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  • What’s In a Good Domain Name?

    Some people tell me that all the good domain names are taken, but that is not true. Follow these tips for when you search for a domain name and hopefully this will help you grab a good one.

    Remember domain names are a couple of cheeseburgers and a coke a year to own, and you can really never own enough of them.

    Tips for Avoiding Poor Domain Names

    *Avoid using domains that are deliberately misspelled.

    Ex: SellURHome2Us vs. SellYourHomeToUs

    * Avoid using domains with hyphens.

    Ex: WeBuyPrettyHouses vs. We-Buy-Pretty-Houses

    *Avoid using domains that are way too long.

    Ex: WeSaveHomesFromForeclosure.com

    *Avoid using domains that are meaningful only to you.

    Ex: ABCFinancialGroup.com (investor or bank?)

    *Avoid using .org unless you want people to think you’re a non-profit organization.

    Ex: HomeSolutions.org (non-profit?)

    *Avoid using unpopular domain extensions such as

    .info, .tv, .cc, .ws, .name, etc. for your Primary Domain.

    Tips for Choosing Good Domain Names

    *Choose a domain that is short as possible.

    *Choose a domain that is easy to spell and remember.

    *Choose a value laden domain that says what you do.

    *Try to purchase a .com or a .net if possible. If you are really set on a certain domain name, settle for a .biz or .us if necessary.

    *Purchase YourCompanyName.com so that no one else will.

    *Purchase the .net, .biz, .us and all others too if you can.

    *If your company name is taken, try adding an ìIncî or ìLLCî to the end of the name and see if that is available.

    *Anytime you get a good .com domain, tie up the .net, .biz, .us and any other variations of the name so others can’t.

    *If you find a really good domain name, purchase it for more than one year. Tie it up for as long as you can.

    *When purchasing domain names, be sure to set them to automatically renew so you don’t forget to renew.

    *Don’t use YourCompanyName.com on your marketing material if your company name is vague or ambiguous.

    *Make your domains private or unlisted for anonymity.

    *Private domains also keep your email and fax off the public WHOIS database and help prevent SPAM and junk faxes.

    *Make a list of all the words you would like to use in your domain name.

    Ex: We + Buy + Houses + Fast

    *If your name is taken, rearrange the words or insert new words in between them.

    Ex: We + Buy + Atlanta + Houses or Homes

    *Make a complete list of all the domains you want to purchase.

    Tips and Tricks

    *Domains that are mapped to your websites are ìattachedî to your sites.

    *Domains that are forwarded, are not attached to your site, but are simply redirected to your site.

    *Mapped domains get picked up by the search engines. Forwarded domains don’t.

  • How Popular Is Your Business On Facebook And Twitter

    One of the biggest things that business owners of both online and offline enterprises struggle with is the issue of getting followers for their Twitter feeds and Facebook accounts. It’s easy enough to sign up for these sites and get your profile set up – it’s even easy to get somebody to design a profile for you so that it looks as sharp as can be.

    But once it’s set up and once it’s ready to go, even once you have all your content planned out… then what?

    This is where many people get stonewalled. They either end up trying to friend too many people or not enough, or can’t seem to get their social media profiles off the ground and get those customers into the business.

    Don’t despair. There is a way to work social media platforms in order to ensure that you will get traffic to your website should you have it, or if nothing else be sure that your social media site gets the attention it deserves. The key? Moderation.

    One of the biggest mistakes that business owners make when they are starting a social media profile is to friend four hundred people at once. If thousands of people end up getting the same invite, they may assume that you are fishing for friends and delete your profile off the bat without giving it any heed. The better solution is to friend no more than twenty people at one time. Once you’ve cultivated a “friendship” with those twenty people – or however many of the twenty deign to respond to your invitation – you can move on to the next batch.

    Another great way to get interest to your profile is to friend other businesses as well. It helps if you can network with fellow businesses or groups that have the same interests and products as you do, as not only will it give you more information, it also makes your profile look more “well-rounded.”

    Don’t forget to advertise the fact that you’re on social media sites at your physical store, too. A sign asking customers to follow you on Twitter might be better received than you originally think. It’s also good to start with your local base, because the more followers you have, the easier it gets to recruit other people to friend your profile or follow your feed.

    Also, don’t forget to keep your content interesting and fresh. Don’t update every day if you don’t have something to say. While updating Twitter feeds constantly might be the thing among the preteen sect, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s the best idea for your business. Only update when you have something to say – and if that “something” is an offer or a sale, that’s all the better!

