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How to register and choose the right domain name for your business.

The first thing you need to think about before you just go off and register any name, you need to understand some things.

1. Just what is a domain name? - To put it simply a domain name is how both prospects and search engines will find your website. The domain name can be your first and last name, your company name, or a name that has your keywords of what your website will be about. So, as you can see, this is a critical step when you register a domain name. Think of your domain name the same as you would the address of your house or apartment.

2. How do you choose a domain name? – Think about what your website is about, for an example, it’s easier to use one of my domain names – laurasbasicstowebdesign.com I choose this name for a few reasons.

It has my name in it, this will make it easier for people to know who I am
My keywords on what my blog is about – basics to web design. Yes it is a bit long and you do want to avoid this. As of this writing, I haven’t had any problems with it, but keep this in mind when choosing your domain name, you want it to be short and to the point of what your website is about, not only so your visitors can remember it but it’s better for search engines as well.

3. Some things to think about when you are thinking of a domain name is simplicity, think of words like fast, easy, guide, steps, things like this to add to your domain name.

4. Now what about registering your domain name? Now there are hundreds to thousands of websites that will register your domain name for you. You can do a search for a registrar, this is what a company is called that registers domain names. Keep in mind while you are looking for a registrar that all you need is to register a domain name, DO NOT get anything else but a domain name, I’ll explain that in a minute. To help you out though, I highly recommend and have been using Godaddy.com for over 6 years without any problems ever, their support is outstanding and they are always there to help.

5. Why should you register a domain name at a different place than your hosting? This is pretty easy to understand if you’ve been doing anything at all online for any amount of time. Things change, and they change quickly. If you have your domain name and hosting at the same company, there is always a chance that company might get sold or go out of business, this would mean your entire website might be gone too. And it is hard to move your website and domain name at the same time. This is why you should have them in 2 different companies. It’s also a lot easier to manage your domain name with one company and to manage your hosting with someone else. If your hosting company disappears tomorrow, you still have access to your domain name and can easily just move your website to another hosting company without worrying about your domain name.

And now I would like to invite you to get FREE Instant Access to some powerful information and free templates, web design templates

Laura Miller is known for being the expert on web designing and monetizing blogs for her clients.

Author: Laura J Miller
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Choosing a Domain Name – Seven Tips to Help You Choose a Good Domain Name

More than 50 million domain names have been registered and more are registered every day. Are you ready to join in and get your own domain? This article covers some of the important things to consider.

To get started choosing your domain name, grab a piece of paper. Write down your business name and your name as well as a list of the products or services you offer. These are your starting points. Keep this list in mind as you go through the points below.

1) Your domain should be easy to spell and easy to remember.

Do not choose a domain name which is difficult to spell or people trying to access your site may be frustrated and confused when they misspell it and end up at a different website or no website at all.

2) Consider including your keywords or phrases.

Having a domain name that includes your main product line makes it easier for customers to remember and will give you a boost in the search engines. After all, if you use the domain JohnsAlaskanRealEstate.com the chances are pretty good that you are offering Real Estate in Alaska and your site would be relevant to a search for Alaskan Real Estate. Of course, a domain name alone won’t rank you #1 for the word or phrase you’ve used, but it does help.

You could also consider a domain name like keyword-keyword.com such as Alaska-Real-Estate.com (but don’t go crazy with four or five hyphenated words, see point 1 above and point 3 below!). If you do use a hyphenated domain I recommend also purchasing the non-hyphenated version, in this example that would be AlaskaRealEstate.com, for use in offline advertising and 301 redirect it to your main website.

3) Keep it simple. Shorter is better.

mywebsiteisawesomeandmybusinessnameismybusiness.com is not something people are going to remember or want to type out.

4) Check out similar domain names.

.net or.biz are fine domain extensions if the.com is taken for the domain you want, but keep in mind that some of your potential customers may mistype the domain to end it in.com and if the.com is a site you don’t want them visiting (such as an adult site), you need to reconsider your choice.

5) Be careful with numbers.

You can use numbers in a domain name, but try to avoid 0 (zero) because it may be mistaken for an O (letter o). Also be cautious with L, l, and 1.¨

6) Read it in various ways.

Have others look at your idea and read it… because sometimes the words can be combined differently and not quite as intended. You may have seen examples of domains registered by companies who did not have considered alternative readings and ended up with inappropriate words in their domain names (it’s widely circulated on the internet as a humorous forward email).

7) Check domain history.

You really don’t want to purchase a domain that was previously used by spammers or an adult site. Go to waybackmachine.org to find past sites on a domain. With these seven tips in mind, take that piece of paper and start brainstorming ideas. Once you’ve got a few you like the next step is to see what’s available for registration.

Michelle Shaeffer, The Small Business Muse, publishes The Muses Brainstorm, a weekly ezine with tips to help you balance, manage, and market your home based business. With your subscription you’ll also receive access to free gifts including 101+ Free/Cheap Ways to Market Your Business, 119 Things You Can Outsource, and more. If you’re ready for inspirational guidance and bright ideas sign up free at http://www.thesmallbusinessmuse.com.

Author: Michelle Shaeffer
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Make Money From Expired Domain Names

Are you looking to get lots of traffic to your website so that it makes money for you?

Then do you know that you can do that with an expired domain?

Here is how you can get traffic from an expired domain name.

Everyday hundreds of domain names expire. This could be for any of these reasons: their owners forgot to renew them in time. They lost interest in them. Or they got other domain names for their new sites. And of course, this can happen also when the owner passed away and there was nobody to carry on his or her online business.

But all expired domains are not equal. For a domain name to be useful for getting traffic and ultimately making you money, it must already have been used for a site which was getting a lots of traffic. It could have a good number of backlinks, be listed in popular search engines and directories.

