The Not-Com Shift: Why companies are moving from .com to not-com

For the last 30 years that people have been using email (yes, it’s already been that long), we’ve already programmed ourselves to say “our email provider.COM” as the way to reach us online.  When you get a web address to check out, your brain already adds the .com before it’s even uttered. But have you ever stopped to think what’s the point of using a dot.com? We’ve partnered with Name.Kitchen to take a look at why companies are moving from .com to not-com. 

So first of all, why does a dot.com hold more distinction than a .org, .net, or even a .coffee? Well, honestly, it doesn’t. Especially in a world that now thinks how to share it’s message in no more than 140 characters. It’s just extra time, money and space that you could be using to describe your business, to be more distinctive, and for many companies, including international organizations, it’s part of the big shift from .com to the new not-com. 

According to the Domain Name Industry Brief survey in 2014, there are about 284 million registered domain names. And it’s been approximated that there are almost 1 billion websites on the Internet. 

When you are a business trying to stand out in a crowd, you have to do something innovative, but that makes sense…like opting for a not-com instead a dot.com. 

A New Branding Tool

While picking a company name is a hard enough process within itself, with so many other websites and domains, the likelyhood your name is already in use is pretty high. So in the past, we’ve gotten creative, but adding a hyphen or spelling out the dot.com. These solutions may have worked to get your company on the web, but it didn’t do any favors to help potential customers to find you or your website. However, by using a not-com., you’ve opened your business up to a whole new set of branding rules.

For Icarus Photography (www.icarus.photos), business owner Katy Lengacher made the switch because she wanted to amplify her brand and carve out a niche in wedding photography. 

Having a unique domain that describes what I’m thinking about, doing and breathing all day was a no-brainer,” Lengacher says. “It’s the perfect new branding identity tool. ” 

Read more about why Lengacher picked her name and why a not-com.

Start a Buzz

These “not-com” options like .photos or .photography have obvious benefits, including memorability, meaning and availability. Choices like .COFFEE, .FLORIST, and .STYLE  immediately conjure images to the consumer, while words like .COMPANY, .BUSINESS and .MEDIA have broader appeal. And let’s just consider the SEO opportunity for you here, as well. If you’re a coffee company, then let’s just say you’re coffee company, not a coffee company.com.

And that’s exactly what Driftaway Coffee (www.driftaway.coffee) did when NY owners Suyog Mody and Anu Menon made the jump not just from corporate America but to a coffee subscription service that that delivers personalized fresh-roasted coffee to your door. The ‘dot-coffee (.coffee) has provided them a obvious digital storefront and been a great conversation starter. 

We are an online business exclusively selling online,” says Mody. “It’s a URL that implies what we do.”

Read more about Driftaway Coffee’s choice for a not-com.

Bring Your Business to the Customer

When you’re trying to not just teach people about a topic, but also stir up sales from your business, you have double the work for marketing your business and the subject matter.

For authors Kirsten and Christopher Shockey, they wanted to educate people about fermentation as a culinary art and hopefully, point people to buy their book. So The Fermista’s Kitchen (www.ferminista.kitchen) was born. 

People like to be in their kitchen, and we want it to bring this idea that fermentation is really easy and really accessible into your life.” says Kirsten Shockey.

Read more about why the Shockeys picked their name and why a not-com. 

Choosing a great name for your business is one of the most important decisions. Name.Kitchen offers tips, advice and inspiration to help you jump-start the name brainstorm. By taking a 360-degree approach to naming, Name.Kitchen blends business, human interest and pop culture to help create your business success story. Name. Kitchen is powered by Donuts, helps entrepreneurs (“business chefs”) to create the perfect recipe.

Ready to get cooking with Name.Kitchen? Get cooking now.

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Name.Kitchen.