Thread: A new site with *almost* the same address as mine

My website is Daniela - Belly Dance Performer and Instructor. It has been for at least 6 years.

Today I just found a new site, Daniela- Belly Dance Performer. Veeeeery similar.

This dancer is in Texas, I'm in NY, so it's not like customers will accidentally find her page and book her instead. But do you think this will impact my site/traffic/business negatively in any way? The names are SO similar, it worries me!

Anything I should do to make sure customers come to the right site?

And I am in no way saying this new dancer should not have named her site what she named it - it's her name, and there is already a danielabellydance.com and a bellydancebydaniela.com, so what else was she going to do, really?

Hmmmmm.

Most customers, I think, come to our sites through links. Either on Google or on partypop or an e-mail we've sent them. I don't think they're usually typing in the url unless it's from our business card?

so... make sure your business card lettering is big enough to read, clear and easy to see. (that's true for everyone, of course.

And make sure phrases like NYC, NY, New York, and whatever borough/localities you serve most are in the text -- preferably the header text -- on your home page, in your keywords, and anywhere else you can think of on your home page.

You could maybe even set your title to "Daniela - NYC Belly Dance Performer and Instructor"

Just about everyone runs into a problem of another dancer using the same or a very similar name. You can't exactly blame her for wanting to identify herself, and it's not her fault you beat her to that domain name. There are only a finite number of combinations of the words involving "Daniela" and belly dancing.

Originally Posted by Lauren_

And make sure phrases like NYC, NY, New York, and whatever borough/localities you serve most are in the text -- preferably the header text -- on your home page, in your keywords, and anywhere else you can think of on your home page.

I think as a general policy--no matter what kind of services or goods you are promoting--if geographical proximity matters to your business, put where you are located prominently on your web site. Don't expect the customer to click through multiple pages of material, or scroll down and squint at small print on the welcome screen. Let them know from the minute the page loads whether they are in the right spot.

Originally Posted by Tourbeau

I think as a general policy--no matter what kind of services or goods you are promoting--if geographical proximity matters to your business, put where you are located prominently on your web site. Don't expect the customer to click through multiple pages of material, or scroll down and squint at small print on the welcome screen. Let them know from the minute the page loads whether they are in the right spot.

I wish more people would make it obvious where they are located. I can't tell you how many links I get sent and when I go to check out the dancer, I can't find where they are located. How the heck am I supposed to offer them a job if I can't figure out where they are at? LOL.

Originally Posted by Samira_dncr

I wish more people would make it obvious where they are located. I can't tell you how many links I get sent and when I go to check out the dancer, I can't find where they are located. How the heck am I supposed to offer them a job if I can't figure out where they are at? LOL.

or when it doesn't say where a workshop is on the flyer? i hate that! sometimes i get all excited only to find out that not only is the workshop not in my state, it's not even in my country!,m::..cr.:

Originally Posted by Tourbeau

Just about everyone runs into a problem of another dancer using the same or a very similar name. You can't exactly blame her for wanting to identify herself, and it's not her fault you beat her to that domain name. There are only a finite number of combinations of the words involving "Daniela" and belly dancing.

I know, that's basically what I said in my original post - I totally don't blame her for naming her site, I just want to make sure people don't google me and end up on her site confused.

If it were me, I probably wouldn't have picked a site name that was only one letter off of a pre-existing site because I think it is confusing but I guess she doesn't mind or agree with me.

I have my location at the bottom of every page, but I will ask my web designer to put it in my title next time he makes changes, too.

I agree - I HATE when a dancer doesn't put their location anywhere on their site. I don't understand the logic behind that.

Putting geographic location in Title is good, also in the <meta> tag for the description. This is what shows up in Google when folks search, so this meta tag is a good place to differentiate yourself from other dancers. Yours currently looks like this:
<meta name="description" content="Belly dance,bellydancer,Mid East Dance, middle eastern dance, arabic dance, Daniella, Belly dance instruction"> Ours looks like this: <META NAME="DESCRIPTION" CONTENT="Belly Dance and Bollywood Dance at Louisville's only belly dance studio. Belly dance, sword dance, and Bollywood dance lessons, workshops and performances for students in Louisville, Kentucky and Indiana.">

Originally Posted by maurazebra

Putting geographic location in Title is good, also in the <meta> tag for the description. This is what shows up in Google when folks search, so this meta tag is a good place to differentiate yourself from other dancers. Yours currently looks like this:
<meta name="description" content="Belly dance,bellydancer,Mid East Dance, middle eastern dance, arabic dance, Daniella, Belly dance instruction"> Ours looks like this: <META NAME="DESCRIPTION" CONTENT="Belly Dance and Bollywood Dance at Louisville's only belly dance studio. Belly dance, sword dance, and Bollywood dance lessons, workshops and performances for students in Louisville, Kentucky and Indiana.">

Thanks for this info, I will ask my web guy to do all this. I don't understand much about websites, but he does!

How about contacting the other dancer and linking to each other's sites? You could have a banner that says "If you've reached this site looking for Daniela..of (denver or whatever)...you're in the wrong place..so just shimmy on over to..." and then have her link.

Great idea! I can't imagine why anyone would object to that, especially if you're located nowhere near each other.

Originally Posted by BELLA_BELLA

How about contacting the other dancer and linking to each other's sites? You could have a banner that says "If you've reached this site looking for Daniela..of (denver or whatever)...you're in the wrong place..so just shimmy on over to..." and then have her link.

That would have to be very carefully planned. Having a banner warning visitors that they might be in the wrong spot is not the best way to set the tone for the website. I've read that people determine whether a web page is attractive or not in the first 1/10 of a second; and they spend less than ten seconds deciding whether they want to read or click away from a page. That ten seconds needs to be spent selling the dance products, not warning folks that 'hi, you might not want to be here after all.' Somehow the need to welcome folks in and engage their attention would have to be balanced with the fact that they just came in the wrong house. Maybe reinforcement of the geographical location on the home pages would be the most graceful fix.