Friday Feature: Custom Domain URLs [VIDEO)
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Does it bother you when a client wants to make an appointment they have to navigate away from your website? Do you wish that your booking site had the same address appearance as your website? Are you concerned that customers may avoid making an online booking because of the different URL address? These and several other reasons are why SimplyBook.me offers the Custom Domain feature which enables you to give your booking pages a customised URL.
The security-conscious web user
You want your clients to book online because it saves you admin time, can be done at any hour of the day, and you can control it all from your dashboard. Many clients want to book online for some of the same reasons, but the clients who use the web for managing their lives are also very security conscious. When they are asked to click a button, they check where it will send them to avoid threatening websites that could harm their systems. When a button link sends a user away from the domain they’re browsing, it can seem a little dodgy.
How it looks, do clients question your professionalism?
Do you judge a potential service provider if you have to use a third party site to book an appointment? I know I do, especially if it takes me to a bland page of generic booking options (thankfully, SimplyBook.me doesn’t do that). I do question why I’m navigating away from a page to book what I want. It might not stop me from booking with them, but it will make me stop and think for a second.
How many times have many of us clicked on a link, only to end up redirected to a random spam site with a completely different URL?
Returning clients won’t be bothered by the redirect, but new clients who have found you online might think twice.
Streamlining your website & booking site into one entity.
With the number of features available on the SimplyBook.me scheduling software, why shouldn’t you think about consolidation your website and booking system into the same domain? If you already have a website, it probably has a custom domain name that you bought, why not give that domain to your booking site?
There is another possibility. Maybe you’ve been using social media as your primary online presence and are thinking of creating a website. If you are already using SimplyBook.me for your appointment scheduling, why go to the trouble of setting up a separate website? The tools to create a beautiful and functional website are just a small number of the numerous features available.
Something to contemplate
There is a lucrative industry in Cybersquatting, people and companies who buy up large numbers of domain names in the most common and popular TLDs (top-level domain, the bit that goes .com, .io or .org). The domain does nothing but offers itself for sale; however, buying it is significantly more costly than it would be from a domain name site directly.
Do you remember the tale of how a coffee shop patron paid back the obnoxious guys on the next table, by buying the custom domain for the new company name they decided on? Some people do that for profit, rather than poetic social justice.
How frustrating would it be to try and build your business’ online identity when someone else owns the domain? Make sure you have a backup domain name or two, just in case yours is unavailable.
Check back with us next week for some handy information on buying your domain name.
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