Being a “newbie” in almost anything can often lead to costly mistakes in our lives. Besides money, we may work day and night for weeks, months or even years on a project that eventually doesn’t amount to anything at all. Sure, maybe we just misread the size of the market for our chocolate-covered slippers, but more often it is because of the business decisions we made along the path. Admit it, sometimes we just make our “best guess” and “hope” it works out. And then we are faced with another “best guess” and before long, you may have a dozen or more “best guesses” as a foundation for you business. And that is all because we just didn’t know how to make the right decisions at the right time. Personally, I refuse to admit how many times I’ve been through that process because it is embarrassing, but let’s just say it has been enough times to “finally” learn stop making the same mistakes. The good thing is, we can learn from our own mistakes and along the way, we can try to help others who may still be in that “lost and confused” state… you know, not knowing enough to be able to ask the right questions about what you don’t know! Well, I made many of mine of a period of several years as I was just getting to know this mysterious and magic world wide web of ours. And now, what I’ve learned, I can pass along.

The overall success of a website depends on a complex variety of elements including the message you are trying to convey, the look of and feel of the site, and, of course, the content. But a primary element that many people just “grab” and then move on is one that will have a huge impact, either positive or negative. And that is the domain name you choose. Without a correctly-chosen domain name to represent you or your business, it may not matter how much money you invest or how good your products are, nobody will know if they don’t know your website exists. That means no traffic, and no traffic means no ability to sell anything, even if it is just you ideas. That’s why someone who wants to get noticed on the web, or perhaps even start a business – the right way – should read this article.

First you need to buy a domain. When I say “buy” a domain name, I’m actually meaning temporary ownership, or more precisely, leasing it, because once you stop paying the annual fee, you’ll lose ownership of that name. So, when buying a domain, the first thing you need to ask yourself is what you will be doing with the domain, or your “web site.” Will it be just to share your personal information and photos with family and friends? It can be, and that was my original intent when I purchased my personal website’s domain name. I bought it because I was thinking it would be the easiest way to share pictures of me, my family and my pets instead of making email attachments and then sending the email to everyone I wanted to see those pictures. What a hassle! So, if that is the main reason for you to have a website, then it really doesn’t make any difference if the domain name consists of only your own name or any other combination of letters that is personal to you, since you will not be depending on search engines to be found, but only on your own efforts to get your domain name out to those who you want to visit your domain. You can easily do this by inserting your web site’s “link” (another way to say “domain name”) into your emails and them email that to whomever you want to visit your web site.

But, if your plan is to reach a much larger population than just your friends, you need to be more thoughtful on what that domain name should be. The name you choose needs to be something that will make sense to people who have never heard of you, from one end of the world to the other. For instance, if you are trying to promote your business online, potential customers are most likely going to find you by using search engines (like Google) and ask for what they are looking for. Search engines don’t do well in finding services with only people’s names in them. One option is to buy a domain name that consists on the name of your business, like smithservicesinc.com, rodriguezassociates.org, etc. However, your business name by itself is really not a very good idea if that name doesn’t truly describe what your business does, like the previous examples did not. That may work if your business name was as popular as Amazon.com, eBay or Yahoo, but if that were the case, you probably wouldn’t be reading this article. Those businesses don’t need much help from search engines, but the likelihood is that your business will need help. So, if you want your website to have a good chance of being found by many people so you can generate lots of sales, a good start would be buying the right domain name.

Since the soul of an online business is traffic, and by traffic I mean lots of hits or views, you should buy a domain name that will let search engines know what your business is all about. It would be good to mention the products or services you are offering so when someone does a search using certain “keywords” that are related to your business, there is a good chance your link will be found. The more relevant the keywords you use are to the search, the higher your link will be displayed on the results page. However, don’t make a classic mistake of buying a domain name that sounds similar to another word or phrase, but with slightly different spelling. For instance, replacing syllables with numbers is usually not a good idea, as in these examples: happy2gether (meaning happytogether), earna4tune (meaning earnafortune), ezlearning (meaning easylearning), etc. The reality is, how likely would it be that people will type numbers in instead of syllables on a search just because they sound similar? Probably not very much. The above examples will more likely drive people to the site (probably a competitor) that doesn’t have to use numbers.

