Domain names need to be chosen carefully. Your business and your domain name are intertwined. It represents you and who you want to be in the market. When choosing a domain name is it a wise idea to purchase others that are similar to the one that you chose for yourself.
Let’s weigh the pros and cons of this question. Whether you should buy other domain names that are close depends on how well your name was chosen. Just like you conduct research before choosing a niche for your business, do the same before choosing a domain name.
Domain names can be triggered by keyword searches. If part of your domain name contains a keyword that is popular in search engine searches it could be a future winner. Ideally, you want your domain name to appear on the first page of a search.
A winning domain name will have others trying to get as close to it as possible without infringing. Buying those domain names yourself means that they will have to come to you for those names. You may want to use those names in the future for other websites that you will create. Having names that are similar will ensure that others can find your sites with their keyword searches.
If your domain becomes a household name, the other domains will become even more valuable to you in the future. You will have the option of selling them for a fair amount of money or holding on to them. Selling them will mean that someone else will get to ride your popularity with a name similar to yours.
One reason to buy similar domain names is for misspellings. Do you know what homophones are? They are words that sound alike but are spelled differently. If you are doing a podcast or talking about your business website to someone and tell them your domain name, it is possible that they could misspell it when they type it into the URL address space.
If someone misspells it, that person could be directed to another website. Thinking it is your site they could recommend it to someone else or buy from that site. It could end up being a costly faux pas on your part.
When you enter your own address, purposely misspell it and see what comes up. If there are no matches, then you might be safe — for now. You may want to think of all the spellings that could come up and buy those domains as well to avoid this problem in the future.
There is a lot to know about domain names besides just coming up with the names. Before you choose your name, look into all the possibilities so that you are sure that a good name that can’t be duplicated is chosen.
You know it’s one thing to own the domain you choose. But it is even more important to own the name “Legally”. When you start your business, don’t just focus on domain, but be sure to register the name as well. Imagine future issues, if the legal owner of the name contests you as the domain owner. I wonder which would take preference in court?
If I was starting a new business today, I would register my name first then search for the domain. Something to consider.