Choosing Search Optimized Domain Names

Choosing a good domain name for your business website can be very hard but it is also essential to get it right, after all you want it to work for you. In this article I explore the many different aspects that you should be considering when deciding on a suitable domain name. I also take you through the steps I follow when choosing an appropriate domain name for my websites.

All things considered what we are trying to achieve is a website domain name that adequately describes your product or service, is broad enough to allow for some growth and scope in product or service, is simple enough for a person to recall and contains your most important keywords/phrases. From an Internet marketing perspective there are also considerations of company and product branding that may be brought into this specification. From an SEO perspective it may be better to use an older or established domain name that has been registered and known by the search engines for over a while, these tend to be rated more highly by Google in a respect point of view.

In this article I shall cover choosing the best new domain name that you can without considering your individual marketing or brand requirements.To do the following tasks I like to have a couple of browser windows open and a spreadsheet program. It may be required that you signup and login to certain websites, but these are all well known and respectable websites and do this at your discretion.

1. Load up overture inventory keyword volume checker in your browser window. Type in your product name or service and submit. Copy the results across into your spreadsheet.

2. load WordTracker in your browser, either using the free trial account or if you have a normal account, login. Now using the wizard type in the same product or service you type in the previous step. Run through the wizard and again, highlight and copy your results across into a new space in the spreadsheet.

3. Load up Google Adwords in your browser. Navigate to tools->keyword tool and type in the same keyword we used in the previous two steps. Ensure use synonyms are checked. Copy all words across into selected keywords and click estimate search traffic. Copy all results into a new space on the spreadsheet.

4. Using the spreadsheet we should have three columns and what we are looking to do is this step is weed out all items that are unrelated or irrelevant by deleting them from the spreadsheet.

5. Sort the three lists by search volume. Working from the top down, highlighting and copying to a 4th space in the spreadsheet the highest searched on and most relevant phrases. Repeat these steps until you have the top 10-15 phrases and keywords.

6. Identify your target market. Are you customers searching for your product in your local region or are they open to World wide suppliers? Having identified this we should use this as the domain extension (.com, .co.uk, .com.au etc) in the next step

7. Using this basic list identified in step 5, you might be lucky and be in an industry with little or no competition, so what we do here is remove any white space in the phrases and input them directly into your favorite bulk domain name registering tool. Check them all and see if we are lucky to find one of these is still available for registration. If the highest searched on term you have identified is still available and this strongly relates to your product/service you should register it now. If none of these terms is available then try using a dash (-) between words and also try adding words to the domain, like "the" or "buy" to get as close to the highest searched on term that you possibly can. You can also try re-arranging the words in the sentence.

So, now you have your list of 10+ domain names for your website to choose from and you should feel quite confident that they are relevant to your product or service, contain highly search terms and are short in length. If you are in debate over which one to choose then always go for relevant and high searched terms first.

Tips To Choose a Domain Name for Your Website

The right selection of a domain name is as crucial as a web host to the website before making it to buy domain. The overall ranking of your website has much to do with the domain name you buy. In general, the term domain name is applied for different meanings by different people. For instance, marketers use them as web addresses. The authoritative definition of a domain name is quite different. They are basically hostnames that help in the formation of a URL or a website or an email address. They are also vital for standing apart from several IP addresses. The domain names are divided in three main levels viz, top level domains (TLD), second level domains (SLD) and third level domains. In addition, top level domains are further divided in two main categories such as generic top-level domains (gTLDs) and country code top-level domains (ccTLDs).

The overall management of top level domain registration is bestowed to ICANN which stands for Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. The country code top-level domain registration is usually organized by the administration of the country and ICANN exercise after a consultation task for such domain registrations. Where as in case of generic top-level domains (gTLDs), the ICANN enjoy more control over the terms and conditions of these registries.

Beside this, there are also few web hosting companies in the market that have been offering cheap domain even with the free registration. In the return of all these services they need that domains should be hosted on their sites in the form of a portal along with advertising incorporated in the customer's content. The revenue generated from the advertising enable the hosting provider to recover the loss because of cheap domains.

Domain Hosting India is one such company that offers a free domain registration in Delhi. This is one of the additional features that are provided by the company under its various hosting packages to customers. So if you are planning to buy domain, Delhi is the right destination to go for.

When the domain name system (DNS) was newly launched, the domain registrations were completely free. But now the domain hosting has become a business in itself. The live example of this trend is the widespread resale of generic domain names in the last decade. The domain hosting of names particularly associated with business, pornography, gambling, and other productive fields have become so prominent to entrepreneurs and corporations because of their inherent potential to attract clients. According to Guinness World Records, the most costly domain name till the date is business.com. It was resold for $7.5 million in 1999.

