While we might have a very prestigious business address in a well-known office building, on a well-traveled street, or a road known for having contractors or design professionals located along it that we have intentionally chosen, this address may not be as important as it once was. It might even be helpful to our branding such as having an impressive number like 1000 or with the road the same name as part of our business name.
However, we might have a home-based business where the street address is less consequential because we don’t rely on foot traffic or the prominence of the actual address.
Where we are physically located – even in an executive suite set of offices or a virtual office location – is not particularly important unless we need to be visible to the public so that they can physically come to us. This is more important with older clients than with younger ones who are tending to shop more online anyway.
That’s why we need to have a much more important address – a website or domain name – for people to find.
Even at that, it doesn’t need to be a name that becomes a household word, one that is so descriptive of what we do that no one else can have a better domain name or one that is a marketing gem. It just needs to be an address that people can use to find information about what we offer and contact us.
It’s hard to think of any business today – from fast food, delivery, shoe shine, taxi, retail, attorney, retail, or anything else – that does not have a website or at least a domain name (even if they haven’t actually built their website).
We want to establish, create, and maintain our personal brand so that people will want contact and do business with us, and we want them to ask us to help them renovate their homes for them so they can remain living in them successfully as they age over time.
Therefore, we need to be ready for people to contact us, and that starts with having a website for them to find us. They may not physically get in their car or take mass transit to our location, but they can and do shop for our services online – except for those people who have not embraced the internet age and don’t have access to it.
A website is no longer a luxury. Every business has one. When a vacant lot or an empty building begins preparing for a new tenant, a “Coming Soon” sign goes up, and on that sign is always a website address, It used to be a phone number to call for information, but now it is a website because every business is expected to have one – and they do.
In a website address, we can use our name, the name of our business, or a small descriptor, but the main thing to keep in mind is that people need to remember it, to find it relatively easy to say and type, and not confuse it with similar sounding websites of others – in a related business or not.
If our website name has multiple repeating consonants or vowels – several of the same letter – or needs to be spelled for someone because it is unclear what we are saying or how it actually is spelled, we should choose a simpler name to use for our site.
We want people to feel like they are visiting a professional site. Therefore, a “dot com” address is the best one to use. Most of us are not a “dot net” or “dot org” business, and other extensions aren’t as professional for us to use. We need to ask ourselves how we would feel looking for a business like ours when we typed in the name that we will be using as our domain address. Does it look or sound like a business or more like a hobby or casual pursuit?
Even if it will be a little while before actually launching the business, we should have and register a domain name now. It can be as simple as our own name dot come, or it can specify the name of our business or the service we provide.