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Domain Name | Nathan Ives | Digital Products Platform | Digital Business

Five Things You Should Advise Your Client to Do with That Defensively Registered Domain

Domain Name | Nathan Ives | Digital Products Platform | Digital BusinessAs a trusted legal advisor, you have taken valiant measures to protect your client’s brand against evil cybersquatters, typo-squatters, domain tasters, and other nefarious enemies by defensively registering a domain. Your client has already spent money to buy the domain, so why not provide your client additional value by encouraging him or her to put the domain to work instead of letting it just gather dust in the registrar account?

Indeed, defensive registration of a new domain is an exciting opportunity for a brand to tell its story, and perhaps more importantly, to attempt something bold, innovative, and exciting. Here are five inexpensive and easy ways your client can utilize that new domain right now:

  1. Use the domain for a microsite or micro campaign. You’ve got to admit that www.yourbrand.rockslooks great on a billboard – certainly much better than a QR code – and it sounds great on the radio. It’s just different enough to turn heads and to position your brand as savvy to emerging tech trends and developments.
  2. Redirect the domain to a third-party social platform. Is your client’s brand on Facebook? YouTube? Periscope? If so, there’s a good chance that your client is getting lost in a lengthy and forgettable domain such as www.facebook.com/yourbrand or www.youtube.com/yourbrand. By redirecting www.yourbrand.social to your Facebook page, www.yourbrand.video to your YouTube page, and www.yourbrand.live to your client’s Periscope page, your client is providing customers and audience with a memorable and quality path to content that puts the brand front and center.
  3. Use the domain to emphasize a page on the client’s website that’s not getting its fair share of attention. It can be challenging to direct an audience to a specific page of your client’s website, especially if the user has to navigate an extensive website menu in order to get there. By setting that new domain to redirect to a particular page in the website, your client is providing his or her audience with a clear and exciting path to that content, whether it’s www.yourbrand.family leading to a careers or company culture page or www.yourbrand.gives as a showcase for a corporate philanthropy page.
  4. Use the domain to aggregate the client’s social media streams or track a particular hashtag. Whether your client’s brand is hosting a contest or giveaway or your client simply wants to make the most of the brand’s social network aggregation by sharing the feed with his or her audience, pointing a descriptive and unique domain at that feed is a great way to celebrate this content as a destination. For social media aggregation, domains like www.yourbrand.social and www.yourbrand.ninja are fantastic options.
  5. Augment the client’s Search Engine Marketing (SEM) efforts. There are more websites and third-party content to compete with than ever before, meaning that getting found is half the battle. A recent study of the 100 most expensive keywords on Google revealed that the industry specificity of these searches happens to coincide with—and in many cases exactly match – these search terms. By redirecting a keyword-rich domain to your website, or by outright transitioning to a more keyword-rich domain, brands can significantly improve their search engine rankings even in the most competitive fields, like law. When personal injury attorney Eric S. Block realized he couldn’t match his competitors’ SEM spending, he decided to make the transition from www.ericblocklaw.com to www.jacksonville.attorney. Where the previous website had failed to rank at all for any relevant search terms, Eric Block’s new .attorney website ranks first for the search term “Jacksonville + Attorney.”

Your clients have already invested in a marvelous tool, so why not help them put that tool to use? Don’t let your clients’ money go to waste!


About the Author

Statton Hammock | Nathan IvesStatton Hammock is responsible for guiding Rightside on business, legal, and policy matters related to its registry operations. Prior to joining Rightside, Statton spent five years with Network Solutions as Sr. Director of Law and Policy, where he provided legal and strategic business advice related to the protection of intellectual property rights, Internet governance, data security and privacy, and compliance with ICANN policies related to the provisioning, sale, and use of domain names.

Social Media Account Name Alignment | Nathan Ives | Digital Products Platform

Social Media Account Name Alignment

Social Media Account Name Alignment | Nathan Ives | Digital Products PlatformLike all other elements of your brand, aligning your social media account names will help establish recognition, trust, and engagement with your audience.  A consistent naming convention also serves to reinforce the connection between you and your audience across all of your digital platforms.  So while this exercise might be a little tricky, it’s a worthwhile investment of your marketing time.

