3 Things to Remember While Registering Domains

If you own a small business and wish to have a web presence or you are looking to setup an online business from scratch, you need to go through the domain registering process.

But what if you do not have a business and still wish to make money online?

Yes, it's possible. All you need is to register your domain name and have a website and you're ready to step into the world of affiliate marketing by selling someone else's products.

Whether you are setting up a business website or a website to make money online through affiliate marketing, information products or any other internet business model, there are a few crucial steps you should follow.

Nowadays, registering a domain name has become quite simple. However, there are three things that you should keep in mind.

1. Choosing a Name for Domain Registering: Choose a relevant domain name. For instance, URLs like petsmart.com, gardenguide.com or etoys.com tell you instantly what the business is about. Opt for short names that are easy to remember. You could go to sites like cheapdomainsfromscratch.com to select a domain name. If you are getting your domain based on your company name, this will obviously make it easy for you to setup personalised company emails etc. But, even if you a well established business, chances are not may people will be searching for your company name in Google or Yahoo. They may be searching for keywords like "outdoor fitness", so register a domain like "outdoorfitness.com" for example, will make it far more recognisable. This makes it easy for people to see that your website may meet their needs. Keep in mind, that you can always point a domain like this to a specific page on your company website, if you don't want multiple websites.

2. Registering a Domain Name: There are many sites, like cheapdomainsfromscratch.com, that offer very cheap domain registering services. This makes it very easy to register domains that are specific to your product or service offering. Registering a locally based website URL, like .com.au or ,co.ca could work well for you if you are a locally based business, but preferably, having a .com website will be the best option. If you are selling information products or anything that has a global audience, then certainly a .com domain will be best. Look out for the specials that are offered as part of domain purchasing, because you could also get a great deal on hosting your website.

3. Make your Domain Registering Search Friendly: Ensure that you register your domain name for at least three years, as this will add credibility to your website. The longer the duration, the more search engine friendly your website is. The longest period for domain registration is ten years. Getting registered with a reputed registrar will add to the trustworthiness of your website. Making sure that you use keywords relating to your business market or your online niche audience will also help with natural search rankings. From the example above, if you are targeting outdoor fitness training, do some keyword research using Google's keyword tool. Find the top ranking keywords in your niche and try to build website URL combinations that use these keywords. Submit these combinations into a domain search, like the one of cheapdomainsfromscratch.com. For example, outdoorfitness.com, outdoorfitnesstraining.com, outdoorfittraining.com, until you find one that is not already registered.

Once you have brought your domain name, you want to set it up to point to a set hosting, that you may already have, or you can point it to an affiliate link. Either way, if you are not sure what to do next, the support staff at the domain registrar will be able to help you point the new domain to the correct location.

SEO and Expired Domains - Partners in Progress

Expired domain name trading is not that easy as you think it to be! This is true especially when you have a domain that is not commercially feasible and viable. In general, the most common perception among people is that one buys an expired domain just to capitalize on the previous sites page rank as well as traffic.

However, this seems to be the conventional way of thinking! Times are changing and they will change in the future as well! The current buzz words are domain flipping, which means converting an expired domain into a viable entity capable of producing decent income for the owner. In general sense, an expired domain looses all its page rank and accumulated traffic, as soon as it drops and become defunct. It means that most of the expired domains in the registry are as good as dead and useless. Thus, expired domain industry is an intricate business, when you may need to try very hard to sell a pack of domain names.

You are indeed very lucky, if you are able to sell a domain name for a good asking price. However, it may not be the case every time you sell a domain name. Some of the domain names may fetch you a very small profit, while others may provide you an ample opportunity to earn lots of profit. Thus, you will need to find a suitable strategy to make your domain more viable and strong.

SEO is possibly the best known and well proven technique to assist your expired domain based web site to achieve that elusive commercial success. You will need to know the benefits and disadvantages of using this technology before choosing to apply its techniques. Major search engines never recognize expired domains and their backlinks and traffic. Thus, you may need to buy a domain before it actually expires and becomes defunct.

SEO technology works very well with your expired domains based web sites, just because you are starting afresh with new web site and a new identity. You will need to make sure that your web site is perfect with excellent content, as well as cleverly inserted Meta tags, to help your domain find its way to the top of the search pages.

