Which domain name is best for your real estate website?
Real Estate Websites are often trying to do 2 different things. First you are promoting your listings to prospective buyers, second you are promoting yourself to prospective new clients. So your website needs to complete both these tasks so you should consider these points when coming up with with a domain name.
To find the best domain to promote your Real Estate Listings:
- The name should include the specific area where your listings are located. It is important that it is not too broad like a name of a large city like Toronto or like the province of PEI in the domain if you specialize in the beaches for example or a niche neighbourhood or suburb. As there are thousands and thousands of agents trying to promote listings all over Toronto for example, there is no benefit to promoting to an area you have no listings.
- Also in your domain should also include the types of features that your listings typically have, for example if you focus on cottages, condos, vacant land or businesses. Having the search term within the domain name itself (as well as in the site title) will help your ranking.
- Lastly you may want to specialize on the type of buyers you are wanting to attract, first time buyers, retirees downsizing, growing families as their needs are different and specializing in a targeting buyer makes you more of an expert then a jack of all trades may I say. Also when you get a lead, it is a more quality lead as it is someone that is looking in your specific ares, specific property type and specific buyer type.
Example Domains that are great for promoting your listings would be “Location-PropertyType-BuyerType” , so for example if you put GuelphBungalowRetirees.com and if someone is looking for Bungalows for sale in Guelph for retiring couple, your domain has hit all three points. Another example would be LondonCondosFirstTimeBuyer.com if you specialized in these types of properties/buyers. Also at the end of your career and your domain is pulling in a steady stream of traffic, you can sell the domain where as your personal name alone would not be sellable as much.
To find the best domain to promote your self as a Real Estate Agent:
- Real Estate Agents should focus on branding themselves and not the brokerage they work for as this can change throughout your career and your brand will stay with you. So I always suggest promoting your name and having your name in the site title.
- When people are looking for a Real Estate Agent, what are they looking for? They want someone with experience in their area and with the type of home they are selling. They want someone they can trust and has a proven record of success. Promoting your credentials within your domain name and site title helps communicate this to the viewer.
Examples of domains that help promote you as a prospective agent could be “Name-ExperiencedAgent.com or “Name-TrustedPartner.com..This tells the reader the characteristics that you promote yourself as and why people have referred you in the past. Having testimonials that make this point also helps bring home the point.
Can you have multiple domain names pointing to your site?
You can have multiple domain names pointing to your site, but your site can only have 1 primary domain (or should only have 1 primary domain). That means that no matter which domain you put into the URL, they all convert to the primary domain. Google does not like and can penalize (by not ranking you or with low rankings) if you have multiple domain names each pulling up the same site as that causes duplicate content in Search Engines and Google wants their results to be free of redundancy. The primary domain will be the domain that gets indexed with Google and only the primary domain.
So which domain style should you get?
I would suggest both but let me explain why.
Have one that promotes you as an agent, this can be put on your business cards and on your Real Estate billboards to promote yourself and what you offer. It gives the person some instant information about you for example if it is “Your NAME-HARDWORKING.com, the reader already knows a bit about you before even getting to your site. Your website should of course have an ABOUT ME page that goes into detail about what you bring to the table and examples to back it up (pictures help too!), and a testimonials section that backs up your claims as nothing beats third party reviews!
Also having a domain name that promotes your listings. When people search online for a home or property they type in the location and home types and specifics that they are looking for to purchase or specific information about the situation they are in for example small home for first time buyer.. etc, so you want your domain name to hit all these points. By doing this you also attract a more targeted market, no point attracting people looking for downtown small condos when you are selling large detached homes in a swanky neighbourhood.
So if I have two domain names, which domain name should be my primary domain?
If you compare the people googling for properties for sale and the people googling for prospective agents, I would say you will have far more people online looking for properties as I think most people find a real estate agent by asking friends, family, neighbours and colleagues. Another reason to keep in touch with all your past clients! So having said that, I would have the domain that promotes your listings as your primary domain name (the one that will be indexed in Google) and the one that promotes yourself feed into it.
What If the domain name I want is already taken?
Don’t be discouraged if the domain you first thought of is already taken, people have been snatching these up for the past two decades. But there are infinite possibilities and arrangement of words. Try looking at the words in different orders, try a different extension, .com, .net, .ca etc and try Synonyms for example, instead of to buy, you can try words like Bargain, Deals, Acquire, Negotiate, Offer, Bid, Possession, Secure, take hold of..etc.
Hope this information gives you some food for thought when deciding what domain name to use.
