Sunday, May 25, 2008

How Critical Is Your Domain Name? You Bet!

Domain Name

Choosing your domain name is critical! There are a number of important concepts to chew over. Unfortunately, some of these concepts are not mutually compatible. So there are some big decisions to be made.

First ask yourself what are trying to achieve with the Domain name. Are you trying to make the name memorable? What we are getting at here is repeat business and easy recommendation. If the name is memorable, then the next time a visitor wants to visit your site, they can recall the domain name easily. If they want to pass on your site onto a friend they can easily remember the site. So which is easier to remember "Google.com" or "thegreatestsearchengineintheworld.com"? Get the point! Short names tend to be more memorable - but here's the rub - not many short names are available as domain names. Our advice is to stick with the top TLDs - namely, in our view, .com, .net, .org (if there are no legal issues), .info and possibly .tv (if your site is entertainment, media) and your country domain extension (so for the UK: .co.uk). Of course, this restricts the choice of domain names.

Memorable or descriptive?

Although Google, Amazon, Delicious, etc are not particularly descriptive of the service or product that they offer, they are certainly memorable! However, an alternative approach is to go with the descriptive domain name - such as WeddingGifts.com . It is obvious what this site is about and the name is relatively easy to remember. However, imagine, a few months down the line an old visitor to your site might want to return. Was it WeddingGift.com or WeddingGifts.com or WeddingPresents.com etc? You can see the problem.

Search Engine Perspective

Do the keywords in the domain name influence Google? In our experience it is a definitive YES. We 100% believe this is an excellent reason to go down the descriptive route for domain names. So say you are selling Chateaux Property - then the keywords "chateaux" and "property" are going to be the phrases that browsers will be typing into Google. Check on sites such as Wordtracker.com and nichebot.com for highly searched phrases for your "market". These will give you a clue for potential domain names. So the best domain name, in our example, will be www.chateauxproperty.com. Note there are no hyphens and we are using the .com TLD. It will be much easier to get top rankings on "chateaux property" with this domain name. Check it out!

Existing Domains

What other hints? Another key factor is the age of domain. Older domains are ranked better on Google. So first stop should be a site like GoDaddy.com and check out expiring names. Other factors to look at when checking through expired domain lists are any existing Google PR and inbound links from other sites. Google PR is measured on a scale 0 to 10. 10 being best! Rankings of 3 or 4 are great as a starting point and if they have lots of inbound links from other sites - that is great! CheckPageRanking.com will help you evaluate the domain.

Buying a Domain name

If you are being serious about your business, then buy the domain name for 10 years not the shortest term (1 year). Why? If YOU are serious then Google will also believe you are serious. Google will give you browny points in the rankings! Also, seriously consider buying combos - such as chateaux-property.com, chateauxproperty.co.uk, etc and point them with permanent re-directs to the main site. You will pick up more type-in traffic and stop cometitors trying to piggy back on your success.

Buying Domains Expiring Soon

Buying domains expiring soon is often very tricky and a difficult proposition to a person, who is just entering the big and bad world of expired domain names! A newbie who is entering the expired domain market find this intricate process confusing as well as squeezing, with so many people jostling for a breathing space. For a starter who is just trying to get a foothold in the ever-competitive expired domains market, the entire process of finding and buying a domain name is too trying and cumbersome. Here are some of the most precious suggestions and guidelines that will make you understand the eternal secrets of finding a great expired domain name- all in an easy to understand, and step by step manner.

Finding the place where you can buy an expired domain name: Most obviously, the most famous places where you can find very good expired domain names are GoDaddy and Network Solutions. However, thousands of domain hunters crowd these web portals and the ensuing competition is too stiff and tough. Most of the good expired domains up for sale here are too costly and the minimum most prices could be as high as $500! Now, the big question is what are your budgetary limits? Are you one of those resourceful persons, who are ready to pay a very high price to buy a good domain name? If so, you are most probably an adventurous type of person, who is ready to take any amount of risks! If you are cash strapped and handicapped for a big budget expired domain name plan, then you may as well settle for decent domains expiring soon and buy something at a low price of around $100 or even less.

Experienced domain name traders always keep looking for expired domain names with a PR ranking of six and above; however, you may never see an expired domain name with a ranking higher than 7. Almost all domain name-trading portals allow you to sift and rummage through their extensive database, by setting a string of search parameters like "search by PR", "search by the age of domains" and 'search by the date". To find a decent domain name expiring, you can use the following search factors:

1. PR rating of 3 and above

2. .com or .net or even .biz without any hyphens and numbers

3. If possible a domain name with back links and traffic

Fact: At any given point of time, you will find more than 100,000 domain names that are soon expiring or already expired. When you search through the database in an effective manner, you can easily shortlist some decent domain names expiring or completely expired domain names.

