What a very interesting question (and problem) I found in my question box.

Hi Lynette, I just got through reading your answers in your blog and I really appreciate your business knowledge and your good common sense answers. My question concerns a domain name I bought a couple of years ago and chose to hyphenate (Struggles-of-an-Apprentice-Marketer.com) I use the title for a blog with the hyphens. The problem is the length of the URL and my question is: could I use ApprenticeMarketer.com as a URL (it is available) and continue to use the blog title? I also have the URL ApprenticeMarketerGazette.com for the newsletter I am soon starting. Your honest opinion please? Thank you, Fran

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credit: Misterteacher

A: Hello Fran, ooh! domains getting hairy. I have such a problem deciding what to do with my domains as well. I (may not fully comprehend the situation, but) believe you want to know if you can have a blog named “Struggles of an Apprentice Marketer” but the domain of the blog is ApprenticeMarketer.com. Short answer is, absolutely. As you already gathered, the name of your blog is lengthy and would not make a good domain name without hyphens. With hyphens, it is even trickier for people to remember. I would absolutely use a domain that’s short and sweet. Aren’t you lucky you have a shorter version that’s still available to you. Hope you snapped it up already.

There is always a concern that people remember your blog title more than the domain but I think there can be creative ways to overcome that. Especially through creative design. For example, your logo could feature ApprenticeMarketer boldly and then “The struggles of” in a handwriting font scribbled in like an after thought. It’ll be fun and catchy.

As for the domain for your newsletter. Not sure what you intend to put on the newsletter site, but I personally would not buy a domain name just for a newsletter. Especially when the content is already covered or is very similar to the content already covered on the main website. There are some exceptions to the rule although that is rare for me. Here are my reasons:

• For one, there are more sites to maintain.
• Confusing for readers, blog visitors, customers, the audience in general. Try to give them a single focus point.
• It’s much easier to promote. Whether you use social networks, social bookmarks, PPC, ads, affiliates, whatever to generate traffic, it is easier to direct everyone to one main ‘hub’ and then from there on, lead people on to the different places you want them to go. It is of course OK to have a special sales page type newsletter sign up page to direct targeted traffic but I would put in a folder, or a sub-domain. That way, to the visitor’s eyes it’s all under one umbrella.

  One example is Apple.com. As a visitor and customer, I know that anything I need to know from Apple can be found if I visited Apple.com because it is the nerve center of the Apple online. Even if I don’t exactly know where the page is, but going to Apple.com will take me to the item/page that I am looking for. Makes sense?

If anyone else would like to help Fran out with their own words of wisdom in taming those domains for a website, put in your comments below.