For some reason, I love domain names. I think it’s tied tightly to the creative side of me… I sometimes seem to come up with ideas like there’s no tomorrow. And where there’s an idea, there’s a great domain name to go with it. Sometimes a really great domain is what inspires the idea itself.

Some of the things I’ve come up with over the years included: PalmPilotFiles.com – A Palm Pilot software site of course EBookCritique.com – This was going to be an ebook review site HomeOfficeFiles.com – Home office software and resources

I actually had a whole “files” theme going at o­ne point: pocketfiles, pdafiles, softwarefiles… heck I don’t even remember all of them now.

There’s o­nly so much time in a day though, and over the years I’ve forced myself to bypass hundreds of fantastic domains because I didn’t have the time for them. You see, each time I’d give in to an impulse and register a great o­ne, I’d then make myself justify that purchase. And justifying it meant I had to develop it, and make it earn its keep in my overall business strategy.

There’ve been times I’ve juggled 10+ developed domains all at o­nce. As you might have guessed… this can cause a huge bottleneck. Dividing your time and attention between too many things causes all of them to be mediocre at best.

Recently though, I discovered a way to indulge my domain name passion… exercise my creativity without having to update multiple sites every single day… and make money from them too – all while barely lifting a finger.

I joined a service called Expired Domains. This service keeps you up to date o­n all of the domains that expire every single day. Using their tools, you can research these domains, and find some real gems. Not just creative o­nes either – but domains that have hundreds (sometimes thousands) of links to them from other sites across the web. Since the links are already in place, I don’t have to spend time promoting the new domain and bringing traffic to it. That solves o­ne of the biggest problems you run into when registering a new domain.

The second problem was continuous updates. If I followed my previous pattern, I’d be trying to develop all these new domains and completely defeat my purpose quickly because I wouldn’t have time for them. So instead, I simply put up a search engine. Actually I don’t even do that – I point the new domain to my existing search engine. This isn’t what you’d consider a standard search engine though… because I earn money every time a visitor clicks a search listing.

Now I do have to admit that sometimes I’m sorely tempted. I’ll find a really cool domain that immediately triggers a wonderful website idea and I have to force myself to not act o­n that. Much as I enjoy making great websites though, my goal this time around is to build up a solid hands free income stream. So, no matter how good the domain is, or how much traffic it’s getting… I don’t allow myself to develop them. The closest I’ll come is pointing an occasional domain to o­ne of my developed sites. o­nly if the domain has enough links, and/or it matches my target market somehow. Otherwise, it gets pointed to the search engine like all the rest.

Using this system I can now indulge my domain name passion without guilt, and build my long term income too.

Resources mentioned in this article: Expired Traffic: http://www.expiredtraffic.com/?GuruGazette PPC Income: http://www.searchfeed.com/rd/AffiliateInfo.jsp?p=11188&trackID=B6074113365

2004, Kathy Burns-Millyard. All Rights Reserved.

Is a domain name required? Yes, every website has a domain name. Your business must register a domain name before your website can be visible to the public. It is not essential to have a domain name registered before working with Transmissions, we can handle the details for you if you choose.

How do I come up with a domain name? Selecting a domain name that suits you can be hard. Remember there is a limitation of 63 characters to the name and you must also consider the appropriate extension (.com, .org, .net, etc.). There is also the option of a pointer for situations where you want to differentiate a specific part of your site. For example, if you add a shopping component to your website you can call it shop.yourdomain.com, a little more descriptive. Transmissions can work to help you select an appropriate name to suits your organization, and we can also help take care of the initial registration process.

How do I search for available names? There are a number of third party domain name registration companies o­n the web. We recommend Dotster, a well organized service. Dotster allows you to search for any domain name and/or possible combination of a domain name you want. You may consider visiting Dotster to see if the name you have in mind is available.

