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Need Help Web site domains

tamif

T-N-T Designs
What is your opinion on buying a premium domain name that is my business name or sticking with a domain name that is similar to my name? Do you think it will increase traffic and business? Hate to spend $1000+ on something that doesn't increase business.
 

Solventinkjet

DIY Printer Fixing Guide
SEO is more important when it comes to traffic growth. In my opinion it's not worth the money for the premium domain. One good example is Frontier Airlines. Some internet company owns the domain so their actual URL is FlyFrontier.com. If you search for "Frontier" in Google, FlyFrontier.com shows up first and Frontier.com comes second. So it was more important to have good SEO practices than to own the actual domain.
 

GB2

Old Member
I would agree with the SEO opinion by Solventinkjet. Also, just a personal opinion and not a very internet/domain educated opinion, I don't thing it's very important anymore to have a .com domain like it used to be, you may be able to find the name you want in a .net domain and it probably won't make any difference. The FlyFrontier was a great example of how you can be creative in choosing an alternate domain as I think that was an excellent, appropriate choice for them. As far as customers are concerned, I don't think they care in the least what your domain name is, as long as they can find you. You are the only one that will agonize over the decision.
 

BALLPARK

New Member
What is your opinion on buying a premium domain name that is my business name or sticking with a domain name that is similar to my name? Do you think it will increase traffic and business? Hate to spend $1000+ on something that doesn't increase business.

I would suggest to purchase any domain that you feel will have value in the future to your company as an asset or something to sell later. I have purchased about 20 domains and use most as a forward to our primary websites.

$1000 seems low on the asking price, so that may be a good deal... I have one that I want to purhcase, but they want 250k for it..lol.

If you can find a way to make a name similar to it then go for it... I would try to stay on .com for sure and keep it short and simple.

You need SEO to help any domain or company to standout on search engines. Depending upon the name of your company and the names of similar searches it could get expensive to build up your search rankings.
 

netsol

Active Member
It's probably the "Fee" from the squatter, not the actual registration of the domain.

canuck signs
i believe they are talking about custom extensions

one of our clients, mobisoft software is now mobisoft.mobi

i have always been of the opinion this is only valuable to isolate you from being associated with your country of origin, if you want to be thought of as an international company
 

Reveal1

New Member
I tried unsuccessfully to buy my company name as .com so added a hyphen and went my merry way. The owner wanted $1K (about 10 years ago). About 2 years later he contacted me - offered him $100 and he took it. Now I redirect the newer one to the old site and keep both domains for $12 each per year. Also own eight other domains variations of company name, my name or sign biz variations I might use down the road. About $120/year cheap insurance to not get knocked off by someone else and have domains for pie-in-the sky business ventures I'll probably never do.
 

tamif

T-N-T Designs
canuck signs
i believe they are talking about custom extensions

one of our clients, mobisoft software is now mobisoft.mobi

i have always been of the opinion this is only valuable to isolate you from being associated with your country of origin, if you want to be thought of as an international company
It is for the domain tntdesigns.com then I would have to register it and then it would be around $10 a year to keep it registered.
 

GB2

Old Member
Well, you could do just what you did in your Signs101 name, you could get T-N-TDesigns.com instead.
 

GB2

Old Member
I would suggest to purchase any domain that you feel will have value in the future to your company as an asset or something to sell later. I have purchased about 20 domains and use most as a forward to our primary websites.

A while ago I had the same thought, I started buying up domain names for variations such as signninjas.com, signinjas.com, signninja.com, signinja.com, .net, etc. but it's impossible to cover every possibility and there is no end to it. Then I started buying domain names all around me such as newyorksigns.com, newyorksign.com, brooklynsigns.com, brooklynsign.com, manhattansigns.com, etc. It almost became an obsession and before I knew it I had quite a collection of domain names and quite a expense to maintain them. I didn't even know what I was going to do with them as this is not my area of expertise. I imagined that I would do something like what you said about forwarding to primary websites but then I heard that this is not recommended since it can actually hurt your SEO and possibly get you blocked by things like Google or force you to have a very complicated, expensive network of websites.
 

tamif

T-N-T Designs
Well, you could do just what you did in your Signs101 name, you could get T-N-TDesigns.com instead.
I thought about that, but if someone is trying to find you just by typing in a name I didn't feel like they would put the dashes in there. My whole thought on this is someone thinks they know the name and just types it in to find the website. I guess this would still be better than what I have now which is tntvinylsigns.com.
 

Pauly

Printrade.com.au
No idea why this was revived, but my 2c.

I believe online precents in this time of year is key. Everyone searches and shops online these days.
Having a domain name as your business name is ideal. Just makes it easier to find and remember.

Having the right domain extension is curtail imo.
They all have meaning.
.com means "commercial" and so does .co and the lesser popular one biz.
.net is for network, usually used by networking companies, ISP etc. a printing or design company shouldn't have .net
there's also country extensions like .com.au for commercial Australia. or .co.uk is popular in the UK for obvious reasons.

Yes there are "premium" domains. Are they worth it? that's up to you. but it's better to have your business name as your domain as it looks more professional.
You also dont want it overly complex to remember or type out. remember, people need to visit it at times.
you dont want something like www.we-print-24hours_per_day.com vs www.print24.com

It's all branding at the end of the day.
and also good SEO is key.
 

FireSprint.com

Trade Only Screen & Digital Sign Printing
Do this instead: https://moz.com/products/local

A good domain name is critical in a national environment. Something like signs.com is alot more useful than allkindzofsignz.com for sure, but locally, there are more important things.

Make sure all the search engines have good, up to date info about your business with lots of photos and reviews. Make sure your FB page and LinkedIn Profile are accurate, etc.
 

decalman

New Member
Websites worth what someone will pay for it. I was told mine was appraised for over 10k I'd love to sell, it for even a fraction. I wonder how to list it?
 

Vinyl slayer

New Member
Websites worth what someone will pay for it. I was told mine was appraised for over 10k I'd love to sell, it for even a fraction. I wonder how to list it?
I would begin with asking the person who said you could get 10k for It. If they really know what a market value is, they would know the market, and where to sell it.
 

Pauly

Printrade.com.au
Websites worth what someone will pay for it. I was told mine was appraised for over 10k I'd love to sell, it for even a fraction. I wonder how to list it?
Only worth it if someone is willing to pay for it. Have seen some expensive domains up for years
 
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