Should you brand on a New Domain Extension if you can't get the .com?

It's that you should buy yourname.com!  But chances are you already knew that.  

-Purchase the name of yourstartup.com
-Add yourname.com to your cart

Even if you use only one now, that's fine, just buy both your brand and your name so no one else can get their hands on either one.

I'd recommend using instantdomainsearch.com to quickly search for available .coms.  

BUT of course chances are your top choice may not be available or a domainer is asking way too much money for it.  Should you buy a domain on a new extension (like .attorney, .dental, or .pizza)?

I just finished reading "My dentist shared some interesting insights on their experience branding with .DENTAL" by my friend Morgan Linton.

Before I share my opinion on some of Morgan's article, the biggest concern for me was that soothingdental.com is a different website than soothing.dental.  I checked this before even finishing his article.  

Furthermore, Morgan mentioned in his article, "A lot of customers seem to be getting confused and sending them emails at soothing.dental.com, and of course – the emails never make it to them."  This is something very frightening if you are branding on a new domain extension.  The regular person is used to typing .com at the end of an email, especially if you domain is not a .net, .org, or .co.  

A last concern I'd have for Soothing.dental is how much web traffic and potential customers are they losing to people who are typing in soothingdental.com.  At least they aren't based in the same city, but regardless, even just one unique visitor that soothing.dental loses could be worth more than just the single appointment they were trying to schedule online.  

Plus, soothingdental.com is owned by an end user, not a domain investor so the chances of them being able to acquire that at even market value is low, since a different dentistry has resources invested in that electronic real estate.

My recommendation:  Think of domains and websites like real estate.  The domain name is the land, and it's not always worth investing in land if it's not a prime location.  And of course, building a storefront on your land can raise its value, but don't invest in a storefront on a bad plot of land.  Especially if someone has a really similar address as you. 

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