  • Social Blog Promotion

    Promote your blog? Why would you want to do that? Honestly, if you have to ask yourself that question you probably shouldn’t even have one. The whole purpose of a blog is to document your thoughts, views, and opinions on a particular topic, issue, or subject.

    In addition to sharing your thoughts with the rest of the world, did you know that you could also make money from your blog?

    You can signup for affiliate programs or other programs like Google Adsense. If you are using your blog to make money then you will defiantly want to promote it.

    When it comes to promoting blogs, there are many blog owners who decide to let the search engine do the work for them. Search engines, such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN use special techniques that reads the content on your website. That content is then used to rank your website with particular keywords. This means that you run a blog on graduating from high school in New York, there is a good chance that your blog will appear in searches done on New York high schools. Although many blogs are successfully ranked in search engines, not all are. That is why you are advised against relying solely on search engines, when it comes to promoting your blog.

    As previously mentioned, if you love meeting with or talking to people online, there is a good chance that you belong to a social networking website or community. The individuals that you talk to and that are in your community are likely the individuals that you wish to target. Since most social networking websites work to connect Internet users who have the same goals and common interests, there is a good chance that your online friends will enjoy reading your blog. But, before they can read your blog, you have to let them know that it exists.

    When it comes to promoting your blog on social networking websites, you have a number of different options. Your first option is to include a link to your blog in your community profile or profile page. This will allow other community members to checkout your blog, only if they wish to do so. The other way is to inform your online friends of your blog through private messages. Once you join a social networking website and create or join a network of friends, you should easily be able to communicate with those friends. Sending each of your friends a private message with information and a link to your blog tends to be more effective than just placing a link in your profile or on your profile page.

    Although there is a good chance that you are already a member of a popular social networking website, you may not be. If you are not already a member, but would like to become one, you will need to find a social networking website to join. This can easily be done with a standard Internet search. In your search, you will likely find a number of popular network sites, such as MySpace, Facebook, FriendFinder, Yahoo! 360, and Orkut. Before becoming a community member at one of these networking sites, you may want to first examine the website to ensure that it is everything that you want it to be.

    As you can easily see, there are a number of different ways that you can go about promoting your blog on online social networking websites. You never known, but, in addition to promoting your blog, you may also make new friends along the way.

  • Resizing Images with WordPress Media

    Video: How to insert and format images in WordPress

  • Benefits That You Can Get In Free Autoresponder

    If you’ve looked at the prices of autoresponders that are available online, you may have decided to search for and use a free autoresponder for your marketing needs. Using free autoresponders is acceptable in certain situations, and in the world of Internet marketing, any autoresponder is better than not using an autoresponder at all!

    Your first option for a free autoresponder should be the one that comes with your webhosting account – if you have a webhosting account. These autoresponders can easily be set up through the control panel of your website, and they do not contain advertisements from the autoresponder company or webhosting service. If you do not have a hosting account, or your hosting account does not include autoresponders, there are other options that you can pursue.

    There are many free autoresponder services to choose from. These services are free, because the company makes their money by placing a small advertisement in each message that your autoresponder sends out. These advertisements may appear at the top of your auto responses, or at the bottom, depending on which company you use.

    Many paid autoresponder services offer a free version as well. These free versions may or may not include advertisements in the outgoing messages. These lighter versions of the paid autoresponders typically do not include many of the powerful features of the paid versions. But if you don’t need the more advanced features, this is a great choice.

    Most free autoresponders have a limit on the number of subscribers you can have. Many people start out with the limited free versions, and then upgrade to the paid versions once their lists are large enough to exceed those limits. Many marketers don’t feel that the expense of the autoresponder is warranted until the list that they are building is turning a profit. From a business standpoint, this makes sense.

    As the owner of a business, you are the only one who can decide whether you need a paid autoresponder service, or if a free one will do the job. If your list is small, a free autoresponder should do everything that you need it to do, but as your list grows, you should definitely consider upgrading. However, having the small advertisements that the free services place in the outgoing messages may present a problem if the ads compete with what you are trying to sell. They may even pose a problem if they do not directly compete with your product or business. Again, this depends on what you are trying to accomplish with your autoresponder.

  • It’s not A Popularity Contest

    Don’t turn your search for the perfect name or tag line into a popularity contest! Two instances of this have crossed my path recently.

