September 2009
Ask The Expert:
How Do I Find A Good Domain Name For My Insurance Website?
Q: I’m finally taking my business online. How do I find a good domain name for my insurance website?
A: Although I don’t think you should get bogged down looking for domain names, I do believe that you need to invest some effort in finding a good fit for your company. Remember that your primary website name is an integral part of your brand and will ideally stay with your company for the long term.
Here are three tips and one free online resource you can use to find a good domain name for your insurance website…
1. Easy to Remember
Your domain name should be easy to remember. That means you don’t want it to be too long or have a lot of multisyllabic words. You also want it to stand out when feasible.
Numbers can stand out and are sometimes easy to remember, such as with Health911.com (which is taken, by the way). But there are times when using numbers doesn’t make sense.
For example, I have a client who included the four digits of his home address in his website domain, something like Example9371.com. It was cute, but that number combination is actually hard to remember.
How about hyphens? If you’re putting two words together to make a domain name, you probably don’t need to separate them with a hyphen. In fact, I recommend that you don’t break it apart, because it can actually create more confusion and negative results.
Consider this: Your domain name has a hyphen, but your competitor with a similar domain name doesn’t. If your prospect forgets to include your hyphen in your domain name, they may end up on your competitor’s website instead!
If you can’t come up with anything, the safe bet is to just go with your name and your main product line.
Finally, keep in mind that you can have one website with multiple domain names. Your website can officially reside in your primary domain name. Your other domain names can then be programmed to automatically and instantly send visitors to your main website.
2. Search-engine Friendly
Your website domain name can help your positioning on Google, Yahoo and other major search engines. That’s a crucial issue, especially as the online realm continues to get more competitive.
Ideally, you want your domain name to include your target keywords. Keywords are the terms that your target online-consumers are typing into search engines to find products like yours.
For example, if you’re selling short-term health insurance, you want to try to get your website to rank higher whenever a shopper types “short-term health insurance” into Google.
Similarly, if Norvax sold antique cars, we would probably try to get the domain name NorvaxAntiqueCars.com.
It won’t guarantee that you’ll get a page 1 position. In fact, search-engine-friendly domain names are only one of thousands of elements that Google takes into account. However, every little bit helps.
3. Available
Unfortunately, the biggest problem with finding a good domain name is that the best ones are often already taken.
On the one hand, you may be able to buy a popular domain from its current owner. Depending on how popular the name is, you can expect to pay anywhere from $100 to $100,000.
But before you do that, dig around a little more to see if you can find a creative alternative. I would recommend NetworkSolutions.com, which is the main organization in charge of managing available domain names. They allow you to type in lots of potential names at one time… and then will tell you which ones are available.
4. Smart Search
I often recommend GoDaddy’s Smart Search feature to agents and brokers who are having a difficult time coming up with an available name.
With Smart Search, you type in your keyword, and it will give you dozens of suggested names. You can even tell it to avoid names with dashes!
When I recently typed in “health insurance,” it gave me 75 suggestions that ranged from “healthriskinsurance.com” to “mywholenessinsurance.com.”
Even if you don’t find something you like, those suggestions can perhaps give you ideas for more domain names.
