How To Choose A Domain Name For Your Real Estate Blogsite

Without doubt, the most common question that I get from brand new blogging clients is, "Can you help me choose a domain name?"

The days of agents using their own name as their website identity are gone, and this has them left with the task of developing a new, powerful brand.

After answering this question and setting up several hundred domains over the last few years the formula has become clear. That said, you could probably break everyone one of these 'rules' and still end up with an incredibly successful blog.

But before we get the guidelines, you need to get into a Domain Buying State of Mind.

What Are You Going To Be Blogging About? Ultimately your content will determine your success, not your domain name. However, taking into consideration what your topics of focus are to be make a nice direction for your site's name, and help potential visitors understand your focus.

Who Is Your Ideal Reader? Once you can define who you need to read your blog, you can consider what impact the domain name will make on them.

What First Impression Are You Looking To Make? We ask this question in our design interviews because it makes all the difference in connecting with what our clients' design needs are. This consideration can make a difference in your domain name selection.

What Are Your Blogging Goals? Leads VS Relationships - Communities VS Traffic - You As The Expert VS Your Site As The Tool.

Who Will Be Writing On The Blog? Is the name you choose going to work for everyone involved?

Basic Guidelines to Choosing A Real Estate Blog Domain Name

1. Easy To Remember

If your audience can’t remember your domain name at first glance then you have made a poor decision.

Note: Terms like “Real Estate” and your community of focus (San Diego, for example) are incredibly easy for your audience to remember. If your blog is a real estate site about San Diego simply tag a word that’s easy to remember to that and you’re fine. Wire, Voice, Blog, Report, News, Wave, Juice, Crab, Cafe… are all examples of single words added to an easy-to-remember combination.

StPaulRealEstateBlog.com
StLouisRealEstateVoice.com
MiamiRealEstateCafe.com

I’m not suggesting this type of combo as the best alternative, but it is common for a reason; it’s memorable. (There is one clear peril to using a term like 'blog' in the domain: Your site may grow to be bigger than the identity of the blog, and yet now limited, in impression, by the domain).

Beware of easy to confuse combinations of words. If the order of words don't make a strong impact, or don't have a natural order, you can be sure they will be jumbled, and your potential visitor will end up on someone else’s site.

ChicoHomeSearching.com VS HomeSearchingInChico.com VS ChicoHomeSearch.com

And finally, if it can’t be remembered, it can’t be branded.

2. Easy To Spell

Google does a good job of suggesting words when it catches a misspelling with their “Did You Mean?” feature. But that doesn’t mean that they will suggest your site. And, not all browsers automatically utilize a search engine if they don’t recognize the url.

If you cover a community that is commonly misspelled (Schenectady, for example), it would be worth buying domains with common misspellings just to cover all bases. I own RealEstateTomatoe.com, and you wouldn't believe how much traffic I still get for this misspelling.

And finally, if it is difficult to spell, it makes your domain harder to remember.

3. Value Of Keywords

The question is, "Do I Need "Real Estate" in the Domain Name?

The short answer is: No.

The other question is, "Should I have keywords in my domain name"

The short answer is: Yes, keywords are a benefit in your domain name. The reason is because when you are linked to, by another site using your domain name, the link the use contains these keywords, and they are considered a relevant description by the search engines. For example, if I link to SantaBarbaraRealEstateVoice.com from this article, the spiders will see the keywords Santa Barbara Real Estate associated with my link, giving a description to the site I am linking to. This is a key element to success with inbound links: that they clearly define and describe your site. You’ll see me regularly use keywords (and alt titles) when I link from my articles to boost the value of the link for site.

-BUT- Keywords in a domain are not required for your site’s success. Most of the successes you will gain in the search engines come from your content, not your domain name. I recommend that you first consider the memorability of the domain before you start adding keywords, just for keyword’s sake.

