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I have been asked many times by new clients how to select a business domain name. I’ve answered some commonly asked questions to assist you with one of the most important purchases you will make for your online business.

1. Should Your Business Name Be Your Domain Name?
99.9% of the time, the answer to this question is Yes. We are living in the Internet age, and consumers are becoming savvier at purchasing goods and services online. When people think of your product (or service) they’ll connect it with your website, which makes repeated visits to your site easier for your customers.

What if the domain name is already taken? All is not lost. You have some options:
• Offer To Purchase - If you are connected with a brand name then you may want to pursue purchasing this name from its current owner. The domain contact information can be obtained in the form of a “Whois” lookup. Inquire as to whether they are open to selling the domain name, but be aware they’ll likely charge a higher fee for it than you would normally pay.
• Back Order - This is becoming a very popular trend. Domains can now be “back ordered”; meaning simply that when the current owner’s domain registration expires, should they not renew, the domain will become available for you to purchase. This may also carry a higher fee than a normal registration.
• Alternate Ideas - If your business is relatively new, it may be wise to consider alternative extensions. For example, mybusiness.com may not be available, but “mybusiness.net” or “mybussines.biz” might be. The Internet has exploded in the last year with alternate extensions and there are plenty to choose from.

2. Should My Domain Name Include Keywords?
This is an excellent idea! Consider for a moment that you are a candle maker whose business name is “Amy’s Jar Candles”. Your business name already uses “jar candles” as key product branding. Registering “amysjarcandles.com” is a terrific way to target your incoming audience which results in a better chance for sales. For example, chances are that anyone shopping for candles would have a general idea of what type of candle they need, such as a jar candle, or pillar candle. Buyers are far more likely to try out phrases like “jar candles” or “pillar candles” in the search engine rather than just “candles” because it will produce relevant results quicker. Having a domain name that matches your product or service branding is crucial because the easier it is to remember, the more likely it will be tried in a browser and/or search engines.

3. What Extension….com, .net, .org?
Domain names have been disappearing at a rapid rate and new extensions have been introduced to keep the pool of available names flowing. What if the “.com” extension for your domain name is not available? In this instance it’s likely that you can register the “.net” or “.org” (or other) variation of your business name. Which do you choose? Should you select a “.net” or “.org” extension, or consider a country specific alternative such as “.ru” or “.co.uk”?

Does your business cater to the local community? If so, then it might be wise to consider searching for a country specific domain extension for your area first. For example, .com is universally regarded as a US or international extension, while .co.uk refers to the United Kingdom. Should a UK buyer be looking for car parts in his neighborhood “mikescarparts.co.uk” is more likely to be a local websites than “mikescarparts.com”.

Businesses with an International audience can benefit from registering their name with the “.net” extension while “.org” can be useful for identifying a non-profit organization. Since the registration restrictions for “.org” have been removed however, this extension is open to anyone.

There are no rules on which extension to register, but should you decide to register a .com alternative, be very sure you market your company using the entire domain name. Most buyers assume a “.com” extension and without specific information may be unable to locate your site.

4. Long Domain Names…Good or Bad?
This is a topic on which you will find wide variation on opinions. Your domain name can be up to 67 characters in length, that’s a lot of space!

The argument for a longer domain name is mainly that it’s easier for the human mind to recall later. If your business name is “I Design and Host Websites” you probably wouldn’t want to register “idahw.com” with the hope that someone would associate this with your company, product or service by remembering what that stands for.

For example, “gacwh.com” is a sequence of unrelated letters that could be difficult to type correctly; whereas if it that is registered as “getacheapwebhost.com” it is more likely to be remembered. Long domain names also have the added advantage of having room for your keywords. For example, if you have a site listed on Google with a domain name like “jansartsupplies” it may do better in a search for “art supplies” than a name such as “mikesartstuff.com.”

The other side of this argument is that shorter names are easier to remember and type, and thus less prone to errors. For example, “websitedesign.com” is less susceptible to typos than “Icanbuildyourwebsiteaffordably.com”

The issue with shorter or more general names is that ones like “candles.com” and “tires.com” are generally not going to be available. If you Sdecide to register a short name, possibly your company’s acronym, be sure it’s a meaningful combination of characters that is easy to remember.
I would recommend finding a domain name which represents your products in the shortest and most meaningful way possible. Businesses with long names may need to shorten their domain name down to assist users with remembering and typing long names; shorter names are also easier to fit in the title bar.

