Choosing a right domain name is the first important step to a successful planning of an online business. Domain name is just like an internet identity for your online business which reflects who you are, what you do and what service / product do you offer to the online shoppers. The reason domain name is seen as an “internet identity” is because no two domain names can be same and while choosing a web address that is unique to you is a chance for you to select the best possible domain name that describes your online business (or e-Commerce store).
Many times, business owners do not put much effort in choosing a right domain name for their business which can be as devastating as choosing a wrong physical location for your business. Domain name is just like a virtual address for your online store so you should invest same amount of time, thought process, planning and effort to select a right web address just like how you would select a prime physical location for your business where shoppers can find you easily. Yes, it can be a little tedious process to come up with a good unique domain name that has not been taken yet but it is not that difficult if you think strategically.
There are 2 main strategies to choose a right domain name for your e-Commerce business:
- Brand centric domain names
- Keyword rich domain names
Brand centric domain names
Brand centric domain names are usually for businesses that have already established their name (or company) in the market. You can make most out of brand centric domain names when your customers know about you as a business and see you as a brand. Some of the examples of brand centric domain names are: Amazon.com, itunes.com and nike.com etc. If we take an example of Nike, we all know their brand is represented by a tag line “Just do it”. So, for Nike it makes sense to buy a domain name “Justdoit.com” as they are known by this tag line and customers relate it with Nike since they are aware of the established brand name. Currently “Justdoit.com” redirects the users to “nike.com”.
Just because it makes more sense for already established business to go with brand centric domain names, it does not mean that this type of domain name is not for new online businesses. Online businesses that are new in the e-Commerce industry and want to go in the route where they want customers to remember them down the line with a brand name should also choose a brand centric domain name. It is very important to choose a brand name that reflects the type of business you do.
Keyword rich domain names
Keyword rich domain names are the domain names that are focused on keywords and phrases that best described the business and product (or services). This strategy involves making a list of a few keyword phrases that relates to your product (or services) that you are offers to the customers and then selecting the best phrase (or keyword) that reflects what you have to offer. Another aspect of keyword rich domain name is to select keywords that are good for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) as the focus is to relating your business with the keywords that customers are searching for (or might search for) on search engines. It is important to strategically come up with a clever domain name in order to stand out in the competitive e-Commerce market.
Here are a few tips to choose a right domain name for your online business:
- Be creative as during the process of selecting a right domain name, you will find that majority of single word domain names are already taken. So, it is important to be creative in order to come up with a way of blending names that goes together well as well as reflects your business (or brand name)
- Make sure your domain name is short for mainly two reasons: easy to remember and easy to type. Word-of-mouth is a free marketing for your business and if customers are impressed by your business, product or services, they will be talking about your business or website with others. Your aim should be to make your domain name easy to remember and at the same time make is memorable so that people can relate it with your business. Making your domain name easy to type is another way to keep your website easily accessible all the time. Nobody likes to type symbols like “-“sign, numbers or difficult vocabulary while accessing a website
- Follow latest trends and choose the extension to your domain name in a smart manner. Today, .com is not the only choice available. There are many latest domain extensions available in the market that you can use that best describes your business for example: .co, .me, .net, .biz, .org, .company, .ecom, and .enterprises etc.
nopCommerce is the leading open source shopping cart, allowing people to set up an online store quickly and easily. One key feature of the nopCommerce is its pluggable modular/layered architecture which allows additional functionality and presentation elements to be dynamically added to the application at run-time. This pluggable modularized architecture makes it easy to create and manage your web sites. nopCommerce offers a very easy and user-friendly way of configuring your domain name (website url) in the administration settings.
Author: Lavish Kumar