If your business is going to have a website that you want customers to find and use and to generate sales, you need to keep reading about domain names.

Good domain names can give higher search results

Statistics show that many people don’t look past Page 1 of Google search results when they are looking for something on the internet. There are many ways of helping your website get onto Page 1 and be seen by potential customers, and choosing the right domain name is one of them.

When choosing your domain name – you could try and acquire your actual business name as a website address. For example, if I had a business called Andrews Trading that sold envelopes – the most obvious domain name would be something like; www.andrewstrading.co.uk

But Google search engines are run by computers, and there is nothing in that website name choice to tell the computers that ‘Andrews Trading’ sells envelopes. Potentially it could mean that people wanting to buy envelopes can’t find your website as quickly or easily, and could buy from elsewhere. So you need to think about getting the word ‘envelope’ or envelopes’ into your domain name if you can.

If someone searches for an ‘envelope’ company, the Google search engines would then be able to identify your company as being relevant to that customer’s query, and so would offer your website as a result.

Nb: Google want to look good – they want to be the best search engine there is, so they want the people using Google to be happy with the results they get from their searches. So they do look at your domain name and take it into account when ranking your website. With this in mind it would be worth considering something like;

www.andrewsenvelopes .co.uk or www.atenvelopes .co.uk

As both of these contain the word ‘envelopes’ it would be more obvious to the search engines that your website was about envelopes, so they are likely to give you a higher position in their search results for the search term envelopes. More hits, more customers, more sales.

If your business is localised it’s also worth considering adding an area into your domain name. For example, if Andrews Trading was based in Staffordshire and focused on providing envelopes to businesses in Staffordshire then a domain name such as www.envelopesstaffordshire.co.uk would be worth considering.

Top tip

When considering a domain name, think about how easy it is for someone to understand when telling it them over the phone. For example the domain name www.we-r-4-u.co.uk may look nice but try telling it to someone over the phone – they could write it down as www.weare-for-you.co.uk or www.we-r-four-u.co.uk or even www.we_r_4_u.co.uk

So, wherever possible, avoid numbers, non-standard characters that people might not be familiar with, and abbreviation. A simple test you could do is to call someone you know who doesn’t use the internet much and tell them your web address and ask them to write it down.

What do all the abbreviations mean?

Put simply, a domain name is your website’s address on the internet. It’s the WWW (world wide web address) of your business. The name you choose matters a great deal.

A good domain name should be 3 things:

• Easy to remember
• Easy to type
• Relevant to your service or brand

A web address generally consists of three parts:

1. The first part is nearly always www.
2. The second part will be the name you choose, i.e manchesterdrycleaning
3. The technical name for the third part is the ‘Top Level Domain’ – or TDL for short, but I prefer to call it the ‘Country code’. This will be something like .co.uk, .org or .com

Here are a few ‘TDLs’ that are relevant to the UK

• .co.uk  - UK based Company
• .com – American company or internet based business
• .org – Charity or other non-profit organisation
• .gov – Government .net Hosting or similar technology company

What if the name I want isn’t available?

If the name – or TDL – you want is already taken, you can try variations on the name of your business, For example, you may have to choose something with dashes and spaces in. It’s also worth checking when a taken name you want is up for renewal, and you can ask a registration company to contact you when it becomes available so you can buy it.

How do you register a domain name?

It’s easier than it looks – follow the guide on a web domain registration website and you should be fine. Registering a domain name is easy. A .co.uk should cost you around £5 per year and a .com £10 per year. You can register it with a domain registrar such as www.heartinternet.co.uk or get your web design company to do it for you. But, if you do ask a web company to register a name for you – beware. Make sure you have proof or a receipt of the payment of that domain name registration, and that it is in YOUR name.

Get confirmation of web name ownership

Whoever registers the domain name and pays for it, owns it. If someone says ‘Oh, I’ll do it for you’, stop and think. If you don’t get confirmation of ownership, and you want to move web or hosting companies, you might find you have an ownership battle on. If your website name isn’t in your name and you don’t have a receipt for it, you may not own the domain name.

You could end up having to start all over again, new name, new website, new stationery and marketing, etc. Our advice would be to register your domain name yourself. It is easy.

If you do, make sure you keep track of when it is due to be renewed. Most registrars have an auto re-registration feature but be careful about your account set up details, check with the registration company if you’re unsure. Domain names have to be renewed, minimum yearly, or you lose them. You will get lots of reminders from the registration people in plenty of time, so don’t ignore them.

It’s not rocket science really, but it is something to consider carefully and not to rush. Think about the cost of banners and adverts, business cards and other marketing materials. Your website name will be on them all.

Make it memorable, make it clear, make it yours.

