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MenuWill adding "app" or "try" to our domain name (.com given that we target non-tech consumers) mean losing meaningful traffic to our website?
Our app is directed at the financial services industry, both to professionals and their clients.
Answers
I'd argue that adding "app" to your domain name *strengthens* your brand by making it more transparent and honest. It's accepted practice; see, for example, bufferapp.com and umergencyapp.com.
"Try__.com," on the other hand, is less advisable: it sounds tentative and uncertain.
For other URL options--slogans, extensions, puns--see my blog post: http://nancyfriedman.typepad.com/away_with_words/2014/02/a-pure-dot-com-domain-you-dont-need-it.html
It will not matter.
You have to look at the strategy of how you plan on acquiring users for the website.
For Example: If you are going to leverage Social Media your in-bound traffic is going to be coming in the way of clicking so your domain name makes no difference.
Another Example: Email Marketing, the user is clicking on a link of sorts so the domain is a non-issue.
If you have more questions shoot me a message.
As a professional in the domain industry, I'm expected to tell you that an "exact match" domain is indispensable for gaining traffic for the keyword or name you want to be found for ... and that adding an extra word to cut costs would hinder your SEO.
But I'm not going to say that. Choose your domain based on how PEOPLE are going to interact with it, and search engines be damned!
Once upon a time, if the words in the domain precisely corresponded to the words in a Google query, then that domain would receive an automatic boost to its rankings, whether the domain contained quality content or rubbish.
But Google algorithms have changed. My understanding is that the SEO advantage for an exact-match domain won't be seen unless the website has multiple reinforcing indicators of quality and trust. In other words, there's no shortcut; but there may be a long-term SEO benefit.
The more important questions you ought to be asking are:
(1) Will customers remember the domain with some extra word as well as they'd remember the simpler domain with just my brand name?
(2) Will I face extra confusion and competition in search results (leading to higher CPC advertising) if I allow someone else to own a domain matching mine but without the appendage word? Even if they're not competing for your customers, they'll be competing for that #1 spot.
(3) How will passers by view my brand differently if I add extra words, given that the best brands don't cut corners?
Remember, it's Amazon.com not TryAmazon.com. And it's Twitter.com not, say, TwitterApp.com. Even Facebook.com got rid of the "The" from TheFacebook.com. You have a gut reaction to these extra words. So do the people you want to win over. Put your best foot forward.
Sometimes adding an extra word is fine, or even better. And sometimes it's just a way to cut corners that can lead to trouble or extra cost in the future -- possibly in the form of high customer acquisition / retention costs, possibly due to an AdWords bidding war, and possibly due to a domain upgrade made more expensive by your own success.
I practice what I preach, by the way. Although I could save money by adding extra words to my brands, I generally choose to pay up in order to do things the ideal way.
For instance, I'll be launching my naming practice at some point at Overtone.com ... not at MeetOvertone.com. And when it comes time for me to launch a magazine at American.org, I will have a networking advantage with that domain as my calling card versus, say, ReadAmerican.org. Likewise, UKProperty.com means something different to people than UKPropertyFinder.com. At the moment I'm scraping together my pennies to buy a 5-figure domain for another project I'm working on too. None of this with venture capital or partners. All with my own hard-earned dough.
There's no right answer. But think it through seriously.
From a SEO perspective it wont hurt you, but try to stick to short domain names they are easier to remember. 5 letter word an even 7 are the best. There are many sites that have "downscaled" their domain name to get better brand recognition like Pandodaily.com into pando.com Angellist.com into Angel.co and many more. Might want to experiment with rare domain extensions such as .io, to get just your name brand without the "app" or "get" to keep it short.
Related Questions
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What's the best way to manage over 200 domain names? I want to get a landing page set up on each.
I have been managing multiple domains/sites for my clients since a few years now and I think the easiest and best way to do it in your case would be setting up simple WordPress sites on each one of them and managing them with something like ManageWP(https://managewp.com/) . If they're niche domains, you can monetize them through ads or use them as affiliate sites. Selling them can also be also an option. If you can get the sites to look fairly nice and if they are niche domains, you can sell them on sites like Flippa(https://flippa.com/) . Overall, you have many options. I'd be glad to help you in detail through a call if you want.AT
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If there are no quality .com available domains suited for my travel startup, is it too bad to use a .org or .travel gtld?