The main reason behind the mounting importance of domain names is that they are capable of grabbing the attention of clients even without the use of advertising or marketing. In addition, the generic domain names like movies.com are exceptionally easy to learn for prospective customers and also augment the possibility of their becoming regular clients.

Each and every one has to promote their website so its very important to chose the best and suitable name that also help you in search engine optimization and better ranking in search engine ranking. Affordable seo services

Determining if Dot-Com is the Best for Your Domain

When most people are choosing a domain name, the .com extension is the only one that comes to mind. There’s a good reason for this- most of the biggest websites use that extension. It’s also the most common "guessed" domain extension. But, there are many others out there to choose from.

To capitalize on people guessing your domain name, choose a .com when possible. A guessed name is when a customer or client types in what they think your Web address might be. That represents a small percentage of buyers looking for specific sites, but it can result in sales.

If you can’t get a .com name, it might be a good idea to choose a different name for the domain to one that has the .com name available. An extension other than .com will still be viable, but it may not result in the same amount of traffic that a .com name will.

The time to buy .net, .org, .cc, etc., extensions is when you already own the .com name. After you have the .com, it’s important to protect your site’s image and clientele by buying all of the available extensions. Having the .com and leaving the .org available leaves that domain open for a competitor to come in and set up a similar site that can easily be confused for your own. Your site’s reputation can be tarnished by a scam artist who uses those domains to capitalize on your good name to defraud customers who trust your reputation.

When you decide on a potential domain name, be sure to check which extensions are available. When deciding where to buy domains, look for one that allows you to see what’s currently available. A site like GoDaddy will have a place to buy the domain as well as an extensive search feature that lets you check which extensions have been bought and which are available.

Once you check your chosen names, you can choose the domain names that have all of the extensions up for grabs. If you use GoDaddy, you can buy all of them at once in one purchase, keeping every extension of your name protected and within your control.

Park A Domain For Cash

Have you thought of using domain parking to make some money? This is something that many people are taking advantage of. There are several ways you can make money with the simple task of domain parking.

Some people park a domain and decide to use it to make money while they are working out how to build the site. This is a great way to earn while you plan the site out. Some people also park domains just for the purpose of making money with no further plans to develop the website.

How do you do domain parking?

First of all, you need to know what type of domain to park. If you can think of an up and coming idea and capitalize it by buying domain names this is a great idea. If you know, for instance, that something new is in the works and becoming popular and the .com name isn’t yet taken, you can park it an earn from it. You might get approached by someone later who will pay big money for that domain or you might find that people happen upon it while looking for something else. By filling the landing page with relevant advertisements or affiliate marketing ads and banners, you can make a regular stream of income.

If you are waiting until later on to reserve that great domain name you’ve been thinking about, don’t tarry too long otherwise it could be gone and someone else might either build upon it and use it to their advantage or merely park it and wait to charge you big money for it.

It takes a bit of time to get things ready to do things this way. If you don’t want to take the time, effort and money to register the domain, sign up for affiliate programs, build a page, maintain and manage a page and fill it with advertisements, you can choose to share the profits by working with a company to do the management for you.

There are several companies that will do domain parking for you and pay you a percentage of the fees. Some offer cheap domain name registrations and other incentives to get you to join up.

Many domain parking options are available and if you cannot come up with a catch phrase, you can often come up with a similar name to another company that may get hits. There are some cheap domain names registrars out there with some great deals to offer you.

Notes Of Caution With Domain Parking

Beware though; some people that are less than ethical and will do things in the domain biz such as redirect people’s homepage to their parked domain so that people are more likely to click. Be cautious of hidden fees and black hat tactics and be sure to read the fine print because there are some known scams out there that benefit the domain parking company much more than they benefit you. Some people call some domain parking practices domain squatting or cyber squatting and some companies have been known to press charges if they suspect that someone is cybersquatting on a brand name that it their intellectual property. ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) handles complaints of this nature and looks for motives of bad faith when investigating domain parking scams.

Cheap Domain Name Registration Services Cheap Web Hosting Plan

Are you tired of finding a reliable web hosting company to host your web site? There is a way to go for a most feasible choice. It is web hosing directory that will help you to better analyze the efficiency of a web hosting company and their services.

In general, web hosting directory is a web site that is designed to furnish relevant information about web hosting providers to prospective customers. The pertinent information furnished includes the names of web hosting companies, web hosting services, price of web hosting service and so on. Thus for people gearing ahead to buy web hosting plan or pertaining services, web hosting directories are ideal means to rely upon. Other than this, they are also best at conferring information about cheap web hosting service plan that remains the desire of many webmasters.

