SoloSEO

When a Good Domain Name is Bad

Posted by Michael D Jensen on August 21st, 2007

I just moved to Southern Utah (hence the lack of posts). We found a nice local furniture store, Boulevard Home Furnishings, that everyone calls “The Boulevard”. They seem to do everything right, the perfect furniture store. They have car shopping carts for the kids, candy for the kids, bottled water for the adults, sales people are friendly, large selection, good deals, a great return policy, etc. But there is one thing they missed the boat on, a good domain name.

Their domain BuySmartToday.com goes along with the store slogan “Buy Smart”. Initially you think, okay not too bad of a domain. Not too long, easy to spell, even a decent keyphrase (buy smart). But, I found myself googling for the store every time I wanted to look at their website because their slogan never stuck, especially their domain. It was too far removed from the name of the actual store as everyone knows it and refers to it as. Unfortunately the company doesn’t even own the domain for the full name of the store, BoulevardHomeFurnishings.com, although thats a handful to type.

Whilst doing a Google search, I found another domain for the store that points to the hard to remember one: blvdhome.com. Now we’re getting somewhere. The next day I found myself remembering this one even more than the actual one, because it has an association to the name of the store.

Lesson learned? While having a domain for one of your keywords is great, if it doesn’t associate enough with the name of your company, product, or service — enough to remember it — then it may not be the domain to go with.

5 comments Visited 1237 times August 21st, 2007 Michael D Jensen

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Getting Started in Domaining (and a Domain Finding Trick)

Posted by Michael D Jensen on July 19th, 2007

I’ve been diving into domaining activities recently, mostly reading, some bidding, and some buying. It is a very interesting field, and it opens a lot of doors in terms of return on investment. You could develop a site with a domain and grow it, quickly resell it, or just let it sit and sell it eventually. The sky is the limit really. One of the hardest parts of domaining is finding good domains. And I’ve got a good trick for you that can help you on your quest. But before the trick, here’s a few resources to help you out with domaining.

Domaining Blogs

As with SEO and search marketing, the best way to start and learn is to read blogs. Here are 3 that can give you a great jump start at domaining:

Frank Schilling’s blog
Domain Tools blog
Inside Domaining blog

Places to buy Domains

Buy Domains at SEDO.com
RSS Feed for Buying Domains at SitePoint.com

Places to buy Websites (which includes a domain)

Buy Websites at SEDO.com
RSS Feed for Buying Established Websites at SitePoint.com

Domaining and SEO

The merge of domaining and SEO is getting more mainstream, with several SEOs being invited to the Domain Roundtable this year.

Finally, the Domain Finding Trick

One of the tricks is actually finding domains for sale. Sure you can go to GoDaddy et al., but the best domains are already purchased (unless you are buying a web2.0 name). A simple query in google, along with the keyword that you have in mind, can give you a great working list of domains to check out that are actively for sale. The trick is to include with your keyword the phrase “this domain is for sale”, with the quotes (for an exact phrase match). Here are some example queries to get you started:

“diet” domains

“mortage” domains

“retirement” domains

10 comments Visited 2282 times July 19th, 2007 Michael D Jensen

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