And what about grammar? Does it matter? Who cares about apostrophes anyway? Well, most people, actually. If you run a business, and your website is your global showcase amongst a raft of competition, you can’t afford to be sloppy.

As the old saying goes, ‘you never get a second chance to make a first impression’.

If a potential client lands on your site ready to spend their hard earned money, and they see poor grammar and spelling mistakes, you’ve lost them, and the sale.

The impression they’ll get is that if you can be so careless with your public face and PR, you’ll be careless with your service and products, and they won’t trust you.

Google cares too. Words matter when it comes to SEO. You want your website to be on Page 1 of searches for its subject, don’t you?.  You can spend a fortune on ads, but at the end of the day, every web developer knows that Google – and the rest – put good, well written, maintained and updated  websites top of their search results because they know that’s what users like.

Search engines can only use WORDS to find your website on the vast internet. Get the words right, and your site will be seen, you’ll get visitors browsing, talking about you, using your services and products, and generating sales.

Words matter.

If you understand that, I can help.

I’m a former BBC journalist and web producer, and I write successful web and PR for both local SMEs and global blue chip companies. I like what I do and work to suit myself, so I don’t charge the earth. You’ll find me very cost effective for your business. I can proof read your site for mistakes, or write the text and PR for you.  Just drop me a line and we can go from there.

Article by Jane Green

Staffordshire based Shindaiwa chose Red Box to design and build their new website in 2010. Since then their website has been deveploped further with the addition of a content management system and a secure document sharing application.

Along the way we have also worked on a number of marketing pieces including the design of their company stationery, advertising and exhibitions graphics.

We also worked on an aggressive SEO campaign for the site and had it listed on page one of Google for its main key phrases within 4 months of it going live.

JBMI Group Ltd is a leading innovator in the field of aluminium and industrial waste, based on the outskirts of Hixon in Staffordshire. They have a strong ethos towards protecting the environment and operate strict environmental systems to help deliver sustainable recycling solutions.

JBMI approached Red Box to look at the re-design of their website and to provide the additional functionality of a content management system (CMS) and password protected customer area. The brief for the design of the website was to emphasise JBMI’s strong environmental focus. This was achieved by using a bright fresh design with strong environmental related imagery.

The CMS behind the website has been customised to make it easy for the team at JBMI to keep the website up to date and to administer a secure customer area which they use for sharing documentation.

The Langer Group, based in Stone, Staffordhsire is the UK’s largest manufacturer and supplier of custom foot orthotics. With an array of products and manufacturing techniques it offers a superior range of products to suite all foot conditions.

The Langer Group is expanding its business both in the UK as well as over sea’s and approached Red Box to design and print their new product catalogue. The brief was to produce a catalogue that would be far superior to previous versions both in design and print quality. The project was up against extremely tight deadlines and with over 1500 product variations the project was a challenging yet exciting one.

The client was delighted with the design, layout and overall look of the catalogue. The printing was handled by our long term printing supplier Johnsons www.jprint.co.uk who did an excellent job in turning the job around quickly and to their usual high standards.

At the same time as working on the design and layout of Langer’s new printed product catalogue we were also working on the new Langer Group ecommerce website.

Having demonstrated our portfolio of ecommerce solutions to The Langer Group, the Staffordshire based company commissioned Red Box to design and build their new website with extensive ecommerce functionality and content management system. The extensive features included bespoke user groups to allow licensed professionals to purchase products over the internet which are not available to the public with price effecting options on most of the product range.

We used the popular open source ecommerce solution Zen Cart as the basis for the website. We then designed and custom built a number of modules to enabling the site to function in line with The Langer Groups requirements.

The site also included full integration with Lloyds TSB’s Worldpay system for secure internet payments.

The Conflict Training website is much more than just a marketing tool. Behind the scenes the website is fully supported by a Content Management System (CMS) to allow the client to keep testimonials and articles up to date. Further to this is a custom built enquires handling system developed to allow the client to efficiently deal with new enquires. The application is optimised for use via mobile devices allowing the client to respond to enquires whist on the road.

Some features of the enquiries handling system are:

Staffordshire based lighting specialist LAUK Group Ltd approached Red Box four years ago to redesign their ecommerce website. Since then the website has gone through a number of development phases and the website now services new and existing customers with a number of custom built applications.

The website incorporates a sleek design at the front end showcasing some of the projects the company has worked on recently, a full ecommerce product catalogue for replacement lighting consumables and a number of secure back end systems. One of these back end systems is custom built for McDonald’s Restaurants to whom LAUK supply and distribute all lighting and furniture.

Due to the nature of McDonald’s specific requirements, we custom built a secure ordering application to make it easy for McDonald’s restaurant owners to order replacement products via their intranet system.