Which Domain Names Perform Best – Corporate, Generic or Gimmicky?

Writing by Nick Stamoulis Tweet

Finding a domain name that is suitable can be difficult. If you are a bricks and mortar business looking to add an online presence you may feel that registering your corporate name is all you need to do. This could be a mistake since corporate names are rarely ‘search engine friendly’.

Corporate names can work well on billboards or shopfronts and regular customers will expect to see that name on your website. This doesn’t mean the domain name has to be the same. Don’t get me wrong, registering your corporate business name is a must – just don’t stop at that point.

Careful research will often uncover frequently used search terms that relate directly to your business. Take this example. You have a bricks and mortar business known as ‘The Boston Surfboard King’. Sounds good and looks good on all your merchandise. Your business is located in Boston and only services the Boston area so the name is appropriate.

Research may show that frequent search terms include ‘surfboards in Boston’. Finding a domain name related to that term will make optimizing your site for search traffic a lot easier than using your corporate name.

You may be wondering what to do with your corporate domain name and whether or not you need two web sites. You could develop two sites but it is easier to redirect traffic that comes through on your corporate URL to your generic site. That means one site, optimized for your keywords yet attracting traffic through more than one URL. You are able to use your corporate URL in correspondence and marketing whilst optimizing your search friendly URL for the search engines.

Gimmicky URLs – they are generally difficult to optimize and what appears gimmicky today may appear tacky tomorrow. Some gimmicky URL’s work well for their owners but that is only because they are well suited to the niche they belong to and are easily optimized for search. Find a domain name that is easy to optimize and build on that to can valuable traffic.