The Domain Name Debate - Brand Versus Keywords

As prices have never been so low, you may consider buying multiple domain names as a cost-effective option to drive more traffic to your website.

When it comes to choosing a domain name, there are two schools of thought. You can either elect to register a domain name based on

1- a new or existing brand name e.g. business name, trademark, product brand name or

2- one or more keywords that you perceive will help your target market to find you.
Both methods have their pro's and con's.

(For this article, to avoid filter penalties, my domain name examples will start with a Capital letter and end with /.)

Domain name based on BRAND

The web is populated with unusual and recognised domain names e.g. Google/, Amazon/ and Yahoo/. Naming your domain using a new or existing brand name can be a powerful and rewarding long-term strategy. Developing a brand name from anonymity to stardom is any marketer's goal.

Pro's

A branded domain name may

- Attract attention for its originality and for being catchy e.g. Yahoo/ or Dogpile/.

- Stand out from competition e.g. compare Google/ with Searchengine/, Searchengines/ and Bestsearchengine/. Which one stands out? Sorry, no price for this easy answer.

- Facilitate direct search. Repeat visitors can guess your name and type it in the address bar or location field and find you directly, bypassing competitors.

- Encourage brand recognition. Each time people are exposed to your domain name, it reinforces your brand.

- Increase credibility and loyalty. In general, people prefer to be associated with a brand name rather than a generic name. If price is not a consideration, wouldn't you prefer buying Chanel branded sunglasses from Chanel/, Eyesave/ or Sunglassesportal/?

- Promote viral marketing. It is easier to refer someone to a domain name that you can remember and spell without difficulty.

- Provide flexibility. Your domain name can be used on business cards and offline promotions.

- Protect your intellectual property. Get in first before someone names their domain with your product brand, business name or title of your book.

Con's (for new brands only)

A domain name using an established brand name may not encounter the problems below. A domain name based on a new brand may:

- Be difficult to choose. Selecting a name to convey instantly business core values and benefits of website is a very difficult task.

- Need time, money and effort to break through the online noise and be recognised.

- Necessitate a strong unique selling proposition.

- Require an arsenal of internet marketing tactics e.g. linkage strategies and search engine optimisation to improve the search engine ranking.

Domain name based on KEYWORDS

Keywords are the words that web users enter in the search box of the search engine to retrieve information on a specific subject.

The current trend is for web searchers to enter a string of keywords or keyword phrase rather than single keywords e.g. a person may look for 'free family tree', 'decision tree software', 'artificial Christmas tree' instead of 'tree. This practice provides less search engine results but of better quality. Similarly, website owners are creating generic domain names made of a string of keywords to reach their target audience e.g. Paylesscarrental/, Collectorcartraderonline/ and Carbuyingtips/.

Pro's

On one hand, generic keywords domain names may:

- Generate instant results with drive-in traffic from search engines.

- Attract qualified prospects looking for your keywords.

- Communicate and position instantly your site's benefits and core values e.g. Justfreestuff/, Best-home-mortagage-loan/, Indoorgardensupplies/.

- Improve search engine ranking. (The use of keywords in the domain name is a strategy which you cannot rely on to increase your search engine ranking: it is only a very small part of search engine optimisation.)

Con's

On the other hand, generic keywords domain names may:

- Be perceived as boring, lacking in imagination and sometimes dubious.

- Require more effort to remember. This could lead to domain names being misspelled e.g. Barnesandnoble/ or Barneandnobles/ or placed in the wrong sequence e.g. Homefinancialservices/ or Financialhomeservices/. These common mistakes have prompted shrewd business people to piggy back on popular websites e.g. Ezinearticle/ benefits from spelling mistakes of customers from Ezinearticles/.

- Restrict the usage of the domain name. A long string of keywords does not look good on offline promotional material.

- Be wasted if you don't choose your keywords carefully. It is important to research the words used by your customers and not rely on your assumptions. Jeff, a Printer, had optimised his site for 'self-publishing' only to find that self-publishers were searching for printers using keyword 'printing'.