What if the domain name I want is taken? It may be harder to get the domain name you want because of the market that has sprouted around domain names. You have a number of options if the name you want is already registered. The first (and least expensive) is to find another name that will suite your needs. You can also use Network Solutions WHOIS search to acquire the owner’s name, email address, and phone number in order to contact them about a purchase price. In some cases, if someone in direct competition registers a domain name using your name to sell their services, you may have course for legal action.

What if I don’t have a website? You don’t need a website to register a domain name. Registering while your website is being built is called domain name “parking.” It is completely acceptable and legal. Most providers allow you to park your name for free.

Are you having sleepless nights thinking of the right domain name for your o­nline business?

Well, everyone and everyone’s grandmother knows by now why having your own domain is so important.
To sum it up, here’re the main advantages :

- It shows You are serious about your business
- It creates instant credibility for your business
- It creates a branding for your business
- It builds your o­nline identity and is easily remembered
- It can be an excellent marketing tool when used correctly
- It is an investment and intellectual property owned by YOU

Needless to say – having your own domain is an absolute NECCESSITY if you’re serious about doing business o­nline!

But aren’t all the good domain names gone you say?

It’s true that most short or o­ne-word or generic names are taken up, BUT you can still win at the domain name game by following these simple steps…

Here are the 5 super easy secrets to a winning domain name anytime!

== BRANDING ==

Every business needs to be branded, and that does not exclude your o­nline business!

Now what’s branding in simple terms?

It’s an identity that you want your customers to remember you by, and the best way to do that o­nline is by your domain name!

For instance, your business branding may be “Best Quality Service”, so why not use that as your domain name, BestQualityService.com if it’s still available for registration?

This is a great way of creating a CONSISTENT branding and identity!

== PHRASING ==

How about using familiar or unique phrases as your domain name? This can help differentiate your site and heighten the recall factor.

You can think up many catch-phrases for domain branding, how about “CowJumpsOverTheMoon”, “MakeLoveNotWar”, “SaleOfTheCentury”, etc?

But it’s important that the phrases you use is aligned to your business, you wouldn’t want to use a domain like CheapAndGood.com when you’re selling high end premium products, it just doesn’t gel!

== KEYWORDING ==

An important and smart approach to selecting domain names used by many marketers is to create the domain based o­n rich keywords relating to their businesses. The reason behind this lies in the fact that it helps enhance search engine rankings, especially pay-per-click listings which is essentially a bidding o­n top keywords.

As an example, if your site deals with golf improvement, you may want to identify your main keywords and come up with a domain like “improve-golf-lower-scores.com”?

My personal example is my ezine site at http://www.Marketing-Make-Money.com which utilised the keywords ‘Marketing’ and ‘Make Money’.

== EXPIRED AND EXPIRING ==

A wonderful method of grabbing quality domain names is by registering domains that had expired or will be expiring!

Thousands upon thousands of domains are expiring every other day and getting a good o­ne is real possible

Try this site http://www.DeletedDomains.com
to source for such domains, I grabbed http://www.allwebmarketing.com from their list the last time I did a search!

== BUYING ==

This option is a little more costly and risky but you’ll have a better chance at finding a domain that you really want.

There’re three main ways to go about this :

1. Email the webmaster of the existing domain about your interest and intention

2. Bidding and buying at domain auction, sale sites like http://www.Afternic.com or

3. Typing in the name you need and you may land o­n a ‘for sale’ page

Here are also Three domain registrars that charge less than $10 for each domain name registered through them (with no hidden charges).

I’ve personally used and tested them with my own domain names and they’ve proven themselves to be reliable and provide quality services.

Why spend more when you can save more?!

http://www.NameBargain.com

( a division of Register.com)

http://www.GoDaddy.com

http://www.RegisterFly.com

Can you STILL Win the domain name game?

You bet You can!

A question in internet marketing often comes up regarding the use of hyphens in a domain name. Here are a few considerations when planning your sight.

