Please help me choose which is the better brand name or domain name?
-
I am helping a friend and getting involved in looking at launching a taxi service in a major city. Now this is for one of the major cities of world. A big part of the branding of the company or service will be the unique and memorable telephone number this company owns. This company is not expected to be anything huge, just a good small local business. However, we are trying to utilise online marketing which I feel have not been utilised by this cector that much..
The telephone number is something as good as 100 1515, but slightly better. These numbers are hard to get hold of and even when there is one available it's often very expensive. So a big part of the company will be getting that number seen everywhere.
As it's a regional business, just for that one city, and for taxi services having a good telephone number that people can easily remember is important. However, most people now use smart phones, and people will often search on their phones or ipads for "birmingham taxi" or "birmingham taxi service" and so on.
I have the opportunity, as an example to either go with "getbirminghamtaxi.co.uk" or "getabirminghamtaxi". So the choice is between "Get Birmingham Taxi" or Get a Birmingham Taxi" - the difference being putting the "a" in the middle like a sentence.
I also thought of exact match domain "birmingham taxi" or birminghamtaxi.co.uk but the owner wants between £3,000-£12,000 (so between $5,000-$20,000) for it.
I feel with a domain purchased for just £3 ($5) I would be able to test the market, and if I found it was successful, we could then consider acquiring a more expensive EMD.
I feel that services like private taxi hire firms are small tiny regional businesses, and they don't really do much on search and SEO. I feel if our one did, it would stand out, and I do think quite a few people search online for taxi's, and I know I do. I am also aware that there are now app's like Halo but there is room for a small business to thrive doing a lot online and offline marketing with a great number.
This is not for Birmingham. I have just made that up.
So I would welcome people's feedback in terms of which domain name would be best, with or without the "a"? If you have an alternative suggestion I would welcome that. Also if anyone has any other comments or feedback about this market, doing business, marketing, or any knowledge that you have that you would like to share with us - then that would be appreciated.
Thank you.
-
You can honestly go with either, in my opinion. But how are you going to differentiate yourself from all of the other services? What if you partner with a food delivery service.. pizza... kebabs... whatever, and have something ready at or near the time of arrival.
I'm thinking about the bar crowd. What do you think? That's a bit of differentiation in my book.
-
Thanks Gregory. Yes I thought of the domain with just the number. However, I think "GetBirminghamTaxi" works for me without the "a" and even as a name because when we say it verbally, we will often say let's get a London taxi or let's get a Birmingham taxi. So I have been leaning towards that from the beginning. I posted this question, in case someone points out something obvious that I may have missed. Sometimes people view things differently and can point things out that could be valuable to your business.
-
Since most customers will be typing on a phone, I suggest not using the "a".
But if a really cool phone number is part of the marketing plan, maybe you could use it as part of the URL. Something like Taxi1515.co.uk or BirminghamTaxi1515.co.uk - doing something like that would let you get a good URL for just the minimal cost of a registration...
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Local Site stuck on page 2 for years. Can’t penetrate page 1! Help!
Hey there Moz community! This is the first time I've ever asked a question here so please forgive if I slip up on any etiquette. I manage a website for a small Orlando Florida family law and divorce law firm who are targeting search phrases that include those "Orlando divorce attorney" variants. The site is located at https://www.affordablefamilylawyer.com/ If you run a search for "Orlando divorce attorney" along with close variant search terms our law firm website for about the past two years has hovered at the top of the second page of google but has never actually penetrated page 1. When you examine metrics such as page authority, domain authority, trust, and other traditional metrics it tells you that our site should be on page 1 but alas it's not happening. We have, however been featured quite often in the three pack for the local listings for the target search terms. Though valuable, our goal has always been to be featured in the top three of the organic search results. To add to the confusion we have a practice area page located at https://www.affordablefamilylawyer.com/orlando-divorce-lawyer/ dedicated to divorce and expected that page to rank for these divorce attorney search terms but it will not rank for the search terms and instead our homepage ranks for them every single time regardless of how we swap around the optimization on the page. Never had any manual actions. any help you guys can offer is greatly appreciated and I really appreciate your time!
Local SEO | | Seanthewood1230 -
Website Domain Redirection- Rebranding Issues
I have a website domain redirection query At the moment because of rebranding and domain changes I havehttp://www.physioinqnepean.com.au redirecting to http://www.nepeanphysiohydro.com.au/.http://www.nepeanphysiohydro.com.au/ is the primary domain because at the time I wanted to appease any SEO ramifications that might’ve occurred if I had the new domain at the time “http://www.physioinqnepean.com.au” as the primary domain.Unfortunately, my client now wants to rebrand AGAIN with the new website domain being “http://www.physioinqpenrith.com.au”.I wanted to gauge what would be the best SEO practice in relation to what domain should be the “Primary domain"?
