So my wife and I visited a local watering hole for a little beer and dinner this weekend. Before the food came out, the bar tender brought us a placemat and some utensils.

What caught my eye were the placemats because they were a flat sheet of paper, printed with ads. I liked the idea and the bar doesn’t mind the ads because they do not have the extra cost of buying place mats. The placemats are offered "free" to bars and restaurants who will use them.

Now one thing that I do have a problem with is the ad company’s "brand name" they do work under. The freakn’ thing is confusing! It may look OK on the mat, but when somebody like myself tries to visit their site online.. I can’t find it.

Why can’t I find it? Because the companies name is LIKE the normal spelling "Value Mats" and when I visited ValueMats.com, I could instantly tell it was a domain name parking page.

At that point, I was thinking they simply must of let the domain expire and somebody purchased it.

Since I am a blogger, I tucked my "Value Mat" into my wife’s purse just in case I decided to look into the company for advertising or if I was going to write about it.

So after I visit ValueMat.com and discover it is not what I am looking for… makes me go look for my mat that I kept. (how many people have you seen "keep the placemat" is my point)

Looking at the mat in my hand explains why I couldn’t find the company!

They spell their company name "Valu Mats". DUMB!

They got so crafty with the spelling of their company, I couldn’t even find them!

Now if you want to get all fancy and name your company with a different spelling, you better own The Proper Spelling domain name to boot! If you do not, you will lose customers.

Just because somebody else may own the domain name that you are thinking of naming your company, doesn’t mean you have to skip over that name and get all crafty and respell a word. Many domain names are for sale, even if it is already owned.

If you want to name your company "Value Mats" (the make sense spelling), go find the owner of the domain name using the Whois database and buy it. Yes it will cost you some money, but how much is it costing you LOSING the customers to the proper spelling. How much is it costing you if these customers can not find your "made up spelling"?

It is all fine and dandy if you want to get creative with the spelling like Valu Mats did, but cover you butt and own the proper spelling domain and your creative spelling as well or you will lose business.

Now since I researched this a little bit, I also happened to notice Valu Mats owns the Clear, Make Sense domain name ColorPlacemats.com. Proper spelling, makes clear sense since that is what the mats are and is memorable. Since their company name is "made up spelling", they would be much better using the ColorPlacemats.com domain they already own printed on their mats because that is much easier to remember and it holds the proper spelling.

One other problem facing businesses are when the company includes "LLC" or "INC" onto their domain name. Customers often will remember your company name but not the LLC or INC and leave that off the end of the domain they visit. You as the business owner get’s one shot at your first impression. If the customer can’t find you on the first shot, many will not give you another.