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Domain Names: The Balance Between Brand and SEO May 13, 2018 (0 comments)

For most businesses in the jewelry space, websites act as 'virtual stores'. Just as location is key for a retail storefront, the location of your digital real estate holds significant importance. Digital real estate can certainly be defined by your brand's presence in the major search engines for high-traffic keywords, but it can also be defined in a less-obvious, but equally important way: Your domain name. Most brands tend to think about their domain names as an extension of their company name, and for the most part this makes sense. As an example, if your company name is 'A1 Jewelry Inc.', something like 'A1Jewelry.com' would make a ton of sense as a domain name. This is intuitive, and if your company name is unique enough for the .com (or even .net) version of your domain to be available, you should grab it. Sometimes, however, that domain is already taken by another company, or worse, being squatted upon – Just check out this story about Nissan Computer Corp and Nissan Motors. When your ideal domain name isn't available, however, there are some things that you can do to either (a) reclaim real estate that should be yours, or (b) make the best out of the situation and acquire some new digital real estate with a brand new domain name:
  1. See if your domain is actually being used – Very often, your chosen domain name may be taken, but may be inactive. In this instance, you might have an opportunity to get it back. Check out Whois.com to find out who the owner of the domain is, and then reach out to them directly! If it's owned by an individual or a small business owner (that has perhaps retired, or gone out of business), you might be able to buy your chosen domain name rather cheaply. If the domain is owned by a large corporation or a squatter, this might be tougher – But that doesn't mean the end of the road necessarily. Domain names get registered for a specific amount of time. If the owner of the domain name lets the registration lapse, you might be able to re-register it. You can sign up for a service such as SnapNames.com to get notified about when your domain is expiring.
  2. Come up with a new, keyword-enriched domain – If you can't get your brand name's domain, considering something that uses your targeted keywords and that speaks to your target audience is a great option. While keywords in a domain name no longer have explicit SEO power (they once did), having keywords in the domain in a non-spammy way certainly can't hurt. As an example, if your business caters to people looking for engagement rings in Aventura, Florida, a potential domain name could be 'aventuraengagementrings.com'. This domain makes sense, is memorable, and has keywords in it – Which, if it ranks in search for those keywords, should increase its relevancy and your click-thru rate. Just be careful to think like a user and not like a search engine. Don't overdo it on keywords, or make it too long.
  3. Buy an existing domain that already has authority – Search engines prefer to rank websites that have history and authority over websites that are brand new, or that have no online presence as of yet. Websites, and by extension, the domain names attached to them have a market. Check out services such as Flippa.com to find websites that are for sale. You don’t need to keep the existing website – But you can use and leverage the power of an existing domain name to your advantage in search. Just make sure the website that you are being is reputable and has not been using any shady tactics to try to game the system. You should consult an SEO professional to do a thorough link audit on any website that you may be considering just to make sure that the domain is clean, and has no penalties associated with it.
So there you have it – Three surefire ways to get around the fact that most good domain names seem to be taken. Consider your options carefully, and you could actually wind up with a better domain than the one that you originally wanted!

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