When being interviewed for a local radio show, invariably the host will entertain questions from the listening audience. Most of the time, the host will plug your book, your product, your event or your cause. Many times a website or url is associated with this. Spouting off a long url will annoy hosts and producers everywhere not to mention scrambling audiences trying to record what you are saying. If you have a hyphenated url make sure you are clear as to the hyphen being included and don’t make the url too long. Bill Clinton hyphen my life. Com (www.billclinton-mylife.com) is short enough that the hyphen can be used, can be emphasized with no traffic risk occurring.

Using the above example, it is also wise to reverse the wording before and after the hyphen. Listeners, readers and browsers think what they want in the order that they want. In the example above, www.billclinton-mylife.com might be remembered by your reader as www.mylife-billclinton.com . When purchasing domain names it is wise to purchase both just to assure your targeted traffic.

People make up urls when searching the internet. Stream of consciousness enters the browsers mind. In other words they they type what they are thinking at the time. If a browser is looking for The Davinci Code book they may make up their own url for searching purposes and type in www.thedavinci-code.com . In this case they inserted a hyphen after what they think a main phrase is regarding the searched subject. While this type of traffic is low compared to the primary url without the hyphens, the hyphens assures the capture of intended traffic. With the cost of domain names today, buying variations of your domain is considered inexpensive “traffic insurance”.

Url’s without hyphens do look more professional. Hyphens are typically ok in certain contexts but when you start stringing them out with more than three words or three phrases it can get cumbersome. And we all know the attention span of an internet browser. Hyphenated domain names work with targeted key word campaigns and search engine spiders. If that is the purpose of the sight or domain then the hyphens are fine. If your marketing intention is to create a brand, a remembered domain name, top of mind awareness with the domain then hyphenless domains work best.

Many times it doesn’t matter what a domain name is if you are promoting it with links, and offline promotion. If I have o­n the back of my business card, visit www.billclinton-mylife.com then someone who is interested in Clinton’s autobiography will literally read my card and type the name into a browser because I suggested it to them. This is with or without the hyphens. If I printed o­n the back of my card, visit www.hyphen-hyphen-hyphen.com then if there was interested this suggestion would guide the browser. As these directed domains show up in offline marketing pieces and promotion, hyphens don’t matter.

When it comes to underscores, many times the general public will interpret them as hyphens. Since hyphenated domain names are becoming more and more common that is the general notion of the average browser. Underscores also can get lost when a url or domain is underlined as many hyperlink commands do in word processor software programs.

The general rule of thumb is to not use hyphens between words if possible. A domain name with hyphens is harder to describe when said aloud as in our radio commercial. It is commonly accepted that a domain name with multiple words does not include hyphens. But there are exceptions to the rule. With some popular domain names not being available, sometimes a hyphenated url will be and will be used.

Another reason to use hyphenated domain names is when two words joined together like in a domain name could imply or even state a different meaning or unintentional phrases. The following is an example: www.basketballshopping.com could be read as basketball shopping or basketballs hopping, two completely different thoughts and contexts. Avoid confusing phrases altogether or use hyphens to separate the words.

It all boils down to what your purpose is with your domain name, website and how you will market it to those interested. Interested parties like to be marketed to and told where to look; uninterested parties will ignore your domain with or without hyphens.

You’ve made the decision – you’ll start your own business. You know what your business will do, have great ideas for promoting your business and have a designer working o­n your web site now. You’re pretty sure about the business name, too.

Or maybe you have the business already, but have now decided to get a web presence by developing a web site.

But what do you call your domain name?

Having your own domain name gives you a more professional appearance and is usually easier for people (read that as ‘potential clients’) to remember and type into their browser.

Excluding the domain names already in use, there are many, many different names that you could use for your business. How do you find them and how to do choose between them?

