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One of the very first parts of any website design includes
domain name consultation. Thousands of times every day
folks that are ready to start a
website project begin their project by searching through the registrar
listings for a domain name. They normally look for
domain names like “fredsshop.com” and “smithsautorepair.com”
because they want their domain name to incorporate the name of
their business. They believe that it will make it easier to remember.
In truth, this simple misconception may
result in the largest mistake a website owner or website
designer can make.
Ask yourself this question. How many times have you visited a
website by typing in the exact URL into the address line
on their computer? The answer to that question is “very
few” (except maybe lowes.com or aol.com).
The truth is that most people will find and visit your
website in one of two ways:
·
A
direct link from another location like a directory
website
·
Most
likely it is from a search
engine result
In both of these two cases above, they are finding and
visiting a website through a link and not by typing or
remembering a URL. That fact alone should be telling
website owners that an effective SEO strategy is far
more important than the actual domain name itself.
Does this mean that the domain name isn’t important? The truth is that the domain name is
critically important and can make the difference between
seeing your website on the first page of a search result or
on the
third page. Choosing the right domain name is actually
one of the most important steps in constructing a high
traffic website.
With all of our new website projects the first thing we do is
discuss an overall website marketing strategy and at
that point we
usually suggest a new domain name. We can work with your
previously used domain name and simply modify your
website but we have proven over and over that it is
going to be a better strategy to use that original
domain as a forward that is redirecting to our better
optimized domain name.
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