Sometimes choosing your branded domain name isn’t easy.
Which name should I use? Which extension?
Where should I buy it? For what price?
And what do I do if the name I have chosen has already been used by someone?
It’s normal to have doubts, but through this article you will find out everything you need to know about choosing your branded domain.
Why create a branded domain?
A domain is nothing more than a website name, an address and a destination for all users who search for your content.
To get this domain you will have to buy it on the various registar and providers, but we will talk about this later.
A common domain could be: domain.com
However we are not just trying to choose a domain, but a branded domain.
A branded domain is the name of a domain that has been modified or shortened in way to become part of a branded link.
The branded domain is the first part of a branded URL.
The goal of branded links is to be easily to share everywhere, even on mobile platforms, for this reason they must not be excessively long and complex.
In addition, the user must be able to understand at a glance where the URL will redirect him.
Using a branded link, and consequently a branded domain, has a number of incredible advantages:
- branding improvement
- higher link Trust
- higher CTR (+34% Click Through Rate on average, and up to +400%)
- avoid to be banned on Facebook and Google
- avoid to be blacklisted within emails
- best deep linking experience
Using a branded domain in fact makes your URLs more personal, characterizes them, pushes users to trust your content more, for this reason they click them more.
Easy sharing makes them an indispensable tool to improve the deep linking experience, allowing you to improve your social media marketing to the fullest.
The use of a branded domain will prevent your links from being banned from platforms such as Facebook, Google, Instagram or other social media.
Your email marketing campaigns will also benefit.
Branded domains and branded links can be used for affiliate marketing allowing you to sell your products profitably, improving your earnings.
For all these reasons, choosing a branded domain is the best choice you can make.
But how do you choose the name of a branded domain?
How to choose the branded domain name
Choosing a name is not as easy as you think.
domain.com is a domain with a very short name in itself, but it could be shortened even more with the use of abbreviations or using only the basic letters.
dmain.com could be a possible solution.
It was enough to simply remove a letter, a vowel to be exact.
The domain is still easy to understand and we managed to save a valuable character within our URL.
Obviously the word domain is very short, and this is just one example.
But let’s say that the name of your business is incredibly longer.
In that case it could be a problem.
The best way in these cases is to rework the words, play with the meanings, with the acronyms and the combinations of letters to find a solution that can convince you.
Originality is an indispensable prerogative for this type of operation, in fact it is very important to use a domain that does not coincide with other people or companies domain.
Unfortunately, it often happens that the name you have thought for your business has already been occupied.
In these cases it’s important to try new solutions and combinations.
New extensions
We are led to think that few extensions exist: .com .net .org
47% of websites all over the world are .com
The truth is that there are hundreds of new extensions, some incredible and extraordinary:
- .dev
- .pizza
- .shop
- .mark
- .rocks
- .me
And these are just a few examples.
With these extensions you can personalize your branded domain even more and send a clear message to your users.
If you are a developer who is looking to promote yourself through personal branding, the .dev extension could be innovative and stand out from the crowd. Or let your visitors understand what you do or who you are even just from the domain.
Also .shop is widely used, especially for e-commerce sites specialized in the sale of particular products.
At this link you can find the list of all new extensions directly from the wiki!
Some extensions may not have been fully released yet, in which case the registrar will tell you that the extension is not available and will advise you of the others.
Even relying on the advice of the registrar in which you are purchasing your custom domain could help you find new ideas or combinations.
Where you can buy a branded domain?
If you want to put your branded domain online you will first have to buy it.
There are several platforms on the internet that deal with the hosting of websites and domains.
This is a list of providers on which you can buy the domain you want (we’ve no affiliation with them):
Each of these registrars has specific characteristics, they can change the service offered, so you have to choose according to your needs.
The interfaces are usually very clean and make navigation easy, creating and choosing a domain on these platforms will be very easy.
Depending on the provider, the price of your domain may fluctuate, but usually a very expensive domain will remain very expensive even on different registrars.
A domain can have different prices and costs.
Before purchasing a domain you must carefully evaluate the registration cost and the renewal cost, because they may vary from the starting offers.
There is the possibility of purchasing premium domains.
What is a premium domain?
The premium domain is a branded domain that belongs to another person or another company. The premium domain are being sold at a higher price and can be freely purchased by anyone.
Sometimes it can happen that even large companies sell their domain, for this reason it is possible to find premium domains with very high prices.
The common reason for high prices is that often domains that are being sold are short words of common use, that we attribuite a very high value.
Common example are:
- insurance.com ( $ 35.6 milions)
- voice.com ( $ 30 milions)
- 360.com ( $17 milions)
- business.com ( $ 345 milions)
Luckely for us most premium domains are at affordable prices, and for the most part is just a matter of time getting back the investiment made on the domain.
Another important thing to know is about domain transfer.
Depending on the registar or provider you have entrusted to yourself, the price may change.
Sometimes the transfer cost is the same as the registration or renewal cost, but in some cases it may be higher.
Inform yourself carefully about the costs, the offers of the various registrars and then choose the one that best suits your needs.
If you want to know how to configure your branded domain read this article!
You will also find a lot of important information on how to obtain an SSL certificate for free thanks to JotURL.
Cheers!
JotURL Team.
