Dull company name.com v 'what we actually sell.com' choices

[Ken Figenus]

I bagged a couple of new domain names a few years ago which I thought seemed great for a local business. My website designer was uninterested and negative though so they have been a bit dormant. I still think they are really good as they say what the company does in its locality - think something like:

SmashingCarRepairs.com
v
CarCrashRepairsCardiff.Wales + CarCrashRepairs.Wales

Why is my website guy so unimpressed? Is there any way I could lever these seemingly useful local/regional URL's? Or maybe feed them into the main long-established site or are they pretty worthless?

Thanks for any advice

[Simpo Two]

Your website guy is a website guy not a marketing expert. If you pay him, pay him to get on with what you want. If it works you win; if it doesn't, buy him a congratulatory mouse mat

[DSLiverpool]

Smashingcarrepairs is very memorable.
Good for visual and offline that’s a good thing, also urls are less vital as people click on google results etc.

[akirk]

Any website - regardless of the domain name will only work based on how you market it / link it / monetise it / etc.

yes, a memorable name is useful - especially if advertising offline where people might see it on a billboard / vehicle / bus / etc. and need to remember it - but it possibly is not as strong an advantage as you might think online...

look at big brands:
- amazon
- google
- duckduckgo
- instagram
- godaddy
- 123-reg
- etc.

are they popular because of the brand / domain name - or is the brand / domain name known because they are popular...
who sets out to build a hosting site on a brand of godaddy?
who sets out to build a search engine on duckduckgo

no-one based on relevant name logic - yet both are now big and well known...

which browser would you choose:
- firefox
- chrome
- safari
- internet explorer
- edge

only one of them says what it does on the tin - yet it is the worst by miles and is now renamed!

so, your website guy is not wrong - the value comes from how you market it not the name directly...
and having .wales etc. may or may not add an advantage - difficult to know...
a website like webuyanycar.com became well known because of tv and other ads - the tv jingle means that people get it in their head as an ear worm and if you talk to people about it now there is a strong link between how they pronounce it and the jingle on tv - marketing works...

so the reality is - get the marketing right and you can build virtually any word into a brand / well known domain - keep it simple, make sure that the feel matches the type of business etc. and don't overthink it - 'appropriate words' in a domain will not automatically give you an advantage without the marketing - unless you are at the expensive end of domains such as chess.com etc.

[Aircooled_Bug]

akirk said:

only one of them says what it does on the tin - yet it is the worst by miles and is now renamed!

But once it had virtually a complete monopoly, which it is fair to say came from it being bundled, and the current most popular by far (although not anywhere near as popular as Microsoft's Internet Explorer once was) was helped by having the search engine everyone uses (as well as making the browser work well on all the mobile devices).

Back on the name, I like Smashing Car Repairs a lot, and .com always the one to have, but if you already have an established business, with a different name, and a site that is working for you and can see the argument for not bothering as it will create confusion.

[Ken Figenus]

You are comparing me with some really huge global businesses guys - flattered ;-) Great info though - appreciated.

I need to research if having a very local/regional url with this sub business will be a good thing. I have to say that I am unaware of hitting any sites that are, say, 'weekendbreaks.wales' when googling for 'weekend breaks in wales'. I wonder if there is any value in the 'say what you see' approach? Needs more research.

[akirk]

Ken Figenus said:

You are comparing me with some really huge global businesses guys - flattered ;-) Great info though - appreciated.

I need to research if having a very local/regional url with this sub business will be a good thing. I have to say that I am unaware of hitting any sites that are, say, 'weekendbreaks.wales' when googling for 'weekend breaks in wales'. I wonder if there is any value in the 'say what you see' approach? Needs more research.

same psychology applies - and who knows where you will be in 10 years (can I have 1% of shares just in case?! )

it used to be that a domain name saying what you were about was a big SEO plus - not any longer...

If someone is searching online then your domain name is not vital - they will click to visit you anyway...
if someone is seeing your domain offline and typing it in then:
- the more memorable = better
- easier to spell = better
- shorter = better
- they will by default remember the main section and add .com / .co.uk - so weekendbreaks.wales will sometimes be typed in as weekendbreaks.com and they will go to your competitor
- a lot of users don't know what the URL bar is for in a browser, they will just go to Google and search your domain name rather than realising that they could type it in directly... what will then come up in a search, especially if they only put in your main domain name not the TLD

consider inventing a word - no competition when people search yes you will need to get your marketing right, but that is the case for any business...

[sideways sid]

Interesting to compare/contrast differences in naming companies between UK and US.

UK (typically, not always, obviously) favours esoteric/meaningless names (e.g. Corus, Aviva), whilst US seem to prefer functionally descriptive names (United States Steel Corp, American National Insurance Co).

I guess one consideration is limiting your audience / market because of the name. If www.SmashingCarRepairsWales.co.uk becomes successful, its harder to expand into the rest of UK and internationally than it would be without the reference to Wales. So perhaps the question is what are your aspirations for growth?

[sociopath]

Whenever I see websites like mobilephoneschester.com etc I just assume they're auto generated websites and so discount them and go and look for a proper local business and not some templated fake site.