Some favorite real estate blogsite domains without a definitive keyword:

Miamism.com
HomeSection.com
CentersAndSquares.com

4. Length

The length of the domain is certainly relevant to the above considerations. 5 words in a domain name is not necessarily too many if it makes sense. Take Valerie Fitzgerald’s domain name: LosAngelesRealEstateTalk.com. The name of the area and the term ‘real estate’ are a given, leaving just the term ‘blog’ to be remembered. No one interested in reading a blog about real estate in Los Angeles is going to forget that domain name.

However, something like: CastleRockRealEstateHomesForSale.com is ridiculous. It is difficult to remember, keyword stuffed and a P.I.T.A. to type. Remember, the object is to create a powerful brand that supports your powerful content, not to make a mockery of your site's name just to improve your SEO.

5. Relevance To Your Audience

This is where it gets fun and creative choosing your domain name. If you choose a domain name that makes a strong impact on your audience, versus worrying about SEO and keywords, you start to win them over upon their first visit.

BeltwayRamblings.com (Reference to the Capitol Beltway of I-495 and I-95 around Washington DC)
TheFrontPorchView.com (Dedicated to North Georgia Mountain Real Estate, think vacation cabins)
PostCardsFromTheLake.com (Lake of the Ozarks second home anyone?)
LoCoMusings.com (Heather Elias's Inspired and Curious Thoughts from Loudoun County, VA)

Fun, clever, odd, easy-to-remember. The impact can be the branding you need. I know that naming our site Real Estate Tomato set us apart made a huge impact on our success from a branding perspective.

6. Theme Of Site/Design

You know what you want the theme of your site to be, but you aren't sure what to call it yet.

This happens all the time with our new clients. One fun example was Rick Smenner who wanted to make sure that his site's theme was based around Knoxville and their beloved Tennessee Vols. Eventually, the name was chosen based on their nickname: Big Orange.

TheBigOrangePress.com

7. Articles and Intro Words

"The, A, An..." Putting an article at the beginning of a domain can get you your dream combo. However you are walking the line of being confused for the original combination that you couldn't register (TheRealEstateBlog vs RealEstateBlog,). Sometimes it is too hard to resist and you'll ignore the concerns... but be certain, they're there for a reason.

The better reason to pick up domains with introductory articles is to avoid someone else grabbing one and creating confusion as your competition. Yes, we own TheRealEstateTomato.com too.

"My, Your, ..." More distinct intro words can eliminate some of the combo confusion caused by articles because they carry meaning behind them. YourHoustonVoice.com certainly stands out as being different from HoustonVoice.com. The only concern I would stress is the length that domain names grow to by adding intro words.

8. Anything Other Than DotCom?

The short answer is No No No.

My advice is to avoid having to choose a domain other than .com at all costs. The only exception is to make the minor investment to pick up those supporting extensions (.net etc) to prevent some joker from buying (and using) them, or because you have alternative plans with the same branding. Yes, we own RealEstateTomato.net. We have used it as our development domain for sites under construction, but now it just forwards to the blog.

9. Extras: The Hyphen and Numbers

Domain names do allow for numbers and hyphens, the only characters outside of the alphabet. But does that mean you should use them?

Number Pros:
Numbers shorten domain names.
Expand availability.
Zip codes and area codes are real estate relevant.

Number Negatives:
When telling someone your URL you need to make it clear that you have a number in the name to avoid confusion.

Hyphen Pros:
There is argument that hyphenated-domain-names are stronger SEO.
Expand availability.

Hyphen Negatives:
Ever try to tell someone a domain that has hyphens in it? Total PITA.
Hyphens are easily forgotten, and you probably chose your hyphenated domain because your first choice without hyphens wasn't available. Guess where your traffic is going now.
In my opinion, hyphens look tacky, and tacky does not brand well.

10. The Age Exception

In some cases, older domain names can be enough of an asset to ignore most of the above advice.

When redesigning an established site to include a blog, it's better to just leave it as it is currently named. If you have a domain that has been active for many years, it is argued that the search engines will be more apt to give it authority in search results. And finally, if you have a lot of traffic coming to a domain name, it's best to not change horses in the middle of the race just to satisfy my opinions.

