Pick a Website Name (Domain Name / URL)

As we mentioned in the section on Themes (Branding), it is important to properly brand your eBay Seller ID and your website URL. If possible we would like the names to match as this provides a uniqueness that is seldom seen in the eBay world. It sets you apart from other sellers, especially when you further communicate you brand through follow-up e-mails, newsletters and your eBay About Me page.

Forgive me if I pass on this nit to you. I’ll sometimes be driving down the highway and notice on the back of a truck the website address of a business the truck is promoting. Generally the business is a local lawn service or construction business with a name like:

www.JoeBlowsCraneConcreteAndFramingConstructionBusiness.com 

While this example is a bit overdone, I’ve seen website names with well over 30 characters before the dot com, not including the www. In reality, who is going to remember this? In most cases, the name is not catchy (unlike ScentOfSuccess.com which is very catchy) and unlikely to be written down while people are driving (although I’ve seen people do some pretty strange things while driving). To ensure that your website name is one that will be remembered, here are a few common guidelines to follow:

  1. The shorter the name, the better. As we saw in the example above, Joe lists everything he does in his website URL. A much better name (if available) would be JBConstruction.com.
  2. Make sure your website URL is easy to pronounce. Be creative and use a dictionary and a thesaurus to find a name that makes sense for your site.
  3. Your website name should be eternal. If you pick a stupid name (slang or too cutesy), you’ll likely be looking for a new name in a year or two. You want your traffic to follow your domain name. You don’t want to mess with your brand and your online reputation with redirects and ‘we have moved’ notices. 
  4. Stick to Categories and Topics. 
  5. Do a trademark search. To do a quick trademark search go to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (http://www.uspto.gov) for domestic searches and the International Trademark Association (http://www.inta.org) for international searches. If your name is cleared, then consider getting a trademark to protect your business.
  6. Always have a tag line. A good tag line (such as ScentOfSuccess) will bring your name into random conversations in newsgroups, newsletters and casual conversations. This can help you save money on paid advertising and create the ultimate viral marketing campaign with very little effort.
  7. Don’t use Hyphens unless absolutely necessary (and then consider changing anyway). 
  8. Always use .COM or .NET (or both when possible). When you use .COM and .NET, your website will be instantly recognized and easily remembered. You can have the best name in the world, however, if you are using something other than .COM or .NET, the largest portion of your potential customers will always enter the wrong URL extension. .COM is the most widely used, so if the .COM is not available, then consider changing the name of the URL altogether. A friend of mine works for a lawn tractor supply business. When they went to register the URL for their company’s website (which is also the same name as their company), they found that the .COM name was already registered by their biggest competitor. Instead of choosing an entirely different name for the website to differentiate themselves, they selected the .NET version of the name. As a result most people looking for their website type the .COM and end up at their competitor’s website. Bad, bad move on their part.