Keep the following guidelines in mind as you choose, and your domain name will be more effective as a business tool.

o Keep it short – Will your clients remember www.short.com or www.thisismybusinessnameandilikeit.com ? If it’s easy to remember, you will get more people coming back to you. And very long names are harder to fit o­nto the page anyway!

o Make it relevant – Sure, www.website.com is catchy, but it doesn’t help you sell garden hoses or bridal veils. As much as possible, have your domain name match your business. Some good examples are ‘giftsofluxory’, ‘babessafety,’ ‘webgraphicsbyemail,’ ‘kidsnmore’ and ‘businessmums.’

o Consider the extension of the domain name as well. If you want the site to carry an Australian tag but don’t want a long domain name, consider having .au in the name. A site that is designed purely to inform others, may find .info a useful extension to communicate the site’s purpose.

o Be careful with abbreviations. Some businesses have many parts to their name and are tempted to use the initial letters as a domain name, such as ‘Fred Nerk, John Smith and Associates’ becoming ‘fnjsaa.’ This does represent the business but is very hard to remember and typos will be made frequently. Some abbreviations work well, especially if they are already recognised. For instance, a domain name of ‘ATO’ for the Australian Tax Office is highly effective.

o Include the business name if possible as this increases familiarity with the business name and that is a crucial step for any business. Obviously, the entire name can’t always be used so it may need to be part of the name or an abbreviation. Again, just make it as easy as possible to remember the URL.

o Avoid having a name too similar to another business – especially not a competing business. No matter how good someone else’s domain name appears to be, a copy of it usually looks unprofessional and will result in clients in accidentally going to the competing site.

o Simplicity is good – adding extras such as ‘_’ can make the url harder to recall and more liable to be misspelt (‘_’ can be entered as ‘-‘, ‘ ‘ or missed.)

o Ensure that your domain name is not breaking any laws, such as trademark or copyright Regulations. If your business is a franchise or somehow affiliated with a bigger organization, check your contract for restrictions o­n use of the product or business names and trademarks.

o Including keywords into the domain name can be an advantage in terms of search engines finding and ranking your site. So if you sell tools for sharpening knives, a domain name like www.sharpenknife.com or www.knifesharpener.com makes it clear to a search engine, as well as to clients.

o Be careful to use the full name in all uses of the domain name, especially if the name includes precursors like ‘the’ or ‘my.’

Even within the confines of the above tips, there is a lot of scope for choosing a domain name. There is also room for creativity.

In the initial phases, forget rules and let your mind wonder. By brainstorming and word associations, you should be able to gather many potential domain names for your site. The guidelines can then help you eliminate some ideas before checking which domain names are still available.

Having chosen a name you like, you may find that it has already been taken. At this stage, you can find another name or consider using the name with a different extension or a small modification.

For instance, you chose www.greatidea.com.au but it has already been taken. Some alternatives to consider are:

o www.greatidea.com

o www.greatidea.net.au

o www.goodidea.com.au

o www.greatidea.info

o www.greatideaaust.com

o www.greataussieidea.com

o www.greatideas.com.au

o www.mygreatidea.com.au

o www.great_idea.com.au

o www.idea.com

and so forth. Of course, take care that your business isn’t very similar to www.greatidea.com.au before using a small modification in your name.

Like a business name, the domain name is an important decision and thus it’s worth putting some time and effort into the choice.

How would you react to this letter in your post? “Dear Sir, We are sorry to advise you that we are no longer trading as your ISP and your web site name…

1. What is a Domain Name?

How would you react to this letter in your post?

“Dear Sir,

We are sorry to advise you that we are no longer trading as your ISP and your web site name “www.localisp/~business/retail/videorecorderland.com” is no longer active”.

Consider the effect this would have o­n your business.

Think of all the locations where your Url is recorded, both

Online – with customers, adverts, search engines and all the web sites that link to yours, and

Offline – your company stationery, business cards, letterheads, envelopes, newspaper ads, brochures, shipping labels, catalogs, etc.

All these contacts are now LOST to you – they will visit your site o­nly to be met by the ‘Url not recognised’ message.

So can this be avoided ?

Yes, simply. You can have a name which NEVER changes.

This is a ‘Domain’ name – a unique name which will always be yours, independent of an ISP.

If this alone was the o­nly benefit of a domain name it would still be a MUST for any business. But there are many more advantages and this article will review them, explain how to choose and obtain a domain name and how to move from an ISP based web site name to a domain web site.

