Whether
your web site is a commercial one or not
you probably have the ambition for large
numbers of visitors to visit your site.
Otherwise why bother in the first place?
Some people will find your site because
you tell them what it is called. Maybe you
put your domain name on your letter-head
and business card or on your sales brochures
or even in big letters on the side of a
local bus. For these people it is best that
the domain name you give them is easily
associated with the name of your company
or organisation.
Get a web name
for public consumption
Imagine your company is called "The
Bloggs Boot Company". The ideal web
name to register for your letter-head and
non-internet publicity would probably be
bloggsboots.com. But there will almost certainly
be more companies who could possibly find
you through the search engines and internet
directories like Yahoo or Google or MSN.
Now if they know you exist and they know
you are called Bloggs or some such then
they might search for "Bloggs Boots"
and the search engine might cough up your
website. Or maybe it won't.
Get another to
help with search engine rankings
But the people you really want to find your
web site are those who might want to buy
your boots but don't know you exist ! They
won't search for "Bloggs Boots".
They will look for "boots" or
"boot-makers" or "walking
boots" or "basketball boots".
Search Engine Positioning
Search engine positioning is a skill offered
by a few companies and is a service that
helps a web site be found for specific terms
on search engines. There are a large number
of factors that influence your site's position
in search engines and for some search engines
one of these factors is the actual name
you have for your domain. (By the way if
you want to know more about search engine
positioning services in general click
here).
To see this in action you
might go to the Open Directory (www.dmoz.org)
and search for "plastic moulds"
as an example. When the result comes up
you will see that the words searched for
are shown in bold. Near the top is a domain
called www.plastic-moulds.co.uk and the
two words "plastic" and "moulds"
are in bold which shows the algorithm which
ranked the pages give some credit for the
search words being in the domain name.
At between £10
and £20 each you can afford multiple
domains!
So, going back to Bloggs, the ideal name
to submit to search engines would not be
bloggsboots.com but something with keywords
in it. One possibility would be bloggs-boots.com
because the hyphen would enable a search
engine to see the word "boots"
which would be useful or, if we imagine
Bloggs sell just basketball boots, then
basketball-boots.com or even bloggs-basketball-boots.com
might be even better.
So here's our plan!
If this sounds complicated then sorry! But
the best things are often a bit complicated.
But the rewards for getting this right can
be very substantial. So, assuming you are
the Bloggs Boot Company, this is the sequence
of events you might follow.
1. Buy domain names to
protect your company and brand identity.
Get bloggsboots.com to put on your letter-heads,
i.e. your published domain name. Also buy
bloggsboots.co.uk, bloggs-boots.com and
bloggs-boots.co.uk to block anyone from
trying to cash in on your name. Identity
theft is very common and your name is precious
to your business.
2. Decide what the key
search words are for your business. Don't
guess, investigate! If you look at WordTracker
you will find a service that for very little
money will let you investigate exactly which
terms people use to search on the internet.
Ask WordTracker and it will tell you which
is more popular "bootmakers",
"boot makers" or "boot-makers".
You need to know this to avoid expending
money and effort chasing the wrong phrase.
Click
here to learn more about WordTracker.
3. Buy what names you can
afford with the most important keywords
in. Click here
for help on whether you should buy .com
or .co.uk or both.
4. Get web hosting that
will enable you to point all these names
at the same set of files. This allows you
to submit the right name to the right search
engine without having multiple sites to
maintain. Click here
for details of our web hosting plans.
5. If you feel you need
it get the help of a professional search
engine positioning company, like NetSecrets.
Click here to learn more about search
engine positioning.
IF YOU STILL HAVE
ANY QUESTIONS PLEASE
USE OUR ENQUIRY
FORM OR PHONE US ON 01386 792972
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