The more popular the website, the more valuable would be its domain name. Because even when there is no site going with such a domain name, it is found in search engines and gets hits. So if you get such a domain name and use it to re-direct it to your site or use it for your new site, you would be getting lots of valuable hits without doing anything. And with so much traffic you can make money by affiliate sales, adsense clicks or sales of your own products. The possibilities of making money with highly optimized domain names are endless.

But there is another side to expired domain names also. For one, such a domain may be worthless if it was getting no traffic to begin with. Then it would require you to develop it as you would do a new domain. But a domain name may be dangerous for your business also. If the domain name was used for a site that was tagged as a spam site by search engines it would do more harm than good to you. If you use it the search engines wouldn’t list it in their search results. Your AdSense account may also be affected by using it with such a spammy domain.

So you have to find a popular as well as clean domain name if you would like to make money from it.

Here it would be in order to know something about how you can register for a domain name that has expired.

When a domain name expires it doesn’t become available for re-registration on its expiry date. There is a wait period of 40 days during which the owner can renew it. And even after this time, there is a period of about 30 days in which the domain can be renewed by the original owner at some enhanced fee. It is only after this time has passed that a domain name would become available for new registration.

Savvy webmasters who are on the lookout for valuable expired domain names backorder them before the expiry time. So it is not certain that you would get a domain name just because it has expired even if you have backordered it but your order is not the first in the queue.

To put this strategy to work you need to find sites which let you make searches for expired or about to expire domain names. You may find some such sites which are free to use but for an in-depth analysis of domain names you may have to join a site which would charge a membership fee. But a single good domain name could pay back what you invest for finding it.

Frank writes articles on various subjects such as internet marketing, travel, online security and health. You may also look at his website on kidney stones cause which also features various kidney stones diet tips.

Author: Frank Grey
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Advantages and Disadvantages of Parked Domains

A parked domain is a domain that has no website with some useful content but only displays some ads related to the domain name. Why would someone register a domain and not make a great website? Simply because he is only interested in getting some fast income from the domain. This may work or may not.

To park a domain you need no hosting. Parking is usually offered with the registration service at many registrars and there are may specialized services that offer domain parking. There are two reasons when it makes sense to park a domain. If the domain was used before, then there are probably many links pointing to this domain. This means that some users will follow the link and instead getting a “Page not found” error they will land on a page with some ads related to the domain name.

The other, more important reason for parking a domain is when the domain is some popular keyword or search term. Many people usually intentionally on unintentionally type directly into the address bar of the browser. The browser tries to find the website and automatically appends the.com domain. If there is a domain with this search query the browser will display the associated website.

If the domain is parked you will get a “strange” page with some ads probably related to the domain name. There will be no useful content. And because you are curious you are likely to click some of those ads. This is it. This is shortest way to get somebody to click the ad. Of course, since there is no content such parked domain does not rank in search engines.

If you have some attractive domain that gets some traffic then creating a simple website with some useful content is a far better option. Not only the website will be indexed in search engines, the user visiting this domain will get some useful content and will not leave the site immediately. You still have the possibility to put some ads on this site and they will more likely complement the content and not stand out.

You don’t have to be an expert in web design to set up a simple website. With the help of some popular CMS like WordPress or Joomla it is very easy to quickly create a website. And anybody can write some text about almost anything. You don’t have to be an expert in this field, you only need to find resources, study them and then you can easily write about it. Domain parking might be an easy way to do something with the domain. But a far better approach is to create a simple website and offer some useful content.

One example of a simple website is http://jtagcables.com/ which offers information about every possible JTAG cable around.

Author: Jan Pascal
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Pressure cooker

Using Hyphens in Domain Names

June 1, 2010 Domain Names

Any internet marketer will tell you that getting hold of a domain name is the first step to setting up an online business. In reality, it is no longer as easy to find good domain names that have not been taken yet. It is definitely a whole lot less stressful to find domain names with hyphens. But is that recommended at all?

Here’s a quick recap of the qualities of a good domain name. A domain name should be directly related to your business, simple to remember, preferably contain one or two keywords and not be disputed. An ideal domain name should be a maximum of seven characters, the shorter the better. Given the scarcity of short domain names you may have to eventually settle for a domain name that is longer than seven characters.

Imagine you’ve just set up a new flower delivery business and you are looking for a domain name that fulfils all the criteria of being a good domain name. You realize that the domain name flowers.com is already taken. Should you settle for a hyphenated domain name such as flowers-delivery.com? Hyphenated domain names should definitely never be your first choice. There may be a few exceptions to this rule.

The main reason why you would opt for a hyphenated domain name in the first place would be if it is imperative for you to have certain words in your domain name and all such non-hyphenated domain names that contain these words have been taken.

In very rare cases, you may have words that are difficult to read unless they are broken up by hyphens. This is especially true when the domain name is made up of two words and the last letter of the first word and the first letter of the second word are the same. For instance, alpprojects.com becomes much clearer when you add hyphens to transform it into alp-projects.com. Keep in mind that this does not necessarily make the domain name into a good domain name.

Some people insist that search engines can read keywords with greater ease when the domain names contain hyphens. The argument here is that search engine rankings are perpetually fluctuating and are dynamic. This is because search engines are continuously modifying their search algorithms. Therefore, if the only reason that you are considering a hyphenated domain name is just to boost your search engine rankings, keep in mind that there is no sure shot chance that it will work.

Sometimes, you may need to use a hyphen if your domain name unintentionally seems to be a pun. To illustrate the point, take a look at the domain name therapistfinder.com. This is among the exceptional cases when a hyphen may actually add value.

