Try it out: www.namestation.com

For businesses, holding a naming contest is an excellent marketing opportunity to engage potentially thousands of contestants.

Here are some of the major features in NameStation:

Naming Contests can be created to get name ideas for a specific purpose. Contests can be shared with friends or a private team, responses can be rated. Later on, holding an optional Voting Round with selected name ideas helps filter out the best candidates.

Businesses can create Public Contests and offer awards to get customers involved in the earliest stages of brand development.

Various types of Contests are tailored for finding domain name ideas, brand names, personal names or any other types of names. There is an option to create a Contest to post available domain names only.

Domain Name Search. A big part of NameStation is dedicated to finding available domains. Never a simple task, but there are a number of ways to produce name variations automatically that can save a lot of time.

In addition to generating random name ideas you can work your way towards finding niche keyword domains. Keywords or lists of words can be combined with over 140 preset wordlists in plural and singular forms, random dictionary words or relevant related words can be added .

The Conceptual Wordlists we’ve prepared contain words related to concepts – e.g. fast, secure, unique, dynamic, smart, strong, positive, dynamic, simple, useful. For instance, if you’re looking a name for an anti-virus product, you would use words that are related with security and strength – Castle, Vault, Lock, Wall, Guard etc.

The challenge we tried to tackle was anticipating and eliminating dead-end scenarios. When there are no results, you should always be able to elaborate and continue the domain search to ultimately find suitable alternatives.

Excellent available domain names can also be found in the hand-picked domain names catalogue.

In the core of all this is the fast bulk domain search engine that allows checking over 40 Top-Level-Domains.

Incentives. While there are many people who gladly help others without expecting to get anything in return, most could use a little extra motivation. For those spending time coming up with creative name ideas for you we award our users with Reputation Points, which are given according to the votes given to their name suggestions. Points are only given for submissions to Public Contests and for contributions to the Available Domains Catalogue.

Reaching certain levels unlocks benefits like access to additional features or free Premium subscriptions. There are also ways to get paid for good available domain name ideas.

Social Naming. Connect your Facebook account to interact with your friends and participate in their Shared Contests. Share private Contest links  in Facebook and Twitter. Your friends can help with names for anything – when you get a new pet, need a new screen name, role-play character name, start a band or discover a new planet.

Trending Names. We’re monitoring the Web for buzzwords or new product names. There are potentially thousands of domain names needed that relate to words like App, 3D, local, social or brands like iPad or Android. For such names we’ve created lists of names to choose from, which you can extend by adding your own Wordlists.

Some other enhancements worth noting are:

• Update Feeds
• Personalized Dashboard
• Name Lists
• Domain and Hosting Prices comparison
• RSS feeds
• Team accounts

Sedo’ Domain Parking Program lets you earn money from your domain names without needing to develop your own site. Even better, Sedo’s statistics show that domains parked with Sedo are 5 times more likely to be sold!

Parking your domain is absolutely free. It is quick and easy to set your domains to forward to the Sedo listing page, and no hosting or programming knowledge is required.

Conveniently receive your monthly payments via Paypal once your earnings have reached only $20! If you do not have paypal we can send you an international wire transfer, anywhere in the world at no additional cost (earnings must reach €50 for wire transfer payments). The revenue per click varies on a domain by domain basis and can be up to 1.50 USD per click.

Sedo Domain Parking Program

Perhaps, but don’t stop there. Having the right domain name, or domain names, can bring more traffic to your site.

Why more than one domain name?

One domain is all you need to set up a website. But with more domains directing to your site, you can have these additional benefits:

- Bring site visitors who type variations of your domain name
- Acquire traffic that might otherwise go to your competition
- Harness the marketing power of keyword domains

Your primary domain name

If it’s feasible, use your business or brand name in your primary domain. People will remember it and associate it with your business. Also consider the following factors when choosing your primary domain.

Domain name extensions

Should your primary domain end with .com, .net, or .biz, or with a country-specific extension such as .ca or .co.uk?

If your website is aimed at people in a specific country, having a country-specific domain can help:

- Site visitors will recognize right away that the business has a presence in the country of the extension. They may therefore be more comfortable buying from you.

- Some country-specific search results include sites with the relevant country-specific domain extension even if the site isn’t hosted in that country.

On the other hand, if you’re targeting an international audience, a country-specific domain could work against you. People from outside the country of the extension may be less inclined to buy if the business looks foreign to them.

If you want to attract both people within your country and those in other countries, have both. Each domain could direct to the same site, with each audience seeing the domain intended for them. For country-specific search results, the primary domain should be the country-specific one.

Chances are that the .com domain you want is already taken. If you use the .net or .biz version, you risk having potential site visitors go to your .com competition instead. Be sure to use the full domain name on all promotional material to reduce this risk.

Domain name length

A short domain is easier to remember, it has less risk of being mistyped, and it’ll fit easily on your business cards and correspondence.

Conversely, if a short name doesn’t represent your business, it’s more difficult for people to remember. The short names you like may already be taken anyway.

If your business name is up to three easy-to-spell words, it’ll probably work as a domain name. For a longer business name, the initials or just one or two words may be easier than remembering a combination of words.

Secondary domain names

Secondary domains directing to your site are for online use:

- For people who type your primary domain name incorrectly
- For people who search for your products or services online

Typing and spelling variations

How many ways can people spell and type your business name?

barbsspecialtypetproducts.com
barbs-specialty-pet-products.com
barbspecialtypetproducts.com
barbsspecialitypetproducts.com
barbsspecialitypetproducts.com
barbspecialtyproducts.com
barbspecialtyproduct.com

Hyphens aren’t recommended for your primary domain. When people tell others about your site, they’re likely to omit the hyphens. They may also forget to type them.