That one question entails several separate answers. .TRAVEL is little used and practically unknown to the general public, even though it has been around for 7 or 8 years. Partly that's because the .TRAVEL registry mandates a special application process that confines use of the extension to particular kinds of entities. Have you ever visited a .TRAVEL website? Most people have never seen one. And so, with negligible public adoption of .TRAVEL, you'd find yourself almost entirely alone explaining your name / web address over and over again. Names that require long explanations are cumbersome and forgettable. There's an added burden with vanity extensions such as .TRAVEL. Suppose you name your company or website "Exotic Travel". If you use Exotic.Travel because ExoticTravel.com is too expensive or else in use already, then you will either face a competitor who uses ExoticTravel.com or else you will need to purchase and maintain both domains. Owning a vanity extension without a matching .COM is almost always a bad idea. Some major websites have learned that the hard way -- often paying 5 or 6 figures to acquire the .COM domain they hoped to circumvent. I'm not a .COM purist. In fact, I'm fond of some domains in vanity extensions. But they should be used as a pair with the .COM most of the time. .ORG can be ideal for certain kinds of projects. But it's impossible for me to give an answer without knowing the name in question. If .ORG is part of the brand identity -- meaning that you're proud to display the .ORG -- then it can work. Nonprofits are especially well suited to .ORG for this reason, as are some other websites. However, if using the .ORG is merely a cheap knockoff of your first-choice domain, then people will perceive it rightly as just a cheap knockoff. We'd have to discuss the name specifically for me to give any meaningful feedback, though. Of course, you began by saying "there are no quality .COMs available". Frankly, that's probably not true. Availability comes in all shapes and sizes. It's certainly the case that most of the good .COM domains already belong to somebody. After all, the internet has been around for a few decades. Just as with the North American continent, every vacant lot has an owner by now. But many good .COMs, though owned, are nevertheless not in use -- and therefore available, depending on your budget. It's dangerous to settle for the first .COM you find that's available for $10. Almost by definition, those are precisely the domains that have interested nobody alive at all for 20+ years. However, I've been exploring the name space every single day full time for some years now -- often for myself but frequently for clients. And a small percentage of good domains do remain available. However, it takes experience to find them and tell the difference between fool's gold and the genuine article. With my last naming client, I'd say that less than 1% of my name ideas were unregistered. That's a long answer. Since it's now 1:17 a.m., I'd better cut things off at this point!JP
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If someone misspells my company when Googling, how do I make sure they find my site? Anything besides buying domain names of the misspelled versions?
Google Search is already smart enough to capture those misspellings and shows recommendations for the correct words. Assuming that your website has been around for a while, Google will show users the branded site first in the results pages so the clicks will go there. Google figures out possible misspellings and their likely correct spellings by using words it finds while searching the web and processing searchers queries. So, unlike many spelling correctors, Google can suggest common spellings for proper nouns (names and places), and words that may not appear in a dictionary. I usually use misspellings in my clients Paid Search campaigns to capture all the possible traffic when I see that there's a high number of searches for those variations. I advise against buying domain names for the purpose of capturing that traffic. It will help, though, for people entering the exact domain name directly into the browser. And if you do so, make sure that they all redirect via a permanent 301 redirect to the original one, but do not use them for tricky SEO purposes.WA
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What name should I give to my product? (rebranding)
I like the name "Melissa" — but I wouldn't use a website URL like www.melissahome.com because it just doesn't feel "natural" — I would choose something that implies what Melissa means to us... For example: "Ask Melissa" or something like that. Good luck!KG
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Should I find a new brand name?
You're definitely going the wrong direction. That's my opinion. But I'm right, and here's why: Your domain strategy is hyper-extended. You've got 4 domains in .CO.UK – hopefully 8 counting .UK rights. That's all well and good for a British audience. But you deliver work online; so why not appeal to a global audience? Here in the USA, ccTLDs (a.k.a. country codes) are not recognized. Your business will look strange and be misremembered as .COM. That means your marketing will be inefficient; you'll leak traffic to Google, parked PPC pages, or even competitors who develop sites with the same brand name(s) in the same niche! Meanwhile you'll pay extra in ongoing advertising costs to compensate. And you don't own the 4 corresponding .COM domains. I checked. They're owned by a pair of people / companies – both known to me already. To acquire these 4 matching domains, you'd need to spend about $10,000. That's based on the typical list prices these guys set, which you can verify, I'm sure. On top of this, you'd face brand protection issues for at least 4 distinct names. That obligates you to further domain purchases or risks ... in proportion to the number of brand names you're attempting to operate. After all, WantApp is confusingly similar to WantApps; and WantWebsite resembles WantAWebsite. And let's not forget .DESIGN and .WEBSITE, which means your WantDesign.co.uk is competing against both WantDesign.com and Want.Design, while your WantWebsite.co.uk has to shout extra-loud to be heard above WantWebsite.com and Want.Website. Things get complicated fast! You'd eventually face competitors with these names unless you bought them all. You might even get embroiled in trademark disputes, which are no fun. For that amount of money ($10k upwards), you can buy a really great domain name and consolidate all your efforts on a single brand name with worldwide appeal and a single website. In the long run, going the way you're going, you will pay thousands of pounds one way or another. Maybe you won't buy those other domains, but you will put extra cash, sweat, and time into marketing. You'd probably lose a few customers over the years as well, since they'd go somewhere other than your site and find other people to hire. I also have concerns about branding with multiple domains, managing multiple websites, or asking customers to bounce around between several sites. But there's no space to go into that. The domain issues already sank your battleship, I'm afraid. If you'd like help selecting a single unified brand name for all your services – which is what I recommend – let's talk. Naming and domain procurement are both areas I specialize in.JP