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What's in the Name of a Website?
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You have decided you want a commercial web site. What's the first thing you need; a www.address? No. Get back to basics first. Do you have a product to market or are you looking for one? If you have a product (or think you do) do your research before you think of buying a web address. Is there really a demand for your product, at what price? How will you package your item, for shipping? What are the postage charges? What countries will you be shipping to? How much does it really cost you to supply each item? Don't forget to consider the time it will take to pack & ship each product.Time equals moneyWhat if you don't have a product, but you're sure you know what you want to sell. Again do your research. If you looking at drop shipping, get a reliable supplier & all details sorted out such as what countries does your supplier ship & not ship too? Can you get insurance? Also will it be possible to get another drop shipper to supply similar or preferably the same product if your first supplier closes shop? If not perhaps you should look for a different type of product. |
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Know what you are going to sellDo you really need to do all this preparation before you buy your domain? Yes. Consider what's in the name of a website? Don't you want it to reflect the name of your product & even help with SEO (search engine optimisation)? Therefore you really need to know what you are definitely going to sell before you start.I wanted to start a jewellery site. I found a few drop shippers including one that supplied large amounts of beautiful coloured gemstone rings, bracelets, pendants & earrings. I came up with a name for the site that suited my ideas of how I wanted to market the site "GemLovers with Gifts for Others." After building a substantial amount of the site the time came to get my registered address & make my store live. After checking what web address were available for purchase I paid out my money on thegemlovers.com Is this a good name? Name your site wellWell, in many ways it does describe my store well. On the other hand I do sell Jewellery not gemstones. One other potential, very serious problem developed when my main drop shipper sold out to another buyer. GemLovers implied that I sell gemstone jewellery. There are several reliable suppliers of diamond jewellery, gold jewellery or silver jewellery; suppliers of coloured stones jewellery are not so numerous. Could we ever see GemLovers without the gems?If you operate a commercial web store you may wish or even be forced to make massive changes as to stock & suppliers. You may change servers. As you get more experienced you may change your template & totally re-arrange the look & order of your site; but at the end of the day your web address is the one thing that is permanent. You need to make the name of it something you can live with & optimise permanently. A specialised name can be a handicap as well as a blessing. I learned a lesson with the name of my very first store. As I was selling Australian Aboriginal art & paintings, & had recently had my head filled with key words, reverse engines & the like, I went on the web to buy my name. To cut the story short, what did I come up with? aboriginalarttreasures.com Two key word, an excellent start - but I didn't think. I've ended up with "tt" in the spelling, not a great idea. While it is no doubt true that the majority of our visitors come via a link from either another web site or a search engine page - "what's in a name" may not seem so relevant the majority of our sales are usually from repeat customers. It is best therefore to try for a domain name that is easy to type correctly & has some connection with what the site is about. There are differing ideas as to what value the search engines put on the address name of a store as far as ratings go. |
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| Consider that when you choose your web address, but remember there are other important factors to consider. I went into internet trading because we were sold a web package before I knew what I was doing. After operating my stores for some years now & participating in forum discussions I now feel I know a little. I certainly understand the problems of ones who wish to go into e-commerce with very little knowledge of the subject. I've therefore prepared information to help beginners on my dinkydi.info web site, which you can check out for yourself. |
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| I hope you have found this discussion helpful if you are considering getting a web address. While there is no doubt a great deal more that could be said on the subject, if you consider the points I've made you should not make any serious mistakes in choosing a suitable name for your store. http://www.dinkydi.info/commerce.php | ||||||||||||||||||
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