The Tricky Art of Choosing a Domain Name

The Tricky Art of Choosing a Domain Name

by | 27 Oct 2017 | Website Building

You’re starting out in business, or you’ve been going a year or few – either way, you’ve come to the conclusion that it’s time for website and/or a business email address.

Step 1 is to register your “domain name”. What is it, and what should you register?

What is a domain name?

A domain name is your unique and exclusive address on the internet. It’s like your phone number – anyone in the world can reach you on that number, and only you. You can use your domain name for your own website, you can use your domain name for your own custom email addresses (ie. something@yourorganisation.com.au). The actual domain name follows a format of something.something. For example, winchwebsites.com.au, winchwebsites.com, winchelsea.websites

How do I pick a domain name?

Obviously you want a name that is related either to your business name or to your business activity. Ideally both. In other words, people can immediately relate to who you are and what you do as soon as they see it.

The domain name should;

  • be easy to say
  • be easy to spell
  • be easy to remember
  • only be letters and numbers (no hyphens)
  • not be ambiguous (johnsservices or johnservices?)

And here’s an absolutely critical thing to do. Write it down on a piece of paper, and don’t look at it for a day or two. When you come back to it, does it still say what you think it does? Ask people you trust if the domain name you’ve chosen is OK. Because what you want to avoid is registering and then building on a domain name that can be mis-read or even become a laughing-stock. Don’t think it can happen? Have a look at these, they’re hilarious.

But you can also get more creative. You can certainly register more than 1 domain name, and have them all go to the same website. So you might register winchwebsites.com.au, for example, and also register wwshared.info because it’s great for sharing shorter links (that’s a whole other story). But both of those domains go to the same website.  You might have your primary domain name mythicalplumber.com.au, and also register geelongplumbingservices.com.au so you can use the second one for printed adverts, flyers & leaflets, social media, radio ads – anywhere you want an easy-to-remember domain name. And last I checked, neither of those are in use by the way! 🙂

The majority of domain names that are registered end in “.com” or “.com.au”. Couple of things to know here;

  • “.com” is a first-in best-dressed ending (technically called a Top Level Domain or tld). If nobody else has registered it, it’s yours.
  • “.com.au” is managed by the Australian country-registrar, and they have chosen to only allow official businesses or organisations to use it. So you must have an ABN (Australian Business Number), and ACN (Australian Company Number), or a similar official government business ID. You must also tick a box to say that the domain name is directly or closely related to your business. Australia does not allow cyber-squatting ie. registering a domain name just to sell it to the highest bidder.

One final tip; there are a lot of other endings, and it could be a great idea to register a domain name that is a bit different. For example, timsgeelong.plumbing, geelongcorporate.photography, indianmaharaja.restaurant, deliciousgeelong.pizza. There are lots of other endings. Could help you stand out and be remembered – which is, after all, one of the most important aspects of a domain name.

If you’d like help picking out and registering one or more domain names, get in touch with Winch Websites. We can handle all the registration stuff, and equally importantly make sure that it is renewed on your behalf when required. In addition, Winch Websites runs some bullet-proofing technology to ensure that your domain name data is not dependent on one single source, and is retrieved from key locations around the world to boost response times. We’re here to help you on your path to business success.

 

Interested in working with us?

Get In Touch Now

Just quickly send us your contact info and what you’re looking for – eg. why you want a website (starting from scratch, remaking an existing one, etc) and any particular features or questions you have in mind.

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Price or Value – which are you?

Price or Value – which are you?

by | 20 Oct 2017 | Website Building, Website Design

First there was price…

Anyone responsible for spending on behalf of an organisation, be it your own business or not, needs to make sure that the spending only happens for good reason. As the economists will tell you, money is a “scarce resource”. Nobody has an unlimited budget. But the price of something needs to be seen in terms of its value as well.

We know that a very large budget opens up a lot of doors and possibilities. We know that a very small budget makes things very difficult. At the smaller end of the scale, where most small businesses and non-profits operate, there is (or at least, should be!) a healthy focus on managing limited funds tightly. So when it comes to spending those limited funds, there are two ways to go – look at the price, or look at the value.

Up until a couple of years ago, Winch Websites was definitely a “price” centred business – the dollar amount was key. Essentially, the philosophy boiled down to whether the expenditure was mandatory eg. a phone service, internet, domain name renewals or whether the expenditure was optional eg. advertising, training, graphic design tools. In all cases, the cheapest deal was likely to be the best deal so long as the bare essentials came with it.

…along came value

But then the business took a turn to a different direction. Not left or right, but up. Purchases were made on the basis of “value”. Here, the price is no longer relevant (really!). What matters is what that spend will bring back. A few examples;

  • For the internet service, the cheapest price would suggest taking a residential plan with a monthly download allowance as close as possible to average usage. However, the best value would be a business-grade service from someone like Aussie Broadband that is more reliable, has much faster (and more caring) support when required, and offers more dedicated resources (not as many people sharing the total internet ‘pipe’). Business-grade internet costs more but delivers a level of service you can rely on more – kind of critical for a website marketing services business, for one!!
    What’s the value? Time, reliability.
  • For creating, submitting and managing proposals, the cheapest price is to create a document eg. with Word, save to PDF, and email to the client. However, the best value is to subscribe to an online proposal service such as Proposify where you can create proposal templates and even a library of proposal sections that you can quickly pull in to build a great-looking, professional proposal in minutes, send to the client, sign electronically, and even monitor when the proposal is being read (plus where the potential client spends most time reading it). A proposal service cost more but lift your professionalism to the same level as firms with teams dedicated to this activity, make it easy to keep tabs on where you’re at with them all. If you ever submit proposals, answer this – how many proposals would you need to succeed to pay for a year of proposals service?
    What’s the value? Time, professionalism, responsiveness, increased sales.
  • For learning how to improve sales, the cheapest price is to read and watch a lot of content on the internet. Blogs, Youtube etc. The best value is to sign up for training specifically aimed at your industry. You save buckets of time not having to find content, work out if they know what they’re talking about, pulling out the relevant gems of advice that apply to you, putting them all together. You get a structured process to follow, often with access to other learners plus the expert(s) so you can discuss your own reality. You get a cohesive set of strategies, tools, and/or processes that you can quickly adapt to your own situation and business-personality. Again, the question to ask is – how many sales would it take to cover the cost of the course?
    What’s the value? Increased sales, confidence.

A difference in perspective

So as hopefully you can see, viewing potential expenditure through the lens of “value” leads to a different perspective. Relating this to websites, it is easy to simply see the quoted price and not see past it to the value. “A website that you’ve described will require an investment of around $4,000” often leads to sticker-shock for a new or young business (or small business moving up in the world) – yet if that same business was to open a real brick-and-mortar shop, $4,000 would be a small fraction of the required budget. Once more, the question to ask in response to the amount is “What will that get me?“. If you are happy with the answer, then you’re getting good value.

If you’d like to chat about your own website, and what would be good value for you, please get in touch.

Interested in working with us?

Get In Touch Now

Just quickly send us your contact info and what you’re looking for – eg. why you want a website (starting from scratch, remaking an existing one, etc) and any particular features or questions you have in mind.

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