How does the name of your web site fit in with your overall marketing plan? This is important, and I've noticed that agents often don't consider this. Your web site is a marketing investment. It's not just your business card on the web. It is supposed to make you money. Why wouldn't you incorporate your successful marketing strategy into your web site name?

If you don't have an overall marketing strategy, or if you aren't sure what I mean by this, go directly to... a good book on marketing. If you do have a marketing strategy, in part it boils down to a phrase in which your unique competitive "position," over and against other agents in your area, is distilled. You use it in all your professional communications. Agents often include their name in this marketing, since they are really marketing themselves. If your marketing is working, people identify you with this phrase. Examples might be: "Jane Guarantees A Sale In Seattle," or "Jane Sells Seattle."

The name of your web site should work consistently with your marketing! Why teach everyone, "Jane Sells Seattle," and then name your web site Seattle-Homesforsale.com? Your domain name should be JaneSellsSeattle.com. You've been telling everyone that Jane Sells Seattle. You've put this phrase on everything about your business. Why throw it away when it comes to naming your site?

Use Your Name!

You can't lose if you use your own name for your web site's name. After all, YOU are the service that you want people to choose. You can promote your company's brand all you want, but the agent in the desk next to yours benefits as much from this as you. Ultimately, agents are selling themselves. YOUR NAME is the fundamental identifier that distinguishes you from the other agents. You want people to call and say, "Can I speak to Dennis Trimble?" not, "Can I speak to an agent?"

How to market yourself in a nutshell: Teach people your name, and associate it with the area you specialize in, and/or a compelling and unique benefit of using your services.

The nice thing about your name is that it's probably the easiest domain to get the rights to. Believe it or not, squatters have snapped up lots of common last names, but how many would sit on a domain like DennisTrimble.com? I'd worry more about those other Dennis Trimbles.

Your name is also good because it inherently works with your marketing strategy, whatever it may be. If your tagline (marketing phrase) is "Dennis Guarantees SOLD," having a web site named DennisTrimble.com works. I would also get DennisGuaranteesSOLD.com. Then you'll have to decide which to promote as your primary web site name on all your materials.

Use Your Selling Area!

Your name distinguishes you from other agents. So does the geographic area that you specialize in, making it a potentially important part of your marketing strategy, and thus your web site name: "MickeyMovesMinnetonka.com."

Of course, if you get greedy, you can ruin the name, and your marketing: "MickeyMovesMinnetonkaMinneapolisStPaulRochesterandBeyond.com." In marketing you have to focus. To focus you have eliminate. It's hard to understand how eliminating can add to your success, but it does. Successful farming is based on focus. You would never farm all of Minneapolis, let alone all those other cities. If you tried to present yourself as the local real estate expert for a geographic area with millions of people, who is going to take you seriously? For some reason agents tend to forget this when it comes to the web.

Use What Makes You Unique!

Why should a prospect use you instead of another agent? You better have a one-sentence answer to this question that blows the other agents out of the water. I should write a book on this because agents never do this. They all end up sounding the same: "I am the top/best/leading agent," or, "I serve you better/more/best."

Yes, you can say you are a leader. Statistics are often used: "I am in the top 1% of all Raleigh agents," or, "I sell more homes in Raleigh than anyone." Domain names that play on this include NumberOneInScottsdale.com and JoeLeadsScottsdale.com. That is a common marketing position, and it works well enough -- for publicly acknowledged market leaders. But every agent says stuff like this, reducing its effect. When everyone says the same thing, it means nothing. Every car dealer says, "I sell for less." Do you believe it?

Experience and knowledge is a way to differentiate yourself. You can be the local expert, as in JoeKnowsScottsdale.com. Even better, how about or NativeScottsdaleRealEstateAgent.com, or ScottsdaleNative.com for short? Your marketing always focuses on this communication: "Don't Let A Snowbird Buy or Sell Your Home! Joe Is Your Native Scottsdale Real Estate Agent. Joe was born and raised in Scottsdale, and no one knows the area like he does..." In an area full of relocators, saying you are a native creates the perception that all the other agents are tourists.

Many in business try to market themselves by selling for less. That's what Wal-Mart does: "Always low prices". In real estate, that means dialing down your commissions. Winning market share strictly via low prices is one of the hardest strategies to make work, if you ask me. People naively think this is a powerful market position. But you reduce everything about your service or product to a price comparison, and you can never really distance yourself from "cheap". The newer internet-based real estate brokers have hung their hat on this concept, with dubious results to date. Even so, if you choose to go this route, domain possibilities include TwoPercentJoe.com, JoeSellsScottsdaleForLess.com, and CheapHomesJoe.com. How about JoeIsLow.com?

Service is another area to get a leg up on your competitors. What's one thing your buyers and sellers want? Feedback! They want to know you are working on their behalf -- every day. What if you made this concept the cornerstone of your marketing, and told everyone that your clients receive a phone call from someone in your office, every day, until their home is bought or sold? Questions of feasibility aside, if you were able to do this, your marketing might be, "I will call you every day until your home is bought or sold! Find out more at JoeCallsDaily.com." Your marketing should make your competitors squirm!

How do you find that killer marketing strategy? What is the one thing you've noticed that really gets the attention of your prospects? What lights up their eyes? Concurrently, is it something that your competitors haven't used, and/or would have a hard time emulating? All the better. Build a marketing concept around this, and show it to a few other agents that you respect. If they visibly flinch, you very well might have a winner.

Published: April 3, 2001

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Lawrence Schoeffler is Vice President of Dominion Homes Web Services and founder of NUMBER1EXPERT. Dominion Homes Web Services includes Advanced Access, Agent Advantage by Homes.com, and Best Image Marketing, and is a division of Dominion Enterprises. Advanced Access is the industry leader in agent websites. More agents invest in an Advanced Access website than any other. Agent Advantage is the official agent website service of Homes.com, one of the most popular real estate portals in America. NUMBER1EXPERT by Best Image offers America's Top Performing Web Sites, with traffic and leads unequalled in the industry, sold exclusively to Top Selling Agents. Email Lawrence at .