Know-How Exchange : Other

Dear Brandon,

When it comes to domain names, the usual suspects (.com, .org,
and .net) are all sound investments.

And in that paragraph is your key to the future, and a key ALL businesses need to pay attention to if they want to use the Internet in their marketing.

The key is two words: sound investments.

If your company is web-based my best advice to you is to cover your Internet ass with as many domain connections as you can.
Stop seeing things like .info, .biz and .mobi as expenses and begin seeing them as investments that link or connect your site with the wider world.

There are no "shoulds", but to see these things as a waste of money belittles their value. Combined with other forms of connection, domain names are CHEAP, and as such they are indeed a great way to enhance one's business and one's trademark.

It may not even be necessary to use them, just park them if your hosting company allows it, and wait. Technology changes are happening so swiftly that what might seem like a loss now might have great value a year from now.

I predict we'll be seeing social media related domain extensions
in the not too distant future(.socmed?), likewise on demand TV (.odtv?) and podcasts (.pod), and possibly many others.

As the Internet expands, the way businesses use the web will change and anyone who is not at the forefront of that wave of change will get crushed by it or passed over.

Don't believe me?

No doubt many people who read this will think I'm insane.

But just think about it.

Five years ago social media was pretty much unheard of and
most people had no clue—NONE— about blogs or podcasts.

Eight years ago, putting video on a website was, basically—A PAIN IN THE ASS! And a multiple thousands of dollars pain in the ass too!

Now, you can buy an Ultra HD Flip camera for $180 and post videos to YouTube in MINUTES. How? because technology changes and as technology changes over the next decade we're going to be seeing more and more examples of adaptive marketing.

The next decade will change everything, and that's not just me saying that. I have it on good authority from one of the top info marketers in the United States—someone I respect and admire because he pulls NO punches, and because in February of this year he brought in a $4 million dollar influx of revenue in less than 72 hours.

And no. That's not B.S. It happened. And as the Internet changes and as businesses adapt and begin to use more effective methods of direct response, it will happen for more regularly

So, the question is this: how badly do you want success?

I hope this helps. Good luck to you.

Gary Bloomer
Wilmington, DE, USA
Follow me on www.twitter.com @GaryBloomer

Brandon,

I believe the factors of importance here are:
1) How wide is your reach? Local or international?
2) How unique is your name?
3) How important is the website to your business?

At one extreme, if your clientele is local, your name has seven x's, a z and two q's, and you have a website only because it makes you look legitimate, then just go for the .com and forget about any variations.

However, if you have bschmitz.com or mylittleredcorvette.com - names that might be very desirable to others, and your market is international and your business is 100% ecommerce, then I believe it's paramount that you buy up every variation.

To a certain degree, you also don't want to have someone take out a website that confuses or ruins your brand. For instance, if you have bschmitz.com for your religious consulting business and someone takes out bschmitz.biz for their pornographic movie distributorship and pole dancing university, I'm sure this wouldn't help your cause, hmm?

Hey, look at it this way: To take out ALL of those names is less than $100 per year. If you have a serious business, this is pretty tiny - $2 per week? I bet you waste that much each week in electricity leaving your computer on 24/7. Add to it a few others like bschmitzsucks.com and other combinations that would make you look bad, you might increase this to $500 a year. What's the value of protecting your brand? Nothing if your brand's not worth anything anyway. But, if you manage your business and brand effectively, the value is. as they say on the Mastercard commercials...Priceless. By the way, Mastercard owns priceless.com, .org, .us, and .info. Others own .net, .biz, and .mobi - but no website is up at those points.

I hope this helps.

Wayde

I believe you get more bang if you select all the missed spellings of your URL..... All the .net biz ect arent mainstream... but missed words are very common.

I think you're ok with .com .net .edu and .org.

If you wanted to go beyond that I would look at misspelled names. gogle.com redirects to google.com

craiglist.com does NOT redirect to craigslist.com SURPRISE!

The .com, .org, and .edu are more than sufficient in this case. You're simply concerned with how your audiences might find you.

"craiglist.com does NOT redirect to craigslist.com SURPRISE!"

Certainly does for me...