Choosing the best domain names for real estate investing do play a part in your success as a real estate investor.
If you have a website, you’ll want to get a domain name. A domain name is like yourname.com.
Sometimes it’s possible to have a website without having your own domain name. For example, our real estate investor website service at DoneDealWebsite.com gives you a website address you can use without having a domain name. It might look like donedealwebsite.com/joebuyshouses
However, even if you don’t have to have a domain name, it’s usually best because it makes you look more professional. If you’re putting your website in marketing materials like business cards, signs, etc. you’ll want to have a domain name. And if you want to work on optimizing your website for search engines, it’s best to have your own domain name.
Choosing the best domain names for real estate isn’t always easy. I always find that the domain names I want are already taken. So how can you choose a good domain name?
Here are a few tips for choosing a good domain name:
Shorter is usually better. It’s good to have a domain name that will easily fit on signs and other promotional materials. The longer the domain name, typically the harder it is to remember, and the bigger the chances of someone typing it in wrong.
Make it easy to remember. If you can include two words that start with the same letter, it helps people remember it. For example, one domain name I bought for real estate investing was ProHouseHelp.com. You can see that there are two words that start with the letter “H”: “House” and “Help”. Also, try not to be too generic. A lot of investors use things like “Property Solutions” or other generic phrases. That’s OK, but it’s really easy to forget. If you can include something more memorable, it’s much better. Make it something that’s hard to forget. For example, an investor I know is a biker. He got the domain name, TheBikerWhoBuysHouses.com. That really stands out and you’re likely to remember it.
Include a benefit. It’s great if you can include a benefit to your prospects in your domain name. Are you dealing with motivated sellers? Think of what benefit you can provide to them. What do they want? Usually to sell their house fast. One investor I know used the domain name, “72 Hour Offer”. That is something easy to remember and the benefit to the seller is clear. They know they will get an offer on their property within 72 hours.
Make it dot com. There are lots of different extensions available now for domain names. The extension is the part of the domain name that is usually “.com”. There are many other options, like “.net”, “.info”, “.biz”, etc. There are some new ones that might especially be tempting, like “.house”, “.apartments”, “.properties”, and “.rentals”. And those might be OK in some cases. But generally speaking, you’re better off to go with a .com domain if you possibly can. One main reason is “.com” is what people associate with websites.
Some Drawbacks of Non “.COM” Websites
If you have something other than “.com”, people may not even realize it’s a web address. Most of us aren’t used to seeing these other extensions. If you see something like: “ibuyhouses.properties” do you think of a website address? Likely not. But if you see something like: “ibuyhouses.com” you know it’s a website address, right? Also, if you’re doing offline advertising like with signs, people may put “.com” at the end even if that’s not what the ad said. So if your website address is “ibuyhouses.properties”, they may type in “ibuyhouses.properties.com”, which means they won’t end up at your website. So if at all possible, go with a .com.
Where to Get a Domain Name
There are many sites that sell domain names. I’ve helped thousands of real estate investors with their websites and I’ve seen all kinds of domain services. Some of them are really difficult to work with. I’d recommend going with one of the bigger, well-known companies because they have better resources available and they typically are easier to work with. When it comes time to point your domain name to your website, you want it to be as painless as possible.
Here are the two domain name services I recommend:
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