Since every website needs a name, Dr. Steve Baba has written a free ebook that will help you obtain a brandable, memorable domain name at a reasonable cost, which will contribute to your brand equity and profits. The ebook, downloadable from Seemly.com, explains how to select and buy an elite domain name. You will be able to obtain a better name than your competitors have.
There are at least 10,000 words in a dictionary that would make great domain names plus at least 10,000 proper names and 10,000 great short coined-words. With a supply of 30,000 great names and millions of good names, obtaining a good name is easy.
There is no need to pay more than a few thousand dollars for a great one-word domain name, and many good domain names are available for free. This book provides you with the information needed to beat domain name speculators at their games.
Both naming methodology to identify great domain names and negotiating/purchasing methods to obtain great domain names at low prices are covered. After a couple of introductory sections, the book starts with domain naming goals or the criteria for choosing a great domain name: image, memorability, trademark-legal, and price. Then quality domain naming strategies are discussed. Inferior domain naming styles, which you want to avoid, are then discussed.
The second half of this book explains how to buy a great domain name. Auctions, expired domains, speculators, and other sources are discussed. Finally, many other topics are expanded on.
Steve Baba has a Ph.D. in Economics and ebusiness experience. The ebook on domain names is available at www.seemly.com, for free. No registration is required. The ebook is a PDF file of approximately 250K. The free ebook is advertising supported. The following paragraphs are book excerpts. Generic names, arbitrary dictionary words, coined or made-up words, modified generic names (generic plus) and unrelated two-word names are quality domain naming strategies. But, each quality strategy has strengths and weaknesses. There is no such thing as a perfect name.
Generic names are highly controversial and expensive. Examples of generic names are Hotels.com, Shoes.com and Furniture.com. The generic name strategy was always controversial and peaked during the dotcom bubble.
The generic naming strategy is virtually never used offline, but a very few small stores do business under generic names such as the Mattress Store in Annapolis, Maryland. Offline, anyone can use the same generic name and open a store name Mattress Store. Online, ownership of the domain name MattressStore.com can only prevent competitors from using the same exact domain name.
Since, generic names cannot be trademarked, competitors can use Hotels.NET, Rooms.com, Hotelrooms.com, Motels.com, Hotel.com (singular), Inns.com Hotels.us, and so on. Often, there are a half dozen simple generic names for each industry not to mention generic names with a prefix (e, i) or suffix such as eHotels.com.
Since competitors can use similar generic names, developing a distinct, memorable brand is difficult. Memorability or the need to spend less on advertising is often an argument for high domain name prices but this argument is only half true. At the same time, with only a few first-rate generic names in each industry, the generic domain names may be unavailable or overpriced, and are rarely bargain-priced. A generic name also hampers brand extension beyond the generic category Hotels.com selling plane tickets
Another quality strategy is unrelated, arbitrary dictionary words. Examples of unrelated dictionary word names include Amazon.com Yahoo.com, Google.com, Target and Staples. Both the words yahoo and google are in the Oxford dictionary, but were rarely used prior to becoming famous brands.
Compared to generic names, it was not immediately obvious what business Amazon, Yahoo or Google was in. On the other hand, Yahoo can legally prevent competitors from using similar names such as FreeHoo via trademark laws.
SearchEngine.com would be the generic name for Google. Fast and All The Web are used as trademarks by another search engine. But fast and all the web are not unrelated or arbitrary. Other search engines can also claim to be fast, speedy, quick, the entire web, or something similar.
The key to having the most trademark protection is to choose an unrelated, arbitrary word. Descriptive words, such as fast, are unlikely to earn much trademark protection. Instead of fast, it may be possible to use a suggestive name such as jet, rocket, or race.
With 10,000 good, short, easy-to-spell dictionary words, it is always possible to find one for a few thousand dollars. Shorter four or five character dictionary words are more expensive. Three character dictionary words are extremely expensive.
Coined or fanciful words are words such as Exxon or Kodak that had no prior use. In theory, coined words are the best from a trademark-legal point of view, since no one has used the word before. Ideally, a coined word is totally new and unrelated to any other word.
