Did I think I was going to change the name of my website on a whim one day — while sucking back an extra shot of espresso and looking up availability on Squarespace’s domain search tool?
Heck. Noooo.
But truthfully, I should have seen this website name switcheroo coming.
For weeks, I’d been rolling new website name ideas around in my mind. Asking friends questions like:
Do you think it would benefit me to just change the name of my website to become a personal brand?
Do you think that maybe I’m limiting myself if I niche down too much in my website name?
Do you think that it’s worth it SEO-wise to have a keyword like “copywriting” in my domain name? Or am I just 111% overthinking things right now?
The answer to that last question was “yes”: I was totally overthinking things.
But ultimately that overthinking won out.
Because on a rainy Portland morning in September, I let my cereal go soggy as I bought up thenorthbranchstudio.com from Squarespace’s domain registrar service. And said “so long!” to northbranchcopy.co: the domain name that had gotten me through the first few years of my biz.
And I do not regret the decision to change the name of my website. I do not regret it one bit.
(Psssttttt: if you’re wondering what a domain name is right about now, it’s essentially your business’s online street address — the unique-to-you name that helps your audience find you on the web.)
So why did I make the switch? And what should you know if you’re considering making a domain name switcheroo yourself?
Reason #1 Why I Changed The Name of My Website: It Was Limiting My Growth
When I first started my website, it was hard to think beyond the immediate future of “getting my business up and going.”
It was even harder to imagine that one day I’d outgrow the website copywriting services that were (and still mostly are as I write this) the bread and butter of my biz.
But by the time I was eating cereal at my kitchen table that rainy day in September, it was already clear to me that one day I might want to replace my “Copywriter” title with “Messaging Strategist,” “Content Strategist,” or some other moniker that I hadn’t even thought of yet.
Calling my site northbranchcopy.co left little room for interpretation.
It also set me down a path more geared toward training the next generation of copywriters (a move I see many copywriters with “copy”-named websites make) rather than taking a wider-lens view of what the future could become.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting to go all-in with the “copywriting” route. But that being said, you should be careful of any domain name that pushes you too heavily into one small corner of your industry.
If there’s any whisper in your brain of wanting to expand your services line-up down the road, going with a more all-inclusive name can serve you better for the long-term. Just like it did for me when I finally took the leap to change the name of my website.
Reason #2: .Co Is Just Not the Same As .Com
If I asked you to name 10 websites right now, on the spot (any websites, any websites at all)…what would you say?
(Go ahead: feel free to pause and play along if you want to. I’ll wait!)
Google.com
Instagram.com
Amazon.com
There’s a reason why 40 out of 50 of the most-visited websites in the world — at least at the time of writing this — use .com as their domain extension.
(Psssstt: if you’re scratching your head right about now, a domain extension is the combo of letters that comes after the period in your website address. You might recognize ones like .co, .com, .org, .gov, etc.)
Even if Google doesn’t prioritize one domain extension over another when it comes to determining search engine optimization rank, there’s no doubt that .com is the most popular (and thus the most trusted) domain extension in use.
Though .co is often the go-to choice for people when .com is already taken, it’s telling that not a single website on the Top-50 most-visited website list chooses to use the extension themselves.
Some SEO-ists offer a super easy-peasy explanation for why .co remains less favorable than .com: people just trust .com websites more, even if Google is giving the green light go-ahead when it comes to SEO.
What does that mean in simpler terms?
Even if Google doesn’t heavily consider your domain extension when determining where your site stands in the search result pages, having a .co site can leave you less trusted by real people.
Which can ultimately leave your site:
- Less visited
- Less commonly used for backlinks (aka: people link back to your content less frequently)
- Less of a spot people want to linger on — which means you might be fighting more of an uphill battle to get web visitors to spend more time on your pages
All of which can ultimately hurt your SEO efforts.
Because no matter what Google says about all domain extensions being created equal, things like backlinks and time-on-page are key factors when it comes to your ranking.
And by having lower numbers on these fronts, you’re not just losing out on getting eyes on your content: you’re leading Google to believe that you’re less 100% legit and rank-worthy than you actually are.
Reason #3: I Was Sick of Saying “It’s .Co, Not .Com!”
Having to clarify once that you’re the standout .co website in a sea of .coms? That’s not too bad.
But having to interrupt every in-person networking convo to clarify — at least twice — that they have you listed with the right .co email address?
That’s…less than ideal.
And getting two emails in one week from potential clients who struggled to send you the info you requested because they kept accidentally mis-writing your email as .com?
That’s even more bad.
Maybe we can file all this under “problems that only I have to deal with.”
But after years having to play the “it’s .co, not .com!” game while double-checking my work to make sure autocorrect didn’t swoop in to do me dirty, I was kinda done.
The truth is:
Every lost email.
Every missed networking connection.
Every lead that gets confused about how to reach out and goes with someone else who is easier to access.
…Is a moment of missed clarity that can ultimately cut into your business’ bottom line.
At the end of the day, I just didn’t want to spend the next 10+ years of my biz screaming “it’s .co!”
I wanted my ideal clients to be clear on that from the get-go.