As is evident, using a hyphen is definitely not the best option. For some reason if you do opt for a hyphenated domain name, keep in mind that most people will forget about the hyphen when they type in your domain name. As a result, you will lose out on type-in traffic which constitutes a large chunk of your total traffic. Secondly, your visitors will land up at the site that has the non-hyphenated version of your domain name at the expense of your money and effort.

Allan enjoys writing up on a variety of subjects. Other than the above topic, he also likes to set up sites on different topics. Do check out his new site which covers useful information on home gym machines.

Author: Allan Wu
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Building Your Business – Domain Name Selection – 1

June 1, 2010 Domain Names

When starting a new business there are a number of items, which the online entrepreneur must consider before they can actually start trading, one of these is the Domain Name selection.

Branding

Selecting your Domain is just as Important as selecting your Business name, and undoubtedly you will experience the same problems as selecting a business name.

The domain name has been taken and registered by someone else or parked(bought and not being used).

Should the selected domain name be parked then it will be possible to purchase the domain from the owner, depending on how valuable the domain is to both yourself and the owner then the price may be considerable and the best option would be to select a variant of the name. To determine the owner use a whois service.

Select an alternative Domain name

All is not lost, you can in most instances add a prefix to the domain name eg rather than register the bluewidgets domain, you can select the domain mybluewidget, rather than selecting housecleaning domain select the domain greenhousecleaning.

Domain Name Hyphenation

Do not be tempted to use hyphenation to separate out the words, as this firstly makes it difficult to explain to a potential customer your web address, next it is difficult to type in and lastly Google is able to separate out words even when they are concatenated together making it possible to identify keywords. Do not use underscore and never use spaces in web page names.

Keywords

Having a keyword rich domain name can definitely assist in your ranking efforts, this will help in the linking back of anchor text to your web site. Unfortunately most of the keyword rich domain names have been taken, so that means you need to find an alternative keyword rich domain name or find a way to use your keywords while still making it easy for people to find you.

A Keyword rich domain name can also help in getting multiple pages (the famous indent) in the search engine results; thereby helping push down the competition. This technique is a technique which should be considered…

Which Domain extension

Many web designers will recommend to a business to register a “.com” and a “.com.au”, however as search engines uses geo location then if your server is based in Australia then google will identify you as a person in Australia and looking for Australian results. When your website is on an Australian server then it does not matter if you use either “.com” or “.com.au”. It is misleading and false to tell businesses that you must register both domains.

‘IP property

In rare cases you may want to register multiple variants of the domain name to prevent other businesses from piggy backing your success and good will, however initially registering multiple variants would not make sense as there is no track record or success and should your business thrive then you can the register the other domain variants.

In part two I will look at sub-domains and using hyphenation in your domain name. When Building your Business, do not take chances, hoping the web designer knows about SEO, do not waste your time trying to learn SEO; contact the Local Internet Marketing experts and take the risk of building your business.

Author: Anthony Curran
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Available Domain Names and Finding Available Domain Names That Matched Website Content

http://wealthsmith.com/available-domain-names.htm

Available Domain Names are always changing, due to the dropping of domain names as people are giving up on the dream of making a living from their website. It’s sad, but a reality that is seen far too often. The old adage of one man’s trash is another man’s treasure comes to mind here and rightfully fitting for sure.

Did you know that finding the perfect available domain names that match your website’s content is essential to your online success.

One very often overlooked aspect of online business success is choosing the best domain name from the ever changing available domain names list. The list of available domain names is or can be your ticket to a very successful business in itself. Domain name flipping is a very lucrative business, where finding a popular domain name is found, purchased, and then sold to the highest bidder. Offering hot domain names in an auction environment is sure to raise a host of prospective buyers and the element of knowing someone will obtain the coveted available domain names makes it a serious and profitable business for sure.

So many people make the mistake of taking website ownership way too personal and choose to name it after themselves, a perfect example; joey-sports-equipment.com. While the availability for that domain name was easily obtained, it won;t get Joey the results he’s hoping for. You see when he goes to have the search engines find his website and rank it highly, it just won’t happen. Had he chosen, sports-equipment-by- joe.com would have been much smarter available domain name choice. You see, search engines look for domain name relevance and content match first and foremost every time. Thus, when you have people searching for sports equipment, joe is the farthest thing from their minds, and should either be dropped or at best placed last in the domain name title.

Finding available domain names is worth the time it takes to find a perfect match to your website’s content, if you are really wanting to do things to greatly improve your online business success. Think of your domain name as a phone book listing, if you had a plumbing business, in the phone book you want it to be first, so you’d name your business A One Plumbing. Phone books list businesses alphabetically, whereby search engines list by content subject; Plumbing-by-A-One.com would be a better domain name choice.

The next aspect of choosing from available domain names is to always choose .com over .net unless .com is not available. People are basically programed to think .com as the domain name suffix and you want it easy for people to remember. Even if you have to add something a bit different in the title in order to get a .com domain name, do it, it’ll pay off in the long run.

To learn more about finding available domain names that are best suited for your website and it’s content, we recommend knowing who to listen to and how to get a leg up on your competition generically, so you don’t have to pay needlessly for advertsing, when the search engines can do it for you for free.

Author: Jimmy Wilson
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Beginners Guide – What is a Domain Name and How Do I Get One?

June 1, 2010 Domain Names

May 31, 2010 Domain Names

What is a Domain Name and how do i get one?

This may be such an easy question for people that have used the Internet before, but still I find people who just don’t know.

Well my starting point to find out what a domain name is would to be use a website called wikipedia. Its basically a free encyclopedia online.

After a search for the term domain name it says the following:

A domain name is an identification label that defines a realm of administrative autonomy, authority, or control in the Internet, based on the Domain Name System (DNS). Quoted from wikepedia.