But, memorability requires a short name, which has led to a number of similar coined names such as Duron, Enron, and Micron, which diminishes the legal advantage, since confusion is possible. LexIs sued LexUs.
While the legal protection is not perfect, the legal protection is considered the strongest of any category. But from a marketing point of view since no one has used the word, coined words may be as difficult to remember as nonsense syllables.
With a supply of thousands if not tens of thousands of short, coined words, it is always possible to find one for a few thousand dollars or less often free.
Because of the lack of trademark protection for generic names, the lack of distinctiveness, and the cost of many generic domain names, many businesses have used a generic plus or modified generic naming strategy.
A prefix, suffix or second word can be added to the generic name. Examples of this are Carmax, CarMart, eCars, CarDepot, CarOne and CarLand.
This works if the generic word, such as car, is short. Longer generic names, such as CarpetCleaningMax.com, can be too long. But many of the longer generic words have common abbreviations. For example, computer is often abbreviated comp as in CompUSA. Software is often shortened to soft or ware in names. Tech is a common abbreviation for technology, overused in names.
These names range from virtually generic, eCars.cars, to nearly coined, QuanCars.com, with descriptive, suggestive and arbitrary second-words in-between. Since the generic word lacks any trademark protection, the trademark strength depends on the trademark strength of the plus part of the name.
The generic plus strategy is often an attempt to have the benefits from both a generic and a distinctive name, but may have the problems of both if one is not careful. At worst, it could infringe on someones trademark based on the second word such as CarsRus or CarBay. The generic part of the word is usually trademark safe.
Another strategy is to use two unrelated words in a name. Examples of two unrelated words are RedEnvelope.com and BlueTooth.com. The two unrelated words strategy differs from the generic-plus strategy in that neither word is related to the generic product. Technically red is related to envelope by being an adjective, but neither word is closely related to the product or service being sold.
The main advantage to this method, two unrelated words, is that its cheap and often free. With 30,000 single words, there are 900 million combinations of two single words (30,000 x 30,000).
The main disadvantage is that two unrelated words are twice as difficult to remember as one. Two words that are commonly related to each other such as happy birthday or hot wire are easier to remember, but rare and may be as expensive as single words.
From a trademark viewpoint, it could be twice as risky. It could infringe on someones trademark based on either the first or second word. If you are RedDog.com selling computers, either Red Computers or Dog Computers could consider trademark action against you.
About The Author
Steve Baba has a Ph.D. in Economics and ebusiness experience. The ebook on domain names is available at , for free.
Choosing a domain name can be daunting. Research the subject (after all, youre the type of marketer who researches, right) and youll be hit with a landslide of opinions, most contradictory. There is, however, two points that everyone agrees on:
Pick your domain before you launch your business.
This is especially true if your market niche has lots of competition. Research your domain before you commit to a business plan.
Dont wait too long if you like a domain.
While youre researching, youll likely come across a couple of domains that attract you. You might be tempted to wait, since you havent finalized or refined your business plan. Dont. A handful of domains isnt going to cost you much at an affordable registrar like GoDaddy, and once theyre gone, theyre gone. Chances are you can even resell the rejects at cost, if not a profit. Or develop them with unique content and point them to your main site for extra traffic.
Now that we have the easy part of the way, lets wade into murkier waters.
Q. Which TLD (top-level domain) is best
A. If youre a juggernaut in the business world with a giant ad budget, the answer is dot-com (.com). If youre a smalltime business struggling for search engine positioning, the answer is still dot-com.
People do disagree on the value of a dot-com TLD. Some assert that dot-coms have no particular value in the search engines, which may be true.
However, the fact is, if you havent yet seared your brand on the collective brow of the planet, dot-com makes you easier to remember. If you eschew dot-coms, then in some deep dark place inside, people will remember you as that hard-to-remember URL with the ending that isnt dot-com. Whats worse, if you pick an otherwise memorable domain ending in dot-net, -us, or (God forbid) -tv, some of your traffic will end up at that competitor who snagged the dot-com version of your domain. Okay, thats settled. Now for the controversial stuff. Which is best: the keyword domain, or the creative-genius, snappy and brandable domain
Keyword Name vs. Creative-Genius Brandable Name
A Keyword Name is the boring, workhorse kind of domain. You seem them everywhere. They bristle with hyphens: best-anchovy-pizza-in-siberia.com. Or super-labrador-accessories-and-golfballs.biz. On the face of it, theyre hard to brand. Theyre hard to fit on business cards. Theyre really hard to explain over the phone to Aunt Martha.
