Many business owners feel registering one domain name is sufficient. However, there are many reasons why multiple Domain Names using several different extensions should be registered for one business.

The primary reason is to Protect Your Brand!

Additional reasons for registering more than one Domain Name for your business are:

• Keeps Your Competition from Registering a Similar Domain Name

• Further Build Online Identity

• Allows People to Find Your Products and/or Services More Easily Through Searches

• Captures Misspellings of Your Domain Name

• Enables Promotion of Products and/or Services with Specific Landing Pages

Did You Know?

A couple of the Domain Names Google uses to redirect people to google.com are googl.com and gogle.com.

Yahoo has over 5 million Domains registered.

Bank of America has over 13,000 Domains registered.

Nike has over 4,000 Domains registered.

Starbucks has over 2,000 Domains registered.

Nordstrom has over 1,000 Domains registered.

Just an illustration that all large companies register a vast number of Domain Names, and have the majority of them forwarded to their main website or make use of them to promote product/service lines – while the remainder are probably held for investment purposes.

If you’re a small to mid size business, you can do the same, just on a smaller scale.

Business Domain Names Best Practices

• Register Domain Names related to your business, your products and/or your services.

• Register Domain Names that describe your business. Your Brand may resonate to different people in different ways, and not always by its official name.

• Register Domain Names that look-like and/or sound-like your Brand. Competitors can and will register domains that mirror yours.

• Register Local Domain Names to capture generic searches. Many people enter a generic search into a browser because they can’t recall the name of the business/company.

Examples of Local Domain Name Variations:

windsorctflorist

landscapingwindsorct

windsorctshoerepair

• Ask people (friends, family, peers, etc) to spell your Domain Name. You may feel your domain URL is a no-brainer to spell, but it may translate to others as very difficult to spell out. If the feedback delivers the same misspelling over and over - then that would be a good Domain Name to register.

• Register Your Name – yourname.com – and redirect it to your LinkedIn page.

• Register your Social Media User names, and redirect them to your primary Domain Name, or to a website page with all of your Social Media connection links.

• Add the Privacy option to each of your Domain Names. It’s inexpensive and protects you and your business from identity thieves, hackers and unwanted phone solicitations.

Tips for Protecting Your Domain Names

Keep track of Expiration Dates. When registering a Domain Name, you have the option of registering it for one year, or multiple years. Don’t lose track of renewal dates.

Make sure the “Registrant” is recorded as the legal owner of the domain, and “Administrative Contact” is recorded as the person with exclusive rights to alter the domain record.

Ensure your domain name registrar provides transfer lock / domain lock / register lock protection. Most do.

TO-DO LIST

Make a list of Domain Names you feel should be registered to protect your Brand.

Top-Level extensions you should consider registering for each name are:

• .com (of course)

• .net

• .info

• .org

• .biz

• .us

• .us.com

Look up Domain Names and extensions to see if the names you want are available:
https://hostingct.com/domains/

Search as many names as you like, then compile a final list – then register each.

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