How to Select the Perfect URL For Your Business

Follow the KISS (Keep it simple, stupid) philosophy in selecting a URL for your business. Yes, you can be creative and meaningful, but ensure that your URL is, above all, easy to remember and as error-proof as possible. Perhaps the most enjoyable way to test out your prospective URL is with the ever-famous Cocktail Party Test:

Let’s pretend for all intensive purposes that you’re at a Go Media cocktail party. Why not, right?!? Go ahead! Tell us your URL!

• Do we look confused?
• Do we need to write it down?
• Are you spelling out words and correcting us when we repeat it?
• Are you writing down the hyphens, underscores, or apostrophes for us?

If you answered, “Yes,” to any of these questions, it’s time to simplify your URL and incorporate the additional tips below. Then, and only then, may you attend another cocktail party to try it out.

Be Unique But Memorable. Brands such as Zappos or Amazon work because of the brand marketing, not because they are immediately intuitive. If you have the gumption to create a name this unique, ensure you have the marketing at your disposal to make your URL memorable for your audience. Remember that your audience, however, may never fully catch up. You may have to purchase alternative spellings to your URL and redirect them to your site (Example: Flickr.com versus Flicker.com.)

Compete Wisely. Have you checked out your competitor’s URLs? What works (or doesn’t) about what they have chosen? Make some keyword lists about what makes your brand or company special. Use what differentiates you to make your URL sing.

Think Big(ger). You may currently be a unilateral business and doing quite nicely. But what if one day, you decide to branch out? Take our business, for example. Our name, GoMedia, encompasses any media out there–if we had named ourselves after our first love (illustration) and called ourselves GoIlustrate.com, it would be harder to grow as a company and a brand.

Be Social. In today’s day and age, social media is an essential part of your business. Confirm that your URL can work seamlessly with social media. Have you checked out Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram? Can your name be integrated there? Is it too long, too short, or already taken? It’s not a game changer if you’re unable to snag the same exact handle, but you need to make sure that you’re social media persona ties into your brand and makes sense.

Secure Your Domain. Once you’ve decided on your domain and URL, we strongly suggest securing your domain for many years. It’s really not that expensive, and instead of having to renew it each year, you’ll be set. Plus, in the unfortunate instance that you forget to renew your domain one year, securing a domain for 10+ years will help you avoid headaches related to buying back your domain and editing all of your marketing collateral with an updated URL.

Starting a business is exciting, thrilling, and full of “head-in-palm” moments. You don’t need to add to the stress by creating a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad URL. Be creative, be smart, and most importantly, K.I.S.S. Hope to hear about your URL at one of our get-togethers in the near future!