Well if I had read that when i first started I wouldn’t of had a clue what it was going on about. So in simple terms:

Its an Internet website address. Its what you type in in your browser address bar to visit the website that you require: Example: www. google . com

Domain names were invented to avoid having to remember a string of numbers when we want to go to a web site. . Computers that are connected to the Internet are identified by a set of numbers (an IP address) The string of numbers can be typed into your browsers address bar to visit any website but its easier to remember names rather than numbers.

Choosing the correct domain name is very important.The reason for this is you need something that relates to your website, something that’s easy for your visitors to remember so they are likely to visit again. Something that will be unique to you and something that stands out.

As well as the above reasons you also need to choose carefully because of search engine optimization. I will go into SEO later but if your website domain name contains what your site relates to in its content this helps gain standing in the search engines eyes.

Everything about your domain is important:

- length – You don’t want it too long that people forget it, or mistype it

- dash or no dashes – Dashes can be good to separate words but can make domains longer or mistyped.

- brand ability – Can you brand your site easily? Does it fit in with the content?

- search engine keywords – Always good to use keywords in your domain name, but its tough these days with so many Domain names already taken,

Only one person or company can own a domain name at any one time. Therefore, if you wanted the domain name www.webdesignwhim.com , its not available as I own it, you will need to either find another name that is available, or offer to buy the domain (no I’m not for sale its just an example . You could also wait for it to expire and hope they don’t re-register it… but its not likely to happen or you could be waiting a long time.

You dont actually buy your chosen domain name. You register it, so its a bit like renting it Once a domain name is registered, its normally registered for one or two years but can be up to 10 years, and if locked no one else can take that particular domain name. Its your responsibility to re-register the domain name each time before it expires. If a domain name does expire it will go back onto the open market for someone else to register this. Always make sure you keep your domain name safe.

There are so many companies out there to register your chosen domain name. You can just google the following term: register a domain name

At the time of this article there are many companies offering free domain name registration when you sign up for there webhosting (which is another service you will need when getting your domain name online.

Ill go into web hosting in my next article.

* This article is written by Marie Barnes AKA Pixie of http://www.webdesignwhim.com Please do not copy our material and portray it as your own work. Feel free to post our articles but only without removing this notice and stating where you got this article from. Thank you *

Author: Marie A Barnes
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Buying Expired Domains Tips – The Issue of PageRank

May 31, 2010 Domain Names

Every webmaster tries hard to promote web site on to the top most pages of Google search engine. All of us understand that Google has a system called Google PageRanking that allows it to index web sites on search engine pages. With this system, Google also decides how popular your web page is among search engine users. Higher PageRank means that your web site is more popular than many other web sites and it commands some authority among web users. PageRanking is an important index for expired domain buyers because the web page that has good PageRank is always beneficial to them.

Finding an expired domain with good PageRank is obviously very advantageous, because the inherent commercial value of an expired domain with PageRank, will go up among interested buyers. Finding such domains was very difficult sometimes back, but it is quite easy now. Earlier, a long and boring process took hours of precious time. You had to collect the names of thousands of expired domains, choose interesting ones and check them manually for PageRanking by using a manual tool. It was acutely difficult to separate out good ones from the bad ones. In the end, one could extract just few of them!

Recently, things are changing very rapidly, as several web sites help you find expired-domains with Google PageRank in double quick time. These web sites allow you to search through an extensive database and create a big list. You can even choose efficient filters to filter unwanted expired domains. Another significant aspect of these web sites is that you find out the sources where you can buy those expired domains. Google PR is an excellent indicator of segregating good web sites from bad ones. PR is a sum of quality and quantity of incoming links coming into a web page. An expired domain that owns lot of incoming links is the domain that you can buy and own.

Although buying an expired domain with lot of incoming links is a good idea, you cannot be too sure of the quality of those links. Sometimes, the quality of those links may not be real. There are occasions when you can even buy expired domains at higher prices than their real worth. Given the nature of the internet, it is almost impossible to find out whether the seller of the expired domain is trustworthy or not. To avoid such situations, you can use a number of PageRank-checking software to know about the scope and authenticity of expired domains that you want to buy.

The quality of backlinks and inbound traffic is also very important when you buy an expired domain. Top quality and premium backlinks are always beneficial to a domain expiring, while you can even pay bigger amounts to buy such domains. In the end, you may wish to conduct a simple online check to find out, if an expired domain has a valid PR. Just type the following into your browser window-info:[the name of the expired domain] plus the extension without the www prefix. If you are to find valid PR, then you can consider buying that domain.

John Khu is an author and also a seasoned professional with vast experience in expired domain name business. He is the owner of the web site called
http://www.ExpiredDomainSecret.com which provides complete and up-to-date information on expired domains and their eternal secrets.

Author: John Khu
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Finding Premium Domain Names

Finding a premium domain name can be a really tough challenge to most people looking for domain names. The fact is that most premium domain names least in .com have been registered for many years and will be registered for a long time to come. Most of these domains are owned by people holding them for a nice payoff on there investment. There strategy is simple they pay registration fee which is usually $8 a year and hold on to the premium domains until a buyer comes along and pays $xx,xxx amount of money. Now I’m not saying this is a bad practice but I feel It actually rather stops the further progress of the internet by keeping more business from coming online. Most people that you may talk to will tell you that if you want an online presence you must have a .com and that’s simply not true.