Once you shortlist a few number of good domains, your next task is to see whether the said domains are in a "blacklist" or if the said domains are still under Google index. Once you ascertain that you have a good list of expired domain names, you can buy and register them without wasting any time.

Buying Domains Expiring Soon

Buying domains expiring soon is often very tricky and a difficult proposition to a person, who is just entering the big and bad world of expired domain names! A newbie who is entering the expired domain market find this intricate process confusing as well as squeezing, with so many people jostling for a breathing space. For a starter who is just trying to get a foothold in the ever-competitive expired domains market, the entire process of finding and buying a domain name is too trying and cumbersome. Here are some of the most precious suggestions and guidelines that will make you understand the eternal secrets of finding a great expired domain name- all in an easy to understand, and step by step manner.

Finding the place where you can buy an expired domain name: Most obviously, the most famous places where you can find very good expired domain names are GoDaddy and Network Solutions. However, thousands of domain hunters crowd these web portals and the ensuing competition is too stiff and tough. Most of the good expired domains up for sale here are too costly and the minimum most prices could be as high as $500! Now, the big question is what are your budgetary limits? Are you one of those resourceful persons, who are ready to pay a very high price to buy a good domain name? If so, you are most probably an adventurous type of person, who is ready to take any amount of risks! If you are cash strapped and handicapped for a big budget expired domain name plan, then you may as well settle for decent domains expiring soon and buy something at a low price of around $100 or even less.

Experienced domain name traders always keep looking for expired domain names with a PR ranking of six and above; however, you may never see an expired domain name with a ranking higher than 7. Almost all domain name-trading portals allow you to sift and rummage through their extensive database, by setting a string of search parameters like "search by PR", "search by the age of domains" and 'search by the date". To find a decent domain name expiring, you can use the following search factors:

1. PR rating of 3 and above

2. .com or .net or even .biz without any hyphens and numbers

3. If possible a domain name with back links and traffic

Fact: At any given point of time, you will find more than 100,000 domain names that are soon expiring or already expired. When you search through the database in an effective manner, you can easily shortlist some decent domain names expiring or completely expired domain names.

Once you shortlist a few number of good domains, your next task is to see whether the said domains are in a "blacklist" or if the said domains are still under Google index. Once you ascertain that you have a good list of expired domain names, you can buy and register them without wasting any time.

Transferring Domain Names - The Basics

With a sharp increase in the number of domain registry services in recent years, some great domain providers have emerged. Unfortunately, not all registrars are created equal. Many small businesses and individuals are frustrated with the quality of service or pricing offered by their domain provider, but don't know that they can switch.

If your current registrar is not offering competitive renewal fees or solid customer service, the good news is that you can transfer your domain to a trusted registrar such as Yahoo. Most large providers such as GoDaddy, Yahoo, and 1&1 allow you to initiate domain name transfers from your account. If you're not sure how to do this, simply call or email your domain provider and tell them you'd like your domain to be held through another registration service.

There are some things to keep in mind when transferring your domain to another registrar.

  • Only the domain's owner can initiate the change. In some cases, especially for small businesses, their web designer registered the domain for them. If this is the case, you will need to contact your designer for help.
  • You will be charged for another year of registration. Yahoo, for instance, charges $9.95 per
    year as part of their small business domain name package. Your original renewal date will be extended by
    year.
  • Your site may be down for 24-48 during the transfer. Unfortunately, not everything on the Internet is instant. A transfer takes 24-48 hours to propagate to all networks within the Web, and you may experience outages during this time.

Should you transfer to another domain registrar if you are experience unfair pricing or bad service? Absolutely! Transferring to a respected domain provider such as Yahoo provides long term savings in the form of lower renewal fees, as well as solid customer support.

Friday, May 9, 2008

3 Reasons Why You Should Buy An Existing Domain Name

When you are starting out in business and the time is right to set up a website, one of the first thoughts you are likely to have is to buy a domain name for your company. Whilst you may well be enjoying coming up with possible names and checking out if they are available, there is another option you can take and this is to buy an already existing domain name.

Clearly an existing website is not what you are looking for as you will want to create one of your own revealing your business vision, but the benefits of buying a domain name already in existence are numerous so if you have not set your heart on a totally new domain name this is an alternative option open to you.