Whether a web hosting company offering cheap web hosting solution will be able to meet your web hosting demands is a question worth ponder over? Nobody will better answer than a web hosting directory. They facilitate visitors with several alternatives so that they can compare all available cheap web hosing providers and select a superlative and economical web hosting solution for their website.

The inexpensive web hosting services available on web hosting directory are assorted in different price ranges for the convenience of visitors. Some web hosting directories also render alternatives to examine the quality of the cheap web hosting services offered by web hosting providers. They will further help you out to identify which web hosting company offer domain registration, technical assistance, website design along with their cheap web hosting services.

However while checking out such cheap web hosting companies, make sure they are equipped with ample technicians to deal with mechanical failures. The other fundamental features that you should never overlook include password security, uptime and customer care.
Web hosting directories are also the pertinent information pool to judge the credibility of web hosting providers through reviews. Here you can read reviews of people who have utilized web hosting services offered by such cheap web hosting companies so far.
Thus, whenever you decide upon to buy web hosting plan, be it cheap or expensive, never give web hosting directory a mis. Get affordable seo services.

How to choose a good domain name

If you want to start an online business you need a domain name. Maybe the domain name is not too important, but in some cases it is the reason because of some online business fail, it is important for your returning visitors and for search engines.

First, the extension. The best extension is .com, but if you can't find the desired .com name, you can use other known extensions: .net, .org, .biz. If the business is available only in a country, you should use the extension for that country. People don't remember often the extension, but, if it's an world wide business, they assume it is .com, if it is available only in a country, they will assume the extension for that country.

If you already have a company, it is recommended to use the company name in domain name, else you should use in the domain something that describes what are you selling. The domain name should consist in 2-3 words, something that your visitors will remember. Also, if the words in the domain describes what your visitors are searching for, you will rank better in search engines. You must keep it simple, hard domain names are not easy to remember, you can alternatively use your initials, but it will not give any advantage for search engine ranking, but people will surely remember it.

If you have more options for a domain name, it's better to register all of them, for example, one matching your company name and other describing what you are selling.

Now it is very hard to find a domain name, because many speculators registered domain names only to sell it, or to display ads on it, without content.

Web Domain Registration, Domain Names & Hosting

WEB DOMAIN REGISTRATION

Web domain registration is not hard and the fact of the matter is if you want a web site you will need web domain registration. A domain is basically the address for your site on the Internet. Web domain registration is necessary so that two sites are not using the same web domain address.

There are companies that make a business from web domain registration. These web domain registration companies act as the middlemen between the registry that handles the domain names and the ultimate customer. There are 100s if not 1000s of web domain registration companies. Here is the company I use – www.PowderRiverDomains.com.

Web domain registration use to be expensive but now you can find domains for as cheap as $2 a year. Price is not the only thing to consider when looking for web domain registration.

You also need to consider what types of services will you receive: automatic web domain registration renewal; Notice when your web domain registration needs to be renewed; Ease of buying and selling your domain names; Length of web domain registration available and is your web domain registration in your name or the registrars? Also, the ease of buying your domain name needs to be considered. Be careful if the price for web domain registration is too low!

I have found web domain registration companies that only allowed for 1 year web domain registration and the registrations were in the name of the registrar company, not the person that bought the domain name. The above factors are why I chose the web domain registration company I did.

Web domain registration is simple, even if you have never done it. Domain registration is on a first come first served basis so if you find a domain name you want register it fast. First, select a domain name. Most web domain registration companies have a search feature to allow you to search for domain names. Your second step to web domain registration is to decide how long you want to register your web domain for. Search engines consider the length of your registration in evaluating your website. The longer you register, the better.

Web domain registration can be used to generate income. You can park domains, promote them and then resell them when they are popular. A good source of information on this method is Domain Profiteer. You can also do a web domain registration, build a web site, add Google Adsense, drive traffic to your site and earn income from the Adsense ads. A good resource for information on this our Google Adsense page.

DOMAIN NAMES
Domain names help level the playing field on the Internet. There is no way to tell the size of a company based on domain names. Domain names identify your business and are like a street address for your business on the Internet. The selection of good domain names for your business can have a big impact on search engine optimization and the ranking of your website on the web.

When selecting domain names you want to choose domain names that relate to your site. If you are selling apples you want to get domain names with "apple" or "apples" in the name. Keep the name simple and try to get .com domain names. Avoid using numbers in place of words and punctuation marks. The idea is to make your domain names easy to remember. You shouldn't choose domain names with a copyrighted word or term in the title. This could lead to legal problems down the road. You will also want to make sure that you keep the domain name under 67 characters, as that is the maximum length for web addresses.

The shorter the name, the better it is. For it will be easier to remember. It may be difficult to get one word domain names for popular suffixes like .com, .org, .net, .biz, but many are still available from .mobi, .tv, .fm, etc.

