Your domain is the outward face of your brand. It’s your presence in the global digital world. But many start-ups underestimate the power of their domain for brand recognition.
Your domain represents your real estate in the digital world. Where people can find you. One of the most powerful, but often overlooked, marketing strategies is to have your customers remember where to find you and your products. Having an easy to remember domain name that matches your brand is one of the most effective ways to achieve this.
What do most people associate with your brand? How you answer this question will tell you the information you need to establish an effective domain name. The name you use as your domain should be what the public recognises you as, either the product you sell or the name of your company.
If the name of your domain doesn’t match your brand you have two choices.
1. Upgrade Your Domain Name
Do whatever you can to upgrade your domain to a clearly branded and recognizable domain name. If the domain name that matches your brand isn’t being actively used for another brand, then you have a good chance of acquiring it.
Visit the domain name and see if it’s for sale. Consider using an experienced domain broker to help you negotiate the purchase of your desired domain name.
A great example of a domain name upgrade that matches a brand’s name is the recent purchase of nursing.com. The brand helps nurses succeed in nursing school. Until recently the brand was using NRSNG.com to promote its brand. They recently upgraded to nursing.com for their domain name, which is a much clearer and easier to remember representation of their brand. MediaOptions.com is reporting that it sold for $950,000 US.
2. Rebrand to match a domain name you can acquire.
If you can’t get the domain name that matches your current brand then rebranding is another option.
For example, if you sell blended teas and your brand name is Blended, but blended.com.au is taken and being used actively by another brand, then rebranding as Blended Tea might make sense if you can acquire that domain.
Having the key domain can help your brand reach the first page in Google results and keep you top of mind for your potential customers when they see the quality of your domain name. Making sure you have a strong, local, trusted domain name such as “blendedtea.com.au” rather than “blendedtea.company” will ensure you have both brand recognition and customer faith that your brand is the leader in your particular industry.
