MBA2005 Q&A Wednesday: Do I need a .com for my website?

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If you got a question you want to ask just go ahead and email me over at omar100,mba.net Today's question is from Peter and Peter Ask. Hey Omar, I am starting a new blog and paid newsletter and I'm trying to settle on a domain name. I'm having a hard time finding my brand name for my blog as a dot com. I'm trying different variations but not a lot of options out there. Does it make a difference if I register a.com versus a.net or.co or biz or whatever. Will it affect my traffic or SEO or my business in any way? Would love to learn more and get your take on this topic. Thanks Peter. Peter, you're not the first person to ask me this question. This is a question that I find in my inbox a lot. So I'm happy to answer it for you and everybody else who's wondering this as they're searching for their domain name to register for their new website. Yes, the dot com is the most popular extension for a domain name and everybody is trying to grab dot coms like it's a gold rush. This is why it's so hard to find them at a reasonable price. But is it the only option? Does it actually make a difference? And what if you don't start with a dot com but you grab the dot com later on in the future? We talk about all that and more in today's episode. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. Gas, snacks, tolls. This trip is draining my wallet. Yeah, but we'll be with family. You're in a good mood. What's your deal? What's my deal? I saved at Metro with no activation fe and I got 1 line of 5G for just 25 per month. Kept the phone I love and a 5 year price guarantee on my top tuxed data detour to Metro. Get that more for your money feeling only at Metro by T Mobile just bring your number 31st monthly, 25 after with autopay not available. If with Metro or T Mobile in the past 180 days to dot com or not to dot com that is the question on today's Q and A Wednesday and I'm going to give you a straight answer. I'm going to start with with the simple answer. Okay, the simple answer is if you can find your name or your brand name, whatever you're calling your blog, or a course variation that's not that far out there as a dot com, you should grab that and I'll explain why in a moment. This should be your preference. For example, my personal website is omarzenhome.com I originally wanted omarz.com but it wasn't available so I changed the variation. Just put my full name omarzenhome.com and got it. Now some domain names, especially dot coms will be a little bit more expensive. So it's not going to be like 10 or 20 or $30 a year. It might be $100, $200, 300 and given that you probably spend more than double that on potato chips or something like that a year, that's not that bad. So for example, if your brand name or your blog in this example is called Unique recipes and you want unique recipes.com but it's not available, maybe unique recipes blog.com is not a bad idea a great site is domainwheel.com where you can put your keywords and it will try to find you domains that are available with your keywords. So what if the.com is not available or maybe the URL is getting too long? In my professional and personal opinion, the extension really doesn't matter much. Why? Because most people are googling the name of your business. So actually a shorter domain with a different extension, like say for example your brand or your blog is called unique recipes. So and you have unique recipes.net or.co or blog, the domain being short and actually the exact keyword of the name of your blog. Especially if your blog name is descriptive, meaning it describes what you do, then the actual domain matters more because. Because people are gonna be searching these keywords in Google to find your website. And if your keywords are in your domain, this makes it super simple to be found and is actually quite important in SEO. So for example, my webinar software, Webinar Ninja, a big reason why we called it Webinar Ninja is because it's an easy, fast tool to be able to create webinars. But because the word webinar is in the actual domain, the key word that people would search for, this boosts our SE because it's a huge anchor for SEO engines when the actual keyword is in the website domain. And in fact I started with a webinar ninja co domain. When we started the business, I couldn't get the.com it was taken and the person wasn't selling. Later down the line I was able to acquire the dot com from the buyer and then we switched over from dotco dot com. That's a different lesson, different story, but it's definitely doable and something that you can do in the future. So if you don't have the.com today and maybe you can afford it later on, you could definitely do it. But keep that domain short as possible. And again, keywords in the actual domain. So I wouldn't worry too much if you have to get the.net or the.co or the. Whatever. At the end of the day, your content is what's going to rise to the top. What's actually on your website, what you actually offer is what's going to be found on search engines. And there are so many big businesses. I know, I know there are founders personally that don't have dot coms, that have iOS and dot cos and nets and they're multi, multimillion dollar companies because the product that they offer is actually great. There is One exception to my recommendation, if you have a non for profit, I do recommend you try to get the dot org. This gives you a bit more authority as a nonprofit when you're sharing your website. Now what you really do need to focus on when it comes to choosing your domain name are a few things. Number one, keep it simple. Like I said, keep it short. Try to keep your keyword or keywords in the domain. Number two, avoid double letters because this might cause people to be confused or make a typo. This is like if I have the domain race car Romeo, there's two R's in the middle there can get confusing. Number three and I've made this mistake. Don't use numbers because people are not going to know if you mean the actual number or to spell out the number. So for example, if Your domain is 30 dads club people are not going to know if they should type 30 or the word 30. Spell it out. Now. Often when you register a domain name, the domain registrar and by the way, we recommend Google domains and you can use our coupon code MBA. If you go to googledomains.com MBA to get a great deal, this is the registrar we use. It's going to offer you other extensions. So say for example, you find the net that works for you. It will say, hey, also the dot co and the IO is available. Now a lot of people ask should I register the other extensions? If they're fairly cheap and you can afford it, like $10, $20 a year. I say why not? We've done this in the past and continue to do this because you can use these sites as authority sites. You can use these sites to link back or forward to your main site. And what we've learned is many people will buy those other extensions of your domain and basically ransom it or they'll create a competitor product or competitor page or something like that. I know that sounds nasty and crazy, but this is the world of the Internet and this happens. All in all, use the domain name, the actual name that works best for your business. If the.com or a close variation is available, take it. If not, use another extension. It's fine. Focus on the content and know that this is just the beginning and you're just getting started with this domain. You may change it later. That's something better or close or the dot com version. USAA knows dynamic duos can save the day like superheroes and sidekicks or auto and home insurance. With USAA you can bundle your aut home and save up to 10%. Tap the banner to learn more and get a'@usaa.com bundle restrictions apply to wrap up today's Q and A Wednesday's Question From Peter does a.com matter? Should I go with a different extension? If it's available with your brand name, take it. Or a close variation of that. If not, focus on the things I talked about the keywords, keeping it simple, keeping it close to your brand. Don't worry so much about the extension right now. Grab that net or the co. It doesn't really, really break or make your business. At the end of the day, focus on creating incredible content, incredible blog posts, incredible value on your website so that Google will love you and rank you higher for your keywords. Thanks so much for listening. And if you got a question you want to ask, just like Peter did, just go ahead and email me over at omar@100mba.net and I'll make sure I answer right here on Q and A Wednesday. If you haven't started your first business yet, if you haven't made your first dollar, then you need to tune in into tomorrow's episode where we discuss how to make your first dollar as an entrepreneur. I can't wait to get into that one, so make sure you hit subscribe so you don't miss it. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. A lot of people worry about their domain name, the name of their business, all that kind of stuff. My rule of thumb is keep it simple, keep it easy to understand, and if you're trying to be too cute or trying so hard or your name needs explanation, you're probably doing it wrong. Okay, keep it simple and just get started. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. Take care. Of. 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