What Makes A Domain Name Valuable
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- 24-09-2021
What Makes A Domain Name Valuable?
Many factors make for a great domain name that will engage the right audience. Typically, good domain names are snappy, short, memorable and ensure they can be easily pronounced worldwide. It must be suitable to your business or field, for example, estate, toys, hotel bookings, transport, etc.
Some of the best domain names include a familiar domain extension that many are aware of and often use, such as .com, .co.uk, .org, etc.
Many aspects and tools used can devalue the domain name that you decide on for your company website, for example:
- If your URL or domain name is too long
- If it uses one or too many hyphens
- The use of unnecessary numbers
- If your domain uses homophones, these are perceived as complicated and can cause many misspellings.
- The use of unfamiliar or uncommon domain extensions
The primary reason why these aspects can devalue your domain name is they generally make your domain appear complex and challenging to remember. Your domain doesn't have to be generic; you can make it as unique as you want, but making it easy to pronounce, type, and be memorable is crucial.
Exact Match Domain's
The meaning of an (EMD) exact match domain is a domain name that perfectly matches the phrase or word that you or your customers are searching for. An example of this may be, if someone is searching for e-books, they may type "e-books" into Bing or Google, then the EMD that will often appear for this search will be ebooks.com.
In the past, EMD's would often carry lots of weight within the Google algorithm, when it was still possible to obtain simplistic domain's that other companies or organisations hadn't already taken.
Many made mini websites to trick the algorithm and place them much higher on the searches with minimal effort.
In 2012, Google vowed and began working on the update to address this issue, as they found many unnecessary websites ranking above legitimate company sites.
The SEO value of EMDs began to erode since the update was made. However, high quality, legitimate EMDs are still valued and offer numerous benefits; their simplicity makes them remain valuable amongst others.
Brandable domains
Brandable domains are a widespread first choice of domain names, especially if your businesses name is unique or includes a word that isn't used elsewhere. They are often words with no fundamental description or definition, a catchy, interesting word that is easy to remember when heard.
Examples of this are:
- Zoopla.com
- Expedia.com
- Google.com
- Boohoo.com
They can be a single dictionary word, such as "Very.co.uk", they can include forenames or surnames, for example, "Ricky.com", "McDonalds.com" or "Kipling.com." They are essentially a brand name.
SEO Domains
SEO domains are names that, over time, have become more available to purchase or register onto the system.
They have plenty of high-quality links that point to them from when they had previously had an active website or personal accounts attached to them.
These domain names can harness lots of value purely because they have plenty of history online. Plenty of professionals with years of experience will be willing to pay large sums.
Domains don't come for free, especially those that fit the criteria and receive industry appraisals.
An example of just how valuable these SEO domains can be is they can sell in the hundreds. An example is a domain name selling for around £700; this may seem extreme; however, it held a history of links from numerous credible sources such as the Telegraph, the Guardian and BBC, which is why so many would want to acquire it.
Links are hugely important in how high your website can rank in a simple Google search, which dramatically increases the value of a domain.
Factors of a valuable domain name
Memorability
It will come as no shock that the more snappy and memorable your domain is, the more desirable to buyers; thus, the price will increase drastically. Online, our attention spans have shrunk, especially in more recent years, with the introduction of new websites and apps where the content gets shorter and shorter.
The competition between websites to be recognisable amongst a broad audience is fierce. Anything that you can do for your website to be memorable is your best bet to increase sales.
An excellent example of memorable domains is online hotel booking sites. Research shows that some of the prevalent are hotels.com and trivago.com. In 2001, the domain hotels.com sold for approximately £7,000,000, around $11 million in the states, a whopping price.
Consider the field you work in and how relevant and valuable it would be to have a unique website or link domain. For example, hotel booking sites need to be memorable because many people book hotels and holidays all the time, especially in the summer.
Profitability
You could make incredible profits in various sectors with a good, well-thought-out selling domain name. Again, when you create a domain, the best thing is to consider your chosen field, the company or organisation you are curating a domain portfolio for, all those you intend to register.
It may be for a particularly profitable sector; for example, one of the most excellent selling domains is insurance.com, which is incredibly fortunate. You can see this through its bid prices that you can see on Google Adwords.
Brand Association
Some domain names that you can find in the top 25 list or the registry can often be seen by many as overpriced.
Examples that seem wildly overpriced are fb.com (Facebook), mi.com, yp.com and icloud.com; however, when you consider the brands they are attached to, it makes sense why they are so sought after.
Every product or software under Apple's range begins with 'i-'; it is their defining trait and makes it almost immediately noticeable to its audience.
Often brand association combined with prominent features can up the value of your domains and the overall impact of the final costs.
Length
Length is an incredibly significant factor to consider when thinking up a unique domain name. The shorter, the better is something to remind yourself of frequently.
The number of short characters that get sold every month is astounding. Just like the aspect of memorability, designing a shorter site name or link can make it much easier to remember.
Search Engine Rankings
The value of specific common keywords inside domains has decreased in more recent years, primarily due to Google's 2012 update that aimed to push more legitimate sites to the top of the algorithm.
However, there is still a massive impact and benefit to have your site rank higher in vital search engines. The search engine ranking has impacted numerous related domains mentioned, such as loans.com, hotels.com, and insurance.com.
Traffic
Domains can often be worth much more on the registration market if they cause or have an established level of traffic.
Traffic refers to a pre-existing audience whose new owners can move forward and sell services or products to their domain.
We can see this through the successful site known as whisky.com, which was bought for £2.2 million in 2013, $3.1 million in America.
They experienced healthy, worthy levels of traffic beforehand, and then a different company purchased this domain.
How to Choose a Good Domain Name?
Good Top-Level Domain
A good domain name often includes more notable extensions, which is why many have their eye on securing a site name or link with .com or .co.uk.
You often come out with a higher value if you are registered with a .com domain name, even when selling domains with numerous obscure TLD alternatives are possible.
You must bear in mind that regional TLDs such as (.uk), (.us) or (.ca) often comes at a much higher figure; however, keep in mind that regional or country named extensions are much harder to attain.
Brandable
Your premium domain name has to sound great instead of just being simplistic; you don't want it to look awkward or have your customers eyes cross when they attempt to read or type it.
If your chosen domain name is a keyword or made-up word that suits your industry, idea or business field, then it may be a fantastic choice.
A domain name with an outstanding amount of brandability can be incredibly sought after and carry plenty of value, with high costs.
Passing the Radio Test
Software engineers invented domain names so that accessing websites would be much easier; this means that it is vital, for accessibility, that your domain is easy to understand.
Confusion regarding your domain name will negatively affect how often others on the market will see your name as an investment and impacts how customers will react to your site.
Correct Spelling
It is essential to have the correct spelling, not just in your domain name and links, but across your site and marketing.
It looks good and makes you and your company or organisation appear more professional.
If you want high figures and great ranking, everything must be spelt appropriately.
Meaningful Keywords
The most popular and in-demand keywords and buzzwords help increase your domain names value. However, everything must be balanced and in moderation.
More keywords do not equal more clicks or more money.
More people are likely and willing to click dollars2pounds.com than they are to click a site called moneystopcurrencycounterdollarstopounds.com.
Has Been Around for a While
Older domain names have experienced more time online and have had more time to garner an established ranking, indexing by Google and the Domain Name Registry. It is far better for SEO than any recently discovered or registered domain to have an older domain.
During negotiations, is it helpful to have a domain that's been around a while, as you are more attached to the field you have had for many years instead of a few days or weeks.
Are you ready to buy a domain name?
Contact our domain name specialists today to discuss the purchase of your next domain name.