Do you want to enhance your marketing strategy? A great way to do it is by utilizing domain names.
As you might already know, a domain name functions as a site address. But it does more than that - a good domain name might gain your brand more trust and more traffic.
So, how can you achieve this? This article will show you the best ways to use domain names for marketing purposes.
If you’re looking for an easy way to market your brand, simply try using your brand’s name as the domain.
The main goal of a brandable domain name is to showcase your brand, and often your niche (like what Pizza Hut does). As such, it tends to be short and straightforward.
The most prominent benefit you can get from a brandable domain name is raising awareness. Since your visitors must type your brand name in the address bar to access your website.
What’s more, it’ll also give a professional look to your address. Let’s say you’re looking to buy a sofa, would you rather click on a keyword-stuffed domain name (such as buyasofahere.com), or an address with an established brand name?
Well, you know the answer.
Even big brands use brandable domain names, such as Samsung and Burger King. That says a lot about this method’s popularity.
Before choosing the perfect domain for your brand, make sure it’s available. For this task, you need a domain checker, such as the one provided by Hostinger. If it’s available, purchase it as fast as possible – before your competitor does.
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Just like you can make your site address look professional, you can do the same with your email address. Free email services like gmail.com or yahoo.com are great personal tools, but they don’t quite look professional when used for business.
The difference between a regular email address with a custom email address is in the domain. With a custom email address, you’ll have your site address at the end of your email.
Here’s how it would look: yourname@domainname.com.
Using a custom email address helps prevent your emails from entering the spam folder. This is important, especially if you’re going to be utilizing email marketing. Otherwise, here’s what might happen:
It’ll also help you gain brand trust and a sense of credibility. Put yourself in your customer’s shoes: would you be more likely to open and read an email from a business with a custom address or from one with a free address?
Another good thing is, your recipients will notice your domain name! It’s an excellent way to increase your brand awareness and gain more traffic.
If you want to know how to create a custom email address, just contact your hosting provider, or find a tutorial on how to create a custom domain name with your provider.
Registering more than one domain name might sound costly. After all, why add more domains when one domain can do the job? The truth is, it has its benefits.
If your brand name is hard to spell or hard to pronounce – there’s a chance that your visitors might mistype your address. To avoid this scenario, you can purchase the “mistyped” domain names, and use it to redirect visitors to the main website.
For example, if you enter gogle.com, you’ll be redirected to google.com. This is a way Google won’t lose any traffic if their visitors mistakenly type “gogle”.
You can also try to register the shorter versions of the address, to make it more simple and memorable. For instance, Barnes and Noble visitors can access bn.com to visit the main website barnesandnobles.com.
This method will also come in handy if you want to rebrand your site. In that situation, you won’t lose visitors by moving to another domain.
A great example of this is smartblogger.com. Formerly, it was known as boostblogtraffic.com, but after rebranding, its site address changed. Now, every visitor of the former site is redirected to SmartBlogger instead.
In short, the main benefit of registering multiple domain names is to retain site visitors (which can be your potential customers) and avoid losing traffic.
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If you’re planning to launch a new product or promote an event, you can try creating new domains for microsites.
A microsite tends to focus on one topic. The main purpose is to target and reach particular audiences and get the right exposure for your campaign. It can highlight a single product, a one-day event, or a newly-made app. Keep in mind that the site’s objective should be as clear as possible.
If you want to see excellent examples of microsites, you can check out The Coca-Cola Company’s product websites - they have microsites for all of their products, such as coca-cola, Minute Maid, Fanta, and Sprite.
To top it off, microsites will help you track your product or event objectives. Monitor your site’s traffic and conversion metrics using free tools like Google Analytics.
While .com is one of the best choices for your website – as it’s the most popular domain extension out there, you can also try using ccTLDs (Country Code Top-level Domains). They’re extensions that are assigned to specific countries, like .uk (United Kingdom), .de (Germany), or .br (Brazil).
Another good thing about ccTLD is it’s one of Google’s ranking factors. A higher rank means your site will get more exposure and traffic on Google.
In addition, you can also use sTLD (Sponsered Top-Level Domains). However, these are reserved for specific types of domains. For example, .gov is used for the US government and .edu is used for education.
The gTLD (Generic Top-Level Domains) are a bit harder to purchase if your domain name is more common than most. If .com is taken, you can try .org, .net, .xyz, .info or more.
You can also seize different TLDs to reduce the likelihood of competitors imitating your domain name (such as using yourdomain.net to get visitors from yourdomain.com)
Remember to think twice before purchasing different TLDs. Make sure they’re relevant to your business. Don’t buy TLDs that don’t benefit your site in any way.
A domain name is more than just a site address, you can also use it for marketing purposes. There are many benefits you can get: from gaining brand trust and improving search result rank, to getting more traffic.
You can get those benefits by applying the methods you’ve learned in this article. So, what are you waiting for? Good luck with your marketing campaign!
