A premium top-level memorable domain name with an inherently high-ranking “infrastructure” should be the cornerstone of your online business model. The key is that this “infrastructure” is composed of both tangible and non-tangible elements which, when successful, will orchestrate seamlessly and powerfully to attract your potential market. One of the elements of this infrastructure is the effect that the actual domain name has on the intuitive element of your market. This effect is produced by the phenomenon known as word-image association. But it’s not so simple, as word-image association varies from person to person and from culture to culture, is subject to variation, depending on their specific inherent life experiences and the association made by a potential customer in your market can be substantially subliminal, abstract and difficult to assess, apart from an in-depth survey. The key to having an optimally successful business domain, therefore, is to utilize a domain name (real name or other combination of letters and numbers) that will have the greatest overall positive effect on all the people in your target market, regardless of culture, and one that will produce the least amount of overall negative resistance in terms of overall word-image association. Even “non-words”, (specific letter and/or letter-number combinations), have a “life of their own” and when used as a domain name, are, for all practical purposes, representative of a “word” and therefore, have the effect of creating an image which will either have a predominantly positive or negative effect on your market.
If you already have an online business, your business domain name is the first “image” that pops into your market’s mind (existing and potential customers) when they think of your business. This effect activates by default and is especially true for your potential market, since they do not have the relationship gauge as do your existing customers. Although your existing customers have the relationship gauge, they also, like your potential customers, automatically and immediately “feel” the effect of your domain name “word” produced by this word-image association. Also, like yourself, your market (customers and potential customers) inherently prefer to identify with catchy domain names that bespeak intelligence of construction. As for generic domain names (an actual dictionary word), the majority of generic domain names are either already bought or are outrageously priced if and when they are offered for sale. Also, generic domain names carry neither a guarantee of online business success or the special “sparkle” and traffic-magnet appeal that other “non-word” or hardly known dictionary names may offer. Consider the domain names “Google” and “Yahoo!” and the success of the businesses behind them. Google and Yahoo are actually dictionary names but were hardly known and seldom used. “Exxon” is an example of a coined or non-word. Many other businesses have proven that a “non-word” or hardly-known word can be a more powerful tool than a generic name in establishing a successful online business niche presence, when it works to invoke that special “word-image association” or comes to be associated with a strong business effect. But one must always remember that a domain name is only as successful as the capital force behind it. Many start-ups and online businesses ignore this special phenomenon, choose blander names that fail to “connect” on the subliminal level, and thus may be sacrificing significant profit solely by virtue of their domain name. Some online businesses feel compelled and even forced to “stick” with their current domain name even if it doesn’t feel right, and are wary of changing their established domain name due to tenure, customer-base association and the thought of “sacrificing” formerly spent marketing capital on past marketing-campaigns and when considering the possible forfeiture of their currently established position within the rankings and search engine crawlers. So they choose not to change out of fear, retain the same dull domain name and ache when they don’t see profits. Granted, domain name change for a newer online business is less painful and less costly proportionate to online tenure and marketing capital spent on advertising the old name. What’s the moral of this message? We’ll let you figure that out. Let your gut be your guide. If your online business name doesn’t “feel right” to you, the business owner, chances are it doesn’t feel right to your market and your intuition is trying to tell you something. In any event, if you do make the decision to change your online business name, one thing is for certain – changing it sooner is better than later. At ComCrown.com, we firmly believe that the first domain name you buy should be good enough to be your last, and that’s why we build our names with that genius in mind, at no additional cost to you.
