How do You "Test" A Domain Name?

[Planet13]

Hi there, Everyone:

Two part question;

If deciding between a couple of different names, how do you "test" out which one you might be better for your site? (By better, i mean, more memorable, or might be more "brandable".) is there a focus group that can help people do that?

also, I know people are big on keyword matching domains for SEO purposes. But how do you feel about demographic based names for an ecommerce site? What I mean by demographic names is something like "geek connect" for a dating site for computer programmers or something along those lines.

Thanks in advance.

[buckworks]

Here's one idea for some testing ... Assuming you already own both domains, try creating some test ad groups in AdWords that are identical except for the domain of the landing page(s) and display URL.

Watch the stats to see if the domain variations create any statistically significant differences in how users respond. You can learn something useful either way, whether they do or don't.

[Planet13]

Thanks for the tip, buckworks.

Can I do what you suggest if I use the second domain name in the ad but have it go to the FIRST site? (We don't yet have a shopping cart set up on the second domain name.) Or is that against adwords policy?

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also, I just noticed one thing; although our site has an awkward hyphenated domain name, and we don't do ANY advertising, our domain name (without the hyphen) is one of the best revenue generating keywords for us.

I am not sure HOW they know to search for us, because as I mentioned, we don't really do ANY advertising and have MINIMAL brand name recognition (plus our name is easily misspelled). But for those customers who DO search for us by our (obscure) name, they at least CONVERT real well (but traffic is minimal).