Web Domain Names What's Yours ?
I was just wondering what domain names work best, and what do not.
I have bought about 5 domain names the one that I might use is newyorkhomefinders.com
what is your thoughts on this name.
Thanks

i just use my name, it makes people remember me.

Hello
I have not yet decided my domain name but from all the other sources and this forum I have been reading they all recommend to use your name if possible....


Ritu


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Ritu Desai
Buying or Selling in Northern Virginia? Contact me for all your residential real estate needs

SAMSON REALTY,LLC
Phone: 703-625-4949
Email - rituadesai@yahoo.com
On the web: http://www.homesdatabase.com/ritu

It all depends on your business goals, and if you're a broker with your own brokerage (LLC, Corp, etc.) which would then lead to the question of what the name of your brokerage is. It certainly helps to have a comprehensive, coordinated marketing strategy.

Some say that if you want to target building a very large real estate brokerage (and respective website that would be part of your overall "marketing mix") that someday you would like to sell, use a name other than your name since potential purchasers of the brokerage would prefer not having a person's name in the title of the website/company name.

So, following that line of thought, "Residential Realtors, LLC" and it's would-be corresponding website "Residential-Realtors.com" would be more desireous than "John Smith Realty" and an accompanying site called "JohnSmithRealty.com" or "ICanSellItForU.com"

Then there's the other school of thought that believes the power is in the name and the exact opposite of the example above would be more desireous. There are other complications to using your name as your domain name. First, if your name is lenghty and hard to spell, people may never have the patience/inking to spell it right and be frustrated enough to not bother finding out if you have a web presence.

Personally, I like and register domain names that have to do with whatever specialty am involved in, like Condo-Investor.com, Apartment-Investor.com, Multi-Family-Homes.com, Investment-Realty.com, are some examples. These are sites that, in my opinion, have lended better with respect to brand management.

Of coarse there are huge examples of brands being built around a person's name (Ford, Sara Lee, etc.). But, there's decades and decades of psychological conditioning behind those brands which began during a time when there were not as many different marketing messages bombarding us via so many different mediums as there are today. A lot more competition/interference for our attention these days (tele-marketing, direct mail, broadcast fax, etc.).

One thing to investigate further is search engine placement when choosing a domain name. There's some research out there that finds that placing hypens (-) between separate words in a domain name helps the search engines (and people/prospective clients) spell and understand the domain name that you choose. So in such a mindset, apartment-investor.com is better than apartmentinvestor.com which has no hypen separating the different words.

Hope that helps.

Once you decide on a name, I would strongly recommend buying all variations/probable mis-spellings of the name as well so you don't lose people to another, similar sounding site or a competitor positioning in attempt to snag those types of customers (the forgetful + the bad spellers :-)). So, if you decide to use NewYorkHomeFinders.com, (funds permitting...@ around 10 bucks/domain they're not terribly expensive) also purchase NYHomeFinders.com, NY-Home-Finders.com, New-York-Home-Finder.com, and NewYorkHomeFinder.com just to be safe.

Keep it simple, not clever; clever is hard to remember even though you may think it would be easy to remember. My two domains are simply, www.JoshT.com and www.JoshuaTurmel.com

-J

My domains are:

sovereignrealestate.net
buyahomeinlincoln.com
sellahomeinlincoln.com

Craig Sovereign

I would agree with Xenogenetic even if it is your own personal site I would not use your own name for your marketing.

If you want to get your name, that's great you can just re-direct it to your main site.




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Make it a great day!

Brian Rodgers, MBA
Brian Rodgers Seminars, Inc.
www.brseminars.com
1-800-339-8841

I'm going to have to disagree with using "common" nouns for coming up with business names at all, in any industry or field. They simple aren't remembered as easily, and history as shown that companies that choose to brand this way usually are never the most successful. Look at all your HUGE corporations, Microsoft (not PC Software), Wal-Mart (part of Sam's name built into it), Coca-Cola (not just Soda Drink), now there are a few exceptions like General Electric but if you notice most people refer to them as GE and not General Electric; it is my opinion (and many other branding gurus) that it is in your best interest to stay away from common nouns as much as would be possible.

-J

the difference between you and walmart is you don't have walmart's millions of dollars in advertising for branding your name.

the consumer doesn't care about the agent, they care about what is in it for me.

remember consumers will not be searching for john doe the realtor, but will be searching for ny homes, so i would say you are better off with that domain name instead of using your name.

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Wes Murphree
Investment Realty
http://www.SCInvestmentRealty.com
http://www.3NetLease.com
http://www.MultifamilyListings.com

[This message has been edited by Wes Murphree (edited 11-15-2004).]

Thanks for the input. So you believe that we as Realtors should use our "personal" name in our domains?



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Make it a great day!

Brian Rodgers, MBA
Brian Rodgers Seminars, Inc.
www.brseminars.com
1-800-339-8841

I tend to agree with Wes in terms of using a domain for marketing, Search engine placement, etc.

I think everyone should try to get a domain using their names as I stated in a previous post but I do not believe it should be the main domain they use in all of their marketing for reasons Wes pointed out.

I would certainly expect a branding expert to disagree but for every branding expert there are just as many direct response marketing experts who would say the opposite.

I think you should do both, domains are cheap.

But I still believe building a site such as NYhomes.com for example is the better domain for your main marketing domain as opposed to a site such as : JohnJones.com or whatever.


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Make it a great day!

Brian Rodgers, MBA
Brian Rodgers Seminars, Inc.
www.brseminars.com
1-800-339-8841

[This message has been edited by brseminars (edited 11-15-2004).]

Personal name isn't the only way to go. Benefit driven names also do well.

Listmefree.com
nofeetolist.com
isoldmyhouse.com
bestagent.com

These types of domain names are worth millions.

Site like JoshT.com can be confused with JoshB.com or JoshP.com. It's cute and it's cool but not so easy to remember after the initial exposure.

Those domain names are worth millions just like $1.99 disposable pen is worth millions - only if you use them extremely well.

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Telecom Sales and Service Manager
RE license coming soon

Just as free money isn't really free money until you take the money.