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This got me to thinking about discoverability, seo, and distinction in general. Acquiring the domain name is one thing, but getting your business or app popular

This got me to thinking about discoverability, seo, and distinction in general. Acquiring the domain name is one thing, but getting your business or app popular enough to outmuscle established businesses with less hip domain names is another. The domain and term [limelig.ht] caught my eye. In this instance, if you'd like to be known and searchable simply with the term "limelight" you'll have to beat out, limelight.com (Limelight Networks), a 1952 movie of the same name, and the dictionary definitions (wiki, etc.) for the term (it's actually not that bad really). At this point, even if your domain name is [getlimelight.com], you'd be counting on the same seo, success, and buzz as you would by using [limelig.ht], except that you wouldn't have to explain to anyone that, "it's limelig dot ht".

badloginagain 12y ago
limelight.wow
hagbardgroup 12y ago
Here's the way that I've seen great companies do it that works great for SEO but predated search engines: make up your own business term / buzzword. You advertise it through targeted display (cheap if managed well) plus PR. You then build marketing material around your buzzword. Search volume starts building around your buzzword. You satisfy those search queries and convert the people that you have pre-qualified with your own 'open sesame' magic combination of words into customers. This is also why a bunch of different companies will often collaborate on pumping one buzzword ('cloud computing' / 'the internet of things'): it makes it more affordable for all the companies involved to market a new major development that will take years to build out. There you go. Also, somehow Amazon clobbered a big river in South America for differentiation and recognition, so this isn't really that huge of a problem if the service is itself compelling and differentiated enough from the competitors. Barnes & Noble is a completely unique term, for example. 'Borders,' not entirely unique, but still more unique than Amazon. Also if advertising the website via audio/video is a big deal, you can always just make an easy to remember alternate site with your call to action and just redirect them to your real site. Domain exact match is not nearly as important now as it used to be for ranking on Google, and it's possible that domains will become more obscured to users than they are today in the future.

badloginagain 12y ago

limelight.wow

hagbardgroup 12y ago

Here's the way that I've seen great companies do it that works great for SEO but predated search engines: make up your own business term / buzzword. You advertise it through targeted display (cheap if managed well) plus PR. You then build marketing material around your buzzword. Search volume starts building around your buzzword. You satisfy those search queries and convert the people that you have pre-qualified with your own 'open sesame' magic combination of words into customers. This is also why a bunch of different companies will often collaborate on pumping one buzzword ('cloud computing' / 'the internet of things'): it makes it more affordable for all the companies involved to market a new major development that will take years to build out. There you go. Also, somehow Amazon clobbered a big river in South America for differentiation and recognition, so this isn't really that huge of a problem if the service is itself compelling and differentiated enough from the competitors. Barnes & Noble is a completely unique term, for example. 'Borders,' not entirely unique, but still more unique than Amazon. Also if advertising the website via audio/video is a big deal, you can always just make an easy to remember alternate site with your call to action and just redirect them to your real site. Domain exact match is not nearly as important now as it used to be for ranking on Google, and it's possible that domains will become more obscured to users than they are today in the future.