Reason #3: The Best Time to Navigate the SEO Changes Is Now
When you change your domain name, it’s highly likely that you’ll see your SEO suffer.
(Not the news you probably want to hear, I know. But the reality of a rebrand that needs to be talked about by marketers more.)
Even if all your organic traffic comes back full-throttle soon enough, you’re likely to see some short-term losses. Ones you’ll have to roll with as they come.
Ultimately, it’s always better to deal with these short-term losses before you sink a bunch of resources into search engine optimization efforts. Rather than after.
For those who are a fan of entrepreneur quotes, here’s how this breaks down in more motivational terms:
“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”
– Chinese Proverb
As I was gearing up to plan out the next phase of my blog strategy (one designed to boost the organic traffic to my website), I wanted to make sure my effort-payout ratio would actually…well, pay out.
Dealing with any search engine optimization losses upfront was a better move than trying to deal with them while moving a website full of even more blog posts in the bank.
And waiting around until I felt “ready” to handle whatever organic search stall-outs came my way? That was just leaving me waiting a future that couldn’t come slow enough.
“Rebrand. Roll with it. Roll on.”
That’s the mantra I kept top-of-mind when I decided to change the name of my website.
And the one you should consider keeping top-of-mind too when thinking of changing the name of yours.
How I Made the Domain Name Change Easier on Myself
I’ve always been a “close your eyes and just do it” kind of gal.
So deciding to make a big rebranding decision over Cheerios? Notttt super out of the ordinary for me.
If you’re more likely to think, rethink, and rethink some more over a decision like changing your domain name, then going slow and steady as you get clear on what the process might look like will help.
But when the moment you decide to go for it comes, here’s what I’d recommend keeping in mind:
Don’t change your domain name unless you’ve found a better alternative
If you, like me, are fully aware of the headaches your domain name is causing you (and how changing it will ease those headaches for good), then by all means: change away.
But jumping from one domain name to another one you’ll end up hating down the line will only hurt you long-term.
Wait until you’re 100% sure that you’ve found a domain name you’ll want to stick with. And get 100% clear with yourself that you’re making the switch in the name of solving daily headaches — not creating new ones.
Don’t do it willy-nilly
It probably doesn’t exactly seem like I’m practicing what I preach when I say this…
But it’s always in your benefit to do a little forward-prep to make sure you understand the 1, 2, 3 steps of navigating your domain change.
I had an SEO friend on LinkedIn messaging speed dial to help me through the early stages of the process. With his support, I knew what I was getting into before I dove in with two feet.
More importantly, I had someone in my corner confirming: “Yes, this is a really good idea and you should have done it a long time ago.”
If you have doubts about the process, I recommend booking a call with an SEO pro.
Or doing enough research on your own so that you don’t have leave any questions unanswered when it comes to how you’ll rock through this part of your rebrand.
Take full advantage of the tools available to you
Changing the name of my website might have felt like a big deal to me. But in the grand scheme of the internet?
Domain name changes are happening every day.
Your domain registrar (the website you purchase your domain name from — think: Squarespace Domains, GoDaddy) should be able to help you redirect visitors to your old site towards your new.
As long as you maintain ownership of your old domain, you should still be able to snag any of your web visitors who aren’t quite up to speed about the website address switch.
You should also be able to maintain all the marketing effort that went into strategies like Pinterest, where clicking on a direct link from an old post will forward visitors to a corresponding page on your new site.
For their part, Google can help smooth out the transition with their Change of Address tool, which you can find in your Google Search Console dashboard.
This Change of Address tool gives Google a heads-up that your website has changed, and kick-starts the process of helping your new pages replace your old in the search engine result pages.
New Biz? How to Get Your Domain Name Right From the First Go
Okay, yeah: this domain change story has a happy ending for me.
But what would have made me even happier is if I could have gone back in time — to put just as much thought into my domain name as I did into the actual name of my biz.
So if you’re a new business owner setting down the domain name path, this is what I wish I’d done differently to not have the decision of whether or not to change the name of my website be a future-me problem:
1). Not letting yourself be limited by the address name you choose. If you think there’s room for your brand to expand into more services down the road, consider using your personal name as your domain name. Or choose something generic — like “[companyname].com” — instead of something more specific — like “[companyname]photography.com”
2). Get the .com. It’s not always possible to snag the .com. (It’s more desirable for a reason!) But if you can snag it, you should. It’s also worth looking for alternative ways to represent your brand that will help you veer back toward .com if your first choice of domain name is already taken. For instance: naming yourself “thecupcakebakery.com” instead of just “cupcakebakery.com”
But Really, If You’re Going to Change Your Domain: Make Sure You’re Ready
I don’t want to to sugarcoat things. Or make it seem like going all-in with the decision to change the name of my website was the magical answer to all my problems.
At the end of the day, I was backed by a toolkit of my own SEO know-how.
I had an SEO expert at my side if anything went wrong.
And I was on the cusp of doing a ton of heavy-lifting SEO work that I had put to the side while building other parts of my biz.
All together, this left me in the perfect spot to change the name of my website without regrets. But my experience shouldn’t leave you believing it’s the best or only option for you.
(Only you and maybe an SEO consultant can decide that!)
