Location, location, location as the old adage goes… even as the world has migrated to cyberspace, this phrase has continued to hold strong. Your URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is your online address and how people access your website, and a very important key component to your marketing strategy. Here are a few things to keep in mind as you look to acquire a URL.
Keep it as short and pertinent as possible. It needs to be intuitive in how it relates to your company and product name, avoid acronyms. It needs to be easily communicated, with as minimal explanation as possible (no hyphens, symbols, numbers if possible). It should almost ALWAYS be a .COM. If you need to resort to .net or .biz because your ideal name as a .com is already taken, seriously reconsider! You are potentially risking losing a good percentage of visitors if they mistakenly put in .com, possibly annoying them enough to lose their interest completely (and driving them directly to this potential “competitor” site!).
Remember your URL will also serve for company email addresses, so the less explanation on spelling and such the better. It has often been said that your URL plays a part in Search Engine Optimization (SEO), so make sure to it is descriptive and relevant to your business.
Don’t forget that you can always “redirect” any additional URLs you secure, and have them point to your main site. This is a good idea to keep similar sounding addresses out of the hands of your competition, but it also allows you to attach different URLs to your various online and offline advertising campaigns – allowing for more precise traffic tracking.
Getting people to search for your business, service or product is the hardest part – make it easy for them to find you by keeping your website address as clear and memorable as possible.