Establish a Naming Convention

Your social media account names should reflect that of your business and be easily recognizable by those you seek to engage.  Here are a set of principles to follow when developing your social media account naming convention:

  • Chose a name that aligns with your company and brand
  • Your social media name should be as specific as possible
  • Avoid using acronyms and abbreviations that will be familiar to only your inner circle
  • Stay away from names that could be confused with another company, product, service, or individual
  • Consider your chosen name from the perspectives of others to ensure its appropriateness for all audiences
  • Your social media name should convey an official status
  • Not all social media outlets allow the same number of characters for a username and so you will need to accommodate that which is most restrictive
  • Not all social media outlets allow special characters in their usernames

Selecting Social Media Account Names

Because of the vast number of users on the popular social media sites, we recommend the following process to selecting your social media account names consistent with your established naming convention:

  1. Develop a prioritized list of desired names
  2. Check all of the social media outlets applicable to your business for the availability of these names
  3. If a name is not available on one or a very few social media sites but is available on the majority, consider slight modifications to the name such as insertion of obvious abbreviations, adding a company title (e.g. LLC, Inc., etcetera), or appending the year (i.e. 2017)
  4. Having identified an acceptable name to be used across social media accounts, quickly register these accounts using that name with the intention of later configuring the social media pages
Philosophy of Above the Fold | Nathan Ives | Digital Products Platform

Philosophy of Above the Fold

Philosophy of Above the Fold | Nathan Ives | Digital Products PlatformGetting visitors to your website is hard work and can be expensive.  Keeping those visitors engaged after just a few seconds is even more difficult… so don’t make them scroll!

Research shows visitors must be immediately engaged in order to keep them on a particular webpage or website.  Here are the sobering statistics:

  • 60 seconds is the average time an individual spends on any one webpage
  • 15 seconds represents the time 55 percent of visitors spend on any one webpage
  • 6 – 8 seconds is the average attention span of an adult website visitor

Consequently, you have roughly 7 seconds to gain and retain the attention of any website visitor.  If you can keep an individual on your webpage or website for 15 seconds, chances are they will continue to consume your content for at least 2 minutes (120 seconds).

Importance of the Content Above the Fold

Journalists, particularly newspaper editors, have always known the importance of content ‘above the fold,’ the upper half of the newspaper that is visible to onlookers when a newspaper is presented within a newsstand.  Because only this content is immediately visible, the most eye catching headlines and graphics must be placed here to gain the attention needed to make a sale.

Your webpage content is no different.  With so little time to gain visitors’ attention, your most valuable content must be visible without those individuals having to scroll down the screen to see it.   Requiring visitors to scroll for content wastes some of the precious little time you have to prove your content’s relevance to their needs.

Keeping the Message Above the Fold

To ensure your most value-adding content remains above the fold, consider applying the following principles:

  • Headlines: Use impactful, concise headlines to convey your message
  • Summarize: Provide a very high-level summary as the first paragraph of your content
  • Bullets: Use bulleted phrases to convey your main points
  • Images: Select images supporting your main themes
  • Calls-To-Action: Ensure the visitor knows what to do next by placing your call-to-action above the fold
  • Layout: Don’t push your headline, message, or call-to-action below an image or graphic

Remember that in today’s world, many of your visitors will arrive on your webpages via smartphones and tablets with even smaller viewing areas.  Thus, you need to strive to forever make your communications more concise and immediately value-adding.

Stylistic Uniformity | Nathan Ives | Digital Products Platform | Digital Business

Stylistic Uniformity

Stylistic Uniformity | Nathan Ives | Digital Products Platform | Digital BusinessWith the myriad of communications bombarding your customers, it’s increasingly important to get your message across as quickly and concisely as possible.  In fact, the average person’s attention span is only 6 – 8 seconds!

