Rather than using good keywords on our website to assist consumers in finding it, our marketing department would like to use a different URL to drive traffic to our site for specific products. For example, if we were to promote our Rewards Checking, marketing would like to have a URL that would be something like "{bank name) Rewards", so when the consumer typed in that address, they would be redirected to the appropriate location on our website.

My first thought was "why not just use better keywords?! Why spend the money on another URL?!?" but they are pretty adamant about wanting to go this route.


What are some of the issues that we need to be concerned with? For example, are there any compliance concerns? It's not like we're building a new webpage or anything ... just sending people to the right place. What about UDAAP? I imagine we need to be careful what we call the URL so it does not inadvertently mislead the consumer.

What should we be concerned with?

IMHO - You would be training your customer that it is OK to go to websites that don't reflect your core URL. You are going to help set them up for phishing.

If you think most customers understand URLs in the first place, I think that is a dangerous thought.

Do you think that your customers are going to understand the difference between someone asking them to click on "http://www.banknamerewards.com" versus "https://www.banknamerewards.com/somegarbage.html".

Also, ask for the cost benefit analysis. What proportion of your business is driven to the bank through your website in the first place versus just walking thru the door or through other media efforts. If they don't have those numbers, it is a non-starter anyway as it would be a potential waste of money.

Excellent feedback.

I'd share Randy's phishing concerns with them and return to your idea of keywords. If you load pages up with keywords, the search engines will score your pages much higher and put you near the top of their search results. Include things like your phone numbers, zip codes, names of communities, and other terms potential customers might use in their searches.

While we are on this topic and since Richard mentioned information about the bank, I am amazed (read: disappointed) at the number of bank websites that tuck their location information away on a separate page that may require the use of javascript to open. I'm sure these banks base that decision on the idea that their customers already know the bank and where it's located. But increasingly, non-customers look at bank websites (I often do it to figure out something about a bank from which I've received an emailed question).

A related gripe is the number of email signature blocks that give the sender's name, title, and email and phone contact info, but often omit the business/bank name (assuming that customers who get email will recognize the sender, perhaps?) and location. Do you have any idea how many banks are called "Citizens Bank" (with and without an apostrophe)?

^^^ Well said. Many web sites are like movies where two people meet and agree to have dinner tonight. They never say where or when, they just meet for dinner. It's harder than that in the real world when the banker says "Im at FNB." I also hate it when they use their own, uncommon acronyms. I've had emails that may reference allowable terms in the HSSA account. The what? High School Student Account. Well, not everyone knows the acronyms each bank uses on it's own. This is not uncommon.

When I was at Fort Hood National Bank, it was not uncommon for me to get things actually for First Hawaiian National Bank. In that case, sloppy senders assumed FHNB.com was what they wanted and they never looked for our address. Texas is more than a keystroke away from the Pacific. So it goes both ways, but I dislike banks that assume the reader knows where "our branch on Central Ave." is.

First, getting a URL is not very expensive if all you want to do is redirect to your website. Many businesses buy up common misspellings of their names, abbreviated versions, full legal names, holding company names, etc. and redirect them to their primary webpage so a customer doesn't accidently 'wander' into someone else’s website.
In your case I might suggest setting up a "bankname.com/rewards" address. IT won't have to redo your whole website for that to work either; you can just redirect it to wherever your current rewards page is, say bankname.com/shared/marketing/page/check-rewards, or whatever it is.

Our Marketing department likes to use the "bankname.com/rewards" because they can track how successful the promotion was this way.