually rank them in the search engines.

I'd keep that in mind before you run out and try to buy every domain out there.

By James (SBN reader) - Thu, 03/25/2010 - 3:30pm.

Extremely Important.

I could care less about the domain name itself...

it could be abc34def.com for all I care...

If you don't have a domain. You don't have property and you don't even own a virtal brick and mortar, you're a travelling marketing agent.

Owning a domain name means you can port your traffic anywhere you want at a later date.

So if you have 1,000 people coming to that domain name over the course of a week, you can move it anywhere you want.

Try doing that with MySpace, Facebook, or any of the other social networks who pretend thier time on site metrics are valuable to your long term marketing efforts.

I tried to tell someone this when they set up their NING account. I said one thing, get a domain so when you shut it down you can take all your traffic with you. What did they do? They invested countless hours building a community only to shut it down with a big huge notice that says, "SORRY, NO LONGER HERE, COME VISIT US OVER HERE NOW."

Yup... I mean unless it's the bank that move locations I never hunt down or go to the new location...

I just don't care about your notice, your lack of professionalism or the fact that you shut down your business, I'm leaving and going somewhere else.

That's the way traffic thinks, and that where markters lose out. Domains are "permanent", you can take your business with you.

By Siskiyou Web Design (SBN reader) - Tue, 03/30/2010 - 11:08am.

Interesting Comments

There is some validity in all the comments here and reasons to have a shorter Domain Name or a Domain Name with your Keywords in it. I agree with Online Marketing Seattle, no matter what you do if you don't have the proper SEO, you will not rank. Redirects are not always the most favorable way to go either with Search Engines, it is always best to have content, but even then it can appear duplicated if you are not careful, again not favorable. It is a fine line and you really need a balance and someone reputable to help out.

By Deposit (SBN reader) - Thu, 04/22/2010 - 2:29am.

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