According to neilpatel.com<\/a>, “A large amount of your traffic will come from users who search your brand name. It\u2019s called navigational search<\/a><\/u>. That\u2019s why it\u2019s good to use your brand name as your URL.”<\/p>\n But things don’t always play out how we want them to.<\/p>\n Thankfully, we have curated 10 alternatives that have worked for our clients over the past few years and will surely work for you.<\/p>\n Here are 10 tips you can use if your preferred domain is already taken.<\/p>\n If your top choice domain name is taken, you can still end up with a great domain name.<\/p>\n Here are ten solutions to consider based on your goals, your budget, and your willingness to be creative.<\/p>\n The most efficient technique we use first is an attempt to purchase the domain name we want.<\/p>\n Granted you are working with a budget, but, if the domain name is double what a new domain is worth would you buy it?<\/p>\n We call this the novelty premium. It\u2019s a confirmed good name because someone else has already purchased it.<\/p>\n When we ask our clients to attempt to buy it they are willing to pay that novelty premium.<\/p>\n Often times however the premium is much more than double, sometimes being in the thousands of dollars range.<\/p>\n Have hope, you can still get a good price for it.<\/p>\n Generally, you have two methods of purchasing it.<\/p>\n You either negotiate with the owner directly or use a domain broker to handle the negotiations.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s say you want to purchase the domain name www.merchantsmart.com<\/p>\n What we will now do is visit our domain info checker www.webmasters.com<\/a> and use their WHOIS function. We type in the name and it comes up like this<\/p>\n Notice that we have a lot of relevant information like the state and country of the registrant but we have to email the Go Daddy web host for his email.<\/p>\n This leads us to reach out to Go Daddy for a quote, which will usually take up to a day or two.<\/p>\n If the email is on the webpage then we could reach out directly to the person or go with a more expensive option of using a domain broker.<\/p>\n We are considerate of our clients\u2019 needs and believe that alternatives can be made if this proves to be too expensive for them.<\/p>\n Even though www.merchantsmart.com is not available, we can simply add a verb to our chosen domain name.<\/p>\n A verb like \u2018be\u2019 could be added to make www.bemerchantsmart.com<\/a> and the best part is that it doesn\u2019t take away from the brand name.<\/p>\n Behold, not only does it capture your brand identity<\/a>, it is available.<\/p>\n By trying out different verbs and adding them before or after the original domain name we can come up with something available and better.<\/p>\n So, adding a verb didn’t help.<\/p>\n We won\u2019t stop there.<\/p>\n We will now implement other brand-friendly words in order to get our message across and satisfy what the customer wants.<\/p>\n You may not be able to use baker.com but bakercherry.com does exist.<\/p>\n Adding the \u2018cherry\u2019 to your brand name would help if you baked cherry pies or hurt if you only bake bread.<\/p>\n When working with our clients, we would make sure to avoid the latter.<\/p>\n Adding a country code TLD<\/a> could be an excellent fit.<\/p>\n Albeit, .com still remains the most trustworthy and popular TLD.<\/p>\n However .uk is a serious contender and carries almost the same trust as .com.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t feel bad about not getting the .com because even big companies had to opt for the .uk alternative.<\/p>\n This is the webpage for www.guardian.com<\/a><\/p>\n Whereas the popular newsletter subscription Guardian has to manage www.guardian.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n Their 4 million daily visitors don\u2019t mind though.<\/p>\n Having a country TLD also helps to improve your SEO ranking in the country above .com domains.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re lucky you may not need to change your TLD.<\/p>\n You can simply add a country before or after your name.<\/p>\n This works out if<\/p>\n Otherwise, visitors can think that your business is exclusive to the country you put and could deter them.<\/p>\n Have you heard of a domain hack before?<\/p>\n A domain hack is a clever manipulation of the name and extension to give you an entirely unique result.<\/p>\n In addition to tacobell.com, Taco Bell created ta.co which is clever and works just the same by redirecting you to tacobell.com.