The old saying is .com is king when it comes to online development and selling of products. Now I agree that over the years people have had it ingrained in there minds that the only extension available is .com and that’s just not true. There are literally hundreds of extensions available to register and many have premium domains still available to be registered right this moment. Now you may say well since .com is so common how would I ever be able to compete with the .com version. Well simply speaking most of these same folks holding premium .com domains fault in the fact they don’t develop there domain names. Now with search engines content is king and without content being unique and updated routinely search engines give it less and less of a high rank. Now in order for you to compete you must provide content to your visitors and on a very frequent basis. Now there are many extensions that all do very well with proper development and by adding unique content.

Now you can start your journey to finding premium domain names by visiting “Namepros.com” which is actually where I started my journey. Namepros is a domain forum with information that is invaluable to anyone searching for domains or interested in making money online.

Finding premium domain names can be quite easy and to start your journey you should sit down and think about what your website will be providing or selling to the traffic. I mean if your selling golf balls the most obvious domain name would be GolfBalls.com and alas that name is taken. Most people unfamiliar with other extensions move on after checking the .com version. Now is where it gets interesting as you can find other extensions where Golf Balls may be available. Here are some very popular alternatives to .com and this is just a starting point: .Net, .Org, .Info, .Us. These are considered by many to be just as good as .com but many will tell you not to waste your time with anything other then .com as well.

Now if you live in a country outside of America and even If you do live in America finding premium domain names can be quite easily with CCTLDS. Now CCTLDS are a short acronym for Country Code Top Level Domains and what that means is simply domain extensions for countries. For example someone in Australia is likely to choose GolfBalls.au rather then GolfBalls.com and that is why premium domain names are easily found in cctlds. Now we are starting to see that premium domain names are not quite as hard to find as first thought. Now cctlds are becoming a hot market in the domainers world and I would advise people considering premium domain names to search out and find premium domain names in there native country.

Now at this point you may be saying well I’d like to get some premium domain names for other countries but I don’t speak their language. Well that’s fine Google has a translator that works great and is easy to use and free to all. Now you may want to test the market with premium domain names in other countries before doing any heavy investing in that department.

This article is a series that I plan to write about the next article will discuss and show you how to find premium domain names that are dropping. I will explain what drop lists are and how to narrow down your search and find the truly great domain names. Also I will show you a few drop catching services and how they can work with you or against you. I hope you enjoyed my first article and walk away knowing that securing a premium domain doesn’t have to be that hard.

Blake Worthington
http://www.usualcliche.com

Author: Blake Worthington
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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SEO and Expired Domains – Partners in Progress

Expired domain name trading is not that easy as you think it to be! This is true especially when you have a domain that is not commercially feasible and viable. In general, the most common perception among people is that one buys an expired domain just to capitalize on the previous sites page rank as well as traffic.

However, this seems to be the conventional way of thinking! Times are changing and they will change in the future as well! The current buzz words are domain flipping, which means converting an expired domain into a viable entity capable of producing decent income for the owner. In general sense, an expired domain looses all its page rank and accumulated traffic, as soon as it drops and become defunct. It means that most of the expired domains in the registry are as good as dead and useless. Thus, expired domain industry is an intricate business, when you may need to try very hard to sell a pack of domain names.

You are indeed very lucky, if you are able to sell a domain name for a good asking price. However, it may not be the case every time you sell a domain name. Some of the domain names may fetch you a very small profit, while others may provide you an ample opportunity to earn lots of profit. Thus, you will need to find a suitable strategy to make your domain more viable and strong.

SEO is possibly the best known and well proven technique to assist your expired domain based web site to achieve that elusive commercial success. You will need to know the benefits and disadvantages of using this technology before choosing to apply its techniques. Major search engines never recognize expired domains and their backlinks and traffic. Thus, you may need to buy a domain before it actually expires and becomes defunct.

SEO technology works very well with your expired domains based web sites, just because you are starting afresh with new web site and a new identity. You will need to make sure that your web site is perfect with excellent content, as well as cleverly inserted Meta tags, to help your domain find its way to the top of the search pages.

On the alternative, it is still possible for you to find an expired domain name that boasts of traffic and incoming links. There are one or two minor issues here:

A) Domain flipping is a process of converting your expired domain into an entity like an active web site. If the expired domain name that you purchase does not relate to your business concept, then it may not be really wise to buy that domain, even if it has good traffic. However, you can still change and migrate over to the business concept related to the expired domain in question. Under such a scenario, you can always use the technique of SEO to make your site productive.

B) Ensure that the domain that you purchase has a clean record; some sites may have links to black hat systems and paid link web sites.

If these methods fail you, you may have to go for an expired domain that is capable of domain flipping and subsequent SEO promotion. SEO techniques ensure top placement in famous search engines, better page rank, plenty traffic and incoming links. Expired domains that are SEO enabled could bring you better income and sizeable profits.

John Khu is an author and also a seasoned professional with vast experience in expired domain name business. He is the owner of the web sites called http://www.expireddomainsecret.com which provides complete and up-to-date information on expired domains and their eternal secrets.

Author: John Khu
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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How to Choose and Register New Domain Names

You have spent a good deal of time deciding what your online presence is going to look like. You know what your niche is, you have decided on a business name and a tag line. You may even have your artwork and logo complete. But, did you spend much time deciding what your domain name is going to convey to visitors and search engines? Your domain name is a critical part of your web presence and the choosing of your domain name is more important than it may seem at first. Here are some basics to consider:

Definition: A domain name, also known as a web address or URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is the alpha-numeric representation for your website that allows people and search engines to easily locate you on the internet.

Parts: A domain is broken into several different parts. The http:// is not part of the domain itself; rather it is part of the URL, or Uniform Resource Locator. The www (World Wide Web) is the subdomain which appears before the domain name that you ultimately choose. The .com is called the top level domain, of which there are only about 200 or so. The most common top level domains are of course, .com, .org, and .net.