5. Should I use Plurals and Hyphenations?
Domain registration engines will usually suggest an alternative if the name you are searching for is taken. Sometimes this will include adding a hyphen or even “my” or “the” to the name.

If you wanted the term “design.com” and it was taken, you may find yourself staring at alternatives such as “mydesign.com”, “thedesign.com” or even “designs.com”. Which should you choose?

My rule of thumb for my clients is not to register “designs.com” if they cannot also register “design.com” The reason is that many times buyers may forget to type the “s” at the end of the name and your sale may go to someone else. There are those who will argue that this theory works in reverse, but why take chances? If you decide to register a name as “my…” or “the…” remember to market using your entire domain name.

Hyphens are another popular way to successfully register your name when the non-hyphenated version is no longer available. An advantage is being able to get the name that you want; however, it’s my opinion that the disadvantages far outweigh this.

Hyphens are easy to forget. Users are comfortable with typing phrases like “jarcandles.com” but may have trouble remembering to include a hyphen if you registered “jar-candles.com”. This may result in a sale for your competitor and translates to lost sales for you.

Hyphens are also an issue with verbal recommendations. Consider a verbal recommendation for a store named “anas-jar-candles.com.” This may translate at some point to: “Wow, I visited Ana’s Jar Candles dot com today and saw some really neat stuff.” Later, you would probably type “anasjarcandles.com” into your browser hoping to visit. Ouch.

Prior to purchasing your domain name it’s important to carefully consider your business community, target market, and keywords. Just ten minutes spent jotting down ideas can mean the world of difference when it comes to success with your online business.

About the Author
Krista Garren is a website design consultant and webmaster who specializes in partnering with clients with building effective websites. Visit her website at http://www.atsirka.com for more details.

Choosing a domain name is a very critical part of your website marketing strategy.

By choosing a domain name that targets the specific keywords for your website you’ll flood your website with laser targeted traffic by enhancing click through response.

Pick a domain name that gives your prospects what they most desperately desire. By including the keywords in your domain name that are your customers desires, including them in your marketing messages and your website content you can’t help but flood traffic to your website!

Wondering what your customer’s desires are? If so, you’ll need to determine what your really selling. Let’s look at an example product here: home security alarm system.

Keep in mind few people know, nor do they care what the heck the product looks like or the features of the product such as size, color, weight, speed, or availability. The only thing they have an interest in is the “results” your product will achieve for them. It all boils down to what’s-in-it-for-me?

Why would a prospect purchase a home alarm system? What’s-in-it-for-them? If you think for just a moment you’ll come up with the right answer.

Yes, it’s to protect their jewelry or valuables while they are at work or when the house is empty.

You must stop thinking of yourself or the features of your product to determine what your customer’s deepest desires are. By turning your product or service features into “benefits” or “results” you’ll be able to hit their hot buttons and flood traffic to your website in the process.

The easiest way to turn features into benefits is to list all the features of your product or service on a piece of paper first. (a feature is a characteristic of a thing: size, color, weight, speed, availability) Then one by one turn each feature into a benefit for your customer. What’s-in-it-for-me– save money? youthfulness? friends? security? money? power? luxury? prestige? thinner body? obedient pet?

The traffic driving potential of keyword targeted domain names is awesome, provided that you research your target market and satisfy their “true” needs, desires and benefits. Once you have established this system for marketing, you’ll be able to use your domain name to construct specific ad campaigns targeted to specific markets even if your website offers multiple products and services.

To take it a step further, you could formulate a domain name that works like a headline for a classified ad. When you break a headline down it should have several different parts. It should fan the flames of desire with a hint of information about solving a specific problem, satisfying a need, providing a benefit, or invoking curiosity with a call to action. Your domain name should contain as many of these “headline characteristics” as possible. Try and phrase the keywords into something relatively short, catchy and easy to remember.