Local SEO | | JD261 -
Domain Forwarding and Rankings
I recently purchased two custom domains (www.greenvillencshredding.com and www.shreddinggreenvillenc.com) that are being forwarded to a page on my site (http://www.crmi-online.com/shredding-greenville-nc.html). The purpose for this is because I am trying everything I know to get my rankings above my competitor for shredding services in our market of Greenville,NC. I thought that purchasing a custom domain might help but I have not seen any results and they are ranking in the bottom 50's. Any suggestions to help get my rankings up for my service/area? Thanks a bunch!
Local SEO | | CRMI0 -
Two websites, same business name, same NAP
Hi, A client of mine offers loft conversions and wants to make a go of it. So he has a website dedicated to loft conversions. He is also a joiner/carpenter and has another old website which offers general joinery work and insurance work. Both websites have the same business name and same address and phone number. There is only one Google place page for the loft conversions website. The loft conversions website is not ranking as well as we would like locally. Could it be due to the same NAP? What are the best options? Redirect the old website to the loft conversions one (he might not like that idea) Change the address and phone number on one website?(and all subsequent citations?) Would love some help on this!
Local SEO | | AL123al0 -
Sub domain page or brand new domain
I run a business that provides entertainment services for parties, inc weddings and business functions, but I wanted to take advantage of the visitors that I have and work with other businesses to offer other services for parties, I started with a caterer, and created a catering page on my website. Thinking that my domain authority of 28, which is better than some of the local catering businesses, would be an advantage. I'm just getting going on that so I am only on page 2 in the new niche, 2 days since I launched, but I am creating quality off page content, and watching the results, but I just thought that I would ask the question: Which is better a page on the website of the same wider niche, eg party suppliers, with some DA already built up Or a brand new domain for each partner that I work with, having to build up DA and PA as I go. And having to create on page content for the new niche Or even one new website for party services with new content for each services, starting at no DA or PA One issue seems to be that when I add my sitemap, google does not seem to be indexing the page (and about 20 others, even though I now have a clean robots.txt file) according to webmaster tools, and yet it shows up on page 2 of Google for the keyword. Answers appreciated Mike Collins
Local SEO | | singingtelegramsuk0 -
Transfer Local SEO rankings to another domain
The question is specifically about local rankings, not the organic ones. My client recently acquired another Law firm. Acquired firm's website is ranking well in Google local and has a decent SEO authority. Its Google mybusiness page is also established and has a lot of positive reviews. Client's main website is comparatively new and doesn't currently rank well in Google local. The Google mybusiness page is sort of incomplete and doesn't have any review. Both businesses are listed in local directories (client's main business is listed in lot less directories and has fewer citations). The client wants to merge the newly acquired website with his main website, without losing Google local rankings the acquired website has. Or in other words, transfer newly acquired website's local rankings to his main site. Client wants to transfer the website to his main website in all cases while minimizing the damage. I'd transfer acquired website's content to main website, properly map the pages and place 301 redirects. Regarding Google my business pages, what would you suggest? I can either update main business NAP and Website address in Acquired business's mybusiness page, or transfer acquired business's mybusiness ratings to main mybusiness page via this form: https://support.google.com/business/contact/business_move_reviews I've also heard that Google support can merge two business page, however not sure about that. I'd also need to update the business listings and citations. Could you please suggest the best way of doing this? And have you practically tested it?
Local SEO | | Woofire0 -
Changing Your Company's Name
Our firm is considering adding another person and adding that person's name to the firm. In terms of our online presence, what all would have to be done for that to work? For example: 1. We aren't changing the domain, but should we get a domain with the new name and redirect it to our current site? 2. Do I need ask the people who have linked to our site with our name in the anchor text to change it to the new name? 3. Do I need to get back to all our old posts/blogs/etc and edit them with the new name? 4. Can we use our current social media names or do we need to setup new accounts? 5. If we decide to just keep the onsite marketing the same, but change the name in regards to offsite markeitng (banners, billboards, etc) will that conflict have a very negative effect? 6. Anything else, anyone wants to point out would be great. Thanks, Ruben
Local SEO | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
Removing Sub Domain & Improving Page Performance
Hello Moz folks, This question is about my main website: www.web3.ca
Local SEO | | Web3Marketing87
(run on joomla) I just noticed a very strange occurrence - when I add ANY subdomain to the home page, it still resolves to the home page. example: test3.web3.ca Can this be bad for SEO, and is there a way to eliminate this? Second Question: Do you think there are two many outgoing links on the home page of Web3? Could reducing the number of links improve the home page's performance & rank? Thanks
Anton0