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Because domain names are products that carry a certain market value, trading in domain names has become a serious business in its own right. People buy and sell domain names on domain auction sites and prices vary from very cheap to astronomically expensive, depending on the perceived brand or keyword value of the name.
However, if you can choose a domain for your website that has never been used before you will be able to register it for less than $20 without having to buy it at all.
How To Choose A Domain Name
There are two approaches to choosing a suitable domain for your website: (1) Branding, and (2) keywords.
1. Branding – Use your own name or company name as the domain name of your website.
If you want to raise the profile of your company and turn it into brand in its own right, using it as your domain name is a great idea.
Take a company like Amazon.com for example. There is nothing in the domain name amazon.com to suggest that Amazon sells books, yet when you hear the name Amazon you will probably think either of a big river in South America, or a big bookstore on the Internet, and in many cases it will be the latter that is thought of first!
That is the power of brand names.
Some people choose to turn their own name into a brand name. Entrepreneurs, politicians, artists will often secure their own name as their brand name. The most famous recent example of this is now living in the White House. You can check out his website at barackobama.com.
So, branding yourself via your domain name can be a very smart move.
However, if you are just starting out, you might want to consider using relevant keywords in your domain name to raise the profile of your website. This is an excellent idea if you are promoting a well defined niche market.
2. Keywords – Choose a domain name that reflects the type of business you are in.
There are a couple of advantages to be had with a keyword rich domain. Firstly, it sends a clear message to anybody searching for the products you are selling that your website is the place to find them. Secondly, the keywords in your domain will help your website’s search engine ranking for those particular words.
Choosing a Keyword Rich Domain Name
Make a list of keywords that are related to the main theme or chief content of your website. Aim to get a domain name with one or two of your keywords in it; a short domain name is better but you will probably need to use more than one keyword to find a domain name that is available.
The easiest way to work on your domain name is to use a free domain search website such as http://instantdomainsearch.com/ and type your ideas straight into the search browser to instantly discover whether or not they are available. If your first search is not successful, play around with the keywords and try to find a good combination that (a) makes some kind of sense, (b) is a fair reflection of what your business is about and (c) is available.
Also, if you are planning on starting a business site, make sure that you get the.com extension. Generally speaking, domains that end in .com are easier to remember and look more professional. However, if your business is focused on a single country then you might want to use .co.uk, co.jp, etc.
If your chosen domain name is not available and is one that you have set your heart upon, you may be able to buy it from the owner. As I mentioned, many people buy and sell domain names as a business. Be warned, though… A domain name with a couple of high ranking keywords in it is likely to be expensive. Whereas you can register an available domain name for a few dollars, you may have to spend several thousand dollars to secure a great domain name on the open market.

As previously mentioned, the World Wide Web can be a powerful marketing tool and a goldmine of information for small business owners. Social media is, of course, one of the most well-known online marketing strategies and while most new business owners seem to be aware of social media, very few of them are informed on web analytics. Google Analytics is one of the most popular analytics tool as its free, like other Google services, and is easy to use and understand once you have a firm grasp on what web analytics consist of. Unique visitors, traffic sources, referring keywords, top content and location all need to be measured and analyzed in order to improve the business and make the most out of an online marketing campaign. Unique visitors represents the number of individuals who browsed your website during a given time period. A low number of unique visitors obviously mean that the site might need more solid content or is having trouble coming up in search engines. In the same line of thought, traffic sources will allow you to know where the traffic is coming from. This will help you decide if you should improve your content or getting more visibility in search engines and also give you resources and information on where to promote your site. Referring keywords is a big part of any SEO Consulting campaign and is also an important aspect of web analytics. When an internet user types in a keyword or a sentence in the search engine, a list of results related to that keyword come up. Ideally, the keywords you are optimized for will be directly related to you business or service and will provide you with good and useful traffic. Then again, once you generate a good traffic, you can now analyze which pages get browsed the most [top content], which can greatly help you when building new pages or improving existing ones.Web analytics will also help you analyze the location of your visitors. For example, if you are a Jeweler located in Florida, you might want to impose a strong local presence. Knowing where your traffic is coming from in terms of geographical location is important if you want to improve your local presence. The most important part of an online marketing campaign is to assess all aspect and take action to improve your business. Web analytics are a good way to measure the data and know exactly what is going on with your business but will be completely useless if you are not using that data to improve your business and make the most out of your marketing campaign. Hiring an SEO Consulting firm to help you understand Google Analytics, for example, and give you hand to optimize your company on the web is surely the way to go. Analyzing all that data may look very time-consuming but will be very rewarding in the long-run. For more information, visit Seo5consulting.

