20 September 2010 ~ 23 Comments

How To Name Your Online Business – FA014

Audio

In this episode, Izzy and Tim talk about naming your online business using two major naming strategies: Branding and Search.

We give you resources to look for good domain names and how to get them even if they are not available.

There are also lots of Do’s & Don’ts with domain names to get the most out of your website name.

You can also right-click here to save the audio file.

Izzy and Tim prefer the branding approach to naming, but also recommend doing search naming together to drive as much traffic to your online business as possible.

Enjoy your Foolish Adventure…

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  • Michael

    How about using trademarked brands to build a domain around it. Especially if your passion is that product. For example, there are sites like, miatamania.com and miata.net. One is selling products and the other is a fan site. What if I came up with my own site called miataninja.com which sells tutorials on how to repair miatas. Would that be an acceptable path to take?

    Note: this is just an example. I’m not intending on doing this but there’s a free idea for whoever wants to do it ;-)

  • http://FoolishAdventure.com Tim Conley

    This isn’t legal advice. Sites like these can be shut down easily for trademark violations. I know a guy who sells used Scions and had a site with Scion in the name. He received a cease-and-desist letter from Scion lawyers. However, there are tons of Scion clubs and fan sites that have not been shut down.

    Anytime you use a trademark in the domain name, you are taking the chance of being shut down by well-funded attorneys. I would not base my livelihood a site with a trademark in the domain name.

    There is no way I would tell you to use a trademark in your domain name or say that it was okay to do so. I’m just saying that lots of sites do it and many become very successful. If in doubt, talk to a trademark attorney.

    I think I covered my ass sufficiently. How’s that for awesome advice?

  • Paulh

    hi

    when i search the tool for final cut pro videos i get 1,900 searched global

    also as apple owns the brand name final cut pro you could get shut down, in the past apple have shut down sites with name iphone in the,.

    p

  • http://FoolishAdventure.com Tim Conley

    I did a search on google adwords keyword tool and found 18,100 monthly searches. And you are right, there is a chance of getting a cease-and-desist letter from Apple.

  • Julesw

    seems google has gone mad, i do this from uk and I get this like paulh above? but global should be global wherever it is

    final cut pro videos - broad match Izzy said videos right not video?

    140 local
    1,900 global

  • Paulh

    I think there is an error – indeed finalcutprovideo has 18,100 US and 33,000 global but the one registered below just recently with the ‘s’ at Izzys host mentioned at dreamhost has only 1000 us and 1900 global

    Domain Name: FINALCUTPROVIDEOS.COM
    DREAMHOST.COM
    Status: ok
    Updated Date: 13-sep-2010
    Creation Date: 13-sep-2010
    Expiration Date: 13-sep-2011

  • http://FoolishAdventure.com Tim Conley

    There is no clear definition from Google as to why their numbers are different in different countries for the same search terms especially in terms of global searches. I’ve seen global lower than local before, but that is based off of the previous 12 months’ estimate averaged out.

    I have had differing numbers when using the google settings for whatever country I was in and then switch to US setting and get different numbers for the same terms.

  • http://www.mathdad.com Adrian

    Great stuff guys. I took Izzy’s advice a few months ago about changing the name. Went from ReelMath to MathDad. I never have to spell my site name again, which is awesome.
    My math videos are going to be in sets by grade level. Would you recommend something like 1stgrademathvideos.com or actually spelling out the name of each grade for the separate products?

  • http://FoolishAdventure.com Tim Conley

    Spelling out the name should be your first choice, but I would check to see what kind of search volume first grade math gets.

    You’ll probably see more search volume on terms like grade school math tutor and add first, second and so forth before that to see how much volume you get. It may not be worth the effort when you can do all your SEO for each product under the great name of MathDad.

    t

  • Anonymous

    During Izzy’s examples of assonance and alliteration using Coca-Cola I could not help but laugh as I felt like I was in an episode of Sesame Street. “Coooocaaaa Coooollllaaaa” LOL. Great show guys. At the very end you mentioned the pain of changing domains and losing traffic. Doesn’t something like a 301 redirect help the search engine find you again so you won’t experience that?

  • Laure

    Great podcast guys! I am learning a ton of stuff.

    I am getting ready to register a domain name for my future business but I am wondering if I should only get a .com or if I also need a .fr since I will be trying to reach customers in France who will use French search engines.

    If I do get both, does it mean I need to create 2 separate websites or is there a way to make it that people will end up at the same website? I am not sure whether I am making myself clear or not but any advice will be welcomed.

    Cheers.

