The influx of adopting new technology for the real estate marketplace can be a confusing affair for those not as technically literate as they wish they could be. Domain names are just another instance of that technology creeping into our marketing practices. Allow me to shed some light on how best to choose and use domain names when marketing your real estate practice.

With more and more domain sellers lowering prices, it's good to know that you don't have to be limited to just one domain name! I advise you to buy at least two:

• A domain for use with existing customers (such as www.YourName.com)
• A domain used to optimize your search engine placement (such as www.YourAreaRealEstate.com)

For your 'daily use' domain, you must choose a domain name that will be easy to remember. You're going to list this domain on all of your marketing materials; everything from your business cards to the signs you post on your property listings. If it's too complicated, your prospects won't be able to remember it. If your name isn't too complicated to spell and remember, that might be a great option. Other ideas that might work are variations such as 'Judy Sells 4U' or 'Stewart Team' or even 'Fran Finds Homes.' Keep in mind that many folks won't remember if the domain they saw on the sign was a .com, a .net or a .biz - but they will assume that they saw .Com so it might be best if the domain you purchase *is* a .Com.

For the search engine domain, you want to choose a name that reflects the geographic area you serve along with the most used search engine keywords that your prospects would use to find you. For example, if you work mainly in the Seattle area selling waterfront property, you'll want a domain like, "SeattleWaterfrontHomes.com" or "SeattleWaterfrontRealEstate.com"

Most of all, you have to be truly careful and abide by any restrictions put into place by your agency or your Board of Realtors. For example, you might not be able to use the domain "Seattle-REMAX.com" if you're not the regional broker/office for RE/MAX of Seattle. Also, using the word 'Realtor' or 'Realtors' within your domain name can mean trouble if you don't have authorization to do so as those terms are trademarked by the National Association of Realtors (NAR).

Domain names can be up to 67 characters in length, including the TLD (63 characters plus .com, .net, .org, etc). Allowable characters are letters, numbers, and dashes or hyphens (-). Hyphens are not allowable at the beginning or the end of a domain. Spaces are not allowed between words - so, to distinguish one word from another when using your domain in a marketing setting, use upper and lower case. Domains are not case sensitive, so using the upper and lower case will strictly be to help your customers distiguish the words in your Domain name. Some examples:

iselllakehopatcong.com
ISellLakeHopatcong.com

erevaoutsourcing.com
eREVAOutsourcing.com

jimshead.com
JimShead.com

It is virtually impossible to find one single name that will satisfy all of your considerations so the obvious solution is to have several domains, not one. The cost of doing this is minimal. About $5 to $15 per year per domain name. You should use your search engine focused domain for your website and have your secondary domains "point back " to your primary domain so that someone going to sellmyhoustonhome.com actually goes to your main site at SuzieSmith.com. Be careful, however - the search engines frown on sites that have several domains as they see that as multiple sites with the same content. What you'll want your website host or website designer to do is put all but the key domain into another folder with a "301 redirect" which basically tells the search engines that those are bonus domains with no content but point at the main website.

If you have any questions at all about domain name registration, feel free to call or email us. We're here to help and make the process as smooth and as affordable as possible. Thank you!