Keep in mind “what’s-in-it-for-me?” as to “what your really selling”. The job of your domain name is to act like a headline to drive targeted traffic to your website by “scratching the itch of your customers.” If you’ve found the right words to scratch that itch, then ONLY YOU can put it to use in your domain name. You’ll find that not only will you do better on your search engine rankings you’ll also attract a lot more attention with your pay per click ads or any type of advertising you use.

Roxanna Wehrly makes it easy to learn from marketing experts. To claim free tutorials and marketing bonuses, visit www.webbizdeals.com.

Copyright 2006 © Roxanna Wehrly

The registry of ru-domains reports, that the number of domain names registered in Russia’s national domain, the ru-domains, has increased 19.82% in the first half of 2004 to 256.356 ru-domains.

Ru-Center compares this to the growth of 2003, which was 16.02% for the first half of 2003.

The increase among ru-domains in Russia is coincident with the rising numbers of Russian Internet users. Ru-Center explains, that the weekly users numbered 5.9 million June 2004 , 1.4 million more than one year earlier. The number of Russian Internet users is expanding 30% a year.

ICANN accredited registrar Secura is accepting registrations of ru-domains by non-russian enterprises and private people. According to the experience of this registrar, the ru-domains owned by foreign registrants is growing rapidly (https://www.domainregistry.de/ru-domain.html).

About The Author

Hans Peter Oswald
CEO
ICANN accredited Registrar Secura

http://www.domainregistry.de/ru-domain.html; secura@domainregistry.de

The Internet has become the biggest business hub. Business entrepreneurs always aim to turn their web venture into profitable and successful ones. Suitable domain names can make their dream come true. If any business wants to thrive on the Internet, it has to have a distinctive domain name. A strong web presence has become mandatory for all businesses to create impression among their potential buyers. Appropriate domain names will help customers identify the businesses in a most convenient fashion.

Businesses intend to disseminate information about their products and service through their websites. So, the domain names must feature in the prominent search engine listings with better rankings. Some domain registration companies offer exquisite domain names for businesses with superb search engine rankings. If you are serious about making it big on the web, it’s advisable to go for those business domain names. Businesses of late are feeling the urgency to grab the best domain names to get the upper hand. None wants to give his or her rivals an undue advantage when it comes to expanding business on the Internet. Thanks to business domain names, your potential customers get to your business quickly. Not only that they will admire your business intelligence.

If you want to realize the full potential of a dominant medium like the Internet, you need to have the power of some outstanding business domain names. Those domain names will offer you exemplary mileage and exposure that you have looking for. Irrespective of the magnitude of your business, if you want to make your presence felt to a widespread audience, you need to have great business domain names. Opting for business domain names is the most professional way to interact with the prospective clients. This is the most viable way to promote one’s products and services to an international audience.

A few years ago it did not matter whether you had a .com type domain or an extension specific to your own country.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that it was probably considered quite ‘cool’ to have a .com domain. It gave the impression that you were serious about your business.

Then Google decided to go local and now most local country searches would probably go through the version of Google specific to your own country.

When Google launched my country’s local version of Google (www.google.co.za) I investigated the matter of having a .com domain versus having .co.za domain and how that would affect where you would show up in the SERPS (search engine result pages).

I searched through various forums (on Google itself) as well as other big forums like WebHostingTalk. I also did my own tests. The consensus seems to be that you will only show up in the regional search engine of Google (and I specifically refer here to using your country’s local Google to LIMIT results to your country’s results) if
1) your domain extension (e.g. .co.za or .co.uk etc.) corresponds with the region, or
2) your IP of the hosting server falls in the corresponding geographic region or

The implication of this is that if your domain ends in a .com AND you happen to be hosted physically on an internationally located server, your .com domain will NOT show up in www.google.co.za when the search is limited to South African results.
(How do you know whether your domain is hosted locally or off-shore? There are technical ways to find out but the easiest would be to ask your hosting service provider!)

Now you might argue that people might not use the ‘Limit to results’ option - that they might search world wide. That might be so, but here is another curveball: Even when presenting world wide results, the regional Google search engine gives a preference to local domains.

So here is the bottom line:
- When you have a .com website, make sure that the physical servers that they are hosted on are located locally in your own country
- If you have the option (and your business is aimed at your local market), always register a local domain for your business website.

