Company name advice (web based)

theshamu

Hi,

I'm currently in the starting stages of setting up a company that will be web based. Will be selling products throughout Ireland and eventually (hopefully) worldwide.

I have a bit of knowledge of seo and my main keyword gets exactly 6600 exact local searches and 450k global searches. I also realise that there is some competition within my market but bring it on! :cool:

I know you will rank higher if your exact keyword is in your url but my Questions are:

1) should I go with a .ie or .com as I might try and advertise in the UK & US someday (but would obviously target Ireland until it takes off)

2) I have a catchy name for the company but as it'll be a web based store am I better off having the exact search term in the URL and not using the 'catchy' business name for ranking purposes.

Any opinions / help much appreciated.

Cheers.

PCPhoto

as regards the name .... why not register both the .com and .ie and have one redirect to the other ...simple solution and will catch all the traffic.

also might be worth considering other names like .biz , .co.uk , .net , .org etc.

theshamu

PCPhoto wrote: »

as regards the name .... why not register both the .com and .ie and have one redirect to the other ...simple solution and will catch all the traffic.

also might be worth considering other names like .biz , .co.uk , .net , .org etc.

Do you mean register the .ie with the keyword in it and then redirect to my original company name .com?

Cianos

A lot depends on the availability of the .com. How good does it look written down? Most .com addresses are taken so I'd be surprised if a strong name containing your keywords is still available? If it is you should probably just buy it to have it regardless.

PCPhoto

in terms of starting off ...register everything.... get redirects and in time drop off those that are not profitable/operating to potential.

meaning if you register the catchy name and the keyword name and have one direct to the other then you should catch all, similarly with the .com and .ie versions ....have them all redirect to one site (whichever name you choose to finally go with)

example...lets say you name the company

Joesplumbingnaas.com

you also get joesplumbingnaas.ie and redirect to .com version

but also get naasplumbing.com and .ie and redirect them to joesplumbingnaas.com ....so anyone searching for plumbing in naas will find your site....of course it helps if you have good seo on all the sites.

Cianos

PCPhoto wrote: »

in terms of starting off ...register everything.... get redirects and in time drop off those that are not profitable/operating to potential.

meaning if you register the catchy name and the keyword name and have one direct to the other then you should catch all, similarly with the .com and .ie versions ....have them all redirect to one site (whichever name you choose to finally go with)

example...lets say you name the company

Joesplumbingnaas.com

you also get joesplumbingnaas.ie and redirect to .com version

but also get naasplumbing.com and .ie and redirect them to joesplumbingnaas.com ....so anyone searching for plumbing in naas will find your site....of course it helps if you have good seo on all the sites.

It's not a good idea to dilute your SEO efforts across multiple domains. It's better to put 100% of the focus in to one domain. Spreading yourself too thin across a variety of domains will mean that all of them won't achieve their potential. It's better to have 1 domain on Page 1 of Google than 20 domains spread between page 2 and page 10 of Google.

It is good to have the other pages for the times where people type in the .ie instead of the .com etc, but be careful about putting effort in to SEO multiple domains.

theshamu

Cianos wrote: »

It's not a good idea to dilute your SEO efforts across multiple domains. It's better to put 100% of the focus in to one domain. Spreading yourself too thin across a variety of domains will mean that all of them won't achieve their potential. It's better to have 1 domain on Page 1 of Google than 20 domains spread between page 2 and page 10 of Google.

It is good to have the other pages for the times where people type in the .ie instead of the .com etc, but be careful about putting effort in to SEO multiple domains.

So which road would you go down with the company name? The 'catchy' name or the keyword name?

I'm just thinking for branding purposes really, I aim to market this in various ways and obviously want to build a brand.

Cianos

theshamu wrote: »

So which road would you go down with the company name? The 'catchy' name or the keyword name?

I'm just thinking for branding purposes really, I aim to market this in various ways and obviously want to build a brand.

How catchy is the name? How important is it to build a strong brand, versus just getting people to the site?

If it's the type of product/service that has big barriers between participation (whether it is highly priced or requires other kinds of effort from people) then the brand is more important. If it's something quick and easy then getting the traffic on is more important...your conversion rates won't be as high but the volume of traffic will make up for that.

Also, if it's a lifestyle type product/service then that gives the brand identity more importantance as well.

For more detail on the SEO side of things you should ask in the Internet Marketing/SEO forum.

theshamu

Cianos wrote: »

How catchy is the name? How important is it to build a strong brand, versus just getting people to the site?

If it's the type of product/service that has big barriers between participation (whether it is highly priced or requires other kinds of effort from people) then the brand is more important. If it's something quick and easy then getting the traffic on is more important...your conversion rates won't be as high but the volume of traffic will make up for that.

Also, if it's a lifestyle type product/service then that gives the brand identity more importantance as well.

For more detail on the SEO side of things you should ask in the Internet Marketing/SEO forum.

Thanks for your input. I'll have to put some serious thought into it, I could always target the high volume keywords anyway, there are quite a few that relate to my market and not all have high competition.

PaulPinnacle

PCPhoto wrote: »

but also get naasplumbing.com and .ie and redirect them to joesplumbingnaas.com ....so anyone searching for plumbing in naas will find your site....of course it helps if you have good seo on all the sites.

This all appears very confusing; when in reality, it's quite simple.

For branding purposes and domain protection, pick up as many of the available domains which you deem relevant as you can. Only you can decide which ones are worth the cost of holding onto. If you go with either the 'catchy' name or the keyword rich one, how big an impact would it be if I set up a competitor on the .net, .org, .co.uk, .co, .eu etc etc? You won't be able to get them all, so you will have to make choices there.

From an SEO point of view, it doesn't really make any odds how many domains you redirect to your main site unless you've previously developed one of the sites and wish to retain the benefits there. If you think of it logically, if redirecting a fresh domain name did carry much weight, large companies would simply snap up hundreds of thousands of domains and lead to a huge issue (and that factor getting devalued quickly). The benefits here are in terms of direct/type in traffic and brand protection, not increased rankings.

Cianos wrote: »

It's not a good idea to dilute your SEO efforts across multiple domains.

While Cian's point is very true in general, in this case we're discussing redirecting the domains (not simply resolving them to the same content or developing them independently) so it's not really relevant. It's a single site, regardless of how many domains may be redirected to that single site.

In terms of going keyword rich vs. catchy, there are pro's and con's to either choice. There's no right or wrong answer, it's very much dependant on the specifics. From a purely SEO point of view, it's obviously good to have the keyword rich domain; however losing out on the memorability, branding benefits and all round potential of a unique domain may not be enough to warrant the choice.

Pixelcraft

This is a good read by the guys at Contrast:

http://contrast.ie/blog/great-rules-for-choosing-a-name/

R3al

theshamu wrote: »

So which road would you go down with the company name? The 'catchy' name or the keyword name?

You will want to protect your company name so you should definitely register the .com and other versions of this and then if you feel the 'catchy' or keyword names would be a benefit you should also registerthese, nowadays domain names only cost 5-6 euro so it is not a hugh outlay.

If you are targeting customers in other countries then you will need to register the non country specific TLD such as .com or .net, .ie is important for Ireland and .co.uk is useful for targeting the uk market.