Can your business get a sudden boost in search results by switching to one of the nearly 400 new Top Level Domains (TLD’s). We have answers from the expert.
Transcript
Robert Riggs: So these new top-level domains are .horse or .dentist, .news, so there’s–good Lord, there must be 400 of them and they’re all aimed at business: .attorney, .lawyer, .legal, so whatever your business, that’s there. So one of the things we know, it will help Google in their indexing of trying to determine what is your website about. There is a little advantage there, and then what we’ve seen and we’ve talked with Bill Hartzer, and what Bill, he’s been doing domain sales and auctions since 1996, and so what Bill is seeing is that, this also gives you some new real estate for keywords. You might want Dallas-Fort Worth plumber, well, you can’t get that in a dotcom but in these news, and there’s a .plumber, you can go get it. It’s going to cost you some money but Bill explains here what the advantage is, what he’s done on one of his studies.
Bill Hartzer: The idea is that there’s a keywords in the endings and they really describe what your website is about or your business is about, and that allows you to really have that branding opportunity to show users and visitors and the search engines in Fort Worth that that’s what your company is about, that particular keyword. There’s a lot of really good opportunities there.
Besancon: Well, I think one of the interesting things that we heard from Bill just end-wise, it’s really about keywords but not keywords that you’re going out there for Google ad search and paying for it, it’s a little different approach.
Riggs: Well, just because you went out there and buy a .attorney doesn’t mean you’re going to automatically rank, but if you get the right keywords in there, you’re going to be more competitive in those search results. And he’s got two case studies that he talked about where that has worked, so.
I mean, one of the unique ones was, just real quick, just kind of put in perspective is, he took an attorney in Jacksonville, Florida who was not ranking at all; had the standard so-and-so law.com kind of deal. He put Jacksonville.attorney and he immediately ranked on the first page within a small, a very minute period of time.
If you are in a particular region like a city, in one particular city, and it is fairly competitive, if you can show everybody, by having your city name, Dallas.attorney, Jacksonville.attorney, Denver.attorney, and you are the attorney in that city, and you have the premiere domain name for–you are the Denver attorney, and when people do search for Denver attorney, if you move from your dotcom to your Denver.attorney and you use, you change your address to where you literally move your website from that dotcom to .attorney, I do think you’re going to see a lot of better results by using a .attorney domain name.
Let’s say I’m in national practice as an attorney. Am I better off leaving my firm name there? Or should I do a specificity of what practice I specialize in?
Yes, if you have the option, if you have the option to, and that name is available, if you are a criminal defense attorney and you go get to criminaldefense.attorney, if you are, if there is a generic word that you can pair with that perfectly describes your business, then that just as buying criminaldefense.com, criminaldefense.attorney really perfectly describes your business and that is a great opportunity for not only just search engine rankings but overall branding, and you’re showing all of your visitors, you’re showing your customer base and potential customers, your potential clients that you are the criminal defense attorney or you are the Denver attorney, or you are describing your business right at the beginning, even before they even click on your website, they will know what you do. And whether they see it in an offline ad in the newspaper or an online ad, or they see it in the search results, they will see that domain name. That’s the first thing they see before they click your website.
And when you think about that, that makes sense because what are people searching for? Jacksonville attorney, so he automatically gets that. It’s that little pop
But you have to think this through and also, some of these domains, they’re difficult to get. It might cost you $3,000 to $4,000 on somebody’s–they’re premium. But it looks like they’ll pay dividends particularly if you’re in a paying business.
What do you think about that compared to ad budget? It’s the way you got to look at it. I mean, that’s the way–
That’s a good way.
And you still have to do–everybody talks about, “Oh, you mean I can just–” No, there’s no shortcuts online; you still have to build the content, you still have to drive people to your site, you still have to have the links, you still have to do all the normal things that you need to be doing with the website. The difference is, you’re just taking a little different approach with keywords in your actual URL.
One key takeaway he advices everyone too, if you’re a big company, big business, make sure you’re trademarked, otherwise, somebody can go hijack your domain and be out there using it. You have a way to contest things if they’re violating your trademarks.
That’s a good point.
And there are some companies, went out and trademarked without checking for domains and somebody already had the domain.
That’s a no-no.
And there’re not a lot because if you got into domain before the trademark was applied for it, that’s yours.
That’s right.
Yup.
That’s correct.
That’s our Clairiti clip don’t forget to get out there and keep hustling.