Top Challenges for Businesses: Your Domain Name and Digital Real Estate

Your domain name is the foundation of your online presence and helps you establish brand consistency and credibility. Here’s what you need to know about getting it right.

Key takeaways:

• A domain name is often how people find you.
• It should be succinct and properly represent your brand.
• Key factors that stem from your domain name include clear brand identity, establishing digital real estate, authentication, and building trust.

Businesses face challenges as technologies and tools emerge and best practices evolve. Today’s digital-centric world requires online presence to be a number-one priority, but lots of business owners just don’t understand the value of all the components involved. 

Those elements include their domain names and ability to secure digital real estate. Think of the domain name as the North Star that guides all other aspects of a digital presence. It’s not enough to create a handle for social media, create one company email account, and stop there. The primary domain name and website filter into the rest of a brand’s channels, and everything must be consistent for customers to feel a business is trustworthy and credible. 

Let’s walk through the top challenges in securing digital real estate and how they all relate back to that domain name.

The importance of a domain name

Your domain name is the part that comes after “www.” in your web address, and it’s the foundation of your online presence. Creating a succinct name that matches that of your business – or is otherwise catchy and easy to remember – helps people recognize your brand, visit your website more easily and regularly, and build a strong business image. It can be the determining factor in people finding you online or your website getting lost in the deep webs of cyberspace. 

Your domain name is a digital asset that is a major part of your brand’s digital real estate. You thus want to avoid a clunky one or one that’s completely different from your business name. So, why else is a domain name so important? Let’s walk through some key factors to consider:

1. A clear brand identity

The right domain name establishes your business’s credibility online. A strong one gives your customers a deep understanding of who you are, who you serve, and what you do. It also gives them the opportunity to recognize your name and logo. Customers may decide to go with another brand without this clarity. Your central website and domain name are crucial in making sure you’re staying competitive. 

2. Establishing digital real estate

Digital real estate refers to the online space your brand occupies: your website, social media pages, and any other profiles you may have online. Your domain name is central to this infrastructure. A succinct, effective domain should tie to all other online locations where customers can find and interact with you. This helps you quickly foster consistency and reliability.

3. Authentication

Having a solid domain name shows audiences that you are legitimate and that your brand has been authenticated. Remember that your URL should always be verified with a security certificate. Also make sure the information in all your listings – including your Google My Business account and others that are applicable to your industry – matches. Having conflicting information on these listings detracts from your trustworthiness, and your customers might be confused and move on to a competitor.

4. Corporate emails

Companies have two email options when they create businesses: They can match all their department and staff emails with the same domain name, or they can have their people use personal accounts. The former shows professionalism and authority, is pretty easy to set up, and helps those your brand serves connect the dots and view your communications as genuine. If you haven’t created matching emails yet, this small step will help people connect your messages back to your website and build brand awareness.

5. Building trust

When your domain name, corporate emails, and social accounts match, you build a consistent brand that breeds trust and visibility. Customers want to be able to verify that your brand is credible and legitimate, and a strong digital presence provides them that peace of mind. This requires making sure you’re verified at every level within your digital presence. 

Is your brand name the same on all your social accounts and landing pages? Are your social names consistent with your domain name? Is there any room for misunderstandings? Address discrepancies or contradictions early so that all your channels match and people will know who you are.

How Bolles Media can help

Your domain name and website are at the center of your digital footprint. Presenting these resources in the right way puts your brand on its way to establishing trust and visibility  to attract new customers and continue growing. Bolles Media helps you boost your digital real estate and credibility, plus assists with implementing digital marketing resources that will attract and engage customers, leading to more conversions. 

We are supporters of HubSpot’s flywheel business model – which is comprised of sales, marketing, and service – too. These three segments won’t move along effectively without that central domain name, though. Bolles Media helps businesses like yours tackle one of the biggest challenges: establishing that strong, stable foundation. Yours will stay aligned across your channels with the right domain name and website in place, and you’ll become more recognizable to your audiences as well. 

Contact Bolles Media today to learn more about our services or to schedule a free consultation.