If you currently have a .com domain that is located off-shore, you will NEVER show up in the local results of Google (if you specifically limit the searches to your own country’s results only), and even when people do not limit the results to your country only, you will compete against millions of other .com domains, while your local competitor with a local domain extension will sneak right up to the top results in Google because Google gives more preference to those domains when using its local version of the search engine.

What can you do about this? I would suggest that you register a local domain and start migrating your webiste over to the new domain. You can leave your business cards and company brochures with your .com extension until you run out and have to print new ones in any case - all you need to do is ask your webhosting provider to put a forward on your .com domain to your local domain name.

It will take a while for the transition to show up in all relevant search engines and to be frank, this might not be a painless process! But you need to decide how important it is to you to show up on the first pages of the local search engines - there are other ways of marketing your website too. But if you think that you might be losing out on targeted traffic, I suggest you bite the bullet and go for it - rather sooner than later!

Get the maximum benefit from your website: Your FREE course on how to turn your website into a powerful marketing machine for local businesses is available now at Tailormade4you Webhosting - Cheap Web Hosting for South Africa

Domain names are relatively straightforward! Or at least that’s the theory!!

The domain name is also, but technically not quiet correct, known as the website address.

Using an ISP’s domain name can look amateurish in an e-mail addresses, it is much more so with websites, giving the impression of hanging on another’s coat tails. The only exception being when a firm wants to re-inforce a local or professional affiliation by appearing as part of an existing site dedicated to a region or association. Even in such cases autonomy and continuity are better assured by having one’s own domain and merely using a page on the third party’s site to point users toward it.

Domains are classified according to their endings or “suffixes”. As a commercial organisation a company will almost certainly want a domain ending in .com or .co.uk. Other endings such as .biz and .ltd.uk are at least to date, insufficiently familiar to users, meaning the name can be too readily misremembered. Of the two desirable suffixes, .com is preferable for business with international activities, and arguably gives the impression of a bigger organisation, whilst .co.uk helps reassure users on the largely American-dominated web that they are indeed dealing with a UK firm.

The part of the domain name before the suffix will usually by the firms trading name, provided of course that the domain name has not already been registered, (which is increasingly likely these days). If the name is very long an abbreviation may be considered. Domain names are not case sensitive.

The actual registration of a domain name is a straightforward process that can be done online, either through your ISP or better still through a dedicated registration service company such as Discount Domains Ltd (http://www.discountdomainsuk.com). Renewal fees must be paid, typically every two years.

Checking if a domain name is freely available is very straightforward as most domain registration services provide a WHOIS service, as the name suggest, this checks the ownership details of a domain, note however that such services normally run 48 hours behind actual registrations.

Moving ISP’s can save money, however it may take time and incur extra charges. Pricing in the domain name registration industry have fallen considerably over recent years and a domain name typically now costs from $15 for two years registration.

Once your domain name is registered, you can either leave the domain name “parked” awaiting future use, or point it at a website, this is usually achieved by changing the Domain Name Server, or DNS settings on the domain to point at hosting company where your website is located. Almost all registration services offer a free user control panel to change these settings.

Web hosting is the provision of space on a web server to publish a web site. There are numerous hosting companies in the market, and most domain registration services also offer a hosting solution. Prices vary but $100 per annum should be sufficient for most business needs.

(C) Clare Lawrence 11th May 2004

About The Author

Clare Lawrence is CEO of Discount Domains Ltd – A leading UK provider of Domain name registration and Web Hosting services. Please feel free to re-publish this article provided this reference box remains together with a hyperlink to http://www.discountdomainsuk.com Clare can also be contacted on clare@discountdomainsuk.com.

While registering a domain name is usually a good thing, it can have some pitfalls. One of them is when your private domain name information becomes available to the internet community through the whois system.

Whois refers to a request for information regarding the domain name registrant, administrator, tech support person and billing contact. Each of these sections must be filled with valid name, address and email information. The problem is, this information is totally public and accessible by anyone with a connection to the internet. That means anyone that wants to send you spam can access your email information with ease.

The other reason why some people seek private domain name registrations is to avoid being tracked by the search engines. Why would someone worry about that? This would mainly apply to people who have registered multiple domains for the purpose of making money with them like with Google’s adsense program. They thought goes that a search engine could theoretically shut down all websites with the same contact information in it. This tactic is being disputed by others who argue that companies like Google have access to the main Registrar’s database of whois information and therefore bypass the private domain name registration services.