On the alternative, it is still possible for you to find an expired domain name that boasts of traffic and incoming links. There are one or two minor issues here:

A) Domain flipping is a process of converting your expired domain into an entity like an active web site. If the expired domain name that you purchase does not relate to your business concept, then it may not be really wise to buy that domain, even if it has good traffic. However, you can still change and migrate over to the business concept related to the expired domain in question. Under such a scenario, you can always use the technique of SEO to make your site productive.

B) Ensure that the domain that you purchase has a clean record; some sites may have links to black hat systems and paid link web sites.

If these methods fail you, you may have to go for an expired domain that is capable of domain flipping and subsequent SEO promotion. SEO techniques ensure top placement in famous search engines, better page rank, plenty traffic and incoming links. Expired domains that are SEO enabled could bring you better income and sizeable profits.

How Do I Register a Domain Name That Brings More Website Traffic?

Before answering the question "How do I register a domain name that brings more website traffic?", you have to look closely at your product or service. You have to consider your customers and how they will search for your website. The right domain can make a difference in the amount and quality of traffic you get to your site. So, where do you start?

Brainstorm Words And Phrases

Go through your offer - be it a product, a service, a membership site, an online store - and brainstorm a list of words to describe it. What words best represent your offer? What words do you think that prospective customers would enter in the search engines to find your website, your product, your service, your store?

Create a list of short phrases. For example: If you are selling an e-book that shows people how to train their horse for dressage, some of the phrases in your list may be "horse training" or "dressage training". These words will be the basis for your site name.

Up Your Chances And Appeal

Most basic phrases will be already taken for domain names, so create a list of names by adding a modifying word, like "best" or "elite". In the case of the dressage training you could have a website like GentleDressageTraining.com or EasyDressageTraining.com. These extra words not only give you a better shot at getting a name you want, but also appeal to those searching the Internet.

When Internet searchers see these words in the URL of the search results, they are much more likely to click through to your website. The link promises them to provide the targeted information they are looking for - and it is "easy", "quick", or "premium". So, spend some time brainstorming a good list of possible names before you go to register one.

How to Locate Desirable Domain Names to Flip

Flipping domain names can be very profitable. You can make money by selling the domain name itself or by creating a website using the domain name and selling the name and the developed site as a package. Usually, the completed, developed website will sell for more money.

In order to generate the highest returns, one of the most critical factors is finding a domain name that is desirable -- one that is in demand or is attractive to the marketplace.

I am shocked when someone contacts me with a domain name that contains keywords that are not being advertised for by Google ad words advertisers (worse yet, are those domain names that contain no keywords at all). Yes, it's true, that some "brandable" domain names can bring in attractive returns. Yet, you'll stack the odds in your favor if you take the following steps:

1. Identify a hot trend. You can do this using tools at a number of search engines.

2. Locate keywords used in that trend. If the trend for example is "online income" you would do a keyword search looking for search terms and keywords that contain the words "online income."

3. Check your keywords for AdSense ads. Once you've located some attractive keyword-based domain names, plug those keyword terms into Google and determine if there are ad words advertisers bidding for those search terms. The more the advertisers, the higher the likelihood your domain name or developed website will be in demand. More demand means more profit to you.

By using some common sense in your domain name search you'll stack the odds in your favor in finding attractive domain names to flip for a profit.

Three Keys to Becoming a Successful Domain Name and Website Flipper

First, let's discuss the term "flipping" and what it means in the context of flipping domain names or websites. When someone "flips" a domain name or website this simply means that they have purchased the domain name or website at one price and have sold it for a higher price.

They make a profit on the difference between the purchase and sale price. This is very similar to the activities in the real estate market. I'm sure that you've heard about people who flip houses. Well, you can also flip virtual real estate. That's the context in which we are using the term "flip." One of the biggest mistakes made by the beginning domain name or website flipper is the failure to treat their activities as a business. Let's look at that in more detail.

1. Establish a business presence. A successful domain name or website flipper needs to have a central site that is used for credibility and identity. One of the problems with conducting an online business is that your customer never gets to meet you in person. Your only chance to let them know who you are is through a website. Your goal is to make your customer feel comfortable doing business with you.

