A good domain name is a huge intangible asset for individuals and businesses!

A good domain name can bring in traffic and save significant advertising costs. It's no wonder that business.com was sold for $7.5 million in the United States. According to industry experts, this domain name could potentially earn several million dollars in ad revenue each year. These are facts, not mere speculations. A valuable domain name is an intangible asset for both individuals and businesses. The value of Yahoo's website is estimated to be over $100 million just based on its domain name. Clearly, a suitable domain name for your business can bring tremendous benefits.

I. Importance of Domain Names for Businesses

1. Enhancing Online Visibility

Imagine receiving a business card with a domain name that matches the company's name. This indicates that the company's management is tech-savvy and reliable, which boosts its credibility.

2. Building Customer Trust

If a company's domain name aligns with a popular brand name (with many similar companies nationwide), it signifies their strength and forward-thinking approach, making them potential partners.

3. Avoiding Generic Domain Names

Think of a business domain name as a car. Both luxury brands like BMW and budget models coexist, but the perception differs. Just like a luxury car implies prestige, using your company's actual name for e-commerce is far better than a creatively constructed domain name that might be difficult to remember.

4. Domain Names and Website Traffic

Why are most business owners keen on having a domain name that matches their business name? This likely relates to website traffic. Many internet users, especially those new to e-commerce, search by directly entering the product name. A domain name matching the product name concentrates information, making it easier for customers to find what they need.

II. Characteristics of Domain Names

Domain names and trademarks are both unique in their respective domains. As the internet evolves, domain names have become subtly linked to brand establishment. Thus, they share certain characteristics with trademarks. Many companies seek domain names consistent with their trademarks.

1. Identification: Domain names act like product trademarks and corporate identifiers. If someone else registers a company's domain name, it's akin to trademark infringement, posing a substantial threat to international communication, market expansion, and brand image.

2. Uniqueness: Since international domain names are unique, no other organization worldwide can register the same domain name once it's taken.

3. Necessity: Besides representing a company's image, domain names are essential for establishing a presence on the internet. They're the crucial first step in creating a website and are indispensable.

In today's saturated website landscape, the effectiveness of a website often hinges on its domain name. Especially with the sea of websites, using a unique, company-related domain name is vital. Otherwise, your exceptional website content might go unnoticed, rendering your efforts ineffective. Promoting such a site requires substantial financial resources, often more than the domain name's actual worth. While some companies invest in short-term, ineffective ads on other platforms, they underestimate the long-term benefits of a domain name that costs only a fraction of those ads. This mindset is outdated. When they eventually realize their mistake, they've lost a significant number of customers and funds. For instance, if a customer wants a specific product and finds two brands, they might prefer the one with a more memorable domain name.

Top-level international domain names are familiar to users and are often entered directly by appending ".com." This is the perfect platform for a company's online brand. An internet-friendly domain name reflecting a company's brand and acceptable to domestic consumers is typically the company's own name or trademark, often in English or using the phonetic alphabet.

Domain name resources are scarce, and many domestic businesses lack internet branding awareness. The era where a strong product sells itself is past. Creating and safeguarding an online brand requires urgent attention from both society and businesses. Established companies should protect their brand by registering multiple domain suffixes like .COM, .NET, .IO, .VC, etc., using .COM as the primary domain for promotion while directing other suffix domains to the same site. Believing any other suffix will do if .COM is unavailable is a misguided notion that harms brand strategy. As your promotion efforts grow, so do the benefits for .COM domain owners, making retrieval less likely. If a competitor acquires your domain, the loss isn't quantifiable—ultimately, you've helped someone else. Completing your brand strategy early will yield significant results for business expansion.