The best of both worlds: consider complementary domain name strategies:

1. Create a short, easy to remember brand name using keywords e.g. Diabeticgourmet/, Netdoctor/ or Houseweb/.

2. Purchase a few domain names made up of keywords and have them pointing to a main branded domain name. This strategy requires you to buy an URL forwarding option when you purchase your domain name. A word of caution: if you overuse this tactic, Google may respond negatively to these 'sneaky redirects'.

Henriette Martel is a website strategist, author of 200 Marketing Ideas for Your Website and director of the Australian Training Guide Australia's A to Z Training Database and Resources for Speakers, Trainers & Coaches.

How to Transfer a Domain Name

A domain name transfer refers to a change of ownership of a domain name. Some of the reasons to transfer a domain are:

1. You have just sold or purchased that domain.
2. You are dissatisfied with your current registrar.
3. You need to renew a domain.

Sometimes it is cheaper to renew a domain name by paying for a transfer, then by paying the renewal fee. For example, GoDaddy domain transfers cost around $7 and include a 1 year domain
renewal. If your domain is registered with Moniker where renewals cost $10, it is cheaper to transfer to Godaddy and get the inclusive 1 year extension. You will save $3. A $3 saving per domain renewal equates to a lot of cash, especially if you own hundreds of domains.

It is important to keep in mind that registrars do not allow the transfer of domains to another registrar within a set period of time following the registration of a brand new domain name. For example Godaddy allows transfer away of a domain 60 days after an initial registration. Transferring a domain from one account to another account within the same registrar can be done at any time.

Some registrars enforce an external transfer lock on a domain for a set time period if you make any alterations to contact information. Again, up until recently Godaddy placed a 60 day transfer lock if any changes were made on contact info on a domain. This was a security feature which was implemented to help prevent domain theft.

There are two types of domain name transfers.

1. Ownership transfers within the same registrar.

The following steps summarize such a transfer at Godaddy (other registrars follow a similar procedure, check their FAQ for details ):

1. Log-in to your registrar user account.
2. Access your domain list.
3. Access the change account details / transfer domain feature (different depending on registrar).
4. Enter new owner account details, including the email / username of the new owner.
5. Complete the transfer request.

At this point, your registrar sends an email notifying both parties of the transfer initiation. The email sent to the new owner usually contains a set of security keys combined with other information related to the domain transfer.

To complete the transfer the new owner follows the steps outlined in the email sent by the registrar.

At Godaddy these steps can be summarized as follows (other registrars follow a similar set of steps, check their FAQ for details):

1. New owner logs into their registrar account.
2. New owner accesses their account pending changes screen.
3. New owner enters the domain security codes as provided in the email they received from the registrar.
4. New owner completes the transfer process.

2. Transferring a domain from one registrar to another.

This type of transfer can be summarized by the following steps:
1. Owner of domain name removes registrar lock placed against the domain name. This is done by using the "Remove lock" feature of your account's domain administration interface. Note: A registrar lock is placed by the owner of a domain name in order to prevent any attempts of transferring that domain name.
2. New owner logs into their account at their registrar.
3. New owner accesses the transfer domain screen and initiates transfer of said domain.
4. Their registrar informs the present domain owner (email retrieved via WhoIs information of domain) that a transfer has been initiated.
5. Present owner confirms transfer via their registrar account.
6. Transfer is completed.Note: Transfer may take a few hours to show up in your registrar account.

Most registrars follow a similar pattern as above, but to be sure, check their FAQs or contact them directly.

John Motson runs a domain name forum, domain name blog and has authored the popular domain name book Domaining Manifesto.

Domain Sales Machine Review

If you are looking for a Domain Sales Machine Review, you should read this article entirely to find out about my experience with it. With the lessons I learned from this domain investing course, I have been able to develop a clear vision for my domain investments and I know exactly how to make the most profits out of my domains portfolio.

1. What Types Of Domain Names Have I Learned To Find With The Domain Sales Machine System?

Most of the time, I am able to get my domain names to generate revenue on their own while I wait to make a much bigger profit opportunity through a large lease or sales transaction. There are domain names that will be costing you money (from yearly renewal fees to maintain the registration) while you are waiting to profit from them, and these are the names that you should avoid buying or think of ways to make them sustain themselves while you own them.