Case: A domain name is case insensitive. If you register “mydomain.com” in lower case, someone else cannot come along behind you and register the same domain in upper or mixed case. This means that people can get to your site using upper, lower, or mixed case. It is important to note that the current version of the Safari browser sometimes has difficulties setting up cookies due to mixed case domain names, so it is a good habit to purchase all of your domain names in lower case.

Choosing Your Domain Name – Or, Getting the Most Bang for the Buck: Domain names are not expensive these days, but what will ultimately cost you is choosing a domain name that really means nothing. If your visitors don’t know what myllc dot com means, how can a search engine possible figure it out? We recommend GoDaddy as your domain registrar and hosting because we like the simplicity of their platform and the feature rich applications can get you up and running on the web very quickly. All that being said, good (and short) domain names are getting harder and harder to come by as people begin to utilize the power of the web. With a little thought and some digging around, you can find what you need.

Avoid dashes in your domain name if possible.
Consider the plural singular issue. Will people commonly confuse your domain by adding an “s” or removing the ending “s”? If so, considering registering both and re-directing the one that you don’t use to the one that you do use.
Go for the “.com” extension whenever possible as your primary domain. This is still the most popular to level domain for businesses. For non-profits or other organizations, you will be best served by the “.org” extension. I always suggest that you purchase as many extensions as possible (.net, .org, .biz, etc.) to keep your brand safe and to also allow you to have other extensions to use for different products or services within your brand.
Make your domain make sense and be easy to pronounce. If your domain name is a nonsensical word or combination of words that don’t make much sense to people, they are not going to be able to remember the. If people feel silly pronouncing a poorly chosen domain name, they are unlikely to discuss it with other people. By making your domain name both easy to remember and easy to say, you will have a much easier time getting it found in the search engines and promoting it among people who eventually form part of your online community.
Consider purchasing variations or mis-spellings of your domain name. You can use these as re-directs to make sure you pick up as much traffic as possible.

And lastly, if your aim is to become an online entrepreneur, and to ultimately have people doing keyword searches on your own name, be absolutely sure to purchase at least the top level extensions of your name. You do not want somebody with evil intentions purchasing your name. Your name is your brand and should be managed by you. Even if you don’t have any intentions of building a website or blog under your own name, be sure to make sure you own it.

Denise Griffitts is an online entrepreneur and is the Founder and CEO of Your Office On The Web, a website design and development company and Your Virtual Assistant, a virtual assistance firm. She is a globally recognized Virtual Assistance Industry Expert who helps entrepreneurs build and grow their online business. She also teaches new virtual assistants how to become highly technically savvy in their chosen field.

To train with Denise Griffitts to become a highly competent and sought after Virtual Assistant please visit Virtual Assistance University: http://www.virtualassistanceuniversity.com

Author: Denise Griffitts
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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How to Choose and Register New Domain Names

Avoid dashes in your domain name if possible.
Consider the plural singular issue. Will people commonly confuse your domain by adding an “s” or removing the ending “s”? If so, considering registering both and re-directing the one that you don’t use to the one that you do use.
Go for the “.com” extension whenever possible as your primary domain. This is still the most popular to level domain for businesses. For non-profits or other organizations, you will be best served by the “.org” extension. I always suggest that you purchase as many extensions as possible (.net, .org, .biz, etc.) to keep your brand safe and to also allow you to have other extensions to use for different products or services within your brand.
Make your domain make sense and be easy to pronounce. If your domain name is a nonsensical word or combination of words that don’t make much sense to people, they are not going to be able to remember the. If people feel silly pronouncing a poorly chosen domain name, they are unlikely to discuss it with other people. By making your domain name both easy to remember and easy to say, you will have a much easier time getting it found in the search engines and promoting it among people who eventually form part of your online community.
Consider purchasing variations or mis-spellings of your domain name. You can use these as re-directs to make sure you pick up as much traffic as possible.

To train with Denise Griffitts to become a highly competent and sought after Virtual Assistant please visit Virtual Assistance University: http://www.virtualassistanceuniversity.com

Author: Denise Griffitts
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Domain Registration Privacy Protection – Do You Need It?

Every domain name has a publicly accessible record that includes the owner’s personal information. It’s called a WhoIs record and lists the registrant and contacts for the domain. Your name, address, city, state, zip, country, phone number and email address may be listed on the WhoIs record for your domain. It also shows when you registered your domain, when it will expire, where your website is hosted, and other technical details. You can view the record for your domain by going to domaintools.com and putting your domain in the box labeled “WhoIs Lookup” then clicking the “Search” button. These records are available anytime to anyone who does a search.

Why is the WhoIs record public info?

ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) requires domain registrars to make your contact information available. It is used for some legitimate purposes such as verifying ownership of a domain name in a transfer request. Law enforcement agencies may use it when investigating illegal activity on the internet. Companies or individuals may also use these records to contact domain holders who are violating copyrights or other property rights.

So, what’s the big deal?

Your domain record may also be used in ways that aren’t legitimate or desirable. Since anyone can look up a WhoIs record, spammers, hackers, identity thieves and stalkers may access your personal information! Unethical companies check domain expiration dates then send official looking “renewal” notices in an attempt to get the domain owners to transfer domains to their company, or send “invoices” that are service solicitations for search engine submissions and other questionable services. Both email and snail mail spammers use the WhoIs databases to contact domain owners with solicitations as well.

What can you do to protect your privacy?

Many domain registrars now offer a service called privacy protection. When you choose privacy protection, your personal information will not be listed on the WhoIs record. Instead, the information of the registrar’s privacy service will appear. You still own your domain.

What are the benefits of domain privacy protection?

Once you’ve activated privacy protection on your domain and your personal information is no longer public, spammers can’t use it to find your email address or send you those deceptive domain renewal notices from other companies.

