The key method of developing your business is advertising. Call it integrated marketing with all the other forms of getting your message out, but it still boils down to advertising, which is making it public and memorable.

You may advertise in a trade magazine or on a billboard, but your website is the only form of advertising that's constantly available to your audience. Your domain name is the focal point for all of these marketing components, at the corner stone, and the foundation from where you build your brand upon.

Get a dot com name. Other extensions may gain popularity in 20 years, but for the foreseeable future your marketing efforts will end up in the junk folder. Even in tech where .io and .ai have some traction with start ups, it translates into they're in beta, not ready for primetime. As a decision maker can you back your choice of doing business with an organization that's not really established?

Read my last post about Branding for Authority and Affinity for more information. Here are some premium domain names that I have for sale.

There's a lot to branding your business in sync with your domain name and I'm just going to discuss a few key points that begin with the letter A.

Authority and Affinity

Being a brand authority now of days is having a powerful domain name.  Powerful domain names are valuable because they are memorable and reflect your business as a leader in your industry.  Like it or not we live in the age of information overload, and that's a good thing.  As a kid I would ride my bike back and forth to the library trying to juggle a stack of books, knowledge and products from all over the world are now at anyone's finger tips from just about anywhere.  How does a customer find, return to, or recommend your business in a sea of 1.7 billion websites all competing for the first page of Google?  This is why your domain name matters.

Affinity is the sense of the natural path to your business, a relationship to or the path of the least resistance.  If a customer has to remember your domain name or apply a silly extension, not only are they going to have a hard time getting back to you, it's even more difficult for them to refer your company to their contacts.  Word of mouth is still a powerful tool in growing your business.

Here's a few great articles on the subject of branding and why your domain name matters: Spend Less on SEO, More on a Memorable Brand by Jamie Zoch and The True Cost of Your Domain Name by Chris Zuiker.

One point I would add to both of these articles is that not acquiring your matching domain name is leaving the door open for your competition to purchase it.  Some companies have spent millions just to keep their competition from having them.

Many online businesses have been thriving throughout the pandemic, some have had an unprecedented 2nd quarter.  How? The answer is simple, they have mastered the art of the UX (user experience).  Evaluate your sites whole UX and ask these 10 questions about your site from Medium.com.  I'd add credibility to that list and that begins with your domain name.  The article is from 2018 and is every bit as relevant then as it is today. 

For the DNN platform there's an upgrade for the developer's UX too with Vanjaro.com from Mandeeps.com.  When you design all day, what you experience matters.  The new UX is comparable to Wix, SquareSpace, and Weebly.  Featuring a Drag & Drop Live Editor, Responsive Editing, Automatic Revision History, Workflow Management, and in context, user aware, centralized site administration and it's open source.  Vanjaro.com is compatible with custom DNN Modules, (including XMod Pro) and hundreds of existing solutions on the DNN Store.

The experience is the journey.  Make it better and make more sales.

By now you have probably gotten an email from every company that you have ever visited on their COVID policy.  No need to rehash washing your hands and social distancing here.  The point that I want to stress is that we are all in this together, locally and globally, and it's going to take all of us to beat this thing.

I work for the government in my day job, maintaining transmitters along the coast of South Carolina.  The government is just people.  Some very hard working people that perform jobs that in the private sector usually pays much more for the same work.  But, boil it all down, and it's just people helping people.

In times of crisis's past, like the hurricanes we've had, we didn't get extra pay or bonuses, just a good feeling at the end of the day that we made a difference.  Getting through this is going to be difficult, but not something we can't do.

There are always two options you have in any situation.  One is to do nothing.  With COVID doing nothing is actually a good thing.  Stay at home and you're not part of the problem.  The second option is to try harder.  I have to credit my father with that one.  He was part of what they now call the greatest generation, but the greatest generation is really yet to come.  We are all products of these generations, we are the hybrids.  Let's try a little harder and figure this out.  Figure out what you can do to help.

Sure it's scary, we see exactly how fragile our world is.  And, the big brains say it's going to get worse before it gets better, but we will get through it and come out stronger. Helping others is really the name of the game.