Every business needs a website where current and potential clients can find more information about their business and service offering, but merely having a website is not enough. This is just the first step in reaching and converting your visitors into customers. A website provides another channel through which you can promote your business and increase leads and sales. In most cases, if a website doesn’t provide leads or new clients it is of little value to the business. This makes it important to continuously tweak and monitor your website to ensure that it offers relevant content and is user-friendly. Visitors are to a website like breathing is to human beings; and a website’s conversion rate is an important benchmark which is used to show a website’s effectiveness. Without visitors there can be no conversions. The most effective way to maximise conversions is by knowing what visitors do on your website so that you can improve the usability and overall functionality of the website and consequently increase ROI. To see how visitors are engaging with your website you can install Google Analytics, Google’s free analytics software. Google Analytics will highlight the areas on your website that are performing well as well as those that need improvement. Below are three of the main areas one can measure in Google Analytics.Where do your visitors come from?Did they type the URL directly into the browser, were they referred by another website or did they find your website through a search engine? If they came through a search engine, which keywords or key-phrases did they use to find the website? You can also track other marketing campaigns like PPC campaigns or special newsletter promotions by making use of uniquely tagged URLs.What did the visitors do on the website? Which and how many pages did they visit and how long did they stay on the website? Pages with a high exit rate may need tweaking or a complete content revamp. Thinking about what a visitor would want to derive from a particular page or section of your site is a good place to start when developing your content. Under the Content tab in Google Analytics one can select the Site Overlay option which will show the percentage of visitors that clicked on various links on your website in a visual way – this gives you an idea of where people are looking on your pages. Conversions The most important part of the visitor process – did the visitor convert? In essence this results to the visitor becoming a lead or a new client. As mentioned, conversion rate should play an important role in your web strategy, a high volume of traffic may look impressive but the conversion rate is the deal-breaker.Apart from the above, there are a number of other areas that can be measured and what you measure will depend on your type of business. To get you started, think about which actions you need visitors to perform in order to increase the website’s overall conversion rate. Should they fill in a contact form or request more information? Download your portfolio? Sign up to your newsletter? Once you have determined the goals for your website work on the various calls to action and include them in your copy. Maintaining a website requires a constant investment of time and effort and you should regard your website as a constant work in progress.

Domain names can be turned into money if you are wise and have a finger on the pulse of the cyber world. If you find quality domain names and manage to register them, then it is quite possible that a domain name can fetch you considerable sums of money when sold.

Domain name investing is a business in which according to the cyber gurus you have complete control over your investment. To become successful you must master the art of buying and know when to sell. Success means two things, guts and vision. There are domain name players who capture a slice of pie by purchasing thousands of domain names pertaining to a specific sector. They are then in full control of the demand as well as selling price. The money spinning trick is to release the names slowly in the market. The domains that stay in their custody are not “dead” investments. They are parked such that they generate revenue from “pay-per-click” advertisements.

Domain portfolios can be crowded with many names even over 40,000 names or just contain a few jewels, top-notch domains. If bought wisely domain names can generate enough revenues to pay for themselves many times over.

• Buy only good domains by using DomainsBot and HotLists on sites like Namewinner or Pool to determine which ones are worthy and which ones are not.

• Buy short and specific domain names.

• Be sure to get the ones purchased by you appraised. There are several sites like www.appraisalblast.com that will do the needful.

• While you are waiting for the big sale let the domain names generate revenue for you. Set up parking pages that provide links to other web pages earning “pay per click” revenues. Ensure that traffic is not just generated but sustained. The name must be such that it has natural positioning. If it is not so, you must either sell off the domain name that is a junk or dud or make effort to develop it. What ensures and sustains traffic at a steady rate is content. To this end, start up a website like a membership portal, music site, games site, or news feed. The next step is to build traffic by setting up the domain names strategically. The aim is to run simultaneously many revenue generating streams like selling a specific service, displaying related advertisements, putting up content to tease visitors, or offering unique one of a kind experiences to visitors so that they come repeatedly to the site.

