I am trying to move into the 90’s and get a website up and running to link my online ordering to. The obvious domain name for my business is not available and I really don’t want to use a .net or .biz domain. What do you think of using www.thefastestdelivery.com? It seems easy to remember, easy to spell, but I’m worried that not using the business name will cause a lose of some brand identity. Any thoughts?
.biz and .net domains may not be as valuable or popular, however, they can be used to market your business just as easy as a .com…Most of your traffic will be generated by your own activities so the ending not quite as important as the front end that re-inforces your brand…
No offense, but can’t say I’m a big fan of thefastestdelivery.com… that doesn’t sound like a pizza place to me. It sounds like a delivery business.
What name were you going for? I’m pretty good at renaming websites under these types of circumstances.
Let me know and I could throw you a couple suggestions.
(btw, what happened to the “edit” button? lol)
It’s just my own 2 cents, so as others say, it’s worth what you paid…but I’m in favor of using your own shop name in any and all marketing, including a website. I’m of the opinion you want your consumer to be drilling your name in their heads first…and then, your tag-line like your fastest delivery pledge.
I know last year I had the same delima, some jerk parked rockstarpizza.COM
so I went with .net I really dont think that it has made a difference at all because most of the time I drive the traffic using varies items…that being said when it does come available I may consider purchasing but right now its not worth what they are asking…
Ron
Ah, great advice Ron…that’s why I secured my .com domain name prior to any inkling of what I’m up to being public. I don’t know if they would, but no sense in giving the competition a chance to block you all for the couple of bucks a domain regitration costs.
Now if I could just get me a kick butt website designer for the price of a couple of pies! :lol:
Check out http://www.razorit.com
They do great work and they have great prices. Ask for Rich, mention my name and he’ll take care of you. -Roger
Paul7979, you’re right to worry about the loss of brand identity. Branding is a huge component of getting customers to remember who you are. Imagine for a moment all of your menus, flyers, literature, magnets, loyalty cards, etc. with just the website fastestdelivery.com on them. A website name like this is not going to keep your pizzeria’s name in the mind of your customers. You want your name to be everywhere, including your Web URL, even if that means using .net or .biz. If you’re really set on having a .com URL, explore ways to tack on an extra word such as pizza, pizzeria, etc. to make the name work. Let us know how it goes!
P.S. This question and response is scheduled to be featured in the Think Tank portion of our Letters to the Editor for May’s PMQ Pizza Magazine.
Liz Barrett, editor-in-chief
PMQ Pizza Magazine
i added the name of my town at the end of my shops name and the .com was available
4 what its worth…I PM’d Paul - there are a few variations of his store’s name, using a hyphen & a numeral that will/should work out (using netsol.com, you can even find a dormant name & try to buy it)
Paul
When I registered our domain Pizzapizzazz.com was taken so I went the next steps and took .com.au, .net, net.au and .biz. This then gave me all alternatives for pizzazpizzazz in Australia as well as some internationally. We are in the throes of getting a website up and will also be registering the same plus .com in a the name of our theme listed on our menus and advertising. All will link in together what ever a customer enters. Just locking out any competitior action on these names for the cost of >$100 a year.
I guess the problem you have going with a domain that is similar to yours is that customers incorrectly input the URL and get a competitor outlet. At least with pizzapizzazz.com is not a pizza site but one of those directories.
Is there anything on your menu or advertising that you could make your domain name that customers will recognise as your outlet?
Dave
I’m not a big fan of using hyphens. Numbers are ok, but not ideal too. Telling a customer, “my website is xyzpizza.com”; is much better than “my website is xyz ‘dash’ pizza.com” Many people will forget the dash and never get to your site, so what’s the point? With numbers, you may get the response, “2 as in then number two or t-w-o, t-o, or t-o-o?”… I’m sure you get the drift.
Just make sure you don’t accidentally add yourself to the list of slurls…