Having a great domain helps from a lot of perspectives but the “instant credibility” factor is often overlooked. Let’s assume you own a one word dot com domain that doesn’t have all that much traffic/rev and that the term doesn’t have a lot of exact match searches either. Or a LLL dot com, you get the point.

For the end user who will ultimately develop it, the domain will undoubtedly pay for itself over and over again thanks to the instant credibility it provides.

Think about it.

Let’s assume John contacts a potential business partner with a proposal and says “Hi, this is John, the owner of Super-Furniture.net” and let’s also assume Joe contacts the same potential business partner and says “Hi, this is Joe, the owner of Furniture.com” – who is more likely to receive a reply?

Exactly.

In this case and in many other situations, the domain increases your chances of being taken seriously.

If a potential business partner comes to your HQ and sees that it’s a less than impressive one in a bad neighborhood… bam, bad impression.

If your HQ is a nice place in the city’s best area… instant credibility.

A domain can help from the same perspective but I’m pretty sure that for most end users, a domain that gives them instant credibility will be a lot cheaper than property that does the same thing, definitely something worth keeping in mind 🙂