Selecting domain names is directly related to web domain registration. Most web domain registration companies have a tool that you can use to search for available domain names.

How to Secure Your Preferred Domain Name

Whilst most of the words in the dictionary have been registered as dotcom names by speculators hoping to sell them at a profit in the future, there are still many domain name options and combinations available with various extensions.

It is important to consider the following when choosing your domain name...


    * Choose a memorable name

      The right domain name allows your prospective customers an easy way to remember and find you. It's your location on the web and also your email address.

    * Your Domain Name is your Brand

      Secure the domain name that best represents your business name and keep it out of the hands of your competitors.

      Domains are valuable online real estate and securing more than one helps protect your brand and increase your reach.

      You can easily direct as many domains as you want to a single website.

    * Build Credibility

      Having an appropriate domain name and using it to personalize your business cards and email addresses helps establish credibility and professionalism.

      For instance, an email address such as john@ebusiness.com is more professional than john112@freeemail.com

      Therefore, do not use a freebie domain name - it is short sighted and gives your prospective client the perception that you are "out to get a quick buck" type of business.

    * Your Domain Name is an Investment

      Domain names, like real estate, appreciate in value as time goes by.

      Furthermore, as a domain name ages not only does it become more valuable, it importantly gains more credibility & integrity with the search engines.

      Therefore it is extremely important to secure as many appropriate domains as possible as soon as you can.

      Not only can they all be directed to one website but it keeps them out of the clutches of your competition as well as adding to your business' online presence and credibility.

    * If your preferred name has already been registered...?

      The chances are that your preferred domain name has already been snapped up and that you'll have to settle for a name that isn't totally ideal.

      Whilst you should always go for a top level domain (TLD) such as a dotcom extension if you’re a business, as people continue to assume that dotcom equals a business and professionalism, there are some good alternatives.

      Other top level domains such as .net .org .biz are good choices for the appropriate type of business, eg. a computer network business should have a .net extension & a non-profit organization shouyld have a .org extension.

      However if your business is country specific, you should consider using a country-specific top level domains (TLDs) like .de, .nu, .sg, etc.

      However, if your name has been taken you can always consider adding a search engine friendly term or area to the name.

      For instance if your preferred name is internetbusiness you could choose internetbusiness-startup or internetbusiness-texas or internetbusiness123 etc..

Also always once your domain is registered, remember to make sure your domain record remains locked.

This feature ensures that your domain remains secure and untouchable.

So if you want to transfer your domain name to a different registrar you have to unlock it before the new registrar can actually transfer it from your current registrar.

To start your Domain Name Search click the "how to secure your preferred domain name" link below to see with what extensions (TLD's) your preferred domain name is available and register as many appropriate domains as you can get - it's an investment in your business' future!

Why I GoDaddy's Way

So Tom Cruise Jumped up and down maniacally on Oprah Winfrey's plush sofa professing to anyone bothered enough to listen that he really loves Katie Holmes!

Britney Spears cruised the town panty-less "accidentally" flashing her inner treasures to the entire world to reassure herself and us that she's still of significance in the celebrity-social stratum-- motherhood notwithstanding--while her new very-best-friend Paris Hilton, exhibiting unusual modesty, vainly attempted to keep Spear's inner-thigh secrets...well secret, from the rest of the world.

Decades ago, film producer and director Roman Polanski fled the Us to France after running afoul of the law.

Bob Parsons, CEO of GoDaddy.com embarked on a shooting safari in Africa where he did eventually get to send an elephant to the land of Forever-Tusks and the great beyond.

So what has all this got to do with domain name registration and GoDaddy?

Well thing is, somewhere along the line all the aforementioned names produce or have produced great products at some time or another. The point being made here is that it's the great product you should be concerned about not the personality.

Though I truly and honestly can claim to have never been a fan of Ms. Spears (or whatever name she goes by these days) I will sheepishly confess to having found my legs unwittingly reflexively twitching spasmodically one night to a dance song in a bar, only to discover with shock and horror that the chanteuse was none other than Britney "Oops-did-I-really-let-you-see-all-the-way-up-there" Spears.

Anyway back to GoDaddy and domain name registration.

I may not agree with Bob Parsons shooting an elephant, though it should be noted that the elephant would have been killed anyway. Zimbabwe, (I think it was killed in Zimbabwe) have a nationally supported culling system to keep the numbers of elephants within the boundaries of acceptable limit (acceptable from the point-of-view of the most ferocious earthbound predator--Man!).

