Almost everybody in business has a domain name and a website. Internet presence is critical to business these days. Even if it just lists the type of products or services offered, business hours, and location, it is necessary in order to do business effectively.

VIRTUAL REAL ESTATE
It is important to remember that your internet URL is Virtual Real Estate. It has long been said that the three most important considerations for someone opening a retail store are LOCATION … LOCATION … and … LOCATION. And with Virtual Real Estate, those are still the 3 most important rules.

In addition to (or instead of) being on a busy street with plenty of visibility and traffic-flow, you need to be on an internet website that is easy to find, easy to remember and easy to promote through SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

FINDING CUSTOMERS
In the burgeoning Medical Marijuana business world, there is often a lot of competition, and confusion. So how do you drive customers to your medical marijuana business?

These days, more people search for a business online than in the yellow pages of the phone book. Having a business presence on the Internet is actually more important than having a Yellow pages listing. In fact, the phone companies that sell yellow pages listings, now promote their listings on the Internet more than they promote their listings in phone books.

Because of that, if you have to choose between spending $1200 per month for a phone book listing and spending $500 to $3000 for a domain name, the domain name is the bigger bargain. (We are assuming you are purchasing a premium domain name that describes your business.) In this example, the domain name costs the equivalent of 2.2 months of phone book advertising and it is yours to create any website you wish. Your contract with the phone book company requires you to pay that $1200 every month for the term of the contract (usually 12 months minimum).

COST SAVINGS
You only have to pay a yearly fee of about $12-$15 US Dollars to keep the domain name after you’ve purchased it. If you want, you can pay in advance to own it for many years. For about $100 you can own it for 10 years (with the multi-year discount offered by most registrars.)

BUSINESS FLEXIBILITY
If you want to change the look and feel of your advertising campaign, you can change the website you already own at any time. You can easily change office hours, your location, and any other information about your business on your website.

If you want to change your ad in the phone book, you have to wait a year until they are publishing a new one and change your ad then. You have much more flexibility through a website than by using phone book ads.

IMPORTANCE OF GENERIC DOMAINS
Your domain name is your key to success. It is how the rest of the world finds you. It is how you tell the world about your business. It is a big part of your marketing and branding efforts. The right domain name can make a huge difference between success and failure.

In many cases, it is wise to own multiple domain names to drive customers to one business. If your business has a “personal brand,” you also want to add a generic domain name in order to help it out. There is a strong trend these days of people typing in the generic terms of what they’re looking for in the URL field. In the domain world, it is called “type-in traffic” and is more valuable than random searches because those who type-in are more likely to become customers.

Of course typing in the generic term will take them to “GenericTerm”.com. (Replace GenericTerm with whatever terms they searched on.) Browsers automatically add the “.com” to the end of whatever is typed into the URL field.

For instance, if your MMj business name that provides doctor recommendations is “Green Leaf Medical,” you probably own the domain name “GreenLeafMedical.com.” Because the domain name is not “generic,” you have to do a lot of work to brand your business name. People who are searching for a business like yours, usually search on generic terms related to that type of business. They would search for “MMJ doctor,” or “MMJ doctors,” or if “MMJ physician.” Of course, you can buy those generic ad keywords from places like Google so that when people search for those keywords, your domain name comes up.

But, if you also owned “MMjDoctor.com” or “MMjDoctors.com,” you could forward that domain to your “GreenLeafMedical.com” website. Then, when people type in the generic term “MMJdoctor,” they would automatically go to your website. When it automatically goes to your website, it bypasses the Google (or Bing or Yahoo) ad results and therefore bypasses the ads purchased by your competitors.

As you can see, generic domain names can be quite valuable for driving customers to your business. Anyone in the Marijuana business should consider acquiring a generic domain or two that accurately describes your business. It can give you an excellent advantage over your competitors.

We offer top-notch premium domain names for the cannabis industry.  Many of our names are specifically attuned to the Medical Marijuana industry. Others are for entrepreneurs who see the nation trending toward legalization and want to get into the business or at least prepare to get into the business.

Copyright © 2013 by Victoria Young