Check on your neighbors, have empathy and employ compassion.  We are all going through a lot.  I want to be able to reflect back at the End of the Plague party and know I had a hand in making the world a better place.  I may not invent a miracle vaccine, but I help keep emergency communications online over here, inspire hope and I lend a helping hand.  I am very grateful for the medical, fast food, grocery workers and everyone involved in all these chains that keeping us moving forward.

Do your part and work harder. Patience, courtesy and humor go along way, act like you've been somewhere.  Maybe this will spark a spiritual revolution when we finally realize that we are all the same, and that we are all connected.

Want to keep keep up with all that is happening in the domain space?  Domaining.com

2020 is off to a quick start and for those that are not active in the industry daily, it can be more than difficult to keep up with all that's going on.  NamesCon is taking place in Austin, TX now, Rev.com just sold for 400k, Add.com sold for 800k this week, keep up with the status of the .Org Registry sale and get insight from the movers and shakers.

Domaining.com for the important news and domain industry headlines.

This article is by Kasssey Lee on TLfDInvestors.com originally from GrandSeeds.com

Your domain is the address of your store in the digital world. If consumers remember what you sell and where to buy it, that’s powerful marketing. Your brand helps them remember what you sell, and your domain helps them remember where to buy it. Therefore, you want your domain to be easily remembered. The easiest way to remember your domain is to make it match your brand.

It's never too late to get the matching domain name, it just gets more expensive.

Everyone makes mistakes from time to time, but this one I just can't see how the management team didn't see the future of their business.  Back in 2000 the internet was more than thriving and Blockbuster could have bought Netflix for a mere 50 million.  As of today Netflix is worth over 128 billion, down from and all time high of 180 billion.  In the summer of 2000, Blockbuster CEO John Antioco said "The dot-com hysteria is completely overblown".  His council went on to state how the business models of Netflix and just about every other online business were not sustainable and would never make any money.  That statement couldn't be any more wrong then than it is now.  Read the full article here on Inc.com

How did these guys not see that by delivering their product online would eliminate all of their overhead, shipping and logistical nightmares.  Yes, management and vision are two different things, but they shouldn't be.  Doesn't matter what business you are in either, not only do you need a strong online presence, there is an evolution going on of how your customers will interact with you and not just on social media.  Developers are building virtual realities to showcase products.  Imagine if your customers could experience your products before they buy.  This will be very popular with the gaming generation as they become the most powerful purchasers of consumer goods in 10 years.

If you haven't read the worst business blunders in tech history I would suggest Googling that phrase and see what you get.  Branding blunders are even more common and they happen all the time.  Avoid a brand blunder and start with a great domain name.  A strong domain name is the foundation for enticing and retaining customers with a memorable name.  Your domain name also attracts B2B partners and lays the ground floor for building supplemental income streams.  Streams turn into rivers and maybe even into a whole new business model for your companies' survival.  Have some vision and get creative.

Veteran's Day falls on November 11 for a good reason many do not know.  November 11th is the anniversary of the signing of the Armistice, which ended the World War I hostilities between the Allied nations and Germany in 1918.

On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918 an armistice between Germany and the Allied nations came into effect.  And, on the following November 11, 1919, Armistice Day was commemorated for the first time.  President Wilson proclaimed the day should be “filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory”.

Thank a Veteran and help those that are returning from combat.  You can get involved at any level, from volunteering at your local VA hospital to helping the family of a Veteran.  Do something positive, be a part of the solution for the real heroes.

Here's a company I discovered while looking for some keyword analysis on my GeorgiaBeachHomes.com website, Wordstream.

Not only does Wordstream offer keyword advice and optimization, they have a suite of utilities to tune up your marketing campaigns. Wordstream is a Google and Facebook Premier Partner leading the industry in search optimization.

I like the design of their wesite too and they have a wealth of information for those of you just getting started with online advertising. Spend a little time reading though the Pay Per Click University and learn about bid management and conversion tracking.

From and article on WinningWP.com about getting the best domain name possible by Karol K, he provides 22 essentials tips to help those new to the industry.  There's only one other tip I would add to this post, it's well worth it to buy a great domain name.  Memorability and validity make your business standout.  Not everyone can afford a million dollar domain, but there's a reason why they are worth those kind of numbers, specifically site traffic and being the brand authority.

Remember you are building a brand when you build your website, and there's no point to building all your collateral advertising around a sub par domain name.