I am starting a business online. It is not e-commerce, but services.
Ranking is important, but so is branding as I have chosen a company name that is very unique and does not directly tie in to my business.
So here is my question:
(I am using the hypothetical 'frodos' as my company name and 'waxing' as my service, so I hope that it's ok to post)
Would it be better to go strictly for branding and use www.frodos.com as the domain, or to play it safe and use www.frodoswaxing.com as the domain? You can even cast your votes for www.frodos-waxing.com if you think that would be even better.
Thanks for any input!
Chris
Normally your URL would refelct the name of your business. In your case, if your company was called frodos, it would make sense to buy frodos.com as a domain.
However, people probably won't search SE's for your company name. They are more likely to search for a service such as your example "waxing", to which, hopefully your URL would come up first. To be above board, i would make sure you had frodos in the domain name.
Depending on what content you have within the site would determine whether or not I would adivse using "waxing" in the domain. If the content within your site is good enough you shouldn't really need to put the word in your URL.
I think at first, to be safe, i would probably go for frodowaxing.com, but defintely put in your company name........simply for branding and recognition reasons.
Again, probably not the best answer you will get, but i hope it helps.
Webboy
- using frodos.com on business cards and print adverts
- using frodowaxing.com for directory entries and submissions
- having a permanent redirect from frodos.com to frodoswaxing.com?
You might get a bit of gain in search engines from having the keyword in the domain, but even that is debatable (easy enough to put it in the page title).
Having just the brand gives you the option of expanding out of "waxing" later, or even changing the business direction totally. (this has happened to my business in the time since I got the "brand" domain in 1995).
Chris
Amazon is #1 for "books". they didn't need amazon-books.com to do that. You can be #1 for any term you want with the right content and inbound anchor text.
If you want to have your keyword in your URL why not have
www.frodos.com/waxing/
I always like to think of my clients. I would rather my email be:
info@frodos.com
than
info@frodos-best-waxing-services-on-mars.com
--
I would always recommend that a "real" business concentrate on branding. "Say... what's Frodo's website address again.... wax-pros.com? no pro-waxer-southern-venus.com no..."
Keep it simple.
In some of my sites where I am marketing as an affiliate I will definite choose widgets-online.com over brandname.com. but that is just a short term short cut so that I don't have to request any special anchor text for the domain. But for my real sites (ie sites that I expect to last more than 6 -8 months) - I definitely do my best to make them memorable, bookmarkable and useful to my visitors.
The expendable sites are just about sending visitors through the turnstile. err... qualified visitors, of course...
Before there was Coke, there was Coca Cola.
The other points are valid - info@frodos.com would be the preferable email address, and there is no reason you couldn't do both.
REALLY bad example there. Take a look at amazon.com. I see on the home page they are selling all sorts of stuff, including GPS units, computer peripherals, and landscaping tools. Amazon-books.com would be a terrible choice for a company that sells a LOT more than books. I'm assuming that the OP was selling just the service of waxing, and not a lot of other services unrelated to waxing.
the question was can brand.com rank for $widget.
amazon.com is an easy site to point to that proves that it is possible.
anyhow, if you had paid attention perhaps you would also remember that Amazon sold *only* books back in 96-97.
Amazon was primarily a bookseller, so his example is actually a REALLY good one.
I would add - a REALLY good one because it is the PRECISE reason you should avoid the short-sighted approach of including a product type or industry name in your company name.
Other large companies that didn't do this paid a price later on to distance themselves from their original focus. AT&T used to be an unofficial abbreviation for "American Telephone and Telegraph." When they wanted to broaden their borders and their product offerings, they spent millions to migrate to the generic AT&T which is now their official name. (btw - if you think you are going to possibly have this problem, let me know so I can buy stock now!)
As others have pointed out - your best approach is to name the company with the generic, brandable name (Frodos). Then secure the related domains that include your brand name + widgets. Direct them all to www.frodos.com.
I thought that redirects counted against you in the world of spiders. isn't that considered spamming? but I know that the SE's have to make considerations for the legitimate companies, so....... do I have to be concerned about that as well?
Chris
Maybe you should start another thread. It's a good idea to keep a thread on-topic. It makes it easy for other people to dig in and find information when researching on WW. :)
Every time I get any advertising from Orion, it says in large print "Visit us as telescope.com." Everytime they do this, they lose an opportunity to burn their brand name into my brain. I'm sure they thought it was a great coup to get this domain name, but I think it was a great mistake. I would never trade a domain name such as Kodak.com, Xerox.com, or Pepsi.com for film.com, copymachine.com or refreshing-cola-drink.com.
Brand names are golden, but they need to be built. Register your brand name, then build the brand!
