The previous important factors come into play, make it relevant to your brand, try to capture a niche etc but the purpose of this domain is different.

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This domain is to experiment. Keep your current domain as it is and runs some experiments live with the other domain. How about dropping that splash page and going for a blog format, what about moving the navigation round, hey we could feature a product in the right column on every page. The opportunities are endless but you may be unwilling to risk things on your current domain having established your web presence and started getting traffic. This way you can experiment, see what works and put things in place with minimal risk.

So if you feel it’s time to refresh your site look, or try something new you can do all of this on another domain, probably with a different customer base and see how it works. If things go great then it may be a fit for your main site. If it goes badly then your just out your monthly hosting fee.

Til next time.

You have a brand name so that’s the domain name right? Well yes and no. For sure you need to protect the integrity of your brand and secure a domain that reflects the name of your company but the chances are that if you are a new brand, outside of your immediate geographic location, you may not have brand name recognition so people will not know you by name. That’s a challenge but there are a number of possible solutions.

1 You could make sure your site file names, navigation and page meta tags are structured in such away so as to bring the type of clothing company you are to the fore. As we saw in the post about making your file names SEO friendly this is certainly a possibility that can yield results as the search engines do give a little boost to relevant file names and you will certainly help yourself by making your page meta tags keyword rich and your page content equally so.

2 You could consider registering a keyword rich domain that reflects the niche of your brand. Now this is not necessarily a domain you work with at all away from the web but in tandem with your company name domain it can also help a little. As things have progressed many domains have now been taken so you may need to get creative. Don’t forget our old friend SEO Book, research keywords that capture the essence of your brand and see if you can get a domain that will make an impact, even in a niche market.

So for example you may be an urban clothing brand, how about urbanfashionclothing.com, a bit clunky for sure but a very relevant keyword rich domain that has significant searches for the keywords contained in the domain. Steer clear of registering the .org of another company’s domain, it will just confuse potential customers and people remeber the .com first anyway. Also unless it’s a fantastic domain name steer clear of urban-fashion-clothing.com. It may help a little in the search engines but will be hard for people to remember.

It may not change the world for your brand but it may be a way of attracting a little more traffic and also exposing your brand to new customers who may not know you by name but are interested in buying the types of clothing you are selling.

You can point your extra domains to your new domain so you won’t have any additional hosting costs and with a little scripting could present a different home page for each domain to reflect the keywords you are shooting for.

So there you have it, when you are establishing your web presence every little bit helps and additional domains can play a part in that process and can establish in the minds of your new customers not only your brand name but also the market niche for your brand.

Til next time.