Branding match, Domain and Company Name

Picking a domain name that is marketable
This is going to be and interesting sharing experience about selecting a domain name that we have not discussed until now.
Lets use a friend of ours, and their domain name is a great example of what not to do. Mind you this company we will be discussing is calling it self a marketing company?

Marketing Professionals should know better
They were until recently been going by the actual company name of Websites 2000 and their domain name was websites2000.
Today they have another name, but you can see for yourself that the domain name was out of date when the clocks went from 2000 to January 01, 2001. It took them another 6+ years to change their name to their new name.
Their issues were far greater and impact then just their domain name and it is this was also the name of their company. This made them sound dated, out of date, and a real marketing disaster was set into place the day they opened the company in the 1990’s then heading to January 01, 2001 forward.

There is thought required to begin your business
There is a lot of things to consider when you start a business from finance to branding to everything you can imagine.
However we are only going to share the company name, domain name, and branding around that domain name in this article.
When you decide to start your business it is really very important to begin with a name that can go the distance with you and those that will supersede you.
Not to mention like in the case of websites2000 they have spent years promoting their name, it was really a cool and futuristic advanced look when you saw it in print and on the Internet. You would want to do business with them at least until January 01, 2001 anyways.

Company Branding Error
Lets look at what happened to the marketing company. Even though they are still around they were a small operation to begin with and they had a little bit of a following however re-branding your company is an expensive thing to do, we all know that however there is something else going on when it involves the domain name. It is that domain names become of better value and gain search engine trust over the years. If the site is legitimate and trustworthy

Example of a search engine trusted web site:
We own a web site name Palm Springs Weather and you can get to it by going here Palm Springs Weather and this site has been running for 9 years offering the same relevant information with a high value. The site used to only really come to the top of the search engines under “Palm Springs Weather” when you did a search for weather in Palm Springs utilizing your favorite search engine.
Today however the site is in the top 5 to 6 web sites under the title of “Palm Springs” taking a higher place then most of the tourism, hotel, restaurant, and attraction web sites.
This takes place for more then just being a trusted long time web site but the time the site has stayed on topic really plays a roll in the overall success and branding process that the Internet understands.

Websites2000 conclusion.
Today they do use a 301 redirect (a way of sending a second domian name to a site with a domian name already in use for that site) to there new web site and the services they offer has changed slightly from when it was websites2000 but a redirect is a very dangerous risk to the page placement of your web site because they are printing their new name and the are branding their new name, but the old domain name is just going along for the ride.
It is no longer typed in by users and it is being accessed by fewer and fewer people compared perhaps to when it was the company name and the name was used in print and conversation and was indexed by the search engines on a regular bases.
This makes for a very bad marketing move in our opinion.

Starting a Business making this correct move
What they, the marketing company did correctly back then as well as now under their new name is to name the company the exact same as the domain name and to do this utilizing the .com only TLD (Top Level Domain) that extension on the end of every domain name.

Avoid these type of branding errors at all cost
It is the best practice that you avoid selecting a company name that utilizes a date, that is and easy one to understand. Never utilize a domain name that is another companies brand R (registered) built into it. That was a little tougher. Never buy a name with a TM (trademark) protecting it and it might be a slogan SM (service mark) really tougher, and even tougher you need to avoid some industries like the national association of realtors because in this example realtors is a registered trademark for the National association of realtors.
This means you cannot offer DesertCenterRealtors.com but you can go by the name DesertCenterRealEstate.com for and example.
It is really important to check into this before selecting a company name and as well a domain name especially because we want the company name and the domian name to match perfectly.

Researching your business name process
This is how we do our research on finding and available business name before we (in our case) file for incorporation status. We first come up with a list of names (6 to 10) that we feel will be something we want to see, hear, and read everyday for years to come. Then before we become that business we search using our list for domain names on each one so we can eliminate the ones that the domain name is already taken and now we are ready to move forward.

Business name look-up on search engines
Now that we have our list of business names with a perfect .com match with the domain names available we are going to go search the Internet looking for the names we have to see if they are in use on the Internet already so we can eliminate these names as well.
Here is how we do a business search on our own before involving and attorney in the expenses. You can do this early in the start of our business on your own by selecting your favorite search engine type in the name in this case and put parentheses around the name like this “Viper Logic”. This will limit the return results because with parentheses surrounding your search you will not get return results for Viper and Logic separated. If there is no return for your search you are off to a great start.

Domain Name Search Warning
When you created your list of business names you then went to search for the available domian names and there is something you will need to know about the risk of domian name searching without buying the name. It is really highly possible that when you do a search on any domain name look-up companies search tool like the one at ViperGate.com that your search is being tracked and if the name you find is available in particularly the .com ending there are groups that snatch these names while you are doing this research for a business name project. How to deal with this current domian name snatching issue that the industry is working really hard on to eliminate is to buy the name for the 9.95 dollars each and after the first year do not renew them or you might even decide to keep them and add them to your companies assets.
We at Viper Logic do this all of the time and today we have a really healthy portfolio of domian names for places, products and industries.