Your Domain Name(your website address) is as important as business names.
They let people easily access you on the internet and brand your emails to your business. You need to own and protect your domain name in the same way you would your business or company name.
These days, your domain name is as important as your business name. It is your identity or address within the online community using the Internet. The speed at which the internet came into being left people confused and perplexed about what domain names were, if they should own one or many, how they should use these domain names and the fundamental question of how much they should pay for the domain names. Lets rip back some of the myths and look at domain names today.
In the real world, our business has a real address. I could come and see you at your business address whether you are a home based business, own a shop or lease an office space. There is a physical address that you are working from.
Likewise to have a successful business, you have a phone number a set of numbers that people can find you at. Any time they use that series of numbers they will be able to call your number and if you are in, communicate with you.
Your domain name is the online address that people can use find to find you on the internet. When they type in that address, your information, in other words your website, is located there. They can look up that address and see you. In the same way that every physical address and every phone number must be totally unique, your web address or domain name must be unique. There can only be one of each. If there were two every one would be confused.
It is very important that you own your domain name. Think of it like a business name. You seek application to register the business name and every two years you need to renew that name in other words pay some more money to keep using that name. Your domain name is identical. For Australian domain names every two years you will need to pay to continue to use that name for another two years.
Once you have paid for the domain, you can then list what computer address you want it directed to. Think of phone numbers they go no where until the telephone exchange sets it up in their registry that number xxxxxxxxx will connect to your phone at location y location.
Your domain name is the same it goes nowhere until listed within the central registry and told where to connect to. This connection process in phones and websites is similar someone is making sure they connect the address and the location together. The company helping you with your website should help you to make sure that your domain address points or directs people to your website.
Can this address be changed Yes it can in the same way that my phone number can be changed. For example, when I recently moved office locations, I contacted my local Telco Company, (Telstra), and told them that I was moving and that I wanted my phone number to connect to my new address. They organised in their central registry for the number to now point to a new phone location.
The same is true for your domain address if you choose to move where your website is located, you can tell the central registry that your new address is at z and they will send people looking for your website to that a location to find you. It is quite convenient when you think about it and very similar to what happens in all of our other business functions.
One last point that is essential that you understand. Owning your own domain name gives you the opportunity to use your very own email address advertising your company name. Many people start using a name that advertises the ISP (Internet Service Provider) that they use, for example I might have billsmith@optusnet.com.au or jennyreid@domainking.com.au. With your own domain address you can now have your name followed by your company name. For example my domain is www.solutionsmanagement.com.au so my email address is lbrighton@solutionsmanagement.com.au.
I not only advertise my company web address but when we change ISPs which we have yearly as their rates fall, we do not have to change all the email addresses that all our contacts use we simply have them redirected on the central domain registry. It is quick, simple and save heaps of money on new business cards and lost business through people not knowing our email addresses.
Owning your domain name is essential it is part of business today. You need to keep it paid for every two years and point it to a good website so that you can enjoy the increased amount of business happening online today.
Lea-Anne Brighton is one of Australias leading Internet Marketing Experts. Her company, SolutionsManagement.com.au has built over 400 websites with full Content Management Systems (CMS)and many with secure real time e-commerce facilities.
Solutions Management has specialised in building websites that have produced strong sales results. Natasha from Surprise Box enjoyed a 400% increase in online sales (from 1-2 sales per month to 1-2 sales per day), with an overall increase to her business of over 70%.
In 2004 Brighton formed the International Web Marketing Institute which holds the patent application on their Search Engine Optimisation methodology. It is blue print that small business owners can use to dramatically increase online sales through strong Search Engine Optimization, (SEO). IWMI.com.au helped Jane from PartyKids.com.au to triple her website visitors and double her monthly sales within 2 months.
Lea-Anne is also the President of the Micro and Home Business Network ( ), in Australia. NFP with 20,000 home and small business asociates.
When looking for a Web site, many of us simply enter the name of a company or product followed by .com. We assume that will get us to the site we want, and it often works. How will your customers look for you online Will they all enter the same thing, or are there several identities they make try
Do you know that you can have several domain names all pointing to the same Web site There are several reasons you may want to have multiple URLs. For example, you might register URLs containing your company name, product name, and descriptive keywords. They could each point to a unique site, or they could all point to the same site or specific landing pages within a site.
I recently had to buy a replacement glass tray for my microwave oven. (Have you ever seen what happens when a heavy piece of glass hits a tile floor It is actually sort of spectacular, although I do not recommend you try it.) I figured that I would call a few appliance stores and have a replacement in no time. But everyone said it would be weeks to get the tray I needed. I went online and ended up at a site called MicrowaveGlassTray.com. Really. I had the tray in just a few days.
The microwave store I bought from was not named Microwave Glass Tray. They may have several domains registered with keywords for the various products and services they offer. I found them because I was looking for a microwave glass tray. Having keywords for which your customers search in your domain name will help your ranking in search results. And, some people may stumble onto your site by typing in the keywords with a .com at the end.
You may want to register misspellings of your name or business name, so that people who enter the wrong spelling of your company name, for example, still reach your site. If you have changed Web URLs, you could have both the old and the new names pointing to the new site.
The mechanics of this are simple. An easy way is to set up forwarding with your domain registrar. Thats the place where you selected and registered the domain name. Some will allow you to redirect the domain name you registered to any URL.
Make it easy for your customers to remember you by using simple, descriptive URLs--and use more than one, if that will help customers find you.
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