Are there any down sides to domain privacy protection?

Be aware that if you want to transfer your domain name to another registrar, you’ll need to remove the privacy protection and deal with some red tape in order to do so.

Additionally, some consumer advocacy TV shows and websites explain to customers how to check WhoIs records to see if a business is legitimate before they deal with them. You can take positive steps to keep this from being a problem though. Make sure that customer don’t need to resort to your WhoIs records to find out who you are and if you’re legitimate. Offer full contact information on your website including multiple methods to get in touch with you (postal mail, email, phone number, fax, etc). Consider adding ways for customers to contact you through social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook if you use them for business.

How can I add domain privacy protection for my domains?

The process depends on your registrar. Contact the company where you registered your domain and ask about privacy protection. It may be included in the cost your yearly registration or there may be a small fee.

Work at home mom extraordinaire Michelle Shaeffer publishes The Muses Brainstorm, a weekly ezine with tips to help you balance, manage, and market your home based business. If you’re ready for inspirational guidance and bright ideas sign up free at http://www.thesmallbusinessmuse.com

Author: Michelle Shaeffer
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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How Do I Choose a Domain Name For My Internet Business?

May 28, 2010 Domain Names

Because domain names are products that carry a certain market value, trading in domain names has become a serious business in its own right. People buy and sell domain names on domain auction sites and prices vary from very cheap to astronomically expensive, depending on the perceived brand or keyword value of the name.

However, if you can choose a domain for your website that has never been used before you will be able to register it for less than $20 without having to buy it at all.

How To Choose A Domain Name

There are two approaches to choosing a suitable domain for your website: (1) Branding, and (2) keywords.

1. Branding – Use your own name or company name as the domain name of your website.

If you want to raise the profile of your company and turn it into brand in its own right, using it as your domain name is a great idea.

Take a company like Amazon.com for example. There is nothing in the domain name amazon.com to suggest that Amazon sells books, yet when you hear the name Amazon you will probably think either of a big river in South America, or a big bookstore on the Internet, and in many cases it will be the latter that is thought of first!

That is the power of brand names.

Some people choose to turn their own name into a brand name. Entrepreneurs, politicians, artists will often secure their own name as their brand name. The most famous recent example of this is now living in the White House. You can check out his website at barackobama.com.

So, branding yourself via your domain name can be a very smart move.

However, if you are just starting out, you might want to consider using relevant keywords in your domain name to raise the profile of your website. This is an excellent idea if you are promoting a well defined niche market.

2. Keywords – Choose a domain name that reflects the type of business you are in.

There are a couple of advantages to be had with a keyword rich domain. Firstly, it sends a clear message to anybody searching for the products you are selling that your website is the place to find them. Secondly, the keywords in your domain will help your website’s search engine ranking for those particular words.

Choosing a Keyword Rich Domain Name

Make a list of keywords that are related to the main theme or chief content of your website. Aim to get a domain name with one or two of your keywords in it; a short domain name is better but you will probably need to use more than one keyword to find a domain name that is available.

The easiest way to work on your domain name is to use a free domain search website such as instantdomainsearch.com/ and type your ideas straight into the search browser to instantly discover whether or not they are available. If your first search is not successful, play around with the keywords and try to find a good combination that (a) makes some kind of sense, (b) is a fair reflection of what your business is about and (c) is available.

Also, if you are planning on starting a business site, make sure that you get the.com extension. Generally speaking, domains that end in .com are easier to remember and look more professional. However, if your business is focused on a single country then you might want to use .co.uk, co.jp, etc.

If your chosen domain name is not available and is one that you have set your heart upon, you may be able to buy it from the owner. As I mentioned, many people buy and sell domain names as a business. Be warned, though… A domain name with a couple of high ranking keywords in it is likely to be expensive. Whereas you can register an available domain name for a few dollars, you may have to spend several thousand dollars to secure a great domain name on the open market.

Darrell Howell is an Internet Marketer and Blogger. Check out his Blog at http://www.blueridgemoney.info Sign up for a free Internet Marketing Newsletter here.

Author: Darrell Howell
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Domain Types – Established Domains

May 27, 2010 Domain Names

One of the three types of domain names is Established Domains. Established Domains are domains that have PageRank, Backlinks, and/or Age. These domains have some of the work already done for you. Instead of registering a domain and waiting a few years for it to get old, you just buy a domain that is already old. Instead of registering a domain and building backlinks, you can buy a domain that already has backlinks.

Because some of the work is done for you, these domain are valuable. Aged domains are also valuable because search engines consider older domains more trustworthy. This means these domains will have better rankings in search engines. PageRank (PR) domains are valuable because most of the time they have backlinks, but also because you can sell links on these sites for monthly income. Backlinks are valuable because they can bring traffic, and relevant backlinks can increase your rankings in search engines. The older the domain, the more valuable, the higher the PR, the more valuable, and the more relevant backlinks, the more valuable. Combine the three, an old domain with a lot of backlinks and a high PageRank, and you have one valuable domain.

There are a few precautions when it comes to established domains. Make sure the backlinks are relevant to the website. I was looking a domain the other day that had over 2000 backlinks. The domain name had the word affiliate in it, but all the links came from shopping sites. These shopping sites had nothing to do with the domain name, so the backlinks were basically worthless, along with the domain. Another thing you have to look for is that the domain is not blacklisted by Google. If the site is not indexed in Google, it could be because the old owner was doing something illegal with it.

Check out Choose A Domain for help in finding the perfect domain.

