Additional domains

[Michelle McMichael]

Recent threads have talked about redirecting existing domains to new ones.

We currently have a TF hosted site. I checked on several domain options that could be used for a new website for our shop, and they are available.

I am wondering... is there any reason to purchase additional domain names and redirect them to our existing site? Or should we just consider purchasing them now with the plan of developing our own independent site later?

Thanks in advance for your help -- the things everyone has shared here have really helped us to improve our site, even if it is TF hosted.

 

[bloomz]

Michelle - they are cheap enough to just get them and hold onto them for when you need them. But I would get prinevilleflowers.com and probably prinevilleflorist including prineville-flowers and point them at my site just in case.

We advertise corvallisflowers.com and albanyflowers.com on our vehicles cuz we know it's way easier to remember than our shopname.com

Then they are just dns pointed to the main site.

 

[fairfield]

The length of time your site has been on the web contributes to your rank is what I understand. If you want your site hosted by a company other than TF you should just move it and keep your current URL (you own theposieshoppe.com, not TF). You can have other sites point to it, but don't give it up. Alexa shows it's been online for five years.

 

[Michelle McMichael]

Thanks, guys.

I wasn't sure if there was any benefit to having the extra domians, unless we advertise them. If someone types "Prineville florist" into the search box, we already come up high on the list. (and Google links right to us if you're feeling lucky.) But if we owned the domain prinevilleflorist.com (and just had it directed to our existing site), would it come up higher because it was the exact wording of the search?

Seriously, I swear I lived such a blissful existence before I found this place. I didn't even think about all this stuff! Now it's all-consuming!

 

[bloomz]

There was a time when having your keywords in your url was the most powerful place, but that isn't true any more - however they undoubtedly still help some.

I remiarily like it for the ease of the consumer remembering them.

 

[fairfield]

I would register the city name (prinevilleflorist.com) unless you want this to happen:

http://www.eugeneflorist.com

Play with that one and you will see that it is a marketing whore site. It's not just the big boys snatching up the names. This guy lives down the street from our shop!

prinevilleflowers.com looks like an expensive possibility.

Whatever you decide to do, do it yesterday if it is available.

 

[RJD]

I wasn't sure if there was any benefit to having the extra domians, unless we advertise them.

Yes, there is--it keeps them out of the hands of your competitors. The best domain name is the name of your shop (e.g., www.bloomery.com), since that ties in to your comprehensive branding and identity efforts. If you can't get that, something descriptive is good. Since we're in Butler, PA, www.butlerflorist.com would also be a good domain name for us. Even if we don't use it, it keeps one of the other shops from having it (we did register it). With the additional domains, we do not advertise them, since we want eveyone to know us as The Bloomery.

There is a shop in town named The Butler Florist, so we can't register that domain name without getting into a trademark fight ("The" makes the difference between any butler florist, and The Butler Florist).

 

[Michelle McMichael]

Thanks -- just did it.

I registered prinevilleflowers.com, prinevilleflorist.com, posieshoppe.com and posieshop.com and had them all forward to our existing website. I have found that our existing website is sometimes hard to type in, due to the fancy spelling (Posie Shoppe) that we inherited. Lots of people get Posie but spell Shoppe as shop.

I also registered centraloregonweddingflowers.com for future use, when I get time and expertise to set up a wedding site.

Thanks again for the advice!

(BTW, I used godaddy as someone else recommended and 5 sites came to $107 for three years. They forwarded the four and parked the one free.)

 

[theRKF]

Also helps for different marketing initiatives. You can register domain names around themes or promotional ideas, or a slogan. As mentioned earlier, sometimes it's helpful to have a domain name with identifiable keywords for someone who doesn't know your shop. For your main marketing and brand awareness, use a domain name that references your shop name.

Ryan

 

[RJD]

Make sure that on your parked domain, you're actually getting any revenues for ad click-throughs. If not, set yourself up a free Google Apps for Domains account, create your free web page with Adwords on it, and then park your own domain.