If you do find yourself using an established domain name for one of these reasons, it may be useful to brand a strong image and/or slogan for the blog.

A great example of this is Sandy Bauman's site: ChicoHomeSearch.net.
She breaks most of my rules above. First of all, she works in at least 2 other major markets outside of Chico. She is using Home Search in her blog's name. And, she is using the .net extension. BUT... this domain name was registered 5 years ago, has been live ever since and she has completely re-branded herself, as you can see. She also is killing it in the search engines, and this blog now accounts for more than 75% of her new business.

So who am I to tell her to change it?

____

Quick and Dirty Tips (read: opinions)

Unless you are incredibly well known, don't use your name in your blog domain name.
Don't name your blog with terms like Homes, Search, Property, Listings, etc.
Careful not to paint yourself into a community/niche that you may grow out of.

Domain Name Resources:

My favorite lookup service: InstantDomainSearch.com
Where I buy all my domain names: GoDaddy.com

And finally, I owe a link to Mr. Joe Spake for winning the music theme contest on Tomato Radio a few episodes back. So here you go, Joe - visit : spake.com and MemphisRealEstateBuzz.com

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Tags: Blog+Domain+Names, Real+Estate+Blogging, Blogging+Advice

Comments

[teresa boardman]

OK I like this and your explanation. I know many who agonize over domain names for like ever while I am blogging my brains out. (doesn't take long to blog my brains out" I am disappointed though that you did not explain the Tomato thing. I know it is branding but seriously it is not easy for some of us to spell and oh my what do tomatoes have to do with real estate? LOL

[Ken Brand]

Thank you for this detailed and meaty information. I'll share and refer this to all our team members. Cheers.

[Joe Spake]

Thanks for the shout-out, Jim. I guess I have been around this website stuff long enough to keep my name for branding, but you made some great points which should be useful to everyone. Maybe I should have given you my real estate blog URL when I won the "Turner" contest - http://memphisrealestatebuzz.com

[Kevin Schmidtchen]

This is definitely a struggle for most of us when we just start. I myself registered a few names just in case I decided to change...what is an extra $9 per year for the extra URL? I think it is always great to simply have your town and the words real estate or homes for sale in the URL. Anyhow, good article and thanks for the mention of my site.

take care

[Jim Cronin]

Teresa,
I actually had the story in here and removed it because I thought that the article was getting to be too long.
The story is not as exciting as the domain name.
I was driving behind a Tomato Truck on the way back from presenting at the Placer Assoc. of Realtors and thinking of what I should name the blog I was going to start. Sacramento (the nearest city to me) is nicknamed Sac-O-Tomato, and I was planning on writing about marketing for Sacramento RE... and the rest is history.

Joe, it's your lucky day... I posted both links =)

[Ricardo Bueno]

I really like that you pulled on a lot of examples from various Tomato sites here... This is truly a question that almost EVERYONE asks when entering the design process...

[Mike Rohrig]

One other small thing is that you will find domains with Realtor easily available. That's because it is trademarked and nar will send a desist order as many have found.

[Josef]

I think I chose a very good name for my website ( using the local language ) but I think it had no effect on my website, the content and the vesability by search engines is the most important, unless you already have a very large customer base

[TheBigOrangePress.com]Knoxville TN Real Estate Blog]

Jim,

Great Post on picking a domain name for your site. I have to give alot of credit to you and your staff in helping me pick the name for my site. Before we even started the design of my site I spend alot of time talking to Chris and Rob about my site and what it was going to be focusing on for my market. The three of us had a brainstorming session and out of it came the name TheBigOrangePress.com

The RET understands the importance of a strong domain name and have the talent to help it clients pick the right one.

Thanks again for everything Rick Smenner

[Liz Bolton]

I went through all sorts of gyrations trying to pin down a name. When I came up with CentersAndSquares I tried to buy CirclesAndSquares since I figured it would be a common mistake (one that I made more than once in the beginning). Turns out somebody was trying to sell it for $2500 - I guess it's a square dancing term.

