What's in a [Domain] Name?

Choosing a domain name is an important step in building your online presence for your insurance agency. There's an infinite number of possibilities for your domain name, but here are a few key points to think about when making your selection.

Choosing a Domain Name

There are many different combinations of your brand and product and location you can use to come up with a domain name. Here are the top 3 things to consider (in priority order) for your new domain.

1. Branding

   Your domain name should be related to your brand. Simply put, it should include some or all of your agency's name.

2. SEO / Keywords

   Your domain name should include the word "insurance" if possible. This helps you rank higher on Google when people search for you and/or your product. Other related words such as "agency" or "brokers" aren't nearly as important as the word "insurance" since that's your product, and therefore what people will be searching for.

3. Length / Readability

   This is something to consider as you don't want your customers to have to type of a 65 letter domain name to get to your website. However, with all the domain names already taken, it can sometimes be hard to find a good one that is as short as you'd like it. Keep reading to find out how you can minimize the impact of a long domain name on your customers and email address length.

Example Scenario

Let's say your insurance agency, Acme Insurance is located in Dallas Texas. For your new domain name, there are 3 obvious (and optimal) choices:

• acmeinsurance.com
• dallasinsurance.com
• texasinsurance.com

However, it's likely something so obvious would already be registered by someone else. So we'll have to be more creative, and consider alternatives like acmeinsurancedallas.com. This is a great option because it includes your brand "acme" as well as "dallas insurance" which is a key search term. It's also not too terribly long. Combining the brand with the location and the word insurance is a great way to find a domain name that's not already registered.

Registering Your Domain Name

To find out whether a domain name is available, the easiest thing to do is to check with a domain registrar. Domain registrars are the companies that allow you to register (purchase) a domain name.

A well known example of a domain registrar is GoDaddy, which we highly recommend for their low prices, easy to use website, and excellent customer service from their Arizona-based call center.

Right on GoDaddy's home page, you can enter the domain you'd like to register, and it will immediately tell you if it's available. If you're in luck and it's available, the annual registration fee is typically around $12/year and you can have your domain name registered within minutes right from the website.

Tip: If you're purchasing a domain name to use on your new insurance agency website with Banyan Theory, you can decline all the upgrades that GoDaddy will ask you about during the domain registration process - you won't need any of them.

Last Step: Auto Renew Your Domain

Be sure to opt into auto-renewal on your domain. This means that the next time your domain registration needs to be renewed, you won't have to log into your GoDaddy account and manually do it - GoDaddy will just run your credit card on file again when necessary. This ensures you won't forget to renew your domain.

Forgetting to renew your domain, and accidentally letting it expire can result in a quite a mess, starting with your website and/or email being down and (very likely) ending with having to either purchase a completely new domain and start over on all your SEO efforts, or spending a large sum of money to purchase your domain name back from someone who swiped it up the moment it expires (yes people actually do that).