    First, someone I know asked people to vote on the best title for a forthcoming book.

    That’s unwise, because what people say they like in a book title:

    * Doesn’t necessarily distinguish the book from others

    * Isn’t necessarily clear, sellable and free of negative connotations

    * Doesn’t mean those who are the best audience for the book will “get it”

    * Isn’t always easy to remember and repeat

    * May not perform well in search engines

    Second, according to The New York Times, the state of New Jersey put its prospective new tourism slogan to a vote years ago. The winning entry, “New Jersey: Come See for Yourself” received just a few more votes than “New Jersey: The Best Kept Secret.”

    Both the winning and the runner-up New Jersey slogans flunk an elementary test for the effectiveness of a tag line or slogan: It should distinguish the company, or in this case the state, from most or all others.

    Try this out yourself by plugging in names of other states besides New Jersey – most of the time, the slogan becomes no more and no less applicable. This means the slogan cannot make a strong case for the Garden State. More bluntly, it’s mainly hot air.

    The New Jersey contest had another serious flaw. To be eligible to vote on the best slogan, you had to be a New Jersey resident. While residents do have the greatest stake in improving the reputation of their state, they by definition don’t belong to the target market of the tourism slogan. To understand what would appeal most to non-New Jerseyans, don’t look to New Jerseyans en masse.

    Many will be clueless about this and get it upside-down. Outsiders are the ones who need to understand the slogan and respond.

    I’ll never forget an ad for a Great Plains software company that obviously assumed that a photo of a flat-to-the-horizon landscape without trees was an appealing image. For me, a die-hard New Englander accustomed to heavily wooded hills, this picture had the opposite effect – it filled me with horror.

    Of course, someone who lives in New Jersey or North Dakota may be perfectly capable of portraying their region appealingly to outsiders. Instead of asking any group to vote on a winning name or tag line, set up your contest so that people can submit suggestions. Then have either one person or a committee cull the entries according to a list of criteria drawn up beforehand.

    By selecting and judging rather than mass voting, you’re most likely to end up with a name or slogan that wins over your audience.

  • Essentials of Getting Traffic with ease

    Video: Brad briefly talks about the best ways to get traffic to your website.

  • Top Benefits Of Blogging For Kids

    If you have children you probably encourage them to be the best they can be. You want them to learn and grow and be happy. Helping your child create their very own blog could be a great learning experience. Your child will develop their writing and social skills with a blog. If you are wary of allowing your child to blog, here are some great reasons that might change your mind…

    1. Develop Their Writing Skills – Some children don’t like to read and write. This might change if you help them set up their own blog. Kids seem to gravitate towards technology at an early age these days. If they don’t find traditional writing enjoyable, the added touch of technology inherent in a blog might excite them. You can help them develop their writing skills by encouraging them to post regularly to their blog.

    2. Develop Technological Skills – The world we live in is becoming more and more technological everyday. Many parents feel overwhelmed themselves. You do not want your child failing behind. Having them regularly using a blog will introduce them to the internet, computers, typing and email. All of these skills are pretty much essential, especially for the next generation. There are a lot of pitfalls and dangers incorporated with these technologies so teaching your child how to avoid these early will be tremendously helpful.

    3. Develop Social Skills – Having a blog will allow your child to get more comfortable expressing his/her feelings. Responding to comments can also help them develop their social skills. Some kids are shy and might be able to express themselves more fully online. Eventually those skills can translate to the real world.

    These three reasons alone should be good enough for any parent who has thought about allowing their children to blog. You need to help them navigate the internet pitfalls, but it will all be a learning experience. Make sure you monitor your children’s online activities and blog. You also need to talk to your child and explain the dangers. Once you have done that, and considering the vast benefits, I think your child having a blog is a wonderful idea.

  • Unveil the Best Online Marketing Course

    No single course will give you all you need to make a full-time living online.

    When was the last time you picked up a course, devoured it and went on to make tons of money without reading from any other source.

    I’d reckon never because there is so much information to take in online that you can never just learn from one source.

    I recently went on vacation and made more money while on vacation than most people make a whole month at their regular 9 to 5 jobs.

    Should I write a course on how I do it? No

    If I were to write a course it would just be a compilation of all the products which I’ve purchased.

    If you want to make money online you need to figure out a few things about yourself before you invest any money in any course.

    First and foremost is to figure out if you have the motivation to leave your job and work for yourself?

