What’s in a Name?

Let’s talk a little business.   In addition to owning several web sites, I also own quite a few Premium Domain Names.

Q: What’s the difference between a domain name and a web site?
A: The simplest way I like to explain it is, the domain name is your address and the web site is your home. The domain name is how people know how to find you, and the web site is where your files live.

Q: What is a premium domain name?
A: A memorable domain name that is easy to spell, is short, is easy to pronounce, is potentially brandable, doesn’t have different variations on the way it could be spelled, and ends in .com. If a domain name is an exact match keyword only domain name (i.e. petfood.com is an exact match keyword only domain for the generic keyword phrase “pet food” while petfoodabc-online.com is not).

When I started my Abu Dhabi travel guide for women, I wanted the business name to be the same as my domain name. Thus, people will not have to remember the company name, and then maybe initials for the domain name or a hyphenated domain name (you get the picture). Another motivation for naming my Company Abu Dhabi Cupcake was my desire to target women traveling to and women living in Abu Dhabi. And, what do women like in addition to shoes? Things that are cute, small, sweet and make us feel good because we didn’t have to eat an entire slice of cake. No to mention, every country around the world is experiencing a cupcake craze that’s not likely to go anywhere anytime soon. Final deciding factor in my Company Name decision was that the .com extension for the domain name was available. And if women want cupcakes in Abu Dhabi they are either going to a) type Abu Dhabi Cupcakes in the Google search or b) they are going to type AbuDhabiCupcake.com in the address field of their browser. Abu Dhabi Cupcake is the main travel guide web site, and the Domain Names that are forwarded to this site are AbuDhabiCupcake.com, AbuDhabiCupcakes.com, and AbuDhabiGetAways.com.

Another example, Bravo’s The Real Housewives of DC (“RHoDC”) premiers this Thursday, August 5th and I own RHODC.com . The next installment of the Housewives franchise is The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills (“RHoBH”), and I own RHOBH.com .

Also, I don’t recommend buying a domain name for your company, building a web site, and then have an email address for a Gmail, Yahoo, or some other type of email account. In order for customers to start remembering your brand and have your company name engrained deep in their psyche you need to have them read and type your name as much as possible. Thus, you should have an email address that matches your domain name. Such as info@AbuDhabiCupcake.com, advertising@AbuDhabiCupcake.com, etc. (you get the idea).

We’ll talk more in the future about domain names as I introduce my different web sites and let you know the many ways you can access them.