[Joshua Dorkin @ BiggerPockets]

What an awesome, detailed post guys! I wish I could add more to it, but I think you covered almost everything. Nice work!

[Sara]

I agree, picking the right domain name is relevant. It is really necessary that your domain name is easy to remember so that it can gain visitor easily. Those tips are really useful whenever one is planning to have their own website, it's an advantage to market it not that hard through the use of good quality keywords.

[Some dude.]

YOU CAN JUST add your keyword at your title tags, meta description, and keyword tags. no need to put it in your domain name, so Google can crawl your website. In my cases, My domain name is my main keyword. Think wisely in choosing your domain, it is also one of the factor that can affect your website ranking.

[BBO]

When choosing a domain name for your blog you have to consider some factors like who's gonna be your audience, and is there a speciffic place you want to blog about.

[Portland Real Estate]

Very good points and tips. I have had this discussion with many agents who just like to use their full name for their domain name. Where that might be easy to remember if they know you, I would not want to rely on it completely (especially for those without easy to remember or spell names). It is also important to know that once you have chosen a name and started using it, it is much harder to change later. Pick something that you are going to want to stick with.

-Tyler

[Rob]

I totally agree that the most important part of a domain is if it's easy to remember. If you have your site set up so you can easily add keywords to domain extensions you don't need keywords in your main URL. I went with quirky, easy to remember and relevant to my local area (east Los Angeles, Silver Lake, Los Feliz, etc) with mine - takesunset.com and I am doing just fine with SEO.

[Commentor needs to learn to use a name that is a name not SEO]

Choosing domain is important, it will be the trademark of you real estate business in every search engine. I think much better if your domain name can also be used as keywords for SEO purposes.

[nick]

Very interesting post, our site is called Spanish hot properties and the blog is just an extenstion of that ie http://www.spanishhotproperties.com/blog/ but your right about choosing the name. When we first started our market was Intenational clients mainly from the UK ans UK citizens account for about 60% of all international property purchases in Spain. However whilst Spanish Hot Properties is a great name for the english speaking market it doesnt mean a lot to the local market as we now put our site into Spanish and target the local market as well. Obviously this is a nuniqe problem for International real estate companies but does illustrate how important it is to get the name right for now and for the future

[Bob Gibbs]

Great post and very good information. I probably bought 15-20 URLs before finally taking the time to decide on my message and intent for the site. I chose the URL I am now using because it fits exactly with our business plan and is very scaleable.

[Nick Johnson]

This blog is exactly what I've been looking for! I was referred here by BiggerPockets.com where the site owner Josh put out a blog on his top 35 blogs. Once I got here I can understand why he likes it so much. I've been looking to get some credible information on improving my blog(s) and I appreciate what you have shared.

[Pisos]

Deciding domain is essential, it will be the make of you real estate business in all search engine. I believe much superior if your domain name can in addition be used as keywords for SEO objectives.

[Harrison]

Choosing the right name is very important.This is as important as your own name.Businesses get to be known by their brand names overtime and the name which you would give to your business would also be an extended identity to your name.

[NA Tool]

Excellent advice. Do your keyword research and try to use them in URL's.

[Julia Odom]

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on forwarding domains. I have a wordpress blog as well as a website that uses my name as the URL. I also have some different domains, www.ChattaBlog.com which forwards to my blog and ChattaSelling.com, ChattaBuying.com, ChattaPros.com & common misspellings of my last name, all of which forward to my website. My theory is that people who know my name can find me easily but I've also got some alternates that I can use to make it a little easier to remember/type.

[Jim Cronin]

All forwarding domains do is make it easier to brand/remember alternate avenues to the site. There is no real SEO value for them. I use a few that link to RealEstateTomato.com to help with mispellings, and other projects that I haven't embarked upon yet... such as www.realestateblogbook.com