But whatever my take on his shooting safari or other celebrity shenanigans, here's why I still register my domain names with GoDaddy.com and recommend them as far as domain name registration goes:

1. They are the biggest domain name registrar in the business which means they aren't disappearing anytime soon.

2. Their prices may not be the cheapest but it is still cheap; no point being penny-wise and pound foolish!

3. By registering your domain names with GoDaddy.com you can be confident that you won't have to contend with some pesky lawsuit somewhere down the road because you were inadvertently issued a domain name that apparently belonged to someone else.

4. You can rest easy in the knowledge that you will get ample notification when your domain name registration is expiring.

Be aware that if your domain name expires because your domain registrar never bothered to apprise you of its impending expiration, it could cost you a fortune to get it back. This actually happens more commonly than is acknowledged, most especially with the cheaper domain name registrars. You see there really isn't much money to be made from plain domain name registration.

Why?

Because domain name register services are charged $6.00 per year per domain name by companies such as VeriSign which by the way is the authoritative directory provider for all .com, .net, .cc, and .tv domain names and is solely responsible for handling the backend system for .com names, which currently constitute the greater percentage of the 105 or so million sites registered worldwide.

On top of that domain name providers or registrars have to pay ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers)a non-profit fee of 25 cents per name. Consequently those companies charging less than $7.00/year for domain name registration are making no profit whatsoever and are even probably losing money.

So how do domain name registrars contend with this trifling inconvenience?

The bigger domain name registration companies make their real money on backend or added feature sales, such as hosting. The lesser and cheaper registration companies make do by shaving costs by eliminating important features such as automated-expiration-date notification.

Navigating the webs most popular Domain Registrar Sites

Looking at the internet as a whole, one part of it's infrastructure that I think could be improved, at least from a webmasters perspective, is the major domain registrars. Many of them leave something to be desired. They are all similiar but have different details which differentiate them from one another. Moniker, for example, is radically different than any other domain registrar I have used (and I have used about ten). On the plus side, they are one of the most secure registrars out there. But unfortunately they are not very intuitive, although they are new and this may change soon. Finding the link to change my name servers was harder than finding a needle in a haystack. There really should be more standardization where these domain registrars are concerned. I have noticed that they are open to feedback on webmaster forums so I predict that they may streamline their process in the near future. Speaking of process, I recently renewed a domain at Godaddy, which is one of the largest (if not the largest) regitrars out there. Thank goodness I had a whole morning to do it. Instead of just clicking it and paying,

which should have been the case, it brought me (actually forced me kicking and screaming) through page after page of options. it seems like I clicked

'continue with order' ten times before brought to the 'checkout now' link which was a tiny, termite sized hyperlink at the bottom of seemingly eighty or ninety

gaudy advertisements. I mean blinking this, flash that. My eyes hurt after all that. I was looking for a bottle of carrot juice at this point. Was I registering a domain or playing the flashiest pinball machine of all time? But they were not done with me. It then gave me the option of

what payment type and I chose Paypal. Instead of me just putting my password in a slot and finishing the process on the site, instead Godaddy mercilessly

yanked me out of their site to some paypal site, not just to pay, but to "set up a Billing Agreement for Preapproved Payments with Go Daddy Software, Inc.". After I navigated that rather lengthy process

I finally saw a button that said 'return to merchant'. I had almost left at this point thinking that I a had already paid. Nope, I then had to complete the payment on go daddy's site, finally I saw the renewal amount, which they never bothered to show me untill step 99 out of 100 (note quite that many, but you get the point). I clicked it and I believe I finally finished the process although I never saw what you might call a clear cut 'submission complete' or 'order complete' type of confirmation page. it was a little more vague than that and I was further bombarded with extensive additional offers that filled the page, obscuring everything else. I was impressed with just how many advertisements these guys could imagine, create and fit on one page.

I think I saw it all. In all fairness to them, most people pay by credit card, a faster and easier process. I had logged into their site in panic after they sent me an email headlined 'Domain _ _ _ _ about to Expire at Godaddy!! After logging I discovered that the domain was still several months from expiring. In any case, they are one of many online domain registrars that could benefit from the old adage 'Less is More'. On the positive side, when I had to call Godaddy's customer service on a different occasion, they were effective and very friendly on the phone. In fact I would give them an A for telephone customer service. Namecheap and Idotz are a little bit easier to navigate online, although no registrars I have used so far have been perfect.

Classless Inter-Domain Routing

CIDR, short for Classless Inter-Domain Routing is a prefix-based format for IP addresses. We was used to see IP addresses like 4 numbers separated by periods and they are called IPv4 addresses, but the internet is prospering quickly, we can connect to the internet from our personal computers, from portable computers, from pda's, and from mobile phones.

Ip is an identifier for a computer or a device on a network. The ip address is used to identify the computers in a network. An IP address is written as four numbers separated by periods. Within a local network, the ip addresses can be assigned randomly, as long as they are unique, but over the internet you need to register the IP address.

