Friday, August 3, 2007

Choosing the Right Domain Name

After your site has been carefully designed and after it has been created, the next grueling task to do is to choose the perfect domain name that will match the content of your site and what it basically tells. In choosing a domain name, you need to basically assess any of your options. There must be an intelligent weighing of the various considerations in choosing the name before it gets to be registered. To help you out weed out the best option you have when choosing the right domain name, I have cited below some of the useful tips.

• When choosing a domain name, choose a name that has relevance on your site content. By doing this, you can make sure that the search term used by the net user can somehow get relevance on the content that are posted on your site.

• When choosing a domain name, choose a name that is specific. You do not want to be overly generalized as the search engine might find it difficult for your site to be searched, thus, will not be given the traffic it will want.

• When choosing a domain name, it is best that you come up with your combination of names to choose from and not rely on what seems to be copied forms from high selling and well-established domain names. You may seem to think that you get to ride on the popularity of the domain name when you somehow copied the name of that popular site, but in reality you will not be gaining any popularity because you will suffer the fate of becoming a second-class domain name.

• When choosing a domain name, choose a name that is search engine friendly. For one, to become a search engine friendly domain name, it must contain some relevant keywords on it. Search engines are driven by keywords, therefore, to be pleasing in the “eye” of the search engines, you have to give them the reasons to be one – be keyword conscious.

Thursday, August 2, 2007

Lucrative Domain Names - The Dos and Don'ts of Choosing Domain Names

Domain names are very important for any online business. It is the first thing that people should know so that they would be able to find you among the many companies in the Internet. And getting started with domain names is one of the crucial parts in establishing an online business.

Let’s start with what are the things that you should not do when choosing the domain name for your business.

1. Do not use punctuation marks such as hyphen or exclamation point. If you are thinking of having So!Great.com, tendency is your customers might forget all about the exclamation point and would end up in another site.

2. Do not use numbers on your site. Why? If you are verbally talking to your customer and mentioned that your domain name is ClimUp2.com, you would even need to tell them if the number was spelled out or not.

On the other hand, let’s also check out the do's when choosing domain names.

1. If you can, always choose domain names with .com extensions. Majority of domain names ends with this extension. And there are some businesses that get .net or other extensions but they are actually losing customers especially if the domain name has an equivalent .com domain name.

2. Choose a domain name with an easy spelling. Be simple.

3. Choose short domain name. They can easily be remembered. Two or three words would actually do the trick. Long domain names can even cause confusion to some customers.

If you want to be popular and earn much online, then follow these simple rules and you are very much ready for taking a plunge on a profitable online business.

Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Out of Control WWW Domains

People take advantage of small business owners who leap into the online world without the knowledge to make proper choices. Registration of a www domain gives you a license for a set period of time, and must be renewed to retain control, so you do not own it. Don't wait to be asked the next question "Do you control your website domain?" because twice in 2007 I designed custom websites for clients who lost control due to an uncooperative originating party who registered the domains in question.

In both cases the client paid for their domain. In the first instance the registrar simply registered the new domain in their company name, not the client's. In the more recent situation, my client bought a business and the previous owner did not take action to transfer the registrant information. Each relationship deteriorated to the point where the clients felt compelled to register another domain, and fortunately the productivity of each business site was insignificant, so the downside of letting it go was minimal.

Each finally realized the risk of a hostile party pulling the plug on their website, and came to me for help. After lengthy discussions, and advice for attempting to regain control of their www domains, each entrusted me to register a new domain. The only recognized authority as the bona fide registrant of a domain is the administrative contact listed in the worldwide registry for a given www name. To be more specific, it is not the person shown, but the email address of the administrative contact in the registration who controls a domain.

It is not the billing contact. It is not the registrant. It is not the technical contact. All correspondence affecting control of a www domain must originate from the administrative contact email address listed in the registration files. Regardless of the person listed, whoever can reply to emails as the adminsitrative contact for that domain is the only recognized authority.

Small business owners are at risk whenever they buy a website domain, and the risks increase if you acquire a business that includes a website. If you buy an established business with a productive website you could lose significant revenue and good will depending on the previous owner. Most sellers will cooperate and transfers will go smoothly. In the rare case of deals being made and then a hostile relationship develops, the legal recourse may only exacerbate the financial loss.

Before we continue, consider the 3 things you need to get your new small business website online.

1. You must select and acquire a www domain name that is not already taken, and pay the registration fee.
2. You must find and pay in advance or month to month for hosting which is storage space for your pages.
3. You must have a website design whether it is purchased with a business, done in-house, or contracted.

Each of these involve services without a tangible product. There is nothing physical that you receive to put in a safety deposit box for secure storage. Domains, websites, and your site graphics are all digital and therefore more susceptible to problems controlling and protecting your rights. The exception would be having all files on a CD or DVD, yet the mechanics involved of having the files online and controlling their use means there is still untold risk involved for unwary small business owners.