Another thing to try to do is to keep your domain names short. One-word domain names are very valuable but almost impossible to find nowadays. I am fairly certain that it would be difficult to find any word in the dictionary that is not already owned by someone, somewhere in the world. And if that particular name was in any way related to the financial industry, you would probably have to pay millions of dollars to buy the name from the person or company that already owned it. Two-words domain names are not easy to find either, unless they are a combination of words that don’t mean much or do not contain popular keywords. Let’s take the domain name youyellow.com. It’s a combination of the words you and yellow. What can I obtain with that? To me, not much. Maybe someone looking for yellow people or scared people, but I can’t think of much else. But a domain name that contains a combination of two keywords like “mortgage” + “rates”, or “airline” + “tickets”, or “affordable” + “dentures”, well, that’s something altogether different. If a good combination of two keywords that relate to your business is still available, go ahead and buy it before it’s too late! If you have tried all possible two-keyword combinations that you need in your domain name and they have all been taken, then try adding a third keyword, and so on. The ideal domain name should be short, easy to remember, have no misspellings and contain keywords that will describe the content of the website. Oh yes, please, stay away from hyphenated domain names. The domain name buyforless.com is much better than buy-for-less.com. Try typing both names yourself into Google and see what comes up. Plus, isn’t typing a hyphenated domain name much more difficult than one without hyphens? Names that are harder to type will reduce the potential for favorable results and a profitable business online.

After the value of the name itself, what comes AFTER the period is also important. Dot “com” extensions are more popular than all the dot nets, dot orgs, dot infos and dot “anything else” combined! First of all, when someone who doesn’t know much about the world wide web says “Go to the website financialservices,” but doesn’t specify what extension he’s talking about, the first thing that comes to everyone’s mind is likely to be “dot com.” Isn’t that what you would think? Actually, that IS what everyone thinks, even with all the publicity about other extensions. Dot com is still the most important and dominant name extension out there, and you should try to go with the flow rather than find a name that is easy to get with dot biz or dot us or some other extension. It’s just the way our human minds work, we have all been indoctrinated to think of dot come first. Just like for humans, a name can be something that makes other people smirk (i.e. A boy named Sue) or it can be the key to popularity and success. The difference is, for humans, a name has to be pleasant to our ears and have a good meaning or reputation. For an online business, the name has to be “pleasant” and have a good reputation with search engine robots, which are looking for relevance, no matter if the domain name itself doesn’t necessarily sound unattractive to us. Of course, the best of all worlds is to come up with a name that does both.

When you are ready to buy a domain name, it is a good idea to do some research on keyword popularity. That means; which are the most popular searches online? To help you out, go to:

http://www.selfseo.com/keyword_suggestion_tool.php

or

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Type in a word to see how popular it is. You don’t want to buy a domain name with a keyword that nobody cares about so make sure you come up with one that contains at least some of the popular keywords for your industry. This will increase the possibilities of your website being found during ordinary searches by ordinary people. And that is what you really want, right?

Don’t Overpay For Your Domain Name – 5 Steps to Paying the Right Price

Your domain name can have a large impact on the success of your web presence. A domain that is easy to remember, enter and search for can increase the amount of traffic to your website. Although you still need to have valuable and relevant content when a visitor makes his or her way to your site, the domain name you purchase is a vital piece of your web strategy. You can think of your domain name as your property, and just as in purchasing a traditional piece of property, you need to take steps to make sure you are not paying too much.

Chances are high that your first domain name ideas are already taken by someone else. There is also a good probability that a domain name that you really like will be up for resale. When searching on one of the top domain selling websites, such as GoDaddy.com, the site will only tell you that that particular domain name is already taken. It will not tell you if the domain is actually for sale.

Do not give up quite yet — there is still a chance that you can get the domain name you really want, and there are tools out there that you can leverage. First, enter the desired domain in your web browser address field and see what comes up. You will either get an existing website (and thus you will know that the domain is already in use by someone) or you will get a parked site. A parked site looks very similar to a search engine results page. Owners of domains that are not currently being used, or may be up for sale, will often park their domains in an attempt to earn money off of them. If the domain name is parked, there is a high likelihood that the domain is actually for sale.

