Friday, July 20, 2007

Domain Name Can Make or Break Your Business

Your identity on internet is by and large defined by your domain name. What exactly is a domain name? Computer uses a numeric code for every URL. As numeric codes are difficult to remember and differentiate, a textual name is given for every numeric URL; this is what is known as domain name.

As I said above, your domain name is just like your identity on the World Wide Web, a few things should be taken into consideration before choosing a domain name. Do you remember how much time you spent selecting an appropriate name for your business? Selecting a domain name also requires the same amount of time and brainstorming.

1. Although you can go for any name that matches your business or services, it is always more profitable to have an easy to remember domain name. People in general do not remember long domain names. It should be short and simple but clear enough to give an idea of what your service/business is all about. Try to avoid words with repetitive letters in the end and beginning like tom music class.com. It leads to confusion which means loss of business.

2. Domain suffixes like .com, .net, .biz etc are very important. A slight mistake in selecting a proper suffix may drive huge traffic away from your site. If your services are country specific go for domain suffixes like .co.uk, .co. in etc. If you plan to expand you business to world wide level always go for .com as it is easier for an online user to remember .com domain names.

3. Spend some time on searching for websites offering similar services. Key words in your domain name can go a long way in making your website successful. If you offer auto services, search for those sites that offer these services and pick up the key words. Key word rich domain names are always more likely to attract huge traffic.

4. Try to come up with some weird but easy domain name. For example Yahoo, google etc are very simple domain names without any clue about their services, but are highly successful. These names are short, easy to remember and of course very catchy domain names, therefore highly successful.

5. Last but not least, if you are famous in a particular field, you own name is the best domain name you can go for.

Productive Domain Names - 9 Steps to Create More Money in Domain Names

Domain names are an important factor which can contribute a lot towards the success or failure of a web site. A web site can succeed if many people visit it during a day. Web traffic is very important to the success of a web site. Any web site that receives a number of visitors can survive while others cannot. Domain names are very important in creating a flow of web traffic towards a web site. Actually, the language of the machines is numeric in nature. The URLs are generally numeric it will not be possible for human beings to remember those numeric sequences which describe the location of a web site on the internet. In this situation, the human beings have developed a readable language. A domain name is an alphabetic replacement of the numeric sequence which refers to the location of a web site on the internet.

Domain names can help you in making lots of money. First of all you need to be sure about the kind of business you want to do through your web site. Think of the content of your web site. It is better if the content and the domain name are related to each other. In this way the chances of getting notices by the search engines increase. Think of a unique and related domain name. Check its availability. Register the domain name. Promote your web site and start earning through a good domain name. These steps can help you in using your domain name to make lots of money online.

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Diary of a Domain Virgin

“If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern.” William Blake

Via SEOBook, I was introduced to Frank Schilling’s domain-focused blog. Discovering the world of domaining from Frank and other domain experts like Jay Westerdahl has been an extremely eye-opening experience because until recently, I had viewed domain names solely as a component of the equation for attaining high search engine rankings. I intuitively knew that domain names had their own intrinsic value apart from the SEO process but I had never considered that I could make money from them just through mere possession.

Frank and Jay taught me that a domain name can be very valuable on its own without even taking into consideration any monetization I might do to it. By picking and holding onto domain names wisely, I can generate wealth while mostly ignoring the prevailing search engine algorithms. I could get targeted visitors to my website from people who type the name of my website into their web browser and I could earn money from these visitors either by placing ads on the parked pages or creating my own web pages that sell products relevant to the name. Furthermore, my ability to monetize the sites would only play a small part in determining the worth of my domains to a prospective buyer.

If I could register a generic, descriptive commonly searched word/phrase as a dot com domain, I have potentially acquired an asset that will be worth far more than what I paid for it.

Lucrative Domain Names -- Domain Names That Work

Domain Names as everyone very well knows are the primary identifier of a web site. As such, the domain name says a lot about what the web site is all about. Now, when choosing a domain name, it is particularly important that one should always adhere to naming a domain name that is search engine friendly. I have included below some of the useful tips that one can use should he decide to purchase and use domain names.

• Generally of domain names should be short and simple. The shortness quality of the domain name particularly speaks about the easiness of it to be remembered by prospective clients. The simplicity aspect of the domain name pertains to the search engine area. The simple the domain name the better it becomes easily indexed and searched, thus becoming search engine friendly.

• When choosing a domain name, you have to make sure that it has something to do with you are representing – the business itself. By deviating with the representation of your business it makes it difficult for people to search on your site.

