# Website name. I need suggestions.



## tc70518 (Jan 21, 2009)

I have just changed my company name to *** Home Improvements. www.***homeimprovement.com is taken, but ***homeimprovement(s).com is not. I am trying to decide between going with the latter, or going with www.***improvements.com. If I go with the first one, I risk customers typing in the wrong address and being directed to the wrong home improvement company, although it is in a totally different state. If I go with the second one, there will be no mistake. Thoughts?:confused1:


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## aceremodels (Jan 21, 2009)

I would vote for the ***homeimprovement(s).com. It is the same name as your company, right? I don't think there will be any problems getting it right. I think the further away from the name of the company you go....is where I would start seeing confusion. 

Just an opinion


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## tc70518 (Jan 21, 2009)

Yea, that's what I decided on and I actually reserved the domain name. Thanks for the response.


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## nlgutters (Dec 18, 2007)

how about shutterslafyettela.com


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## tc70518 (Jan 21, 2009)

nlgutters said:


> how about shutterslafyettela.com


That would be too specific. I'm in the process of getting my contractor's license, so along with all the products listed on the left, I will be doing home improvement contracting as well.


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## MOTB (May 13, 2009)

*Possibly think of a generic name?*

Your branding is probably one of the most important issues when starting a company, including trying to think far out into the future. Possibly go to a thesaurus inside a spell checker and play with words such as quality, dreams, etc. You can always come a word or two, then a separate slogan to say what you do. For example, Nike, just do it. Another example is Google which didn't say anything about what they did. I have coined company and product names over the years and some did lousy then others did wonders for the same company-product. Last but not least, come up with a few ideas and ask your homeowner customers what they think since that is true marketing. Most of us are prejudiced from the business side. I would come up with a few ideas and ask a few customers. Also, mix up the order in which you say the three or four ideas since that also expands the true marketing concepts. The reason is that many people tend to focus on what was said first or last. Good luck. Brian


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## 480sparky (Feb 1, 2009)

How about wwww. blah blah blah. .*biz* ? Instead of .com, use .biz


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## karunnt (Aug 27, 2008)

tc70518 said:


> That would be too specific. I'm in the process of getting my contractor's license, so along with all the products listed on the left, I will be doing home improvement contracting as well.



You can have multiple sites.

Lafayettecanopies
canopiesLafayette
awningsLafayette

etc.

linking to you main site. These can be highly specific to that topic and geography. Multiple Wordpress sites are not expensive to setup.

Generally it is better to have a single site rather than having your content spread over many sites. But these smaller sites can have a few pages and you don't have to invest a lot in them. You should rank easily for your domain name which in this case will be popular keyword phrases.

Some keyword research will show which phrases are most popular.


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## pratishtha (May 18, 2009)

vote for the ***homeimprovement(s).com. It is the same name as your company, right?
and what you think about only improventhome.com


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## Roof Info (Mar 16, 2008)

The shorter the better. I can't express that any more emphatically. I would use your Company name if at all possible, without homeimprovement(s) tacked onto the end of it.

I am assuming that you will have some sort of print media (business cards, pamphlets, brochures) involved. Maybe a truck that has your domain name displayed proudly on the side. The key is something easy and catchy to remember for all those eyes that will be looking at it -- so when they go back to their computer they can easily type in that domain.

A domain is your brand. It is not who, what, and where you are -- leave that for your page content.


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## tc70518 (Jan 21, 2009)

That's a lot of good advice to think about. I have a few domain names reserved, and I'm going to link them all to my main website.

Anybody have any solid advice on how to move up in google searches?


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## Mike(VA) (Jan 9, 2008)

Yes, pay someone who does it for a living.


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## Roof Info (Mar 16, 2008)

tc70518 said:


> I have a few domain names reserved, and I'm going to link them all to my main website.
> 
> Anybody have any solid advice on how to move up in google searches?


I am not sold on multiple websites for each niche. You are one company. Your site should reflect that. Besides, if a person is looking for awnings and sees that you do storm shutters too -- you may gain more in sales (impulsive purchases).