• For selling a domain name there are three main avenues.

o Land a sale on ebay by starting at a low price which invites bidders. Make sure the domain name is a part of the description. Include an appraisal of the domain name projecting its true value. Be sure to highlight all the important factors. Optimize your chances by getting a bold listing and aiming to end the auction on Sunday night.

o Opt for selling on established domain sites like Afternic or Sedo. They take a commission on sale but it would be worth it if your domain name commands a handsome price.

o If it is not a very important domain name try selling on domain forums.

• If you have had the foresight to purchase “a treasure” then contact large business houses to whom the domain name may be relevant. Be sure to let them know why your domain name will be of benefit to them. If you are successful you will get a very good price for the domain.

The keys are:

• A quality domain name with a short recognizable nomenclature.

• A name with no numbers.

• Marketability. For example if there is a stock market boom then domains that pertain to this field will fetch very good value.

• A fool proof marketing strategy.

A major domain name player must watch the market, know how to monetize his portfolio, balance his investments between high-profile key word based domains and mediocre ones, plan on recovering his investments by thinking of innovations like Rick Schwartz’s “click capitalist,” plan. In this he aims to invest traffic generated by domains into web-developer sites asking for stock as exchange.

The domain name for your business is your online identity. You should be very careful about choosing a domain name that is memorable, scores quite well with search engine listings, has a trust factor attached to it, and commands a brand value. A domain name is quite important for your business correspondences and emails. A long one can cause problems in communication, especially if the domain name seems complex. Here are some tips in choosing a well-meaning domain name that captures the essence of your brand image or business:
1. Keyword oriented or a unique domain name? If your website is going to have a crucial role to play in your business, then it is important to have an adequately researched keyword incorporated within the brand name. Use the most searched-for term in search engine queries, within your domain name. Prior to launching your online business, you should do some research through website tools to find out which keywords register the most number of traffic during a month. For example, if you want to make a website based on advising people, you will find that the keyword help is normally typed in the search engine query window a lot more frequently than the word aid. If your domain name includes targeted keywords, than you will get higher rankings in the search engines like Google and Yahoo. You should bear in mind that, apart from having the targeted keyword in your domain name, you should also have keywords in other parts of your site as well.
2. Use a company name only if you are famous: That is right. If your company name overwhelms the basic product name, then by all means go for the company name as your domain name. For example, people normally use the term Xerox rather than photocopy and if you are Xerox, then you should go for Xerox as a domain name because of the sheer popularity of the brand name. This is usually not the case, so using a keyword-rich domain name is a better move for most people. To be on the right side of balancing your business well, you should buy a set of two domain names, one that represents your business/brand name, and another that represents keywords or key phrases.
3. Keep your domain name short: The shorter your domain name, the more memorable it is. If your domain name has an every-day lingo, the better it is! More often than not, you may find that a simple two-word domain name is already taken. The alternative in this case, is to put a hyphen (-) to your targeted keyword and then add the other word. SEO experts are of the belief that hyphenating two or more words makes a long domain name more search engine friendly. The flip side is that people do not tend to write words with hyphens naturally, and there is a chance that if someone has recommended your site to a friend, the friend may find himself going to a competitor’s site. So one has to understand and undergo a lot of study while choosing a domain name. After all, it is one prominent thing that can dictate the flow of your business. Also, you should avoid putting numbers like 4 instead of for in your domain name. It will only lead to confusion.
4. Dot.com only: If you intend to have a website for commercial or business reasons, then by all means go for a website which ends in extension .com. The domain name companies will market other options like .org, .us, .net, etc. However, by all means try stick to .com for better mass appeal.
5. Register similar domain names: If you believe that in the future you are going to have a huge amount of people visiting your website through word-of-mouth advertising, then you should consider registering similar domain names that direct to your main URL (e.g. www.datinginformation.com and www.datinginfo.com). There are cyber-squatters who register domain names in the hope that they will be selling them for a profit to someone who really needs that domain name. Before they do this, you should register the domain names if you think that such a possibility can occur.
6. Be patient: You should not choose a domain name in minutes merely just to get it done and over with. A hasty decision may cost you a lot. It is better to invest time in research and arrive at the right kind of domain name. You should also discuss the comprehensibility and usage of the domain name with friends, neighbors and well wishers to find how simple and commonplace it really is.