So how does it work? Simply put, another company will act like a proxy for you and put their information in your place while keeping your information available in their private database. You agree to a legal contract that officially allows the domain name registration company to act in your place. They in turn will usually offer to forward all official emails sent to them on behalf of the domain name owner.

If you care about privacy, registering your domain name with a private domain registration service is an excellent option. Don’t think though that you will never receive spam if you get a private registration. There are many other ways spammers can get your information. One of the most common is to scrape your website for email addresses.

Joe Duchesne is the webmaster for Yowling.com which provides domain name registration services along with web hosting and a web site builder. Reprint freely as long as the live keyword link in this article points to our website.

Of course there are several other factors involved with getting that elusive number one spot. But what most everyone often overlooks is what I call the fifth element which Google uses to determine their ranking of a website and that is the domain name.
People, even SEO companies, don’t either know the importance of the domain name to Google or take the time to chose the proper name for the website. Most just use their company name or what they conceder a “Cool” name for their websites. Now, unless your company is well known or at least well known in its field, using a basically unknown company name is pointless. Even more pointless is the “Cool” name.

The entire reason you optimize your website is to get visitors from search engines, so why not use all the tools available to get the best ranking possible for your website.

Use your domain name as one of those tools. Instead of your company name or the “Cool” one, use a keyword phrase, one that describes your product or service. Take your time in choosing the proper name. Make sure that it will work best for your website. If you not sure ask your friends and relatives what keywords they would use to find your product or services on the Internet. You might be surprised at what they would use.

You have the keyword phrase that you know will work. But before you jump online and get that domain name there are a couple of things you may still need to do.

Let’s say you’re the owner of Mike’s Bikes and you specialize in Colorado Mountain Bikes so you figure to kill two birds with one stone and use the domain name mikescoloradomountainbikes.com to keep your name in it along with using the keyword phrase. Now this might make sense to you but you’re not Google. You’re not going to like it but you need to drop the mikes out of the name because it’s dead weight. So now you’ve got coloradomountainbikes.com but wait before you burn up the keyboard use Colorado-mountain-bikes.com instead. Why? Because Google sees this as three different words and would see coloradomountainbikes.com as a single word. When people are doing a search they will not be using coloradomountainbikes, they are going to use Colorado mountain bikes. The bonus is that your domain name now becomes a keyword phrase used by Google when it performs a search.

Edward Biggs has been optimizing websites since 1996 and for Google since 1999. He is the founder and owner of http://www.completewebresource.com and http://www.googleoptimizing.com that specialize in Google optimizing, and sends out a monthly newsletter.

A name can make of break a web site. I am of course talking about a Domain name.

You may think there is nothing to it. Pick a catchy domain name that rolls off the tongue, check that it is available and if it is go ahead and buy it. It couldn’t be any harder that that can it?

Well, yes it can. Just stop and think for a minute. You have bought the domain name, designed and built a great looking website, and launched it out onto that great world wide web. You have got a great Reciprocal Link Exchange on your site and you have reached a reasonable Google Page Rank.

Then you decide to get an Auto responder to have a mailing list, and that is when your troubles start! Let me tell you my story…

I don’t know if you have heard of Stone Evans - the Home Biz Guy? He runs the Plug in Profit Site. Well I bought into his business. I had to decide on a domain name before he built my website. I chose the name martinsoffers.com. I though that was quite cool as my name is Martin and my site would be advertising offers.

Part of the Plug in Profit Site is you get your own Auto Responder, filled with a 360 day newsletter ready for when you sign up subscribers. I went ahead and bought a good quality leads package and loaded them into my auto responder.

All was going well. Or so I thought.

After a while, I noticed I was not getting any response from my good quality leads (on average you should expect around 1% sign up at the very least). I did some searching around, mainly in the Warrior Forum which is part of the membership package of the Plug in Profit Site. There I saw a series of posts on the American Anti Spam Laws and the effects it was having on the newsletters.

