It takes time to come up with the perfect business name and URL. But what happens if a potential customer types in the wrong URL? Setting up redirects in WordPress.com can help point them in the right direction.
Identify misspellings
Consider what other URLs people might accidentally type. For example, say your name is Sally Rider and your website is your name, sallyrider.com. You realize people might mistake “rider” for “writer.” In this case, you could consider purchasing the domain sallywriter.com and having it redirect to the correct URL. People also sometimes spell Sally as “Sallie” or “Saly,” so other options could be sallierider.com or salyrider.com.
Once you do your own brainstorm, ask people who are less familiar with your brand how they would spell your domain. This is especially important if you have a website that might not have an obvious spelling. If you notice a pattern, those are other URLs to consider adding.
If your website has been set up for a while and you have Google Search Console set up, you can also check here for misspellings. Click on Performance and look under Queries.
Finally, if your domain extension is something other than .com, you will probably want to add the .com version to your list. For example, if your website is actually sallyrider.me, then you’ll likely still want sallyrider.com to redirect to your website.
Purchase your domains
Now that you have figured out what other URLs people might try, it’s time to purchase them all. Do this wherever you purchase your domains from, or you can do it right from your WordPress.com dashboard.
Go to My Sites → Manage → Domains. Click the Add Domain button
Search for the domain name you want to register. If it’s available, it will show up when you do a search. Click Select to choose the available domain.
Go through this process with all the domains you would like to purchase based on your list. During this process, you might discover additional URLs to include for setting up redirects in WordPress.com.
If you have purchased your domains from outside of WordPress.com, now is the time to map your domains or transfer them to WordPress.com.
Set your primary domain
Once you have your URLs set up, make sure the main one (in this case, sallyrider.com) is set up as your primary domain. Go back to My Sites → Manage → Domains and click Change Primary button at the top right. From there, choose the main URL. All the other domains you have purchased will now redirect to this main domain.
If you invest some extra money and time setting up redirects, it will pay off by guiding customers who might otherwise get detoured in the wrong direction back to your website.
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