  • Greg

    I travel often so I save up your podcasts every week or two and listen intensively! Thanks so much! I provide a wedding videography service so it’s regional, not global or bits. You gave me the idea to create a bunch of urls that all point to my AV Artisan Productions .com site. Names like “LondonWeddingVideography.com” and “LondonArtisanWeddingCinematography.com”. Would this be recommended to receive more google search results? (and also now I’m thinking of starting just a wedding videography site in addition to my current all purpose videography site)
    Cheers! (from Canada not UK)

  • Jules

    @laure

    I just had the same issues…
    having a .co.uk but also wishing to target those big spending US people (!) on a .com

    I got to page 1 in google uk for key words, and when I asked a US friend to check google.com from the US I was page 25 !

    so domain name and host ip is crucial!

    I tried to do a redirect to .com but lost a load of traffic in uk and haven’t the guts to stick with it!

    I’ve now decided to have 2 separate sites with different content on each

  • Laure

    Thanks for your reply. I guess I may go the same route and have 2 distinct websites even though it means more work.

  • http://FoolishAdventure.com Tim Conley

    Laure,

    Having two distinct websites would make sense if the .com is meant for North America and the .fr is specifically for France. If your .com is going to target France then just use the .fr though still own the .com.

    This goes for anyone in any country other than the US. Search engines here favor .com and so does the populace.

    There is a guy I know of in the UK that has tremendous success with his .co.uk sites and they rank better than his .com sites that target the UK.

  • http://FoolishAdventure.com Tim Conley

    Unfortunately we started getting into search engine optimization in the show and it is a dense topic that a few minutes can’t even point you in the right direction. If those names you listed are also highly searched terms then it would be a good idea. Being in Canada, you should consider also getting .ca domain names for local search traffic.

    Local search marketing has different strategies than national or international search marketing. Both use similar tactics, but local search has to show the search engines that the site is really local and it will rank and can beat out big, highly funded competitors.

  • Laure

    Hi Tim,

    Thanks for your reply. As well as getting a domain name I will need to find a web hosting provider. However, I am unclear as to how this will work if, let’s say, I have an .fr site as well as a .com site and want to sell products via both. Do I need to go with 2 hosting providers, one US based and the other French in order to be able to use their e-commerce capabilities, or can I just host both of my sites with for example iPage?

    By the way which web hosting providers do you recommend?

    Thanks so much for all you do.

    Cheers.

  • http://www.avartisanproductions.com Greg

    Awesome. Thanks for the direction. Didn’t consider .ca before.
    Following intently…

  • http://mshanhun.blogspot.com Melissa

    I am in Australia and tossing up on the same issue. .com or .com.au – my target audience is likely more in the US, so not sure what to do.

    It doesn’t look like goDaddy has .com.au sites, do you have an affiliate program with a host that does? I want to support you guys :)

  • http://FoolishAdventure.com Tim Conley

    Only costs a little bit to buy both and you can forward your .com.au to your .com. If you find that you can get more customers in Australia, then you can set up a second site.

    We don’t have a Godaddy affiliate link. I only recommend them for domains and they don’t payout for them just on hosting and some other services. Thanks, though.

  • Tommy V.

    Hello guys, I just found your podcast from a link on Pat Flynn’s blog. This episode about picking a business name helped me out a lot. I do have a question for you. I work in the hotel industry and I want to start a website/blog with helpful information for people in my industry. I understand the basics of SEO and how to rank for keywords. I have another small niche website that I rank well with because I have the exact match domain name for the keyword.

    With my new website I don’t want to name it after any of the keywords I plan to rank for. I would like to pick a catchier name that I could brand for this website. My problem is I don’t know how to optimize and rank for keywords when the domain name doesn’t match them at all. Is the process the same or is there different things I can do to help me rank for my keywords? Thank you for all of your help!

  • http://FoolishAdventure.com Tim Conley

    Hotel SEO is very tough. If you can find a really tight niche in the industry to build an authority site in you’ll rank sooner or you have to find a way to get some really good PR so that major sites will link to you. Even then, your rankings probably won’t stay high for very long.

    I don’t want to discourage you from starting, just know that SEO in the hotel industry is a multi-year process. It is even difficult to rank for smaller cities because there is so much competition.

    I would recommend figuring out what kind of content would get people in the hotel industry to link to your site. Being awesome tends to help SEO since people will link on their own instead of you trying to figure out how to get quality links.

    Also, Pat has a decent linking strategy post on his site which you can follow to build a small foundation. It tends to work for low competition industries because the links are low quality, but you may get something from the effort.

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