As a rule of thumb, always plan how you are going to earn money from your portfolio of domains before going ahead to purchase them.

2. Should You Always Buy .Coms?

There is significantly less risk when you buy .com domain names as compared to other extensions. Also, if you are able to get in early for any popular country code top level domains like .us, you may also have the opportunity to buy greatly profitable domain names.

3. What Kind Of Domain Names Will Become More Profitable In The Future?

It is not easy to predict the future of the domain industry, but Domain Sales Machine has given me a good analysis and helped me see what this industry will look like in the future. It is this inside knowledge that is helping me see opportunities to buy up great domain names for cheap and making huge profits out of my domains portfolio. I highly recommend anyone interested to profit from domain investing to find out more about Domain Sales Machine.

Is Domain Sales Machine a scam? Visit http://www.top-review.org/domainsalesmachine.htm to read a FREE report about this domain investing system!

Domain Appraisal Guide - 20 Factors That Decide the Selling Price

Domain appraisal route in the current diverse market situation is a big challenge. Sometimes it is hard or even impossible to leave out the subjective opinion and just stick to the facts and statistics.

However, it is dangerous to approach domain appraisal on "like it/don't like" basis. That's why an exact guide or checklist can provide a great help and make the appraisal process much easier.

Strictly speaking, there are 20 main factors in domain appraisal procedure. You will easily set the right value of your domain if you follow these steps.

1. Industry popularity. It is very important to answer a question "what is the market volume this domain applies to?" It may be a short and nice name but it will have less value if it cannot generate enough business.

2. Niche situation. It is sometimes a matter of fashion. Once you have applied the domain to a certain market, explore how wide or narrow is the niche it would fit in.

3. Keyword popularity. The best method of market prediction and one of the most accurate domain appraisal tools is the keyword popularity check. You have to find out the number of monthly searches for the keyword term your domain represents. Two of the all time favourites are Google Adwords Keyword tool and Yahoo's Overture. If a domain name doesn't contain any recognizable keyword, it should be brandable (see the point #10).

4. Substantiality. It is a domain appraisal criterion that evaluates if the domain name is serious enough to have business people showing any interest. Wacky names may be fun but they doesn't attract enough business.

5. Top level domain value. Yes, .COM maybe is king but how about other TLDs? Top tier extensions are .COM, .NET, .ORG, .CO.UK and .DE. They have a potential of going for over $100,000. Midfield consisting of .NL, .US, .FR, .RU, .IN and .CN hardly ever reaches $100,000 but can go beyond that for the right name.
Lower end of .INFO, .TV, .MOBI, .FM, .AM, .BE and .CC are sometimes seen selling in $XX,000 region whereas the struggle TLDs .BIZ, .WS, country TLDs and .NAME rarely make a thousand. Yet the domain appraisers have to keep in mind that a great .BIZ will definitely make more money than a shabby .COM.

6. Phone test can determine if there is some off-line value in the domain. If you can dictate the name over your phone without spelling it letter by letter, you may add more dollars to the price.

7. Memory test is another method of domain appraisal that determines if it has a business potential. Test your friends - tell them the name and see if they would be able to recall it after a day or two.

8. Length of the name. There is still a strong demand for three-letter and four-letter .COM domains. However, the majority of these aftermarket transactions take place amongst domain name "flippers" or re-sellers. It is not necessary for a name to be short in order to be good seller - a longer name that can still be easily memorized and that makes a perfect sense, will do as good.

9. Product recognition. From the business point of view, it is important that the visitor would be able to predict the content of the web-site once he sees the domain name.
A name containing "telephone", "mobile" or "games" and similar popular products would be likely to fetch more in the aftermarket. Whereas, a domain that resembles a popular branded product may prove a difficult thing to sell.

10. Brandability. In the situation when almost 100% of the English dictionary words are already registered as domain names or branded, if someone comes up with an interesting new word that can be turned into a trademark, domain appraisal has to consider and recognize that. It is essential to check both US and UK trademark registries before setting the sale price.

