Your company can't afford to miss a single thing that could help give it a competitive edge.  Smart companies know that this includes acquisition and deployment of strategic domain names in their industry.  That's often the missing piece that makes the difference.

Consider these customer facts:

• Every month, businesses purchase domain names for hundreds of thousands of dollars, sometimes millions.  No one spends that kind of money on a domain name unless they know what they're doing, and see real value and ROI.
• Most of these are not company or product brand names.  They are product category names.
• That's because most customers today don't want your product.  They want what your product does — and that can be done by any product in your category.
• So even if they use your brand — and especially if they don't — they may search for the category instead of a brand, and you need to be there to meet them at the category.

Now consider these search engine facts:

• Google is overwhelmingly the leading search engine, both in the US and globally.  And other search engines may follow its lead.  In Japan, Yahoo! actually uses Google's engine.
• Google gives weight to keywords in the domain name.  It figures that if a keyword is in the domain name, a website is really about that thing.  So to show up in category searches, you get a big boost from having a category domain site.
• Chances are, it's too late for you to get the .com domains for your category if you don't already have them.  If a competitor owns them, you'd have to pay a fortune.  And why would a competitor hand over their advantage to you anyway?
• The second-level domains — .net, .org, .info, .biz, .us, etc. — generally won't help you as much.  There is debate as to whether Google gives them the same weight as a .com, but perhaps more important, they look second tier to customers.
• However, within a country (such as India or Mexico), Google gives weight to domains with the extension for that country (.in, .mx).  So if you can get a category keyword domain with a country code, you've scored big.

Now consider these market facts:

• For most companies, the US market is unquestionably important.  You've got to do what you can to hold your own there.
• However, it can be extremely hard to grow market share in the US, because for most categories the US market is mature and saturated, while the competition is fierce.
• So growth opportunities lie elsewhere — especially in emerging markets like India, China and Mexico.
• These are precisely the places where it may still be possible to get category domain names in your industry.

Now consider these deployment facts:

• Deployment of a "supporting" domain involves decisions that don't even arise for your primary domain, your main website.
• Should the domain be just a redirect, or a landing page, or a whole website?
• If a site, should it be devoted to your products only, or should it cover the category?
• Should it be overtly yours (branded), or covertly yours (stealth)?
• How should it satisfy customers — with general category information, cross-brand comparisons or (if a country-extension domain) with brand-country or category-country usage tips?
• How should it capture customers — with ads, ecommerce, lead generation or by by linking to your primary site?

All this is just a taste of the kind of thinking that can lead to domain names being a crucial component of your marketing strategy.  WebGrow can help you:

• Determine the category keyword domain names that could help you the most.
• Acquire those domain names.  In some cases, we may be holding one or more on behalf of a client.
• Develop an optimal strategy for deploying a domain name.
• Implement that strategy, including website development and SEO.

Get started now.