Imagine youve just signed up to Happn, Tinder, or the latest dating app to grace our screens. You have a parameter of a few inches (depending on your device), a selection of your best photos, and a few characters to showcase your entire personality.
It can be a great way to meet new people, but it can also be extremely hard to attract the perfect match. Of course, if only people had the chance to get to know the real you, youd be an instant success. But we all know first impressions count especially in an era of attention deficit.
The same goes for startups making their first foray into the market. Its widely acknowledged that brands typically have around five to seven seconds to engage consumers before they move on to something else.
Holding a captive audience is no easy task. For young companies bursting on to the scene, choosing a name which succinctly sums up their business is one of the most exciting elements of their journey. A good brand name should be reflective of your market position, your offering and, most importantly, your business ethos.
But no matter how catchy or memorable a name is, a good brand rests on so much more; particularly among smaller businesses.
One area which is often overlooked or ill-considered is the companys domain name. If you’re starting out small, do you go with “.uk”, or do you instantly want to be seen as global, therefore “.com” is de facto
Perhaps part of your brand currently rests on the fact that you are a disruptive startup, so “.io” is the domain of your choice to be a little different. But the question is; will that carry your brand and reputation as your company expands Will your customers really understand the quirky reference you are trying to make What if you want to make the switch as the business grows, but someone else has snapped up the domain name of your choice
Just like the perfect profile picture, a memorable domain name can help businesses stand out from the noise of search engines and social media. And aside from the established extensions, there are many more available to help a business tell the world what it’s really about.
Many London-based businesses are already using the .london extension to express their local connection, while members of the Irish community looking to reconnect with their heritage can easily learn Irish Gaelic at sites like www.bitesize.irish.
What is the best domain name for your business Should you get a tailored extension or should you opt for the global “.com”” Find out on page two.
This development of being able to choose a domain name of choice comes as welcome news, particularly to many early stage companies who in the past might have been forced to choose a name composed of weird combinations of letters, just to make sure the matching domain was available.
With the term “cloud” increasingly becoming part of our everyday vocabulary, as the most popular services on the internet are cloud-based, the .cloud extension scheduled to launch in mid-November has the potential to become a solid option for companies looking to stand out.
For example, UK-based startup ScreenCloud has been quick to build the new extension into its brand, having recently launched their screen.cloud website, among the first in the world as part of the .cloud Pioneer program.
And it’s not just startups that stand to benefit from looking at their domain name and what it means to their brand. Existing businesses, with an already established web presence, may be able to use an additional domain to house a new product or service. Canonical, maker of the most popular Linux distribution Ubuntu, is in the process of launching the domain ubuntu.cloud to give a clear destination to its customers looking specifically for their cloud offering.
Meanwhile in the US, fast-food giant Taco Bell recently made the headlines with a clever marketing campaign featuring the domain ta.co; a short and catchy name that is easy to remember and puts just 5 key-strokes between hungry customers and their burritos!
So just as with dating apps, remember a good domain, just like that perfect headshot, only gets your date (or customer) through the door.
At that point, it’s your websites job to keep them interested: make sure the quality of your products and service really shines, so that they will want to stay (and make sure all their friends know your name).
Francesco Cetraro is head of registry operations at .cloud.
