Clickbank Profits!

How Your Domain Name Attracts Customers

The quickest way to getting eyeballs on your business these days is by establishing an online presence and central to establishing a powerful online presence is choosing a domain name that will attract the right customers.

This is one of the things that often goes overlooked - how your domain name attracts or turns away customers. Let's look at a few tips.

1. Choose A Descriptive Domain

Your domain name should aptly let your visitors know what your website is all about even before visiting your site. In other words, give away as much information in your domain name as possible, leaving no room for your visitors to guess what your website is selling.

eg. If your name is Lisa Barstow and you run a hair salon, get a domain like lisashairsalon.com instead of lisabarstow.com. Unless you already famous, or want to become famous, your own name isn't the best option.

Keep it as short as possible as well. It's easier for your customers to remember and they're less likely to make typing errors when they enter it in their web browser.

2. Select A Keyword-Rich Domain Name

It's becoming increasingly important for business owners to have their websites indexed and ranked well in search engines like Google.com, MSN.com and Yahoo.com. And it helps this cause tremendously if you have a keyword-rich domain name. The reason for this is simple: Your potential customers search using specific keyword phrases to find what they're looking for.

If you'd done the research and used these customer-specific keyword phrases in your domain name, more than likely your website will be listed on the very first page of the search engines, outranking your competitors because you had exercised due diligence where keyword-rich domain names were concerned.

Of course, there are other SEO tactics to implement for better rankings, but getting a keyword-rich domain name is the first step towards ensuring your website will be search engine friendly. Avoid using any weird characters like apostrophes and even hyphens in your domain name as this will eventually affect rankings.

3. Can You Use A Different Extension Than .com?

In a word, 'No.' You could very well use .net, .biz, .org or .info as an extension and no one would complain, except that you'll likely regret that decision in the long run. Here's why. Websites ending with any other extension besides a .com usually requires extra marketing efforts to establish credibility because everybody assumes a .com extension to be the standard in domain name branding.

Another reason is when emailing, customers automatically assume every company ends with a .com extension and this can be devastating to your business if your customers' emails keep ending up in your competitors' database.

In some cases it makes sense to use a different extension, such as a non-profit society using .org, but generally you should stick with .com.

So don't rush into picking your domain name. Research your market and find the keyword phrases that people are searching for. There are quite a few websites that let you research this information, such as Wordtracker.com and GoodKeywords.com. Putting the effort in up front will pay off in the long run.