Something crossed my mind as I was driving through St Albans today. I was sat behind a trader’s van at a roundabout, reading the stuff on the back of it. It had the guy’s name, what he did, and a phone number. Which would be an effective piece of advertising if it weren’t now a crime to pick up your mobile phone while driving.

Now here’s a quick test:

Have a look at that for a moment, then drive down to the shops, pick up some pop tarts and almonds, maybe drop in at your Mum’s house (Mums love it when you drop in) and then head home for a nice sit down.

Now, can you still remember that phone number?

Probably not, right? That’s because, at the end of the day, it’s just a bunch of numbers, and most people find long numbers pretty hard to remember. You tend to have to dress up like it’s the 70s and run around shouting if you really want people to remember.

Too much like hard work (unless you’re these guys, I guess).

Can you tell where this is going?

Domain names are easy to remember, guys! If you’ve got a website, put your website address on your van! If you don’t have a website, get a clever little site and then put your website address on your van!

Then people can get home, go to your website, have a good look at what you do and how well you do it, and then feel really confident about phoning you up for a quote, using the phone number you’ve also listed on your site. By the way, Clever Little Site makes it really quick to put your phone number on every single page of your website, all at once.

And remember, the more memorable the address is, the more likely people are to remember it - there’s no need to be boring about it. Why not try something like help-my-roof-is-leaking.co.uk (for a roofer) or lets-get-plastered.co.uk (for a plasterer).

Without putting a website address on your van, you’re missing out on a great advertising opportunity, and pretty much throwing away potential business. And if your website address makes someone laugh, they may even tell a friend about it!