What’s in a (Domain) Name?
New businesses and creators want to easily be found on the Internet and the best way to do that is with a catchy and recognizable domain name. Navigating what to spend on a domain name can be challenging so it’s important to come up with a thoughtful plan.
Should I spend $1,000 or $10,000 on a domain name?
If you are a small business owner there are very few reasons why spending a lot of money on a domain name will be beneficial to your business. Let’s say you make and sell a product called “Bloobers” and you’d like to setup an online e-shop. You may not be surprised to know that ‘bloobers.com’ is already taken and being offered for sale for approximately $3,200 (US). Here are some questions to ask yourself before you spend over $3,000 for a domain name that normally costs approx. $15/year.
- Is my business model 100% reliant on owning (yourproduct).com?
- Are there no cheaper alternatives that could be equally or more successful?
- Do I have the ability to spend limitless amounts of money?
If you answered “YES” to any of the above questions, then it’s possible buying a domain that’s for resell is right for you and the future of your business. In most cases however, you can find a solid alternative available at a significantly lower cost.
The Domain Name I Want is Taken – What are Alternative Names?
The big question is: Will people find me if I don’t use a .COM for my business?
In the early days of the Internet there were very few TLDs (top-level domains) available beyond .COM and .NET. A top level domain is everything to the right of the . dot.
These days there’s not just .COM, there’s .CLUB, .PIZZA, .FAMILY, .JEWELRY and literally hundreds of others. You may notice this website is .MEDIA – once I saw the .MEDIA TLD open up a few years ago, despite already owning several other Route7Media .COM/.NET related domain names, I couldn’t resist and now I use it as my primary web address and email domain.
Your business will be perfectly fine if you get something other than a .COM domain name – Google is not biased to one domain or another to be found (I’ll go into how Google indexes websites in a future article.)
Where should I purchase my domain name?
There are many number of domain registrars in the world these days, though many of them charge far more than you should pay. Expect to pay around $15/year for a .COM domain name. Prices will vary for other TLDs like .MEDIA or .CO. RT7 is a big fan of Name.com – their support is great and they offer a vast array of domains from different TLDs.
Need help securing the right domain name? Contact us today and we’re happy to help!
So to summarize, don’t immediately spend thousands of dollars on a domain name thinking it will benefit your business. Think about it, look for alternatives that are cheaper and you’ll make the right decision.