<\/span><\/p>\n Simple type in your URL www.ta.co<\/a> and this will come up.<\/p>\n While this is a fun way to get the brand name you want, it comes with its dangers.<\/p>\n One danger would be it could hurt your SEO because domain extensions are not included in search engines. This could result in your name ranking against a different category of websites entirely.<\/p>\n Abbreviations can help you get the domain name you want without sacrificing your SEO ambitions.<\/span><\/p>\n If you are aiming for a .com then this is a good option.<\/p>\n If we manipulate www.merchantsmart.com slightly to www.merchantsm.com, we get an available domain name.<\/p>\n Obvious abbreviations like ms.com and merchsmart.com bring you to morganstanely.com and adobe.com respectively.<\/p>\n How?<\/p>\n Big corporations buy up domain names all the time which end up redirecting to their main site.<\/p>\n They could also acquire companies and the site of the acquired company will now be owned by the parent company.<\/p>\n This is a suitable option if you have a popular slogan already.<\/p>\n Think of Nike\u2019s \u2018Just do it\u2019 slogan which everyone remembers.<\/p>\n If you type in justdoit.com you will be redirected to Nike\u2019s main page.<\/p>\n That means based on their data, enough people have seen their s<\/span>logan to identify it synonymously with their main brand.<\/span><\/p>\n This could work if your business is recognized locally and has a popular catchphrase there.<\/p>\n Just for fun, try coming up with a slogan for merchantsmart.com and see if you can make a domain out of it. (Hint: We did)<\/p>\n When creating a domain name, you have a few freedoms.<\/p>\n Sarge Clan\u2019s freedom of expression transfers directly from our love of design to the smaller things like domain names.<\/span><\/p>\n Often we will combine two or more methods to deliver to our clients.<\/p>\n By using the Montenegro ccTLD, .me, www.id.me created a unique domain name that was memorable.<\/p>\n Caution, a domain extension like .ru, Russia, has a high association with scammers and should be looked into before using.<\/p>\n Truly, if we all put our heads together we could come up with a nicer domain name.<\/p>\n Twitter.com was originally Twttr.com. It was inspired by SMS abbreviation of 5 characters but they realized 6 months later that Twitter sounded better.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Rarely do we get the first domain we come up with.<\/p>\n However, that is a part of the process.<\/p>\n Getting a .com extension is not what it used to be and having a country TLD e.g .uk or .co.uk , among others, has been proven to improve SEO rankings in said countries.<\/p>\n So, it’s a win win.<\/p>\n![\"best](\"https:\/\/sargeclan.com\/our-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/best-web-design-company-lagos.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n10 Strategies To Choose The Perfect Domain Name for Your Brand<\/h2>\n
1. If it\u2019s for sale, buy it.<\/strong><\/h4>\n
![\"what](\"https:\/\/sargeclan.com\/our-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/whois-merchantsmart-e1633704957496-1024x512.png\")
<\/strong><\/h2>\n2. Play with verb added<\/strong> alternatives<\/strong><\/h4>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/sargeclan.com\/our-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/bemerchantsmart-e1633704768784.png\")
<\/p>\n3. Brand-friendly additions<\/strong><\/h4>\n
4. Adopt a ccTLD<\/strong><\/h4>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/sargeclan.com\/our-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/guardian-e1633704927355.png\")
<\/p>\n5. Add your country to\u00a0<\/strong>the domain name<\/strong><\/h4>\n
\n
6. Use a domain hack<\/h4>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/sargeclan.com\/our-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/tacobell-e1633705022600.png\")
<\/p>\n7. Shorten your name to abbreviations<\/strong><\/h4>\n
\u00a08<\/strong>. C<\/strong>atchph<\/strong>rase<\/strong>s<\/strong><\/h4>\n
9. ccTLD Hack<\/strong><\/h4>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/sargeclan.com\/our-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/idme-e1633705171440-300x129.png\")
<\/p>\n10. Transform your brand name<\/strong><\/h4>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/sargeclan.com\/our-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Twitter-Icon-300x300.png\"){kind=icon}
<\/p>\nConclusion<\/strong><\/h2>\n