Effective branding visually conveys your message in a manner that subconsciously communicates key elements of your message without words.  Think of the best known brands and their stylistic communications…

  • Apple’s clean, white, contemporary backgrounds, images and styling;
  • Nike’s bold athleticism and swoosh;
  • Coke’s cool, wet red, and silver; and
  • IBM’s big blue.

In each case, the branding communicates volumes without printing or saying a word.  And everything the respective company publishes embodies uniformity in styling so to ensure viewers immediately recognize their communication and register the desired message.

Application

Achieving this level of immediate brand recognition requires discipline and uniformity in the styling of all of your communications from your website and social media accounts to your presentations, videos, and podcasts to your stationary, letterhead, and business cards.

Key Elements

Immediate brand recognition occurs through consistent, repetition of messaging.  Receivers of your messages should always ‘see’ the same styling such that, over time, they come to associate the uniqueness of your styling with your business and its characteristics.  Key styling elements include:

Color

The specific color combinations used across all of your communications, platforms, and products should be the same.  But how can you define an array of colors that both reflect your company and look good together?  One simple method is to use the predefined color scheme used within your website’s theme.  As is typically the case, these color combinations have been defined by professionals with an eye for what works together.  Simply choose the scheme that aligns with your desired messaging and then apply those colors across all of your many internal and external communications mechanisms.

Fonts

Like colors, character fonts visually communicate the uniqueness of your brand.  Be careful to choose a font that is web and printer friendly; taking the lead from your website theme often works well.

Images

Images illicit feelings among viewers and photographers each tend to exhibit a unique approach to the stylizing of their images.  Images may be contemporary, rustic, real-life, illustrated, etcetera.  Choose and image style that conveys the desired feeling about your business and consistently use those types of images.

Depth

Visual depth represents another styling variation.  Flat (lacking depth) is a cooler, contemporary styling whereas shadowed (deep) imaging is a warmer, conservative styling.  Whichever approach you choose, apply it consistently across all of your communications mechanisms.

Other Features

There are many other opportunities to reinforce your messaging through consistent styling including:

  • Logo (styling application and consistent use)
  • Taglines
  • Trademarking
  • Bullets (both type and color)
  • Icons (consistent application/use and color)
  • Indenting
  • Framing (images and text)
Developing Strong Passwords | Nathan Ives | Digital Products Platform

Developing Strong Passwords

Developing Strong Passwords | Nathan Ives | Digital Products PlatformStrong passwords are a cornerstone of cyber security.  In the case of your digital products platform, strong administrator passwords not only protect your website from malicious intrusions but also protect stored customer data and your intellectual property.  Therefore, special consideration should be given to the development of your administrator passwords.

Characteristics of Strong Passwords

Research shows that a combination of characteristics help ensure passwords are ‘unhackable.’  Your passwords should:

  • Be a minimum of 12 characters
  • Include numbers, symbols, and upper and lower case letters
  • Not be an obvious sequence of letters, numbers, or symbols
  • Not be a word or word combination
  • Not use obvious substitutes such as swapping typically upper and lower case letters

Additionally, you should have a unique password for each important account.

Tips for Developing Strong Passwords

Three methods for developing strong passwords include:

  • Mnemonics: Develop a password using from the first letter of each word and the numbers associated with a somewhat random sentence such as “In 1892, Columbus sailed the ocean blue and discovered America!” becomes I1892CstobadA! (14 characters, 4 numbers, 1 symbol, 6 lower case letters, and 3 upper case letters)  Note that mnemonic passwords tend to be the easiest to remember.
  • Discarded Products: Develop a password using the serial numbers or UPC symbols from two or more common products that you consume and discard such as soda cans, stock paper, etcetera.
  • Random Password Generators: Use a reputable password generating service to develop your strong password.

Final Thoughts…

Password security starts with the design of your password and continues with its own security.  Keep your passwords secure by keeping them offline (documented on paper) and in a secure/locked location.  Additionally, change your passwords routinely to further minimize the chance of your digital products platforms becoming compromised.