Think what will happen when each mobile phone will have a permanent connection to the internet. How many mobile phones are in the world ? And that isn't everything, in short time almost every device will have a connection to the internet. A CIDR IP address consist of a IPv4 address followed by a slash and a number from 0 to 32. This number is the prefix length, the number of shared initial bits. The IPv4 address is 32 bit long, so, if a CIDR address is followed by number 16, this means that the first 16 bits from the IP are shared, in other words, 256 class C, equivalent to 1 class B. A CIDR address with 24 in the end is equivalent to 1 class C, or 256 hosts. In this way the internet will never run out of IP addresses.

Picking A Domain Name

Don't Replace Letters With Numbers:

Don't ever replace letters with numbers, this will only confuse people, and will damage how well you rank in the search engines (I'll talk about how search engines play their part later in this article). For example, this website is called makeagreatsite.com, I could have replaced the letters "e a and t" with an 8, to look like this makeagr8site.com.
Although it might seem clever to do this, it's actually quite the opposite.
Remember, people will talk about your site verbally (At least you want them to anyway), so if someone says "Hey I found this amazing website called makeagreatsite.com" their friend will type in makeagreatsite.com, they wont even think to use an 8. Therefore, you'll get far less traffic (People) to your website than if you just spelt it correctly.

Use keywords:

Ok this section will be quite long because there is a lot to explain.
The short version is to put words that your visitor are likely to search for to find your website, in your domain name.
That sounds easy and it is, but ONLY if you know where to start. Simply guess what your visitors are likely to search for is a good start, but unlikely to get you much success.

I recommend you use overture's search term suggestion tool.
What you do is type in a word that is related to your site, so for this site it might be "website", then it will come up with a large list of keywords that people typed into search engines, relating to the keyword "website".
Not only that, but it also shows how many people typed in each specific keyword.
More often than not, you can't just use the top few keywords in the list as a domain name, they are normally already taken. So you'll have to use your imagination.

Look at the top few keywords and copy and paste them into google, see how many website's have that search term. If it comes up with more than 1 million results, you're probably going to have a hard time competing with the other sites to get to the top. If this is the case, try a few keywords down and see what you come up with.

Use Geo-Targeted Keywords:

This sound complicated, but it's not at all. A geo-targeted keyword is a keyword related to a specific area. For example london-repairs.com would be an excellent example of a geo-targeted domain/keyword combination. If your audience is global then you wont need to do this, but if you're only serving a specific area, then Geo-Targeted is for you.

An even better example of a good domain name for the above would be london-boiler-repairs.com if the website or business specialized in boiler repairs.
This is just to give you an idea of the possibilities, the more specific you are, the better.

Don't Overuse Keywords:

It's very important that you don't overuse keywords in your domain name, for example london-boiler-radiator-plumbing-electrical-repairs.com
contains many great keywords, but it's far too specific and very long to type in and probably very difficult to remember.
The shorter it is, the easier it is to remember and type in, 4 words maximum, even that's pushing it a bit.

Make It Catchy:

That's about all you need to know for usability and keywords, now you need to mix that all together and think of something catchy. For example, my site is called makeagreatsite.com, it's descriptive and does exactly what it says, not only that but it's got a few keywords in there too. It's hard to give advice on being catchy as this will vary from industry to industry. It's probably a good idea to get a notepad, write all your top keywords down, then right a bunch of descriptive words and words related to your website. Then you can just randomly pick a few words and see what you come up with.

How To Pick A Web Site Domain Name For Your Company Or Law Firm

Your web site is located by an IP (Internet Protocol) address such as 67.15.4.94 and is accessible on the Internet by typing http://67.15.4.94. Instead of typing a series of numbers which are difficult to remember, you can register an easier to remember domain name which becomes associated with your IP address. Visitors typing an easy to remember domain name will be pointed to your IP address. Similar to a 1-800 vanity phone number, some domain names pertain to the subject of the web site, while others may simply be the name or an abbreviation of your firm.

Lawyer-Advertising-Blog.com is the primary domain name for my blog, which is instantly obvious that it is a blog concerning lawyer advertising. When you type that domain name into the address bar of your browser, the domain name servers on the Internet know that you're looking for http://67.15.4.94 and take you there. You can have multiple domain names pointing to the same web site. For instance, I also registered LawyerAdvertisingBlog.com (without hyphens) which is used for branding because people never type hyphens. Because some people may remember the name incorrectly, I also registered many other domain names such as AttorneyAdvertisingBlog.com , LawFirmAdvertisingBlog.com and others, all of which will bring the visitor to Lawyer-Advertising-Blog.com .

