You have a real estate website, now what?
First step is buying your OWN domain. At least one but you can have a lot of fun when you purchase multiple domains!
Why buy a domain? Simple – You should ALWAYS purchase your own domain so you always have full control over your websites, your real estate marketing, your branding and everything that comes along with this.
How to choose a domain? This is probably the hardest part… deciding what domain to purchase and use. Here are some of my thoughts on this.
Always buy your firstlastname.com (even if you don’t use it, many times people will do search for your name first so buy this, maybe even buy a couple versions if you can, especially if you have a commonly misspelled last name (like me – Holliday – my name isn’t available but I would buy HeatherHolliday and HeatherHoliday.com).
Keep it short and memorable. Your domain should be short and easy for someone to remember. You will be putting these on all of your marketing including your business cards so the shorter it is, the larger print you can use on a small business card.
Stay away from Tradmarked names. If you are going to use a trademarked name, be sure you look up and follow the rules associated with doing this (realtor, remax, other franchise name). There is nothing worse than advertising a domain and having it on all your social, signs, advertising only to get a cease and desist letter and having to rebrand yourself! If you do buy those domains, that is fine – just don’t use it as your main advertising.
Buy multiple domains. If you are looking to have landing pages on your website for farming neighborhoods, cities, etc. Get multiple domains that are cohesive with your marketing and branding so when you are farming that area you can use that domain on the print marketing.
Do I buy .com, .net, .org, .realestate? I would advise to always buy .com’s since that is what people automatically think of for websites. .orgs are for non-profits.
Think of your Branding. Your social accounts, your user names, the #hashtags you can use in your posts. Ideally you would want all of your business social to match your domain name so here are some ideas to get your brain going on deciding what domain will work for you.
HeatherMOVES321 (areacode – but easily purchase multiple domains for your farming areas)
HeatherSELLS321
HeatherSOLDit.com
321Homes.com
DiscoverHomesinBrevard (County / city / neighborhood)
Once you have your domain, you can set up DNS records for most websites. The other domains if you chose multiple domains, can easily be forwarded to those pages on your website! Click here for tips on setting up your booj domain.
This is your business so at minimum you should always have at least one domain that you have full control over. Do not have a website company or your office purchase this for you. You purchase it so you have control of it. You are worth the $15/yr to control your business and marketing! I personally use godaddy.com, they are super simple to use and have always had great customer support.
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