Choosing Good Real Estate Domain Names
One
often underestimated part of a Realtor's online marketing
campaign is the domain name. A good domain name can
play a major part in the success of your website.
This article will focus on how to select a good domain
name. For information on why your own domain name
(as opposed to a URL such as www.realtor.com/mystate/mycity/MyName)
is important for your business, refer to our article
on Why Use
a Professional Domain Name.
While the most obvious and probably the most common
choice for an agent is to use their own name as their
website's domain, this is often not the best choice.
While this may be a good name by which existing clients
can remember your site, the key is for your website
to generate new leads and new clients. Domain names
like JohnDoe.com will not identify your website to
potential clients searching the web for a home in
your area.
It is unlikely that homebuyers will search for you
by name. Instead they will be searching for "Manhattan
real estate" or "Manhattan properties". Furthermore,
once they've visited your site and moved on, it will
be much easier for someone looking to relocate to
Arcadia, CA to remember the name ArcadiaRealEstate.com
than to recall the name of a Realtor they've never
worked with. This holds especially true if your name
is not common or is difficult to spell. I would suggest
registering your JohnDoe.com as a second domain name
that is directed to the same site, but not as the
only name used.
The best domain names should be descriptive and serve
to identify your target market. Ideally it would also
contain keywords that potential clients would search
by. This simple change will help improve your site's
search engine rankings dramatically.
The words "Real Estate", "Properties", or "Homes"
can be easily combined with the locations you serve,
creating a domain name that is both descriptive and
contains the highly important keywords. An excellent
domain name for an agent serving the city of Oakland,
CA would be OaklandRealEstate.com. Although many of
these names may already be taken, you could try using
the names of smaller neighborhoods you serve instead
of the larger metropolitan area. In the case of the
Oakland example, you could try using the communities
of Rockridge, Claremont, or Lake Merrit in your domain
name.
Another option is to register more than one domain
name or even have more than one website. By having
more than one domain name and website, you can target
each smaller community specifically, and establish
yourself as the expert in that area. See our article
on targeting for more details: Importance of Targeting
a Market
Now that you have a good idea of what to look for
in a domain name, you will need to find one that is
available and register it. If you have a few specific
names you're considering, you can go directly to a
registrar site such as NetworkSolutions.com
or RegisterNames.com.
If it turns out the ideas you had are already taken,
you can try using Nameboy.com. Nameboy.com
will automatically suggest available domain names
based on the keywords you provide.
A good web hosting company will often handle your
domain name registration for you or direct you to
the registrars with the best rates.
Additional guidelines for selecting a domain name:
Keep It Short:
It
is often a tradeoff between having your domain name
descriptive and having it short. Ideally you would
have domain name that is both descriptive of your
service and short enough that it can be used in conversation
easily. Shorter names tend to be more professional,
easier to spell, and more memorable. They also look
nicer on printed materials and advertisements.
Avoid Unnatural Spellings:
With
many good domain names already taken, many people
are using "creative" ways of getting the domain names
they want. Many domain names use numbers to represent
words such as 2 for "TO" and 4 for "FOR" or the letter
Z in the place of an S. Names like 4NewYorkRealEstate.com
can make your domain name more difficult to remember
or, worse, send your visitor to your competitor at
ForNewYorkRealEstate.com. By choosing a domain name
that is easy to spell, you'll maximize the number
of repeat visitors to your site.
Use a Dot-Com Extension:
The
shortage of memorable dot-com domains has led to the
creation of dozens of other extensions. However, nothing
will replace the brand name associated with a dot-com
domain name. Similar to the 1-800 toll free numbers,
dot-com will always be the most well known extension
and the first place people will look for a name they
remember. Most importantly, the reason companies usually
register with a non dot-com name is that the dot-com
is already taken. Now do you really want to run the
risk of advertising and promoting your website only
to send a large portion of your clients to your competitor's
site?
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