The main advantage is that the website already in operation has traffic flowing in its direction. The particular amount of traffic will obviously depend on what effort has been put in by the current owner by way of promotion. However, any traffic at all is better than nothing and the number of visits shown on the website will be more effective at drawing further viewers than one stating zero, as would be the case in a brand new domain name.

Search engine optimization is also an advantage as the current owner is likely to have spent a little time optimizing the domain name portfolio for search engine benefits. Many owners make a specific effort in targeting keywords to ensure the domain name gets listed. In this way you can capitalize on their earlier efforts which have allowed their (and now your) domain name to work its way into the listings of the search engines.

A third advantage is that the day of short and targeted key word domain names is past. In fact it is practically impossible to come up with an unregistered domain name of a brief and memorable nature especially if you already have a certain keyword in mind. However, many of the catchy domain names which were registered previously were done for short term investment purposes so you may find they are willing to sell on the name. This is really the only way to get your hands on one of these pre-existing domain names.

Selecting the perfect domain name for your internet business can be both challenging and exciting, but if you do some research and find out about the availability of existing domain names you may well discover a super bargain which will get your business off to an excellent start.

Domain Name Tips - 5 Quick Ways to Choose a Domain Name

Often when it comes to choosing a domain name, people are confused about how to get started.
What is the best way to choose a domain name that gets the most impact? Is shorter name better? Does it have to be keyword rich? The list goes on...

Here are 5 quick tips to help you choose a domain name.

1. Short and simple. I've seen others who register for 4- to 6-word domain names. Not only that it's hard to remember, but it's very hard to spell to others too. This is a no-no. I prefer short and simple names.

2. Keywords if possible, brand name otherwise. There's no rule that says your domain name must be keyword rich to rank well on search engines. It has its benefits though. When people heard of a keyword rich domain name, they immediately know what the site is about. However, look at Google. It's has strong and memorable brand. If you can't get short and clean domain name with keywords in it, use your brand name instead.

3. Hyphenated names? No. Again the benefit of keyword-rich domain for search engine rankings is not very significant nowadays, if at all. It is also hard to spell to others.

4. Register variations. If you are to build an authority site that gets a lot of people to you site, you may want to register different variations of the domain name, such as the plural and singular forms, misspelling, etc. so when people enter it directly in the address bar of the browser, they are redirected to the right site.

5. Easy to spell. At times, you may want to tell others about your domain via telephone, in the radio or during a teleseminar. If you can't say your domain name quickly then it can be a turn off for the audience.

While getting a good name for your site is important, there are a lot of other things that you need to focus on before you start make money from the site.

By all means spend time to choose a domain name, but don't waste to much time in it. Make progress instead.

Monetize Your Domains

Well heres a quick step by step on how I Monetize the traffic on my domains.

Step 1

I host the domain on a hosting account. From there I will put up a page that says "Coming Soon" or "Under Construction" and I will list some of my sites or possibly some affiliate links. The reason I list some links is to see if the traffic will click on them because if they do then obviously it is real traffic and I could possibly get clicks once fully optimized.

Step 2
Install Google Analytics. I think this is the most important step to this whole thing. This will tell you where the traffic is coming from and how it is getting there. Plus how long the people are on the website, ect. Basically gives you tons of stats on where and why the traffic is there. Now I leave it like this anywhere from 1 week to a month depending on how much traffic is actually coming to the site.

Another thing I would like to point out is AwStats is very helpful if installed on your server. It will let you know if bots are crawling and such.

Step 3

After I feel that I am ready to monetize the traffic I will change the name servers and park the domain at the desired parking company. From here I will leave up the standard parking template until I start getting clicks. If clicks are scarce I will often mess with the template and see if that helps. Once I start getting clicks I begin to mess with the keyword depending on what the traffic is clicking on.

Doing it this way I have found to make more than just messing with keywords and hoping I get it right. I think this a more accurate guess on what keywords to use and what your traffic is looking for.

Helpful Tips:

Archive.org is your friend when monetizing expired traffic. Often times the traffic of these types of names are from back links from other sites of the related topic.

Google Keyword is a GREAT tool to find keywords that relate to your topic and actually have ad competition. This allows you to pick high paying keywords easily.

Babel Fish is a great language translator that will help when translating your keywords. Don't be afraid to monetize for foreign traffic. Often times this is why people don't get clicks is because the visitor does not understand the language that is presented. Just make sure you analyze your traffic correctly before selecting a foreign keyword

Picking The Best Domain Names

The best domain names are easy to spell and remember. This may help.. say your domain name out loud. The best domain names are those that people can remember, because if your visitors can remember it, they are more likely to come back. The best domain names sound professional. People are impressed by quality and value, but above all else, they expect professionalism. The best domain names are short, descriptive (such as your company name or product), and easily memorized. If you do not already have a company or other name selected for your site, then it is often a good idea to make your domain name the brand for the site. The best domain names are based on a recognized brand or a descriptive short word or a well-known acronym. A good way to ensure a short, descriptive and easy to remember name is to register not one but several names.