There are three types of searches at Google -- organic, paid, and local. It is not that hard to rank for local search. Much easier than anyone will let onto. Paid search, AdWords, is relatively inexpensive and will get you more visitors. The organic search, I would not worry about all that much since it draws in visitors from outside your service area.

Ranking for local search only requires a few external links pointing to your site, and some key on-page elements containing phone numbers, city/county/state names sprinkled around your content, headings, footers and titles.

With all that said, search is only part of the battle. Once you get them, you gotta hook them with "calls-to-action". That is where a savvy designer will come into play. Look at our website (link to Affordable in sig) and you will see stuff all over the page. Most notably is that _in-your-face_ click here for free estimate. Then there is the 'business-card' approach we took to display our phone number and address right up front for the visitor.

I have looked at your website a while ago. You really need to ditch that Flash intro page. It is so 90's and contains no readable content for the search engines. Your domain root needs to impress your visitor right from the get-go of who you are and what it is you do.


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## karunnt (Aug 27, 2008)

If you search 'Columbus painting' you will find the top 10 domains with the least number of inbound links and the lowest PR have 'columbus' and 'painting' in the domain name in that order.

(there are two and they both have zero inbound links and zero PR.)

To me that says keyword in the domain name are very important.

So IMHO, multiple sites with keyword domain names are worth the minimal effort.

If there are 10,000 people a day searching for paris hilton's sunglasses I think parishiltonsunglasses.com would get some hits with minimal site development.

I think I could put content on inkjet printers on it and still rank for those keywords.


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## Roof Info (Mar 16, 2008)

George Z said:


> I have sites with keywords in them
> and my main site, without them blows them away!
> Once in a while there is a site like "torontopainterspaintingtoronto.com" :laughing:
> does well for a month and then goes away.


There you go, the so-called _freshbot_ result that allows those to rank well for a short period of time. As they say, hit shappens.

Your *ecopainting.ca* domain is the type of name branding I was discussing earlier. It is both, short and catchy. The eco portion is in line with todays consumer feel-goodness too.


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## George Z (Dec 23, 2004)

First, Toronto painting company is not that great a term, it's ok.

Here are some examples of search terms we convert well from:

house painters Toronto
painters Toronto
Commercial Painting Toronto
Interior painting Toronto
Painting Toronto
Professional Painters Toronto

For none of them I have the keyword in the url I rank number 1.
Not first page, number 1.
There are many more as well and let's not forget in Canada most people use Google.ca in which we rank even higher for most keywords.


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## Nathan (Jul 21, 2003)

For some reason this thread became the target of SEO "Gurus" instead of contractors helping each other out. It's great when some people have more expertise then others but when it becomes a battle of the gurus it's a waste of all of our time.

I've tried to clean up this thread... let's try to stay on track.

Thanks


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## MattCoops (Apr 7, 2006)

George Z,

How many visits a month do you get from any of those search terms?
Using a filter, how many from Toronto region?

Now, do you have your IP address filtered to exclude your own computer from checking those keywords?

Let's take for instance toronto painters
Although being technically #1, how do you compete with the 10 other paint companies above you? (screenshot attached) Not to mention if there's 1-2 Sponsored links on top of that as well. Now you're under the fold.
Is that why you have your phone number in the meta description? Interesting way to combat that Google Local problem.


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## RemodelMania (Sep 19, 2006)

domain name is important for having keywords to get ranked, but it is not the utlimate -- there are many other factors as well. if its a really tough niche you are trying to get ranking for, I'd would try to include the keywords in the domain just to give your self an adge, but its not the end of the world if you can't.


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## WestCoastVinyl (Jun 5, 2009)

Use the name that you want to use along with the homeimprovement.com or biz or org. What is important is, you want your customer to remember the name of your company when they are online.


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## Mr. Mike (Dec 27, 2008)

As for a domain name to advertise for people to remember I use LouisvillePainter.com, for your service I am sure you could come up with a shorter and better name.


Domain name means not very much for seo purposes, And George Z comes up more than just number 1 on several searches, Ive seen his sites number 1 in adwords, local, and 1,2, and 3 at the same time on the first page. 


housepainter1.jpg


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