Tips to help you pick a domain name:

1) Choosing: Choosing a domain name is a lot like choosing a name for your company or law firm. Ideally the name should be consistent with your branding. Determine whether you are branding the name of your company, product or service. Your domain name should be good for branding - short, easy to remember, and has a "ring" to it or creates an image in the mind of the consumer.

2) Trademark: Before registering your domain name, be sure to check the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to make sure that the name has not been trademarked. You can check at www.uspto.gov, click on Search under Trademarks. Assuming that your choice has not been trademarked and you have now registered a non-generic domain name, you may want to protect your name by filing a Trademark or Service mark application.

3) Ownership: When you register a domain name, make sure that you are the registrant of your domain name. Some web site design firms will register your domain name with their name as the registrant. This will give them ownership of your name keeping you hostage. You can easily register your domain name yourself for $8.95 per year at 8.95Domains.com or GoDaddy.com .

4) Hyphens: There have been misunderstandings about whether to use hyphens in a domain name. First of all, the domain name you give out to the public must not have hyphens. The domain name without hyphens is the domain name that everyone will type in the address bar of their Internet browser.

The reason that some people say that you should have a domain name with hyphens is to force the search engines to see keywords in your domain name so that your web site does better in search engine results. The bigger search engines can now see individual words without hyphens, however, smaller search engines may not and even the bigger ones may see a word differently than you want.

Thus, the importance of using a hyphenated domain name has diminished. If you wish to use a hyphenated domain name as I did with Lawyer-Advertising-Blog.com , you should also register the unhyphenated domain name which you will forward to the hyphenated domain name. Use the unhyphenated domain name in print and advertising.

5) Extensions: Domain names are available with various extensions, such as .com , .net , .org and many other extensions. If it's really important to you, you can register domain names in several extensions, however, for most firms only the .com extension is important. If you feel that you need to use .org , you should also register your name in the .com extension.

The .com extension is similar to 1-800 for telephone numbers. Most people automatically dial 1-800 even when they see 1-888. Likewise, most people will type .com even when they see .net or .org . Additionally, many people including myself simply type in the domain name without http://www. or .com and press "Control, Enter". Pressing "Control, Enter" will type http://www. and .com for you, automatically taking you to a web site with .com .

6) Top Level Domain vs. Sub-Level Domains: A sub level domain is a second level domain under a first level domain name and can look like yourfirm.freehosting.com . You must have your own domain name. Do not under any circumstances use a free hosting service, since free hosting services will only give you a sub level domain. No one will ever remember it and it's sort of like handwriting your own letterhead.

7) Ethics for Law Firm Domain Names: A website name should be used as an address, not a trade name which is prohibited. Advertise your web site name as an address, a means for people to find your web site, not a trade name. Like a vanity telephone number, some web site domain names can violate legal ethics. Make sure that your web site name avoids use of certain words which could create a potentially incorrect expectation in the mind of the consumer or violate one of the other ethics rules.

Your domain name should not imply that you are better than another lawyer or that you can accomplish something that may not actually occur. Use of words such as "BEST", "TOP", "FOREMOST, "LEADING", "WIN" and similar words in a web site domain name could create a misleading expectation in the mind of the consumer and will violate ethics rules in most states.

For instance, LeadingLawyer.com or BestLawyer.com will likely violate lawyer ethics rules by implying that you are a leading lawyer or the best lawyer. The question is by what standards are you leading or the best and in what? WinningLawyer.com or WinningCase.com may be better for a casino, because it will imply that the person who becomes a client of the firm will win money when, that may not happen and even if it does, it's an award for just compensation, not gambling.

Laura Hodes in her article for the ABA Journal entitled Vanity Phone Numbers Make Your Firm Less Forgettable, at http://www.hurt911.org/hurt-911-articles/ABAJournal.htm, quoted Will Hornsby, an expert on lawyer advertising and staff counsel in the ABA Division for Legal Services, who said that while there is nothing unethical about vanity numbers, "1-800-I-WIN-CASES would be unethical because it is making an unsubstantiated claim, creating unjustified expectations that can be true but still be misleading." The same can be said about domain names.

8) Advertising Your Domain Name: Be sure to include your domain name on your business cards, letterhead, and all advertising. When advertising in off-line media, always advertise your domain name with www. and without http://, such as www.LawyerAdvertisingBlog.com. Note that when publishing your domain name on the Internet, you may sometimes want to use http:// to ensure that you create a link back to your web site. When advertising in off-line media, always advertise a domain name without hyphens.

Choosing Domain Names for Your Business

Let's say that you're creating a website for Barb's Specialty Pet Products. Should the domain name be barbsspecialtypetproducts.com?

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.