Due diligence is critical in any new business venture. Some people registering domains on behalf of clients are looking for a residual income stream. If a small business owner does not ask, or know to ask, some registrars will intentionally keep their name as the administrative contact on domains they acquire on behalf of clients thinking they have them locked up as a customer indefinitely. In most cases it works unless that customer learns of more cost effective options, or in the worst scenario, their relationship becomes hostile. The real disasters are companies holding www domain names for clients, and then the registrar goes out of business and the administrative contacts become a non-existant email address.

That last one happened to one client who contacted me. It took more than one year of wasted time and frustration before they established control as the legitimate holder of the www domain, and during that year their site was offline.

In conclusion, you do not own your domain. You own the license. You must be wary and should get several opinions before you delegate the process of acquiring a www domain, and let it be known up front that you must be listed as the administrative contact for your website. Shop around to make sure the price per year for your domain is not excessive. Take the same approach to understand hosting. Finally, consider the website design and cost involved, and make sure you are comfortable with your choices before agreeing to proceed.

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

5 Steps For Domain Name

Every online business holdings needs a domain name. With increased web presence of the companies there is an increased demand for suitable domain names. People are willing to shell out big amount if the desired domain name is offered to them. Since appropriate domain names signify professionalism, everybody wants them. To get domain name people are searching for people who have already purchased them and can offer them the name for some cost. Here are five steps for domain name.

First step for domain name is to have a list of domain names you think can be best suited for selling. The domain names should not have been registered before and should be new. You can also search for domain names that are expired.

Second, try to get some guidance and information from professional brokers. But this point should be done with great care as any mistake in choosing the broker can cost you heavily.

Third, do not get ridden by some ones suggestions including you for choosing the domain name. Make use of statics and upcoming companies that might need that name and then buy that name. Do not buy any name just because it looks sweet or unique.

Fourth, try to get all the variants of the domain name. For instance if you have registered xyz.com then try to get .co.in, .net. .org etc. this will help in selling to big companies who want to have all the variants for themselves for not letting the clients to land on some other site by mistake.

Fifth, once you are ready with the names, you need to advertise. You can go ahead with a blogs or a website that can display the links for your domain names. This will give you a market standing and improve your business.

Monday, July 30, 2007

How to Buy and Sell Domain Names Profitably

I have been asked time and time again by my readers of how best to buy and sell domain names profitably and without stress. In my no-holds-barred research approach and attitude, I earnestly went to work on that assignment. My findings have been serialized in this article for the benefit of all.

What is a Domain Name?

Domain name is an online unique identity that distinguishes one web site from another. It could be your personal name, your offline business name or any other name that has not been registered by somebody else online with domain registrars.

Buying and selling domain name is a serious and big business. The good tiding is that you can start with as little as $8.00 and rake in profit of say, $1,992.00 within a month. That is the naked truth! All you need to excel in this domain name business is a bit of your creativity and ingenuity. Your creativity can out perform any known robot or software so far developed. This is because as you check for domain name availability on the Internet, other names naturally come up as you are told the one you want to register has been taken up. In my experience, I have found out that premium and generic names sell fast and highest on the internet. This is so because business people are desirous of either protecting their brand names or want a name that will easily ring a bell to any internet user. Therefore, they can go to any length to ensure that they repurchase their names if it has been registered before they do. This is where the money juice lies! It becomes a matter of bidding. As the saying goes: “The highest bidder wins the deal.”

If you are low in capital to jump-start your dream business, the cheapest and easiest place to start and earn a reasonable seed capital is in Domain Name Business. Also if you ask me for an excellent resource/e-book that succinctly outlined the basics of domain name selling in easy steps please email me for recommendation for your financial freedom.

Heard of Domain Parking?

Do you know you can register a domain name and be earning money without hosting it? To this end, you won’t be tied to any monthly fee whatsoever. You earn revenue from one-time investment of buying a domain name throughout the year. It is as sweet as that! The simple thing to do is just to park that registered domain name with a parking company and voila, you start earning cool bucks.

Domain parking means registering a domain name and pointing it to a “parking company” (at no cost of course) so that your site will show a page with adverts when any internet user searches key words or key phrases that relate to your site adverts. When someone clicks on those adverts you earn money. That is domain parking, pure and simple! It is akin to putting google adsense adverts in your site. However, parking is simpler since you do not need to worry about designing a website nor pay monthly web site hosting fees. Truly, online business ideas are limitless. Domain parking is really domain “monetization” business.

Marketing and Profiting from Domain Name

If you are in the camp of “buying and selling domain names”, what you should do is buy popular, premium, generic or key words or key phrases that will be easy to remember and market. People are always enthralled with unique names. There are whole gamuts of a combination of key words that have not been registered. Market them and profit from it. It is your business! But beware: You cannot run this business and excel with naivety. That is why I am recommending a great resource that I can cross my heart for to you when you reach me on email as a quick start.