From day dot, when the internet started to evolve, domain names have been traded for some astronomical prices, as you can see from our list of the most expensive domain names from Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_domain_names
So why are domain names valuable, well here are the reasons why:
Memorability
If you want your brand to stand out you want it to be a memorable domain name. However if you choose an acronym that no one has heard or your brand you have to consider extensive marketing and adverising strategies for some one to memorise your brand name.
However you can opt for (EMD) ‘Exact Match Domain’ keyword words or phrases so that the person searching for your product or service will instantaneously find you in the search results.
The ultimate example of this is the hospitality industry. Hotels.com sold for $11 million in 2001. It doesn’t take memory training or a genius to remember that if you want to book a hotel online, simply type in hotels and hotels.com will be what pops up. Although it has now surpassed by bookings.com which also trademarked their entire domain name.
Profitability
To own a (EDA) you not only secure global positioning you also generate traffic for the search terms in which you can save money on expensive PPC marketing such as Google ADs. As an example the top selling domain of all time, insurance.com is a hugely profitable niche, that has the potential to earn huge profits and is reflected in bid prices on Google Adwords for some of the products insurance.com offers. Life insurance for example, has a suggested bid of £27.82 for each click with monthly seraches of between 100K & 1Million.
Therefore if you are paying for paid advertisng or are not on the first few pages of any search engine Google being the first page as the predominent one you need to evaluate your brand or set up seo link wheels to generate traffic from a different direction.
Brand Association
Branding is fundamental part of you business. You need to be remembered easily. As an example I could easily have chosen to brand myself as ‘UKWD’ (UK Website Designers) or ‘UKDB’ (UK Domain Brokers) but that would have meant I would have had to work harder for people to recognise my brand and do extensive amrketing and advertising. The advertising costs would have been astronomical, so I opted for (EMD) Exact Match Searchable Domain Names that described my niche.
Brands Names are memorable words that are recognised globally. A brand name or trade name is the title of your business, service or product it often is a noun or accronym and applied by a manufacturer or organization to a particular product or service. While a brand name is sometimes simply the name of the founders of a company, such as Apple or Facebook it can also have long tail names such as Yellow Page or Johnson & Johnson for example. Brand names are cleverly thought-out marketing strategies geared towards establishing consumer awareness.
Length
A domain name usually costs more if it is a one word domain name (noun) or a short two to three word domain name providing it is an exact match searchable keywords or phrase. Usually the one word nouns that describle the business cost the most amount of money. Length is closely linked to memorability so it makes sense that shorter domains are more valuable.
Search Engine Rankings
Choosing the right domain name for you business is also a crucial factor when it comes to SEO. The domain name alone can help with ranking to a certain degree but will not magically get you on the first page unless you do some hard work. What I mean by this is one needs to optimise the site/blog to it full potential by adding keyword enriched quality content, meta tags and backlinks. A keyword domain name will generate traffic only if you optimise it, hence a lot of companies use wordpress to regulary update content which Google Loves. If Google sees you are submitting quality content on a regular basis it will start ranking you.
Traffic
Choosing the right country code domain extention for you location will help you generate targeted trafiic. You can set GEO Fencing within Google Webmasters Search Console but if you are located in the UK and only want UK traffic it is best to stay clear of domain extensions that are not in your location and stick with .co.uk.
For example www.ukdomainbrokers.com points to the subdomain https://ukdomainbrokers.ukwebsitedesigners.co.uk/
However it is the dot com domain that has got me on the first page of Google and not the sub domain, which tells me that Google prefers dot coms over other domain extensions. My methology behind my thinking was to get my site ranked quickly and I did not mind traffic from the USA which is where the majority of it it comes from even though I have set my GEO location for the UK.
If you have a domain extension other than a dot com it may take you longer to get ranked. The quickest way to get on the first page is to pay for Google Ads if you do not own a dot com and are not churning out fresh content regulary. It is the combination of regular quality content, meta tags, backlinks that will get you more traffic.
If you want a ‘How To Guide to SEO’ I can send you my tips for free if you email me.
Equity.
If the domain name is a brand and is selling a product or service and has a website that is generating traffic and is fully optimised with all branding including a memorable logo, then your domain automatically has increased in value and the cost of the domain name will be determined by all these factors aswell if it is a well known household name.
My final thoughts:
If you are paying for PPC ads and are not on the first page of search engines orgnically, consider building a SEO link wheel if your budget permits, in either case I am happy to advise your best options.