On the other hand, a Creative-Genius Brandable Name is the sexy kind of domain. The successes are sparkling: Yahoo!, Google, Amazon.com. You can shout these URLs across the room and the other guy will probably get it right. But note: the dot-com road is littered with hip, snappy business who failed to brand their product successfully, or get listed high in the search engines. Now their URLs all point to the same page: server not found
The debate rages on, but the first question you must ask yourself is:
How will people find YOU
It was recently reported that direct navigation web traffic has started to outnumber search engine traffic. In other words, more people visit sites by typing in the URL directly than they do by combing search engines for results. So more gurus are recommending brandable domains.
But think about this. As a small business owner, how will people find you Word of mouth Billboards on I-95 Corporate sponsorships on hockey arenas Probably not: theyll find you through search engines. Theyll type in cheap purple widgets, and as a smart marketer, you will offer them a website optimized for the keywords cheap purple widgets.
Still, this doesnt imply you should automatically pick a keyword domain. There are pros and cons to both types.
BRANDABLE: ADVANTAGES
The brandable domain is great for business cards. In fact, its nearly compulsory if youre planning on offline marketing. In other words, if youre printing up stationary at Kinkos, you want a brandable domain name.
If youre also a marketing genius, this is a fit challenge for your talents. Finding a memorable, apt domain to brand your business is something no software-driven suggestion tool can do.
Most hybrid domains -- ones that are really crosses between keywords and brandable names -- are long gone. But if you create a unique idea for your brand, you can probably snag the dot-com name for yourself. Now all you have to do is burn that brand onto the worlds collective forehead. If you do, youll benefit from type-in traffic. That means that if someone hears about you, they can probably find you just buy typing in your domain.
BRANDABLE: DISADVANTAGES
The brandable name requires solid marketing skill, research and luck. Your name should be so catchy, its almost viral. It should also convey your actual business or youll have to work hard (often meaning, spend money) to associate the two. Your name should be tested on coworkers, cousins and dishwasher repairmen to ensure it has no undesirable connotations. Finally, your name should be available as a domain, and not suffer from competitors with similar domains. Sometimes, pulling all this off is difficult.
KEYWORD: ADVANTAGES
By keyword names, were not talking about the glorious generic keywords the one-keyword kings such as drugs.com or business.com. No, were talking keyword names you can afford.
This is where you buy the domain name www.cheap-purple-widgets.com in hopes of getting a top search ranking for cheap purple widgets.
Advantages are many. First, more keyword names are available. (Theyre ugly, and many people feel an aversion to hyphens.) Also, they do help you place higher in the search engines. Its true that search engines only give you a little credit for having a keyword in your domain, but a little credit counts.
Second, keyword domains leave no doubt in the searchers mind about what youre selling. If you decided to call your widget business Ableeza, a searcher might not get at a glance what it is youre selling, even if your rank is high.
Finally, if you can get people to link to you, those links will be valuable. No matter how Webmaster Joe describes you, the link part will always say, cheap-purple-widgets. This is a powerful search engine strategy for moving higher.
KEYWORD: DISADVANTAGES
You wont get type-in traffic for a keyword name. You cant really explain it across a phone. It wont look pretty on a business card, and its almost impossible to pair up with a cute logo. But if search engine traffic is going to drive your business, the keyword name is worth a long, hard look.
WRAP-UP
Regardless of which type you choose, dont play guessing games. If you go with a keyword name, use a search tool (like to determine what keyword phrases people are searching on.
If you choose a brandable name instead, test it out on a variety of real people first. Pay attention to their reactions. Reserve your domain early, since brandable domains go fast unless theyre very unique.
In the long run, both types of domains can work for you, especially if offline marketing is an option and you have a knack for branding. Overall, though, the keyword domain is probably the easiest path to success for the small-business owner.
About The Author
Blake Kritzberg is a web designer and small business owner. Find more on domain selection, buying and selling at .