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Lesson Info

Pick the Right URL for Your New Online Store

So now let's talk about picking the right girl for your online store. So all of these platforms give you their own domain name, but we don't want to use that we want to clean your own space. So you gonna meghan omine dot my shopify dot com. You could find my side. It works there, but I don't want to send people there. I want to send them to you. If I didn't already have my wordpress site set up uneconomic dot com, I would send them there, but instead I have a sub jemaine shocked at meghan almond dot com super creative. I know we want to send people here, because if you change platforms, you can take your domain name with you and that's really important. So when I was on big cartel, it was set up a chopped out mega nomine dot com. When I switched, I moved it over. And actually there was a really handy shopify plug in that let me redirect all of my old links. So every single product back link in my store still works. So I pin something up interest, and I was a big cartel. That link takes...

you right to that product in my shopify store now that's the beauty of having your own domain, so I just want to see where we're at in terms of domain name you guys already have demands or do you need to get them have it have it haven't haven't had it oh that's interesting and you're actually my examples we're going come back tio have it ok have it have it perfect so some of you may not online and that's fine, so I want to talk about what makes a good domain name in case you don't have one or in case you want to switch one. So what makes a good domain name? I'm I'm really picky about to me names I don't like you know something number four letter you dot com that stuff makes me feel like I just ran back until like nineteen, ninety seven, right? So we want to pick a good smart domain names that make sense so first of all, it is close to your business name as possible we don't want to confuse customers, I'm not going to send people to like giant statement jewelry dot com by business aim in my name so I mean a seven to meghan omine dot com don't try to play funny asio tricks with your domain name if you want to register that too that's fine, but make your main domain the thing that matches your business she also be as close to your social media handles as possible again, we're trying not to confuse people this is a sidebar, but if your social media handles aren't consistent let's fix that teo all we're fixing domain names getting karen like there you are that sound like you know where we have fixed that alright really rude fix that one it should also be google so I'm in a mastermind group and we're talking about different brands and someone said, oh have you looked at brass, their clothing company google brass nothing close to that came up turns out it was brass clothing dot com but I will not wear my head wet so that's something to keep in mind too is is going to be really hard to win the google search for that. Let me think about for your domain for your business name too. All right, so how do I know if my domain name is available? So we're not going to register your domain name yet? We just want to check to see if it's what you think you want to use this possible, so really good place to start is domain er so domain are dot com he won't just if you want to see if something is out there and still available oh, so tell me a little story about you had it because as you can see, I did a little search here for your name I know it's I've been very lucky because I've been named that for quite a long time and it's still available yes so why haven't you grab when I first moved out to california I my brother in law is a smart techy guy figured out, you know, help me figure out howto register for it and it expired okay? And I was broke and I couldn't alright register it so it's back on the market so you're gonna want to grab that that's your that's, your very next action step and you're going to wait to do that though we're going about this not your way to do until after you pick your platform is your platforms actually help you make you're like a little bit easier so like if you're going to square space, for instance, you could actually go to square space and registered right through them one one and done and I believe squarespace gives you one free domain with your account so might solve that problem for you is welcome. All right? So we are looking in this search when I searched for roman business because her business is tireless hearts and as we just established tireless hearts dot com still available, what do you do if your domain isn't available? There's not a you have some like dash is happening in yours, right? Yeah uh and the reason being is that there is another there two other engineering firms with the same red line design um and I have I have a trademark on the red line design all lower case all pushed together which ultimately would be the way ro but unfortunately somebody grabbed that domain so we, um my graphic designer and I, uh it's red dash line dash design. Yeah, fortunately, yeah and I personally find dash is a little bit oh, it's horrid troublesome yeah, I don't like it at all. Yeah, and so what I like about joe maynor is that they're going to give you some other options. There are all of these extensions so used to be who get dot com dot net dot org's dot com and I was pretty much it right. So now they're all of these other extensions so you might want to look sarah to see if like red line design dot shop is available or red line designed out stores like seeing something one of these other ones is available because the problem with dashes that people forget to put them in there I'm sure you discover that so that's one thing that you want to look at now if you want to get even fans here you go to google domains and they will give you all of the extension options so just go to google and type in google domains and I'll bring you to the web site so you khun d'oh you know I pulled this one out because I was like others dot biz there stop boutique their stuff business there's so many options you have dot photographer dot artist whatever it is there's a lot of extension options if the dot com is available take it it's the easiest it's the shortest take it claim it make it yours but if it's not available you can now go pretty deep into the barrel. Okay, all right. The other question that comes up then is should I register more than one domain? Is anyone here a domain? Harder. Okay, I am a domain quarter a small fraction of the fraction of the domains that I own. Yeah, nice. So one of the things that I did simply to grab it if I registered my tagline make a statement every day is my tagline, I would make a statement every day dot com now I think it just