For secondary domains, hyphens make long domains easier to read. Each word stands out when people see your domain. However, domains such as buy-keyword-product-now.com make some people view hyphenated domains, especially those with more than one hyphen, as spam-like.

Having the words in domains separated may help some search engines recognize keywords. With Google, though, hyphens don’t make any difference.

Consider all of these variations for secondary domain names:

- With and without hyphens
- Different ways of spelling some words
- Singular and plural versions of nouns
- Extensions with .com and .net as well as a country-specific extension if relevant

What people search for

If you want to find the website for Time magazine, you might do a search for it, or you might try typing in time.com. If you do the latter, you’ll find yourself at the Time site.

This type of search behavior extends to generic words too. Searching for dog collars? Try dogcollar.com, for example, and you’ll be redirected to dogidcollar.com. Do you want life insurance? Lifeinsurance.com redirects to nmfn.com (and so does northwesternmutualfinancialnetwork.com).

While having keyword domain names may not draw a lot of site visitors, using them is a technique to consider.
How to use more than one domain

Set up your website with your primary domain, and use that domain on your correspondence and with your customers.

Point secondary domains to your site using URL forwarding (also called domain forwarding, domain redirect, or URL redirect). To have the secondary domain appear in the browser, use domain masking. You can set up these features when you log in to your account with your domain registrar (if your registrar offers these services).

With domains that are simply variations of your primary domain, you can expect additional traffic just from having set up these domains. With domains that contain keywords, you can get more from them by using them to list your site in online directories. When these domains appear in search results, searchers will see the keywords.

The next step

Once you decide on the available domains that you want, register them immediately. They might not be available tomorrow.

If you don’t already have a business name, you’ll find it easier to market your business online if you choose a primary domain and a business name together. If your first choice for a business name doesn’t work well with any available domains, consider a business name that you can easily market with an available domain. Once you’ve registered that domain name and your business name, register secondary domains and put them to use.

Is it worth registering multiple domains for one site? That depends on your site, but any variations that you don’t register will be available for competitors to register and use. If a domain is valuable to a competitor, it’s valuable to you.

Click here to start your domain search

However, it’s also a fact that some Adsense publishers are struggling to make the minimum required to trigger a monthly payment of only $100.

Just in case you didn’t know, Adsense is a program offered by Google that allows anyone with a website, or who is going to publish a website, the facility to publish Google Ads from which you (the website owner) receive a portion of the advertiser’s payment every time a site visitor clicks on one of those Google Ads on your site.

So therefore, the more the advertiser pays for their ad to be shown on a particular site, the more the publisher receives when a site visitor clicks on that ad.

Most webmasters who have Adsense ads on their sites know all about blending the ads into their site’s theme, choosing the right size ads and positioning the ads optimally.

Google’s own heatmap suggests where to place your ads to get the most clicks and therefore maximize your adsense earnings.

However, despite having done all of the above, some sites will continue to have much higher adsense earnings than others.

This can, of course, be attributed to many variables including the following;

1.Traffic

The site with more traffic should out perform the site with less traffic, but this is not always the case.

The following factors can influence this.

2.The number of Ad Blocks on the site

The more adsense ads there are on a web page the less value each ad’s click will generate, ie it seems that the advertising revenue becomes diluted as the number of ads increases

3.Google’s Smart Pricing

Google’s smart pricing influences the amount of revenue paid to the publisher

4.The Advertiser’s advertising Budget

The amount the advertiser is willing to pay to have his ads published on your site will also influence the amount of your portion of his advertising fee.

5.Industry – Niche Market

This is a crucial factor in determining Adsense revenue.

As you can well imagine, a website about “Mating Habits of the North Sea Clam” will not have as many advertisers clamoring to get their ads on that site as a site that is all about “Website Hosting” will, for example.

What this means is that an advertiser wishing to have an adsense presence on the former site will have to pay far less for top keywords than advertisers on the latter.

As you can see the more competitive a market or industry is, the more advertisers are willing to pay for their adsense adverts.

Some sites regularly generate more than a dollar a click whereas others can only muster $0.01 per click at best.

6.Content

Bearing in mind the above point, it follows that the content on your site will directly influence the type of ads you’ll receive via Google’s adsense script.

So if your content is all about red widgets, Google’s adsense script will place ads from red widget advertisers on your site, provided advertisers in this market do in fact exist.

Conversely if your content is geared towards web design you can be rest assured that there are many advertisers paying good money to have their web design adsense ads published.

7.Site Popularity

It’s also fairly obvious that advertisers would be willing to pay more to have their ads placed on high profile sites than those that aren’t as popular.

Now to the crux of this article.

What type of Website will generate killer dollars from Google’s Adsense?

Whilst all of the above are important to make the big dollars from Adsense, an astute internet entrepreneur would build a site that simply targets high paying Adsense advertisers and simultaneously attracts large numbers of targeted site visitors.

Sounds simple enough but before you rush off to build your `Site made for Adsense’ just remember that a site stuffed with the highest paying keywords will not only be frowned upon by Google but will hold no interest for your site visitors and consequently your site’s popularity and success will be around zero.

About the Author: The author, Mark Bellinger is a university graduate, successful businessman and creator of the following websites: http://www.internetbusiness.co.za – http://www.income.za.net