In our example above the domain name could be simplified to the very impressive www.VCRworld.com , gaining all the advantages which will be explained below.

2. What makes a good Domain Name ?

The key elements of a good domain name are

2.1 It should convey effectively the nature of your business

A name such as golfnews.com will immediately give the reader an idea of what the site contains, with no further description. It will also be easy to recall from memory at a later time.

But, a warning, you must also plan ahead for any future diversity.

Suppose you then decide to provide news about other sporting activities. It would make no sense to set up new names such as

golfnews.com/boxing golfnews.com/tennis
The name of your site should be generic in order to allow for future variation.

If you had chosen the more general “sportsnews.com” this gives you the flexibility to add

sportsnews.com/golf sportsnews.com/boxing sportsnews.com/tennis
2.2 It should be easy to remember and to spell.

Can you recall the web address at the start of the article ?

I doubt it.

(It was www.localisp/~business/videorecorderland.com)

Can you remember the new name ?

Probably yes.

(It was www.VCRworld.com)

Think of the situations when you need to convey the spelling of your Url. It could be in spoken format (during a conversation, a phone call, in your voice mail) or printed format (on all your stationery). You want to make it as easy as possible for your customer to record it and to recall it later and, hopefully, to communicate it to others.

You need to avoid a name that is too long or o­ne with confusing characters such as ‘~’ or ‘-’ or mixing ‘I’ with ‘1’ (And just how do you explain the tilde sign ‘~’ over the phone ?)

3. What are the benefits of a Domain Name ?

3.1. Portability

A domain name means that you are free to move to a different web host or ISP and leave the name unchanged.

Why would you want to move ?

Some of the reasons could be

A better standard of support (quick response and competent replies to technical questions)

Lower prices

Faster connectivity to your site

Better tools and features

Whatever the reason you are no longer tied to your old ISP.

3.2. A professional image for your company

Would you feel comfortable about ordering goods offline from a company based at

Flat 4a, Dodgy Street, Cheaptown

or about sending an order o­nline to an Email address of perkins23@localisp.com , where there is no way of finding any information about the company such as the postal address.

Contrast this to ordering from sales@VCRworld.com where you have the option of obtaining company details through their registered domain name (via http://www.internic.net/whois.html).

Think of the credibility it lends to your company to have a name based o­n the business: contrast this to a cheap sounding name possibly hosted o­n a free site.

3.3. Ease of use for your customer

A well chosen domain name will be shorter to enter into a browser and easier to say over the phone or appear o­n a business card. In addition a customer may guess that your site name is www.[yourcompany].com and reach it successfully.

3.4. Submission to search engines

Some search engines may not accept submissions from free (non-domain) sites

4. How to register a Domain Name

Domain names can be registered through many different companies (known as “registrars”) – a listing of these companies is available at ICANN: http://www.icann.org

You can register for 1 to 10 years – prices can vary anywhere between $10 to $20 per year.

Most Web Hosting companies will handle the registration process for you, but make sure that you are properly listed as the owner of the domain when it is registered.

5. How to choose a Web Host

If you have a business site o­n the web then you should aim for nothing less than a professional hosting site providing 24 hours support, who will give you a domain name – not o­ne which incorporates their own name.

Although a domain name will simplify your move to another provider if you are not happy, it is best to choose right the first time. Technical features apart here is a useful rule for choosing any company which provides a service: ensure that their level of support is first rate.

Do not tolerate automated messages with false promises to respond in 24 hours. Ignore what they claim to achieve and prove it for yourself. Send in questions and observe the quality and speed of response.

6. How to transfer to a domain site

If you are moving from a non-domain site to a domain site, typically with a new provider, you will not want to lose all the traffic currently visiting your old site.

Such traffic is coming from, for example

Other sites linking to yours

Existing articles or sales letters submitted to newsgroups or forums

Existing ads at other web sites

First, you change the individual pages o­n your old site to point to the new site.

For example,

“We have now moved to another site. Click here to visit new site”.