redirects to my site I wouldn't you guys concert you guys could put that in there and tell me where it ends up, it ends up somewhere it doesn't give you blank page I know that registered that I launched a new collection last year called the contra collection I registered that too I did those simply to make sure that someone else wasn't claiming them and doing something that was going to hurt my brand it's a defensive strategy now you don't have to start with one domain that is fine but if it feels right go in there aa lot of times depending on who you're if your domain is registered through a service provider I mean lets me have isn't remind host let me have this many domains I want so I know you have pay for but I just I guess that I'm a domain harder but start with one you have any questions around line are we all doing good? We have one question though that might be relevant to this conversation so shava says I want to elevate my brand by creating website and raise prices but my etc shop this is this pretty steady and stable I'm afraid to raise those prices on etc to match the prices I want on my personal web site should change the name oh, that is a really interesting question and I'm going to go with no if you're selling the same product because what's going to happen that is you're going to confuse customers so what I would suggest and we're actually gonna talk a little bit more about this transition if you're fc businesses selling well is bring those prices up and actually just in case you were wondering we're gonna have another class that is actually talking about raising your prices and raising your perceived value so you're going to stick around for that too but what you want to dio is bring all those prices up and then really work on bringing your customers over so when they are buying new pieces, you're going to add cards and with your order that says go to my new shop we're going to everything we can to bring those customers over you're going to lose some of your etc sales if you raise your prices that's just the reality of the game but if you raise your prices you have to sell less to make the same amount of money and that's really how you're going to grow your business so don't don't do so separate names will confuse your customers one name and just raise your prices across the board awesome alright, so now you've decided what your domain is if you don't already own it, you need to register it going to make it really easy go to the platform you have to you've chosen and do whatever they tell you to dio. So I believe big cartel has a service that they recommend you think shopify actually lets you register one domain through them if you don't already have it registered squarespace is the same way, so if you'd already our own your domain so we're picking our platform first pick your platform go into their help section custom no main that's what you wanna search custom domain search for that they're going to walk you through it if you already own your domain your platform was also going to tell you the exact way to use it you again you going custom domain if you scroll down through the faa cues you'll say I already own my domain and they'll say great we're going to do this this and this should be fairly simple now I realize that not everyone is super tech savvy that's why we answer those questions here's the thing check your site help and don't be afraid to get on the phone so whoever your domain name is through, they probably have phone support and let me tell you I'm guessing those guys are pretty awesome I actually did a huge move so some of you been to my site designing an mba it used to be crafting and the vc craft mea dot com and I wanted to change the name and keep all of my length and so I called my host and I said this is what I want to do and I don't want to lose any of my length and they were like, great you're going to do x y z you're going to call us back we're going to do this and then you're going to do two more steps and it's gonna be done and they walked me through everything on the phone. My phone is those things that used to talk on before you texted on them right? Get on the phone, ask for help with tech support they should be able to walk you through everything. All right, so now we're at your action step so if you bought this class you're watching the recording this we're going to hit pause, register your domain name and set up your domain at your new shopping cart platform done easy and now we can move on some of the fun stuff, right? Yes. Sorry to backtrack. You did the shop dot megan dot com is that a separate domain? I didn't kind no that's actually a great question. So that's a domain that exists underneath my economic dot com it's called a sub domain. Okay, so what I did was I went into my web host I use blue hose I went into blue hosts, they have a little button that says domains and then it lets you create a sub domain and actually probably anyplace you look, we'll walk you through that as well. So I went into my web host I created that sub domain and then I followed shopify steps to set my shopify store but that domain that's a great question though any questions? Yeah, you said it like I have wordpress health host wordpress and my home page is my blawg now once I get the shop set up, is it better to have the bloggers the home page or the shop is your home page s o I looked at your site but through the glass started and for you I would not recommend the bloggers the home page and I recommend that not recommended for really any product people at this point because you're just most of us aren't creating content consistently enough and we don't have the control so I would say if you could make your home page be your shop that's great otherwise just make it a nice home landing page and I'm gonna show you guys what my looks like when we get to that segment but so I would never send people directly to your blood but the less clicks that takes them to get to your products the better. Okay, yeah, I had a question that I thought was interesting. Susan rice designs as high megan do you think you should also by the dot info dot oregon dot net domains as well? You know, it really depends on the business name that you're using I do not own those because my business name is my name, and while there is a mega nomine who's like a high schooler in kansas or something there's, not a lot of mega nominee in the world, and I feel like I should maybe let her have one if she ever wants it someday, right? So if your name is not super common, you don't have tio. But if it is, and you're worried about competition, you might want to claim just because it keeps you a little bit more google able. But it also is kind of its image of a jerky move. But it's also a kind of a good defensive strategy, so you could go either way on that one.