With the Auto responder, there was a spam check program. I’d never used that before, but I ran a few sample newsletters through the spam check. Boy, was I in for a shock. Every single one failed to pass the test. My auto responder is probably like most others, it has a scoring system and once it passes 5 it flags up that your newsletter would trigger the spam filters.

What I found most disturbing was that it was my domain name of martinsoffers.com that was scoring the most, 4.3 points each time it was mentioned. And 2.3 points because my email address was @martinsoffers.com.

Even a single word newsletter with just www.martinsoffers.com scored 6.6. Way above the threshold.

The cost to me, as a result of this has not just been to register a new domain name. I have had to completely redesign my website with my new name on it. Cancel and reopen a new account with my auto responder. And start again with my Reciprocal Links Exchange.

I have also had to start again from scratch with the Google Ranking. And I have a domain name that is next to useless to me or to anyone for that matter. I only use it now to direct traffic meant for martinsoffers.com to my new website.

So, that’s my story, and my warning to you.

Before you go and register a new domain name, run it through a spam check. If you are going to use your web site for marketing the last thing you want is for the spam filters to stop your email getting through.

Martin Wood

Martin Wood is one of a growing number
of people who have found working at home
on the Internet a rewarding experience.

http://martin-wood.pluginprofithome.com

Ever been in a hall of mirrors at a circus or carnival? You go in, and you think you’re heading in one direction only to find out – bonk! – that was a mirror or glass, and suddenly you’re headed in a different direction all together.

That’s what domain name forwarding is like.

Say you’re on the Internet and you hear about a great new product and you can find out all about it at newproduct.com. So you type “newproduct.com” into your browser.

Only you don’t end up at newproduct.com. Instead, you somehow end up at othersite.com. You’re not too concerned, because there on the page is the product you were looking for as well as some other products besides.

But how come you didn’t end up at newproduct.com? And if the people with the product wanted you to end up at othersite.com, why didn’t they put that domain name instead?

To answer the first question, you probably ended up at othersite.com instead of newproduct.com because of domain forwarding. If so, the people who set this up did the following:

·They bought the domain name othersite.com and created a website there with all their products.

·They bought the domain name newproduct.com and told people that’s where the new product info is.

·They used domain forwarding so that whoever went to newproduct.com would get forwarded to othersite.com. They could use domain forwarding with other domain names as well, such as bigproduct.com, smallproduct.com, and tinyproduct.com. No matter which domain name you went to, you’d end up exactly where they wanted you, which was at othersite.com, where ALL their products are.

To answer the second question, the reasons they’d do this are:

·Instead of having different websites for each product, people often put all their products on one site, or at one domain name, but advertise the products individually using product-specific domain names. Why? (see below)

·It’s more impressive to have a product-specific domain name (e.g., superbike.com) than just a generic domain name (e.g., bikestore.com). It’s also more likely you’ll remember the product-specific domain name.

Now, most of us would only be mildly confused to end up on othersite.com when we thought we were going to newproduct.com. In fact, a lot of us wouldn’t even notice we didn’t end up at the domain name we thought we were going to – not unless we looked at the top of our browser to the URL address of the webpage we ended up on.

But where it can get confusing is this. The people with the domain name newproduct.com could use masked domain forwarding. With masked domain forwarding, you’d type in newproduct.com, you’d end up at othersite.com, but the fact you were forwarded would be masked. In other words, the URL address at the top of the browser would indicate you were indeed at newproduct.com, when in fact, you were at othersite.com.

And to make things even more confusing, no matter which page you went to on othersite.com (which is where you’d really be), the URL at the top of your browser would still read newproduct.com. Now that’s confusing!

Either way, masked or unmasked, domain forwarding simply spins the visitor around a bit, moving them this way when they thought they’d be going that way.

And that’s why domain name forwarding is like a hall of mirrors.

Copyright (c) Grant Pasay 2005. All rights reserved.
You may forward this article in its entirety (including author bio/links) to anyone you wish.

Grant Pasay is a professional website copywriter, advertising copywriter, and SEO copywriter serving clients in Vancouver, BC and everywhere. Grant is also the author of the FREE e-book, “The Internet Is Like A Refrigerator.”

For copy that captures your business message without any of the hassle, go to http://grantpasay.com/

Check out Grant’s FREE e-book at http://grantpasay.com/refrigerator/