Is Your Domain Name Costing You Money?
Your company needs every Internet promotion and marketing technique to allow potential customers to easily find your web site. One powerful way to help stand out from the thousands of other mortgage web sites is to have a professional sounding and easily remembered Internet domain name. The wrong domain name selection can cost your company thousands of dollars in lost commissions everyday.
Buying a domain name is not as simple as it sounds. If you buy the right name, Internet users will be able to find your site with ease. If you buy the wrong domain, your customers will be confused, and you'll lose mortgage customers.
Extensions
There are many domain name extensions available today. Before we get too far, let me say up-front that .com is the extension of choice, as most of you already know. If you are not one of these people, let me explain. Most Web users automatically type in .com when they're not sure of a domain name. So, if your domain name is mydomain.net, users might remember "mydomain" but not the .net extension. In effect, the .net name is sending traffic to the .com domain.
It's a common problem -- and people will automatically type in .com most of the time. Forget about all the other extensions, like .net, org, .biz, .info, etc. Get the .com name and forget about getting another extension.
Prefixes
Many sites use prefixes in their main domain name. The most popular ones are “i" and “e”, but you might also have seen “v”, “z” and “x” with some frequency. I suppose that pretty much every letter can be a prefix, and they don't usually stand for anything. Of course, they don't necessarily have to stand for anything, either, but “i" is most commonly for "Internet”, " e” for "electronic" and “v” for "virtual."
I stick with “i" and “e” for the most part, as their success has been proven, which is why they're the most respected of all of the prefixes. If you can get a great domain name without a prefix, don't hesitate. However, if you find a perfect name that starts with an “i”i" or “e”, it may be a wise purchase.
Hyphens
We are frequently asked, "Should I hyphenate my domain name? It will make it easier to read." Well, the answer is usually no. Look at the domain mortgagehomeloan.com versus mortgage-home-loan.com. Which domain name is easier to explain?
Hyphens cause you to have to explain your name, and one more place for a potential visitor to make an error. If you have to explain it, you have lost your effectiveness. Make is easy for customers to find your web site.
Finally, how many major web sites use a dash in their domain name? Not many, and again, this is no coincidence.
Abbreviations
Try to leave out abbreviations if possible. If your company is California Home Loans, make sure you get the complete spelling. If you have just califhomeloans.com, you are just making it more difficult for customers to find you. This is even more important if you want past customers to refer people to your web site.
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