Getting your martial arts business name is one thing, but making sure that you have the right domain names and social media handles is another. George Fourie shares how.
- Why you should avoid complicated domain name and social media handles
- The importance of having congruent domain name and social media handles
- How extensions can cost your credibility
- How incorrect extensions can lead your competitors to a land grab and profit off your brand name
- And more
*Need help growing your martial arts school? Learn More Here.
TRANSCRIPTION
Hi, this is George Fourie from Martial Arts Media and today, I want to talk about how to protect your martial arts business name through domain names and through social media handles. So this is a question I get often, so let me give you the idea scenario.
Now, specifically, it came up yesterday, I was talking to one of our Martial Arts Media Academy members about building them a new website. But it’s not just about the new website, it’s about building a new website with a bit of a brand name change, so there's this bit of a shuffle happening, where they need to make a name change, which obviously means they need to make a domain name change.
So here's the ideal scenario: when you look at a domain name, you want to try and get something that's really going to match your brand name. But sometimes that is going to be hard, because if your brand name is super long, 4 or 5 words, it can get a bit tricky. Now, things that can also throw domain name off is things like hyphens, and numbers, OK? Because let's say you've got numbers, 6-0 for example in your domain name: every time you mention your domain name to someone, you're going to have to say 6-0 or 60, or is it the numbers, or is it spelt out as 60? So you're always going to have that additional explanation that you're going to need to clarify what's going on with your domain name.
The other is hyphens. Now, if you go and get a hyphen in your domain name, so let’s say martialarts-yourarea, then I want to ask why do you need the dash? Is it because somebody else already has martialartsyourarea in one word, or are you just trying to split it up in words? At the end of the day, if you don’t have both, it’s not a good idea, because if somebody else has martialartsyourarea, then that means when somebody types it in, they forget the hyphen, which is going to happen, that means that they're going to your competitors website, OK? Try and avoid anything hyphened, any type of – well, that's about the only character that you can add, because that creates confusion in the mind.
Now, let's look a bit further. Let’s look at what's the ideal domain to get and what's the ideal name for your area. So in the old days of search engine optimization, where you want to rank in Google, it was very popular to get domain name your area, or you want to get the keyword to rank in the search engines. So you'd have, let's say, martialartsyourarea, for example. So the logic in that was great, in the old days, we'd search to optimize and to be at the top in Google, but it’s not really relevant today anymore. So although it can have a nice catch to it and it could be good to have a domain name like that, it’s better to just stick with your brand and build an authority website.
So put a lot of content on it that it ranks naturally and you can still rank for those keywords if you just put them together in the titles and things. And by the way, if you are interested in a SEO training, I am busy preparing a SEO, just a basic SEO training for our Academy members and I was thinking about making it available to this group. So if it’s something that you are interested in, just leave me a comment below this video where you see it and we'll put that together and possibly share it in this group as well.
Ok, so, getting back to the actual domain name, what do you need? Brand, brandable domain, something that's easy, something that’s easy to recognize, easy to remember and easy to spell, and then, what about the extension? So you've got .com, then obviously you've got your local domain, so you've got .com.au, .co.nz, and all this. So look: in the big global world of domain names, .com is still king, OK?
So .com is king, but for you as a local martial arts school, you want to get your country domain. So you want to get your .com.au, .co.uk, obviously if you're in the US, that's awesome, .com is going to do, but for the most part, you want to have your local domain name. Why? Because people want to know that you are a local business, right?
I mean, if I look at a domain name, if I look at a martial arts school and it’s just .com, it’s still got that international feel to it and it's a local business, so you want to get your .com.au. If you can get the .com, get it as well, but make sure you build your website out on your core domain name, so your local domain name.
Now, another thing that comes up: let's say somebody has martialartsyourarea and somebody else is building on yourareamartialarts. So… sorry, martialaartsyourbusinessname, so martialarts, hang on, OK: right, martialartsyourarea, that's the one domain that is available. And then somebody else has got yourareamartialarts, so just swapped around. Be careful for that as well, because again, people can get very easily confused with the two. So if it’s not a brandable name that's your name, then people can mix that up. So is it martialartsyourarea, or is it yourareamartialarts – if you don't have both, I would be hesitant to build out on a domain like that.
But to go on to domain extensions: when the .com.au, .co.uk and .coms are not available, people start going leaning towards these little tricky ones, .biz and .website and all these fancy extensions that haven't really taken off yet and people aren't really familiar with them. And believe me, people will do this: they might go type yourmartialartsbusiness.website.com, or something because people aren't that used to them right now.
For me, I'm in a different position. I'd buy up those domains for different extensions, so if I want to refer to our academy, for example, I would, I bought the domain name martialartsmedia.academy, we've got .community, .website, .group – so we use that as shorteners, but again, the whole domain name goes on the core brand.
Cool, so I hope that helps with domain names. One thing I didn't touch on is the social media handles. So, try and get them again, this is the perfect scenario, right? So if your domain name can match whatever your social media is, it just makes it easier from a branding perspective. So in my case, it’s Martial Arts Media, my Facebook I had to let go of the s, so Martial Art Media. Instagram, it’s a bit shorter, so I had to Martial Art Media as well.
So try and be congruent, because the last thing you want is, your Facebook profile says martial arts your business, and then your Instagram says martial arts 27498. Nobody's ever going to remember 27948, so just pay attention to those little things because it just helps you build a stronger brand and it positions you and protects you from what everybody else is doing. The last thing you want is, you've got the domain name and some guy sort of catches on and he's trying to be spiteful and he goes and registers your social media handle on Facebook and on Instagram and everywhere else. So the more you can do to protect your brand and your positioning on the internet, the better for you.
I hope that helps, we'll see you again soon in another video. If you've got any questions about websites, about our Martial Arts Media Academy, just leave me a comment below this video or send me a message. Thanks – I will speak to you soon. Cheers!
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