Author: Martin Laritz
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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How to Pick the Right Domain For an Online Business

May 26, 2010 Domain Names

Buying the right domain for a new online business is as important as the business itself, but most of people tend to ignore this fact. A perfect domain helps you achieve success with search engine rankings and also creates a brand for your business. Buying the wrong domain will make it harder to brand your online business. If you wish to build a profitable online business you need something that will clearly distinguish you from your competitors.

Here are some tips you should consider before selecting a domain for your business:

Use Keywords

Having a keyword rich domain name would be the first and most important step to starting your online business. Keyword rich domain names are among the most important factors which affect search engine rankings of a website and its exposure to the visitors. This will bring you search engine traffic; this traffic will buy from you or become leads for your affiliate programs. Having a keyword rich domain will help you with three important sources of getting traffic for your website, Organic Traffic, PPC and type in traffic. For example TradeShowItems.com will be the right domain to pick if you are selling trade show items. Not only it will help the owner achieve higher search engine rankings but also elaborate their business in its name only.

Ignore Hyphens

There is a common mistake that many people make when buying a niche domain, they use hyphens to separate their keywords. An example would be visit-american-beaches.com for a travel domain name. Now the problem with hyphens is that using them makes the domain name difficult to remember and hard to type. I remember a friend having an entertainment niche domain name and he had it announced over local radio. Instead of getting any big increase in number of visitors he received several complaints that his website went down or it’s inaccessible. He later realized that it was because his domain name was too long and had hyphens in it, which made the listeners confused and they could not figure out the right way to spell the domain name.

Easy to Spell

Always remember when you select a domain that it should be easy to spell. You should know that many internet users are not great with spelling; therefore you should avoid such words which are hard to spell. Newyorkcityrealtyexpert.com for a real estate domain name may look good for SEO perspective but in reality who would remember such real estate domain names? The basic rule is picking up domains easy to spell and short enough to be remembered.

Now you know how to make the right choice of niche domain names for better search engine rankings and easy to remember. Keep these three rules in mind and you will never pick the wrong domain name again.

Be sure to pick the right domain to represent your business, get keyword rich niche domain names and see the difference.

Author: Guen Miller
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Should I Purchase a Dot-Com Or a Dot-NZ Domain Name?

http://www.apexinternet.co.nz

This article points out some of the significant factors you should be thinking about when deciding whether to register a ‘.com’ or a ‘.co.nz’ domain name.

Initially the steps involved in choosing a domain name for your website seem to be a reasonably clear-cut process:

- brainstorm & choose a name that identifies your business or service offering
- make sure it’s available for purchase (i.e. not already taken by someone else)
- pay the fee required to register the domain

But it is not such a clear-cut process. In reality choosing the right domain name requires meticulous thought and consideration. Aside from the branding and Search Engine optimisation implications of selecting a memorable and keyword rich domain name, there are also various target audience and brand protection considerations to be made.

Firstly let’s take a quick look at the components that make up a domain name.

Domain name structure

By and large a domain name consists of two or more words separated by a period (dot). The last word (e.g. ‘.net) is called the ‘top-level domain’ (TLD), while the first word or (combination of words) is referred to as the ‘mid level domain’. For example, the website address ‘Examplebusiness(dot)com’ has a ‘.com’ TLD, while the words ‘examplebusiness’ form the ‘mid level domain’. Taking this explanation further, you can also have country specific top level domains (referred to as ccTLDs) such as ‘.co.za’ or ‘.co.uk’.

Now that we have looked at the fundamentals of domain name structure, we can take a look at two of the key things you need to think about when deciding which variation/s of your chosen domain name you should register.

What should I think about when choosing between a ‘.com’ or a ‘.co.nz’?

Consideration 1 – Target audience location

Search Engines use the top level domain of a website (among other things) to help identify the audience the website is trying to reach. Therefore, if your business or website is targeting an audience predominantly located in Australia, then you really should register and use the ‘.com.au’ version of whatever domain name you choose. By using a country specific top level domain (ccTLD) such as ‘.com.au’ you are sending a strong signal to the Search Engines that your business or website is based in Australia, and therefore your website is more likely to appear in the search results when searched for by users located in Australia.

If on the other hand you wish to target several countries, then using a country code TLD is not the best option. Instead we suggest using a generic top level domain (gTLD) such as ‘.com’ or ‘.net’ that does not have any specific country/region associated with it.

Consideration 2 – Brand protection

Numerous companies overlook the importance of protecting their brand by failing to register the most popular TLD variations of their domain name. Once you’ve decided on the domain name you wish to register we recommend that you check to see if other variations of the domain are also available for purchase. For example, if you choose to register example-business.co.nz it would also be wise to check the availability of example-business.com. If you register multiple domain names you are taking practical steps toward protecting your brand and online identity from competitors who might register similar domain names to yours in an attempt to draw potential customers away from your website.

Note: Just because you are purchasing alternative versions of your domain doesn’t mean that you actually have to use them to promote your website – you can simply choose to redirect these versions to your chosen domain. That way, anyone who enters an alternative version of your domain into their browser would automatically be redirected to your website.

In summary, we recommend that if you are targeting an audience in a specific country, then it pays to make use of the country code TLD (ccTLD) of the target country. This will go a long way toward helping you to achieve better rankings in your preferred geographic location. Additionally, if you’re at all worried about protecting your brand online, we strongly suggest registering other TLD variations of your chosen domain.

Apex Internet – Search Engine Marketing Specialists deliver proven, cost effective, professional Search Engine Marketing results. We help our clients attract more potential customers to their sites, and gain online market-share over their competitors. With close to ten year’s experience in optimising and promoting websites Apex Internet has a wealth of knowledge in the Search Marketing industry. Contact us today to discuss your needs.

Author: Karyn Ogier
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Where To Buy Your Domain Name

May 25, 2010 Domain Names