Imagine you’ve decided to launch a website. You’ve come up with a killer brand name, and you’re all ready to go. You visit a domain marketplace and search for your brand – but there’s bad news. The exact-match dotCOM domain for your brand is already registered by somebody else.

At this moment, you might think to yourself, “No, biggie. I’ll just add a hyphen or an extra word to my domain name. Or maybe I’ll use an alternate gTLD.” Not so fast – this is a trap that many new businesses fall into, and it could have a negative impact on your ability to reach your customers.

In this article, we will explain the benefits of purchasing a premium domain for your business.

Brand Reputation

A website with a premium domain name does a lot of heavy lifting for establishing a reputable brand. Why is this? For starters, internet users have been conditioned to type in a brand name followed by “.com” when searching for a website. If a potential customer sees that you’re using a .biz or a .net, they might question your brand’s legitimacy. A premium domain name can assist your company in preserving its brand integrity.

Physical Branding

As discussed in previous posts, most of the ideas regarding premium domain branding translate from the online world to the brick and mortar world. People are constantly being inundated with advertisements, and it’s more important than ever to stand out from the crowd. This is true for both online and offline applications.

If you were to make a print or billboard ad buy, you would sure as fire want your name to stick in peoples’ minds. You want your customers to recall the site to go to without searching on Google and god forbid have your competitors’ site show up first. By having your customer remember your brand and domain, you can transition them from your advertisements to your online location.

Domain Rarity

Premium domains are a limited commodity, and thus, extremely valuable. And customers know. Along with reason #1, when customers see a premium domain, they conclude that it must be a trusted, high-quality brand if its website is a premium domain.

Think of it this way – if you are walking down Main Street, you will probably trust the restaurants and shops on that street. This is because you know that they can afford to pay the higher rent than, say, the dimly lit street a few blocks down the way.

Catchiness

Shorter domains are typically catchier, easier to remember, and easier to spell. These attributes mean that the domain is more likely to cast a wider net to reach and preserve customers. And as customers talk about your website and name, you will also get more and more traffic and repeat visits.

Here is another restaurant example. Imagine you just had the meal of your life at a new ramen place downtown called Japanese Kitchen Serving Exquisite Noodles and Sushi. You have to tell everyone you know, so you say, “Hey, there’s a great new Ramen place downtown.” When your friend asks what it’s called, you pause and realize you don’t remember the restaurant’s name. Now your friends might not end up trying it out – a shame because those noodles were so tasty.

Social Media Shareability

We all know social media is important for any business. Websites are much easier to share online when the names are shorter and more memorable. A shorter, exact-match domain will also make it easier to coordinate your name across all of your social media accounts.

Networkability

Premium domains not only attract potential customers – but they also attract potential business partnerships. Other business owners will be drawn to work with businesses that seem legitimate. A short, memorable, premium domain provides instant credibility and legitimacy in any industry.

Business partnerships, including ad buys, collaborations, testimonials, etc., can be essential for new businesses to get the exposure they need to get up and running.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search engines have become ubiquitous with the internet. Many users type brand names into the search bar instead of the old-fashioned method of typing the exact domain with the extension into the URL bar. This makes it more important than ever to make sure your domain is optimized for search engines. Put simply, the higher your website ranks on search engines, the more internet traffic you’ll get.

Premium domains, especially keyword domains, are better for SEO. This goes hand in hand with co-citations.

References

The more reputable your domain, the more mentions, and citations it will receive from other websites. And the more links you get, the better your SEO will be. So if you start out with a premium domain, you’ll get a massive head start towards brand reputability (and hopefully, those important mentions).

Direct Traffic

Although search engines are being used more and more, many users still directly type in domain names into the URL bar. This is especially true when the user has the domain memorized by heart. Think of names like amazon.com, nike.com, twitter.com. These premium domains are so memorable that users can bypass the search engine with ease. You want your clients to bypass having to search your company and be able to go straight to the front door.

Concluding Thoughts

Many new business owners are turned away by the price or effort it takes to acquire a premium domain. However, as this article has shown, there are various potential benefits to having a premium domain. This is why they are so valuable and sought after – they bring results.