After working in a seo company for a while I came to the same conclusion as you. But.. now I want to start a webshop in fashion, to be precise: (high end) scarves

I own sjaals.net (Dutch for scarves)… Now I wonder how to present this name in combination with a fashionable, exclusive look and feel of the site, and avoiding a somewhat “corny’ impression because of using a generic domainname. And perhaps even benefit from some of the branding principles.

Fashion and generic domain names… How can I make it work? I’ve considered a subname as in: Sjaals.net by Valentine (example).. Or I consider asking 10 women to write the domain in their most beautiful handwriting and select the most fashionable one as a basis for a logo…

This where I am now… What do you think? Does anybody know some best practice examples in this matter?

The one with the best suggestion get’s a handwoven Pashmina scarve for free!

Cheers!

Ivo

Nice article about branding! I understood the complexity of this problem when dealing with large corporations, large enough to pay big amounts for your domains that deal with their generic prodservs.

I ran into the same type of confusion and roadblocks that the logical “assumption” of the executive’s “title” of “brand manager” or even “marketing director” threw at me.

Most corporate brand managers and marketing directors are actually frightened of a category killing domain name. Their jobs are at stake!!

One domain name can establish an online stream of new users doing outstanding name direction (or if you prefer the old style term “direct navigation”) on domain names that match the company’s prodservs. Why spend $10 mill on creating a marketing campaign, based on lots of intra-company departmental research and analysis, when one domain name, for $1.5 million, can forever bring in results online that the company never dreamed of.

So, to soothe the Brand Managers and Marketing Directors, I created the term “BACKBRANDING.COM” (shameless plug, as pointed out by Dub-A). So this gives these executives a handle they can grasp when the logic of getting a generic domain name hits them, and they need to “describe it” to the BOD.

“Hi, I discovered that backbranding our company’s products and services would be a great investment, spearheaded by a significant purchase of a “category killing” domain name, such as XXXXXXX.com . This domain, which is “back branding” our brand, will allow us to secure “back” the generic searches and categorization of our prodservs, and the domain name investment doesn’t lose value, but gains value over the years as we build it up.”

Hmmm… I’d like to be a fly on the wall in a BOD meeting like this, wouldn’t you?