So, all the domain names owned by CybKnight are,
http://CybKnight.com/
http://SchaumburgGame.com/
http://SchaumburgGames.com/
http://GameChicago.com/
http://Gaeim.com/
http://CybFun.com/
http://CybBuy.com/
Internet domains are around $10 per year to own and it usually includes forward service to your original web address. (all six addresses forwared to CybKnight.com. Please disregard the bottom three. Those are added later and not relavant to this article.)
It's much cheaper than coupon magazine price which generally costs $200-$5,000 per month for local business owners.
Here's some general rules I recommend to choose assistant domains.
1. Imagine there's no google or yahoo services. And, assume what customers will type in the web address box as key words to find your business.
The reason why we've got this idea is we used to search our business with diverse key words in google. I always wondered why our result comes up 6th-7th always when we typed "Schaumburg game".
Then, one day I just realized, "What if I choose those key words as our site name?"
When someone moves to our area and try to see if any gameshop is available, they can go to yahoo or google to type "schaumburg game". But, it's possible they can type those words in address box directly without any hassle.
We have big Polish Market and big Italian Restaurant in our plaza and both have their own web sites.
My recommendations for domain forward are "SchaumburgFood.com" and "SchaumburgPizza.com" each. Local people can try those addresses without going through yahoo or google.
Also, we need to attract customers from Chicago city or nearby. "Game chicago" was only choice for two words available now.
2. Shorter is better. Do not make it more than two words.
In my opinion, if any domain is more than two words, customers may not even try that naturally and check yahoo or google before reaching three words.
In our case, "Chicago game stores" or "games in chicago" was possible domain choice. But, in my opinion, if customers don't get any result after "Chicago games", they will directly go to google or yahoo. We decided not to go for them.
3. Never use -, _, . , . And, always stick to ".com".
When customers type domain names on their own, they usually type it like google key word. You wouldn't type it like g-a-m-e, though it's very creative ideas for domain name.
Certainly, you can let customer knows the site name "g-a-m-e", but it will cost you lots of money for that education and advertisement.
In the same sense, it's not very good idea to include such words like "the", "a" or "-site" in the address.
Also, when customers type something naturally, they end up typing .com at the end in 90%.
We need to use the most natural way, so you wouldn't pay anything extra like ad.
4. Those one or two words should be very relevant to your business.
Choosing any popular key word as your domain sounds very attractive, but you don't have to go crazy. If those are not relevant, it can bring you traffics, but it won't bring you any business.
In our case, we could have take domains like "Schaumburg shops" or "Schaumburg stores", but we decided not to do that. They may expect local shop lists, but if it shows one game store, they will move away instantly.That's the same for me. When I am looking for PC store in Schaumburg, but if it shows knitting shop, I wouldn't take a look twice.
5. Try to have up to 10 domains of up to 2 key words.
Although we don't have any plan to have more domains, it may not be very bad ideas to have minimum 10 domains consisting of up to two key words for customers to use to find you business in yahoo or google.
More and more people are using Internet nowadays and less and less two words domain names are available as time goes on. (Mostly one word is not available already.)
Sometimes, we have to think what will happen in our business in 30 years.
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