• When choosing a domain name, think about keywords. Keywords are essential aspects of indexing and ranking. Search engines are normally adhering to ranking a site based on the visibility of the keywords on the site content and on the domain name itself.

• Lastly, when choosing a domain name, do not put any word that makes fun of your representation. Remember that your keyword speaks everything about your business, thus your product. Therefore, it is a must that you avoid making fun about your own domain name.
http://www.ezinearticles.com

Monday, July 16, 2007

How To Choose A Domain Name

Choosing a good domain name is one of most important steps in setting up your online business. And with more web sites being launched every day, it is certainly not getting any easier to find good domain names that are still available. So what exactly makes a good domain name?

Easy to Remember –
Your domain name should be memorable and easy for visitors to recall and type into their browser.

Relevant –
Your domain name should be relevant to your business and to the content on your web site.

Short Name –
Although domain names can be up to 67 characters, your domain name should be shorter, preferably seven characters or less. Shorter domain names are easier to remember, easier to type and less susceptible to mistakes. Domain names with seven characters or less are harder to come by these days, so you may have to settle for a domain name that is slightly longer.

Top Level Domain
If your business is in the US or if your web site is targeting a global audience then you should use .com as your top-level domain. Generally .net and .org domains are not perceived as being as professional as .com domains. If however you are marketing to a local audience in another country, for example in UK or Australia, then using the local .com domain such as .com.uk or .com.au may make it easier for visitors to recognize that your site is local.

Keyword Optimized –
If possible your domain name should contain popular keywords relating to your topic. This will help your site to rank high in the natural rankings of search engines. Use a keyword tool such as Good Keywords to check which keywords are searched more frequently.

Consider Hyphenated Names -
If you are having trouble getting the name you want, consider a hyphenated domain name, e.g. barbecue-grills.com. However the downside of this approach is that some people will forget the hyphen when typing your domain name.

How Does it Sound? -
If you tell a friend your domain name over the phone, will they easily be able to spell it correctly the first time?

No Trademark Conflicts -
Make certain that your domain name is free of legal conflicts due to trademarks belonging to other businesses. Your new site at GoogleSecrets.com might attract a lot of traffic but it will probably attract even more after your court case is in the headlines for breaching Google’s trademark! Stay clear of other companies’ names and trademarks.

A good place to check if a domain name is available is Whois.org Keep these tips in mind, and you will be well on your way to choosing a good domain name.

Choosing Domain Names – Hyphens or Not?

Choosing a good domain name is one of most important steps in setting up your online business, but it’s getting harder and harder to find good names that are still available. You could use a domain name with hyphens, but is that really a good idea?

Let’s quickly review what makes a good domain name. A domain name needs to be relevant, easy to remember, keyword optimized, and free from trademark conflicts. It should also be shorter. Although seven characters or less is ideal, you may have to settle for a domain name that’s a little longer.

So you’ve just set up your new barbecue grills business and now you discover that barbecuegrills.com is already taken. Should you consider hyphenating the domain name to barbecue-grills.com or should you go back to the drawing board?

The first choice should always be to take the name without a hyphen. Having established that, there are some exceptions. Let’s look at hyphenated domain names and when they are might be good to use.

Domains with hyphens can sometimes be a good idea if you really want certain words in your domain name but all the domains without hyphens are already taken.

Another reason to use a hyphen is when the words you plan to use are harder to read without the hyphen. The domain hotellamps.com is harder to read than hotel-lamps.com. That is not necessarily a great domain name but it does serve to illustrate the point that some domains are easier to read with a hyphen.

You might also consider using hyphens for search engine optimization. Some people suggest that using hyphens helps the search engines to distinguish your keywords better. This may be a good option for webmasters whose primary goal is to optimize their sites for traffic from natural search engine rankings. The only catch here is that this could change over time since search engines are constantly adjusting their search algorithms.

Incidentally, if you decide not to use hyphens in your domain name, watch out for any unintended double meanings that might be embarrassing. To illustrate this point a couple of fairly suspicious domain names are therapistfinder.com and molestationnursery.com. In case you are wondering the latter was reportedly the domain for the Mole Station Native Nursery based in New South Wales, Australia, although it seems, fortunately, to have moved.

Whatever reason you have for using a hyphen in your domain name, it would be good to remember one thing. Some people will forget the hyphen when they type your domain name. So whenever you invest in promoting your site, some lucky webmaster who owns the un-hyphenated version of your domain is going to get some free traffic, courtesy of your hard work.

As you can see, there are some situations when using a hyphen in your domain name may be a good decision.