There are several top-level domains to choose from, including .com, .org, .net, and .biz. Because some people may remember the name incorrectly, I also registered many other domain names such as AttorneyAdvertisingBlog.com, LawFirmAdvertisingBlog.com and others, all of which will bring the visitor to Lawyer-Advertising-Blog.com.

The best domain names still end with .com so pick a domain name with a .com extension or what is considered to be a top level domain. Domains that end with .com are easier to remember. The best domain names are short and catchy. Many good two words combinations have been taken now, so you might have to go for three word combinations. The best Domain names are short, catchy, memorable, and easily roll off the tongue. A name that is descriptive and easy to remember will easily attract hundreds of visitors to your site.

While selecting the domain name care should be taken that it is good. Good for the website and good for people promoting it. Because as we have seen in the selection of a good name, an improper domain name can cause lot of confusion and eventually defeats the very purpose the website.

Search engine optimization, and seo. Search engine conflicts of interest.. Direct navigation competes with search engine usage. Search engines create new algorithms regularly that give weight to various aspects of a website in different ways. To achieve the most relevant listing of results for their users most online businesses will still be found through the search engines, so this may be a factor to consider.

Search Engines today are a key element to driving traffic to our names and essentially allow certain websites to be discovered. There are vast amounts of information and domain names that are essentially hidden to the world simply because webmasters do not take the steps to publish and promote quality information. Search engines index your site and rank it for relevance against terms people search for online. In order to maximize your sites exposure, consider including a relevant search term in your domain.

Remember, search engines rely heavily on relevance when calculating your link popularity score. Owning the world's longest domain name might be cool, but long and difficult to type names are not a good idea.

Web hosting and domain names.Web hosting is the company you choose to make your site available to the Internet for viewing. Once your name has been purchased, you have the choice of either keeping it there and letting them host your site or transfer your name to a host you might already be using. How difficult is it to transfer a domain name? It's very easy.
Keywords and domain names.How many times are these keywords searched? You need to do your home work before you purchase your domain name.

Instead of your brand name or company name you could also use keywords for your domain name. This could land you better search engine results. If you're going to use your domain name for your main business website it's best to pick a domain name that is closest to your brand or company name especially if you've been in the industry for some time. People have already recognized the name of your company. This will greatly help you with your marketing strategies both online and offline since you'll only be promoting one name or brand. Besides it will be easier to familiarize people if you're promoting the same name both in and out of the internet.

Domain Sale of the Moment

The domain e-businessweekly.com is for sale. It is parked at Sedo Parking. It pricing is for $4000 but negotiable

This premium domain names is perfect especially for those who deal on online business. So hurry and get it for yourself

Using Yahoo Domain Registration to Get Your Website Started

In order to create a web site, or custom email address, you need to purchase a domain name. A domain name functions as you address on the Internet, and is one of the most important aspects of your company's presence on the Web.

Most people will choose a domain name that is similar to their business name. Others choose a name that reflects their personal interests, or even their own name. Your domain name should be unique, and as short as possible, and be easy to spell, remember, and say. Many registrars offer special tools to help you select a domain if you are having trouble finding one available that you like. Everyone knows that Yahoo offers services like email, the news, and search, but did you know they also offer domain registration services?

Yahoo offers you the ability to register a domain in a number of different extensions. Extensions like .com, .net, or .org are the most common. Examples of other common, but less popular available extensions include .info, .ws, and .tv.

Yahoo domain registration starts at $9.95 a year and offers a number of features, including24 hour toll-free support, a free starter web page, private domain registration, domain locking, domain forwarding, and complete DNS control.

Domain registration prices vary, but Yahoo domain registrations are more affordable than some other big names, who can charge much more. For businesses, Yahoo's domain registration service fits perfectly with the Yahoo Small Business Web Hosting Service.

Domain registrars often run new customer specials to gain market share. Yahoo's $1.99 domain registration offer is an excellent example. The offer is only good for new customers and covers only the first year of registration, but is one of the best values available in domain registration. Or, by signing up for Yahoo Small Business Web Hosting, you can get a domain name for free.

Welcome to Domain Shoppers

Welcome to Domain Shoppers. Here you would be getting domain names on sale for cheap prices as well as tips for parking, monetization and selling domain names.

So come along and you will never have a course to regret