Misguided Domains

We've all seen cartoons where a character walks into a store and the sign outside reads "Shoe Store". This might be fine in cartoons, but it certainly doesn't make sense for your website. A lot of people think it's a good idea to have a keyword in their domain name because it might help with search engine rankings. It might help, but when you do this you are sacrificing a lot more and it isn't worth it in the end.

One of the key things you are sacrificing is a unique, differentiated brand. Don't forget that your domain is your brand. Imagine that there are websites greatblackboots.com, niceblackboots.com, shinyblackboots.com, and luxuryblackboots.com. What a mess this would be! How in the world would you expect to build your brand if nobody could remember or tell the difference between your company and another? Domain names need to be easy to remember, easy to type in, and have a few other elements that will make people want to come to your website. Don't make up a boring and uninteresting domain just because it will get a slight (if any) advantage in rankings.

Now imagine that you decided on the domain greatblackboots.com. What kind of logo would you create out of this? How would you communicate all of the important elements that go into a logo creation with such an uninteresting name? This is a huge challenge and the question you should ask is if it's really worth it.

The final thing to remember is that people don't type what they are looking for directly into the address bar on their browser. When I am looking for something, the first thing I usually do is type it into a search engine field. Then I look at what comes up and go there depending on what looks good. You might have a very slight advantage for great black boots initially, but this advantage would be lost very quickly to a competitor that took the time to utilize Internet marketing tactics.

When it comes to Internet marketing there are a lot of ways to get ranking and attract customers to your website. You can leverage tactics like PPC campaigns, search engine optimization, and banner ads which will all work to bring customers to your website. With all of these things available, it becomes obvious that any slight advantage you get with a keyword-based domain will be completely obliterated by a competitor that builds a strong brand and can afford to out-market you on the Internet.

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