My girlfriend sells hand bags as a side business and hobby. Shortly after we started dating, I realized her first + last name .com was available. Of course, I registered it right away for her and it sat unused for about a year, until she found Miche Bags. Long story short, when Miche rolled out it’s e-commerce platform, resellers were assigned domains like my.michebag.com/first_last for their clients to access their online stores. Of course, we quickly utilized Ana’s first+last name .com to redirect to her page on the e-commerce site.
Over the weekend, Ana attended the first Miche Bag conference that came to Denver since she began selling their products. I should mention she was awarded and recognized during the event for being a top seller in her area during the last year, very proud of her! When Ana got home it was funny to hear about the reactions her colleagues had when they realized she was redirecting her personal, easy to remember domain to the confusing e-commerce site url. She told me that several women who realized she was redirecting her first + last name .com at stared at her for a moment while putting two plus two together and then said something like ‘that’s genius!’ then shared horror stories of how their clients could never find their web pages. I chuckled, a bit disappointed I didn’t give her a few of my business cards to take with her. Many would pay for a service as easy as registering a domain and redirecting it, and it would be worth it to them!
Domains have been utilized in this fashion for a long time and there are so many companies that use personal, short and/or keyword domains to redirect traffic to their homepage or certain pages on their sites. For every one person or company that understands this simple usage of a domain there are probably fifty others that don’t even consider it. As a domainer I tend to forget how many people never think of domains as tools beyond just a home for their website.
It is amazing how many business people are totally clueless about domain names and what a good one can do for your business.
Just a few weeks ago I was talking with a guy that sells some pretty cool original T-shirts at a flea market. He had a terrible domain name on his cards. But he had TM a saying that was great. Passed all the tests. I asked him if he had registered it. Long story short he registered it and is making great money just by forwarding it to his site.
Michael one thing you forgot to mention, most of the women said, “OMG that’s freakin’ genius!” Lol š
Thanks again, so glad I had you to guide me. If not I’d be trying to direct my clients to that horrible url.