11. Exact keyword. It may be an advantage to have a single-keyword domain name, also two relevant keywords without a hyphen spells good selling price. However, when it comes to three or more keywords in a single domain especially when they are hyphenated, it will drastically reduce the aftermarket price.

12. Language. Top sellers are the domains in correct English language due to the worldwide audience and all the English-speaking countries. Also Spanish and German names sell quite well.

13. Clean grammar. Typos were popular some time ago. Now it is very important for business reputation to have a grammatically correct domain name.

14. Domain age. As the search engine algorithms deal with site ranking, domain age is quite important. Older domains tend to rank higher.

15. PageRank and domain appraisal. Initially PageRank was introduced by Google to rank web-pages by their importance. As webmasters still continue to fret about PageRank, it is still considered as a factor in domain appraisal.

16. Type-in traffic. If a domain name is short and obvious, it will attract traffic from direct browser type-ins. If you can prove a significant type-in traffic, you can set the selling price on a higher level.

17. Organic traffic. Again, it is necessary to provide a proof that the site receives free organic traffic from search engines and referrals. It is very difficult to build traffic and if the initial work is already done, you will expect the buyer to pay more.

18. Development value. Domain appraisal should also consider how the associated website is developed and optimized. On the other hand, an unprofessional site can harm the sales potential. There is nothing wrong with selling a domain with a web-site as a package deal, yet the quality of the site should be top-notch! The domain appraisal factors 14 to 18 are meant to deal with names that already have a web-site. If you are trying to appraise a blank domain name, you should not consider these points.

19. Total revenue generated from the site. A proof of regular revenue from different advertising and affiliate programs will drive the sale price up, yet a good site content alone will doubtfully make a good sale if the domain doesn't meet at least some of the aforementioned criteria from 1 to 13.

20. Comparison. Before concluding a domain appraisal, you will want to compare the domain with previous similar sales from the aftermarket. Although it is true that each name is unique, there is fashion and there are trends. That's why it may be useful to visit Sedo, Tdnam or any other aftermarket to see what domains attract more bids, explore the internet for previous sales. A good idea is to sign up for several web-master forums in order to explore the domain appraisal requests posted by members. You will be able to post a domain appraisal request yourself and compare your verdict with judgment of fellow webmasters.

This guide contained the 20 primary criteria of domain appraisal. Use them to determine the value of names you buy and sell. If you keep this guide as your checklist, you will probably find that domaining is an interesting and rewarding industry.

Author is a contributor for the Domain News Blog. Please also go to the Domain Appraisal Guide for more insight in the daily life of domain appraisers.

Selling Expired Domains Enriched With Traffic

Expired domain traffic is the current flavor and a favorite buzzword for almost every other domain trader. An expired domain with a considerable amount of expired traffic is an added bonus to your domain-trading endeavor. Traffic associated with an expired domain could be the lifeline of that domain, and when you use it properly and in a systematic manner, you can reap a rich harvest and hefty profits by selling the domain along with its traffic. Expired domain traffic is a visual indicator for the commercial success of a web site; more the traffic means more business, more visitors and a large number of incoming links.

One of the prominent goals of a webmaster who is holding an expired domain based web site is to enhance and develop meaningful traffic to the web site. Traffic to a web site also means an added value to the site and people looking to buy web portals or expired domains need plenty of traffic and inbound links. If you feel that you have an expired domain with plenty of traffic, then you can try to sell it off to make some handsome profits. Here are some golden tips and suggestions that will help you understand how you can sell your expired domains studded with traffic:

Once you understand the real principles of expired domain traffic and inbound links, it becomes very easy to start a selling process by finding good customers. There are actually two ways of dealing with your domain:

a) Sell the entire set of expired traffic to an interested web master for a decent price. You can even demand very high price for your domain, when the domain in question has plenty of traffic and inbound links. Webmasters always need highly quality links and traffic and not just any ordinary traffic generated out of casual and cross visits.

b) Another costly, but lucrative alternative would be to develop a web site on the expired domain and sell it to the highest bidder. Experienced domain traders make it a habit to flip their domains into a big money-spinner by transforming them to a paying web portal. Though a long drawn flipping process, this is a profitable venture with a decent probability of earning plenty of money.