2. Collect e-mail addresses. The second mistake most flippers make is the failure to build a list of leads, prospects and customers. If you're producing a good product or offering high-quality domain names your customers want to know about your latest offerings. Make it easy for them (and yourself) to make contact. You need to have an opt-in form on your website to collect e-mail addresses.

3. Systemize your system. Look for the tasks that become repetitive and set up a checklist or system to make it easy to process activities that are not profitable. If you find yourself having to deal with support questions make sure you develop a list of frequently asked questions or FAQs. Build up standardized responses to e-mail questions.

Flipping domain names and websites can be a very lucrative activity. You can maximize your profits by treating your activities as a business.

Great Way to Select an Effective Domain Name in a Diluted Market!

So, for a long time I have been teaching in my classes that you should be using keywords in your URL to assist with organic listings. Now, I have changed my theory on this quite a bit. I have now discovered with some testing that using a completely unique URL does far more for your business then keyword stacking. I call it keyword stacking, who knows what you call it. By unique URL I mean a name that you come up with that has little or no exposure on google at all. When you use keywords in your URL you throw yourself into an ocean of other URL's with similar structure. You don't want to do this. Also, it is very hard to build a brand on a URL that looks like a couple keywords thrown together. Now, keep in mind, I am referring to choosing a domain name when you plan on building a business that you are going to keep and pursue, and that is going to stick around. If you are building mini sites or landing pages then I would stick with the keywords for your URL. But, if you want to peak Google and Yahoo's interest very quickly then come up with something so unique that when you type the word itself into the Google search bar without the dot com after it, only 3 pages come up for the word itself. I have tried this, and believe me, it works. I split tested this with keyword URL's and the results are pretty interesting.

Let me get your gears turning for a minute so you can see where I am coming from. Some of the most successful websites have domain names such as: Google, Yahoo, Zazzle, itunes, twitter, ebay and so forth. You get the point. Very simple names, easy to remember, and the word itself had little existence until these websites came along. I'm talking about building a brand though. Your domain name isn't going to do you much good if you don't back it up with some hard work. For building mini sites or landers, using keywords in your URL is still an acceptable method. But if you plan on building a brand and a business, then you may want to consider using a very unique domain name that you can build a business on.

Can You Really Earn Through Domain Parking?

I was browsing through the internet and found a success story of a Filipino earning large amounts of money through domain parking. And I was intrigued enough to actually research a little bit of this "Domain Parking".

Well, most or some of you might ask what does domain parking mean?. Here is a description of domain parking by sedo.com:

Domain Parking is a simple way to earn money from your domains' natural traffic. If you have registered domain names, but they are not currently being used, then domain parking is a great way to put those domains to work, earning you revenue. You can make money without even lifting a finger! The idle domain is used to display relevant advertisements -every time a consumer clicks on one of the advertisements, you earn money.

So yeah. Parked domains are domains that are usually not being used for websites, blogs, forums, etc. Domains that are being parked are usually not being used by the owner. By parking your unused domains, you can actually gain some income through the advertisements found in it rather than leave that domain unused and useless. But, there those who actually are making the most of this domain parking.

Domain parking is like real estate, domain names are like land properties bought for investments and in time those domains through traffic will increase in value where you could sell it or just leave it parked and earn from the traffic it generates through advertisements. But like land properties, in which you would have to pick the best location in which you think the value would increase the most, you also have to pick the best available domain name to park. Good examples domains that might attract traffic are loans.com, or car.com. Just imagine how many people would search through Google looking for cars and loans. How many of these people would simply type the word "loan" or "car" in the search bar? For sure if you own the domains loans.com and car.com, your domains would be listed up high in Google's search results.

Through websites that offers domain parking and gives you commissions for every click or purchase a visitor of your domain might do, and you get commissions out of it. Yes it works similar to Google AdSense. If you have a good domain name, you might want to give this a try. Unlike running a website or a blog, you don't actually have to update anything. Just let the course of nature happen and you earn money out of it. The only thing you have to do is check your earnings every now and then. Now, isn't that great? Only having to check you earnings? 10 minutes a day would do! Unlike having a website in which you have to spend hours updating your site so it wont get out of date.