Next, check to see if your desired domain name is for sale is by entering it into the search field at a resale site, such as Sedo.com. Sedo.com specializes in domain reselling and auctioning. It is free to register, which you will need to do in order to see the asking price for your desired domain name. As a registered user, you have the choice of purchasing the domain at the asking price, or presenting an offer of your own. Now is when you will need to do your homework so that you can determine what is a fair selling price for your desired domain. Just as in the process of purchasing real property, you will need an appraisal. The domain appraisal will provide you important information about the domain’s history, as well as the dollar value of the domain name.

The good news is that there are several resources available that provide a domain’s appraisal report, and the reports are instantaneous. Even better news is that several of these resources are free.

A few of the websites that provide free domain appraisals are Estibot.com and Smartpagerank.com. The Estibot.com site only allows you to do up to 50 searches each day at the free account level.

The domain appraisal report will provide you with valuable information about the domain, such as the age of the domain (when it was first registered), traffic history, if the site is registered with any directories, the number of links and indexed pages by the major search engines and the estimated dollar value.

Now that you have appraisal reports, you can determine if the current asking price is reasonable, a bargain, or too high (most likely they start too high). Domain reselling sites and services allow you to make an offer, and then you will go back and forth with the current domain owner until you either come to an agreed upon selling price, or you decide to walk away and go after a different domain name.

Following these few steps can help you make sure you are paying a reasonable price for your domain.

1. Search for the availability of your desired domain name.

2. If your desired domain is listed as unavailable, enter it into your web browser, or enter it in a resale site such as Sedo.com

3. If your desired domain is for sale, determine the asking price.

4. Obtain at least two domain appraisals.

5. Leveraging the appraisal report, determine the price you are comfortable with, and make an offer.

About The Author
David Akers is the President of Akers Consulting Group, LLC.
Akers Consulting Group, LLC is a boutique consulting organization, providing affordable, professional consulting services to small and medium sized businesses. Our list of services includes: Business Strategy, Marketing, Ad Campaign Design and Placement, Website Development and Optimization, Public Relations and Training Development and Delivery. Please visit our website to learn more about our services and to schedule your FREE Initial Consultation. Akers Consulting Group Helps Businesses Excel. http://AkersConsultingGroup.com

Are you aware of the fact that on average, over 19,000 domain names expire every day. The reason why this is relevant to you, is that if you are searching for business opportunities, this is one that you will want to strongly consider. Just think, in the past, just over one-thousand domain names were expiring daily, so the opportunity was not as great as it is now. Today, your opportunities are immense to capitalize from someone else’s hard work by purchasing their expired domain name.

It appears to be that one of the major contributors to the large number of expiring domains, is the fact that most people only choose to register their domain for 1 year. What usually happens, is that the person who originally registered the domain builds a website, and drives traffic to that sight. Unfortunately for them, when they do not see immediate results, they become discouraged, and give up. When the time to renew their domain comes around, often times they have moved on to something else. However, sometimes a renewal is simply overlooked. Either way, the good news for you is that their loss is your gain. Often times expired domains have already gained a great deal of credibility with the search engines, and are receiving hundreds of visitors daily. As a business opportunist, this provides you with two options. One, you can take this expired domain, and funnel the traffic which it is receiving to your website, or two, you can sell the domain and earn a profit.

There are several tricks to knowing how to find these domain names, and how to know which domain names are valuable and which are not, and, most importantly, how to get to them first. Believe it or not, I have had the best success with purchasing expired domain names on eBay. However, another website which I find helpful is GoDaddy.com. Just go to the “Domains” section, and from there, click on the “Auctions & More” section.

Several individuals who have made it their business to buy and sell domains will actually subscribe to a service which notifies them daily of expiring domains. Such a service can prove to be valuable for those who want to stay a step ahead of those attempting to take advantage of the same business opportunities. There is no doubt that this is a highly competitive market. This is especially the case when it comes to easily remembered domain names, with high search engine trust. However, you should be aware of the fact that domains which easily could have been renewed for $7 or $8, have sold for in excess of $100,000.

The truth is that there are great business opportunities in expired domains. If you choose to take advantage of these opportunities, remember that you have some options. Something as small as a $10 investment can set your existing website up with consistent, focused traffic. This same $10 investment can also provide you with an opportunity to purchase an expired domain, and sell it for thousands, if not hundreds of thousands. Keep both of these options in mind.

Learn how to turn expired website domains into Business Opportunities. It is very possible to center a Home Based Business around profiting from the purchase and sale of expired domains.