SensoryMetrics

There’s a corner store in the town of Renfrew that closed this summer… It was prophetically named “Across The Tracks”… Apparently, it must have been on the wrong side of the tracks because business wasn’t so good!

In the virtual world, naming is also critically important. URLs – being locations, have many challenges when it comes to advertising. You’ve probably heard of the many goofy multiple-word urls: Speed Of Art (www.speedofart.com); Big Al’s Online (www.bigalsonline.com): Go Tahoe (www.gotahoe.com); Therapist Finder (www.therapistfinder.com): or Who Represents (www.whorepresents.com). These are all real sites, seemingly unaware of their twisted names!

If URLs are your passion, you’ll love GoodURLBadURL – a blog created by Aaron Goldman – a self-prefessed URL-aholic. As a web designer, he offers these useful best practices for displaying your URL…

URL Best Practices
Do’s
1. CapitalizeTheFirstLetterOfEachWord.
2. Use Different Colors Or Bold To Help Each Word Stand Out.
3. Whenever possible, use YourBrandName.com.
4. If .com is not available, use YourBrandName.net.
5. If .com and .net are taken, find a new brand name. Seriously.
6. Use YourSlogan.com when running an integrated media campaign.
7. Use subdomains when driving people deeper than your homepage – e.g. Product.YourBrandName.com.

Don’ts
1. Don’t include www. We know to go to the World Wide Web to find you.
2. Don’t include http://. If your audience isn’t web savvy enough to know where to type the URL, you shouldn’t have a website.
3. don’tusealllowercase (canyoureallytellwhereonewordendsandthenextbegins?)
4. DITTOFORALLUPPERCASE
5. No-hyphens/or slashes.
6. Don’t use acronyms, abbreviations, or numbers unless your brand is widely known as such.
7. Don’t bury your URL at the bottom of a billboard. I’m the only nerd driving around with a 4x zoom lens to find URLs.

Here at SM if we ever decide to advertise on the side of buses, you’ll see:

SensoryMetrics.com

Tags: goodURL, BadURL, advertising, uglyURL