I agree with Thesa. If the site really takes off or it becomes a lead generator it will be worth cash if it has a name that is not associated with your name.
Doug
Sharon,
My website is my name. That being said, I think it was a mistake. I am keeping it now because it is indexed and ranks well with google for quite a few search terms. My long term plan is to purchase a few domain names related to the area and then build websites for them. It seems the websites at the top of Google in my area all have our town and state in the domain name.
I am going to keep my name to prevent anyone else from using it though. At $8 an year it is cheap insurance!
Rita
I think it's important to have your name because.... it's your name! You can have multiple domains pointing to your site. Get your name if you can, but your main domain, which you use for marketing should be descriptive - NOT your personal name. Plus, if you're lucky to have an easy to spell name, it's most likely gone by now. If your name is still available it probably is difficult to spell, which just creates more problems.
Contrary to what many people lead you to believe, it doesn't really help to have a descriptive domain in regards to search engines, as it doesn't really count for ranking, but it IS helpful if you're marketing offline. I have clients with hundreds of descriptive domains, which they use in their offline marketing and for marketing individual properties.
If you ever get out of the business, you also have something to 'sell' (assuming you have a good domain and a decent website). Nobody will buy SueJohnson.com - it's worthless to anyone else but Sue.
If you have your website on your car window, license plate, etc. What does "www.SueJohnson.com" mean? Do you sell tupperware? Looking for a date? Selling Avon? Are you a hooker looking for a ...... ?
www.AtlantaHomes.com says EXACTLY what you do, EXACTLY how to find you and EXACTLY how to make contact with you. But I would get your name if you can - that's just smart. For $8 a year - if you pay it - it's yours until you die!
As Fred Light mentioned above, it doesn't hurt to have more than one.
I personally own my name, but I also have about a dozen more that I use for other purposes, like email or pointing. All of them are market descriptive, like MoveToHershey and MoveToLebanon.
Buying domain names for a year is the price of two Latte Grandes at Starbucks.
I think some good points have been made here. I think real estate agents should try everything in order to make yourself and your the homes you sell as findable as possible.
It's true that registering your ownname.com is a very good idea, especially if the .com is still available. The old adage of wanting people to think your name when they think of real estate in your town still rings true
I also think that keyword rich domain names are very good idea. Such as www.Princeton-Luxury-Homes.com . Though we would not argue that taken in isolation a keyword rich domain name is all you have to do to get good search results, we do believe that it cant hinder. We also feel that it does have appeal to those who are looking for homes, rather than shopping for real estate agents, (which is the majority).
Once you have the listing, we feel you cant do much better than buying a "street address" domain name and putting on your yard sign rider. With the increased usage of smart(ish) phone, its much more likely that buyers will be sitting outside your listing typing in the street address domain name of the home to get from your yard sign to the property web site in one click. You can register a cheap domain name for your listings for $1.99 from United-States-Domains for a .info extension at the moment which has to be about as recession proof a marketing idea as you can get!
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