c) If you have an expired domain that had an active listing on popular search directories lime Yahoo or DMOZ, you can expect to earn a large amount of money. These search engines charge a subscription joining fees, while you may need to pay a hefty amount of almost $199 to list your portal in their engine. These domains can fetch an extraordinary sum because of their premium value.

d) Yet another innovative program is to introduce your expired domain to a highly profitable affiliate or PPC program, earn some money and later show to prospective buyer that it is making some amount of money. Affiliate marketing provides you an opportunity to have a system of blind linking. A number of domain traders use this unique system to add value (in terms of expired traffic) to their domains. Trading multiple expired web domains is still more profitable and lucrative, when you enter into a mutual business partnership with a single PPC search engine. Pooling of your expired domains will help you streamline or guide your business in a profitable way.

Before selling off your domains, you will need to ensure that the type and quality of expired traffic and inbound links. A genuine organic type of expired domain traffic coming to your site is probably the best type of traffic, and a domain with such a type of traffic could provide you unlimited internet riches.

John Khu is an author and also a seasoned professional with vast experience in expired domain name business. He is the owner of the path breaking web site called http://www.expireddomaingains.com which provides complete and up-to-date information on expired domains and their eternal secrets.

How to Sell a Domain Name in 4 Easy Steps

Selling domain names can be fun and profitable. However you need to know how to do it. This list will show you how to sell a domain name and make a profit from it.

1. Place a value on a domain name

This is necessary before you can sell it at a profit. When you sell a domain name, you are selling a property and there are ways to go about doing that. Decide on the value of your domain name. How much money did you make out of it? Is the topic it covers a hot topic at the moment?

2. Decide if you are going to sell it yourself or have someone else sell it for you

This is imperative to beginning the selling process for the domain name. The domain name, once valued will become a piece of property that can be worth a lot of money. You can spend the time looking for buyers for your product, or you can hire someone else to work for you on a commission basis.

3. Create an active site for the domain name in question

By setting up an active site, you are much more likely to sell the domain, than if you just simply creating a web page only. Bear in mind this is a good way to sell a domain name. When buyers see a complete site, it is more valuable in their eyes. This move is also likely to fetch you a higher price.

4. Closing the deal on a sale

By closing the deal on this sale, the domain name transfers to someone else and you see a profit. This is one of the best ways to sell this type of domain name. Instruct the buyer as to how you are going to transfer it.

This is just a basic primer on how to sell a domain name. This is the simplest version of how to sell one. This gives you the basics to be able to sell and to profit from this type of venture quickly and easily.

Fabian Tan is a well-known Internet Marketing expert and the author of the popular 45-page Report:

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Benefits of Yahoo Domain Registration

If you're like many business owners, you want to get a web presence, but aren't entirely sure how the whole process works.

The first step is to find and register a domain name for your business. You may use Yahoo every day to search the Web, and fortunately, they've also made domain registration very simple. Yahoo Domains is popular among website owners all over the world because of the Internet giant's reliability and cost effectiveness. Yahoo also offers private registration, which allows you to hide your personal information from spammers and other malicious Web users who mine the domain registration (WHOIS) database for personal information.

When you register a domain name with Yahoo Domains, they also provide services to guide you through the process of building a standard website or an e-commerce site.

For important sites you don't want to leave to chance, Yahoo domain registration includes security measures to help prevent domain hijacking and other forms of abuse. You can also be assured that your private information will not be shared with third parties or individuals wanting to buy your registered domain name.

The domain name you choose is critical. It should be concise, memorable, and represent your business well. Unfortunately, many domain names are already registered by other site owners. In cases like this, Yahoo's domain registration process assists you in selecting an appropriate domain name for your site or business by suggesting available domain names based on slight variations of your initial request.

Even if you are on a limited budget, Yahoo domains are affordable, costing less than $20 per year for all top security and customer service features.

Affordability, security, reliability, and great support make Yahoo domains an excellent choice for small businesses and even non-commercial site owners.

Want to further compare domain registrars or learn more about Yahoo Domains? The author recommends Small Business Domain, a free resource which allows you to quickly and easily compare domain name providers.