There are several reasons you may need to purchase multiple domain names, each with itâs own benefits.
Iâve written quite extensively before about how to select the best domain name for your business. It is also a good idea to secure alternate versions of your primary domain name as a means to prevent competitors from trying to squeeze in on your name and branding efforts. Buying multiple domain names is a great strategy that can be used to capture additional type-in traffic, secure other branding avenues you may wish to pursue, or simply to prevent your competitors from securing them.
Type-In Traffic
Many URLs are purchased simply to capture type in traffic. Type-in traffic is when someone goes to the address bar of their web browser and types in keywords.com instead of performing a keyword search on a search engine. Securing domain names with a fair amount of type-in traffic can be a great boost to sales. If you sell bean bags, your main URL might be BarrysBeanBags.com. To capture potential type-in traffic you might also secure and redirect the following:
⢠KidsBeanBags .com
⢠BeanBagChairs .com
⢠BeanBagFurnture .com
Misspellings
It is always a good idea to secure potential misspellings of your domain name. I recently did a radio interview and at the end of the interview I provided my domain name. Unfortunately I did not take the time to actually spell it out. Upon realizing my error, I immediately went out and purchased multiple spellings of my URL to redirect to my main site.
⢠PolPositionMarketing .com
⢠PullPositionMarketing .com
⢠PollPositionMarketing .com
This allowed me to capture all traffic from any listeners that may have had a different spelling of my site in mind, which increased my visitor rate from those who listened to the broadcast substantially.
Along with misspellings you should also consider purchasing plural and/or singular versions of your domain.
YourDomainSucks .com
If you are in a highly visible industry you might want to consider getting yourdomainsucks.com. Several years ago someone put up an anti AOL website at aolsucks.com (You can see a version of this at web.archive.org/web/19980111060209/http://www.aolsucks.com/).
Who might do such a thing? A disgruntled x-employee, a customer who had a bad experience or even a former spouse or partner. Setting up and hosting a website is relatively easy, and often bad press travels a lot further with a little effort than good press with a lot of effort.
There are some significant drawbacks from trying to capture all negative versions of your domain name. Youâll have to grab all hyphenated, non-hyphenated, plural, and misspelled variations. That can be quite a bit. Take that even a step further, youâll want to buy the .net, .org, .info, .biz and .us (or your country code) variations. Donât forget YourDomainSux.com or YourDomainReallySucks either.
Is it worth trying to get all those variations? Youâll have to decide. For some âany press is good press.â For others, not so much. In any case, someone registering a âsucksâ version of your domain name is likely to create a legal battle that perhaps neither side wants to engage in.
Hyphenated Versions
I mentioned above that you should not purchase a hyphenated URL for your main site. For marketing purposes, however, there are sometimes legitimate reasons to do so. My business owns PolePositionMarketing.com and Pole-Position-Marketing.com. I purchased the hyphenated version simply to prevent a competitor from securing it and stealing my branding. I also have the option of using the hyphenated versions for other marketing efforts, but I donât recommend doing so unless you are fully aware of the potential ramifications.
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