Sex, ICANN, and Your Domain Name

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Making money from expired domain registration

After the dot com crash, expired domain names and expired domain name traffic have been a source of potential income. It is important to inexpensively obtain the automated tools required to track the thousands of domain name registration and abandoned websites that are removed from the domain registry and become available for purchase.

Expired domain registration and the expired domain name traffic associated with them have been only available to those who had an automated system and tools.

Now, automated tools and resources are available for identifying, appraising and even buying these domain names on autopilot.

Expired domain names are those that had previously been registered to another owner. These domain name registration are available to the open market because of non-payment of the domain name renewal fees. Such domain names are returned to the open market about forty-five days after the expiration date.

Many domain names even point to fully functioning websites while many are registered for speculation. These names are registered by speculators in the hope of obtaining a profit on the resale of the domain name.

Numerous other domain names are registered for website development, but do not appear online. In a number of these cases, the domain name owners do not follow through with respect to the website development and allow the domain registration to expire.

However, there are a number of expired domain names with fully functioning websites, receiving daily traffic from the search engines, links and banner ads. The expired domain names that get this daily traffic can earn revenues if these are redirected to another website or marketed with affiliate programs.

Earning Profit from Expired Domain Names & Expired Domain Name Traffic:

1. Buying for speculation - There is now a large and highly profitable market for reselling domain registration at present, and speculators are looking out for developing technologies and trends. Evolution is constantly taking place in technology and trends. There are markets, being watched closely right now, that are expected to grow exponentially within a short span of time. It should be a good idea to locate and register expiring domain registration that are related to new trends, technology and markets in order to earn substantial profits.

2. Buying expiring domain names and redirecting the targeted traffic - Targeted keyword domain names can help to get traffic from those simply typing in keyword rich domain names into the address bar and hitting the enter key.

3. Buying expired domain name registration and putting up generic websites - Using tools like easy website building software, third party payment processors, auto responders and other applications, even a novice could put generic websites online with keyword rich domain names that should appear in the search engine rankings. These websites can be built using expired domain names to drive traffic to them and the domain registration and the developed website could then be sold together with the domain name, as a value added commodity.

4. Buying expiring domain names of websites that are already online ¨C A number of expiring domain names are, actually, already functioning websites. The owners of these websites either did not renew their domain registration for some reason or simply stopped operating the website. In fact, quite often, these websites already have traffic from links to other websites, search engine rankings and even directory listings.

5. Buying expired domain names and using them for marketing affiliate programs - Affiliate programs are a good way to acquire an online business without even having a product. Affiliate marketers redirect traffic from the affiliate website to the website of the actual product or service and charge a commission or a fee when any of the redirected traffic results in sales. Affiliate programs have become an automated turnkey solution for a number of entrepreneurs, especially novices.

One can locate and register expired domain names that closely target the market of the affiliate programs and then draw that targeted traffic into the website with expired keyword rich domain names with content that satisfies the informational needs. Then the users can be led onto the sales page of the product.

Domain Name Registration - Key Tips

Domain name registration is a necessary, easy, and strategically important first step in establishing an online presence, whether for business or otherwise. A well-chosen domain name registration can set you up for success with your new site in so many ways, the most prominent of these being increased search engine traffic. Here’s some vital elements to consider when executing your domain name registration.

A good domain name registration, particularly for an online business, (which is the main focus of this article) is easily done, but at the same time requires choices that will impact your site’s effectiveness. So here, in no particular order, are some things to bear in mind when doing a domain name registration.

The extension - Will it be a .com, .net, .org, .info etc. Any of these will get spidered and indexed by the search engines, but if you can get a .com for your chosen name you’d be better off, as this extension is more common and carries an air of legitimacy with it.

Try not to have you domain name registration with your web host. The reason being that should you decide to part ways with your host, (and this isn’t uncommon!) it’s potentially a massive headache to move your domain as well. Split them up: you’ll be glad you did!

Your domain name registration, purchased from a reputable company should run you somewhere between $1-10, depending on the extension and the amount of time you sign up for.

Probably the most important aspect of your domain name registration is the choice of keywords to use in your domain name. Try to use the main keyword or phrase you’d like to optimize the whole site for, and see if you can craft a domain name around it. The search engines seem to favor keyword-rich domain names. Nuff said.

Keep it short if possible. A shorter name is easier to remember than a long one.

Don’t use your company name unless it has your keywords in it. There’s no point in ranking high for your name if no one is looking for it yet.

Try to keep your domain name registration topically relevant. As search engines get smarter and smarter, sites that display total relevance will rank higher than catch all sites.

Lastly, be sure to avoid other companies trademarks and copyrights in your domain name. For example, let’s say you’re an affiliate of The Sharper Image. It’s tempting to use some version of that name to promote your affiliate site, but don’t do it, unless of course you’d like to meet their lawyers!