    At your job, you are given orders. By working for yourself, you’ll need to be organized, disciplined and focused. Do you have those traits? If not, it might be easier just to continue working for others until you discipline yourself.

    If you spend tons of money on courses and don’t have the discipline or focus to work, then no course will be valuable to you.

    If you have the discipline and the focus, you can start earning money by using the free resources available online. Just take a look at the free article directories. There’s tons of useful information to help you get started.

    There is no ‘one’ secret to making tons of money online. There are certain insiders tips and tactics to help you succeed with topics such as writing articles, submitting press releases, improving search engine placement etc, but none of those tactics will be useful to you unless you master the ability to be disciplined, focused and consistent.

    Master those and I guarantee you’ll have more success.

    If you don’t have those traits, you’ll just continue to purchase courses, software and programs to build a collection of digital waste.

    To tell you the truth, when I started off, I wasn’t sure if I had what it takes to work for myself.

    I overcame my limitations because I focused on the end result and not the process of working.

    For me it was a do or die kind of mentality which made me have success in my business.

    So stop searching for the perfect course. Someone else’s perfect course may not be what you like to do. Get specific in what you’re looking for and evaluate yourself to see if you’d actually take the necessary steps to follow through what the course teaches.

  • Making Money With Domains

    From Dubai to Chicago, telecom companies are introducing new area codes to meet the demand of new telephone numbers businesses. If only this was possible for Internet domain names – the .com addresses, like business.com,auto.com and phones.com– that are the invaluable gold mine of the Digital Age. Unfortunately, there are a limited number of .com domain names, and due to the demand supply ration which is out of whack, corporates are squabbling with one another to secure the right domains.

    Let’s face it, image is exceptionally critical to any online business and domain names have their own brand image. Short domains, one word names with the dot com after them are in extreme demand. A domain name must be memorable and easy to remember because a domain name must be able to stand alone for any corporate to have its own online identity. Customer’s today type in the most used domain names simply from memory. A great domain name means search engines simply aren’t necessary.

    Who are domainers?

    Domainers are the professionals who deal in domain names. Domainers buy, sell, and develop domain names in a manner similar to real estate investors. Domainers generate revenue via domain parking, web-site development, and resale of domain names. Domainers are also sometimes referred to as domain investors, web site developers, domain registrants and commercial registrants.

    As of December 2006 there are an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 individuals globally who make buying and selling domain names a part of their business. USA Today reported that many Domainers prefer to remain anonymous due to the highly competitive nature of their business[1]

    2. What is pay per click advertising?

    Pay per click (PPC) is an advertising technique used on websites, advertising networks, and search engines.

    Advertisers bid on “keywords” that they believe their target market (people they think would be interested in their offer) would type in the search bar when they are looking for their type of product or service. For example, if an advertiser sells red widgets, he/she would bid on the keyword “red widgets”, hoping a user would type those words in the search bar, see their ad, click on it and buy.

    These ads are called “sponsored links” or “sponsored ads” and appear next to and sometimes above the natural or organic results on the page. The advertiser pays only when the user clicks on the ad.

    While many companies exist in this space, Google AdWords and Yahoo! Search Marketing, which was formerly Overture, are the largest network operators as of 2006. In the spring of 2006, MSN started beta testing their own in-house service, MSN adCenter. Arguably this advertising model may be open to abuse through click fraud, although recently Google and other search engines have implemented automated systems to guard against this.

    3. What is direct navigation?

    Direct navigation describes the method individuals use to navigate the Internet in order to arrive at specific websites. Direct navigation is a new, loosely defined term, which is generally understood to include type-in traffic and bookmarked traffic. This involves an internet user navigating to a website directly through the website address bar, bypassing any online search engines and navigating directly to the domain.

    WebSideStory has recently published a report illustrating that direct navigation traffic, converts into sales for advertisers at a rate twice that of search engines.[1] Specifically, the Q4 2005 study of internet traffic, revealed that direct navigation traffic such as browser type-in traffic, bookmarks of existing sites and visits to existing, known website domain names converts into sales for advertisers at 4.23% of total visits compared to 2.3% for product and service related searches performed via the search box at search engines such as Google and Yahoo.[1]

    Do you have skills predicting future trends? What names might be big in the next few years if a woman or a black man were elected president, if an issue other than terrorism begins to creep into the world psyche? If green becomes in or America revamps its health care system what will be the key domain names that will represent the future? What names today represent a great business opportunities for you tomorrow?