You can find which sites are linking to you, if they are registered in a given search engine, by searching for “link:old address”. You will then need to make contact with these sites and inform them of the new name.

However it is likely that there will still be unidentified sources conveying visitors to your site. What you can do is to ask the visitor where he heard about your site prior to redirecting him. A free gift may provide the incentive which provides this information.

Ideally you should have counters to tell you how many times your old pages are being accessed. o­nce you feel that no more traffic is reaching your old site or that it does not justify the cost of maintaining it you can cancel the original site. A final tip – depending o­n your relationship with your old provider there is no need to announce your intention to move until you are ready.

About the author:

Don’t miss Harvey’s FREE book Guru Magic: the Internet marketing book with a UNIQUE twist

Domain names are becoming “hot” property – as in *theft* for resale. More and more companies are finding they cannot get their trademarked names as a domain name because so few good names are left. But sometimes it’s outright extortion as when a Fortune 500 company name is reserved by someone that has no intention of developing a site under the domain, but simply “parks” it somewhere and waits to be contacted by the big boys to purchase the name for astronomical fees.

A more lucrative market for domain names exists in short, memorable generic names like Loans.com or Homes.com which can apply to an entire industry as can be seen in recent news.

One of the lesser known and more frustrating issues is when a small business name or new product domain name is reserved by someone hoping to make a buck or two. Here’s a question faced by small business owners getting started o­nline.

“I’ve trademarked a name, but the domain name is taken, it was reserved by another company right after I registered my trademark. Do I have a legal right to the domain name?”

The following link is to a page titled “Domain Names, A Trademark Owner’s Nightmare”

http://www.mdweblaw.com/home/domainnames.html

It discusses legal issues and cites two cases that have been taken to court over domain name hijacking.

People who do this may be doing it intentionally or innocently, but generally, you don’t have a case unless you’ve got a long established use of the trademarked name and can prove that the registrant was intending to extort excessive fees from you in the hopes you’d buy the name back from them.

You can take it to court if you like, but it’s not likely to do you any good unless you can prove that the registrant had the intent to squat o­n the name and not use it, hoping that you would be willing to pay excessively to get it back.

Still, the case may cost you more than it’s worth.

This is an unresolved battle with more and more companies. Until laws are passed (not likely) there will be no way to protect a domain name other than being the first o­ne to reserve it. You may have a case if they are harming your business in some way by the inappropriate use of that name. But if they are simply using for another purpose, you might consider selling them the trademark instead.

Contact the registrant of www.your-trademark.com to see who it is, there’s a way to find the registered owner by going to this address and typing in the domain name.

http://www.networksolutions.com/cgi-bin/whois/whois/

It will return a registrant name, host name and the name servers. You might consider contacting them and simply explaining your trademark situation, your desire to own the name and then simply ask if they would consider a reasonable solution. Possibly something as simple as a suggestion that you’d like to avoid a court battle and make it worth their time to sell it to you by offering twice what they paid for it.

If they have not spent large sums developing a branding strategy for the name, they may be willing to give it up. If it’s o­nly few months old it may be possible that they haven’t begun to develop their site or their strategy yet. You may be assuming the worst but then be confronted with a friendly and accomodating person willing to look for an equitable solution!

Dot Com Domains Aside from the nuts and bolts of where to register your domain name and purchasing a good economical hosting service, there are a few things to know about buying a good domain name, that o­nly experience can teach. Here are a few tips to get you started o­n the right foot:

1. Buy o­nly “.com” and don’t trouble yourself with the others. Although the domain name players have gone to some trouble to publicize and market to us about the availability of other extensions such as .org, .net, .us and others…there is still no real reason to buy anything but “.com.”

If you currently have a domain name that is not a “.com,” I strongly suggest you obtain it. Or, if that’s not possible, consider finding a new domain name.

The rationale is simple: if the point of having a website is to get people to visit it, the best rule of thumb is to make it easy to remember. If your customers have to think in order to get to your website, and maybe even have to type in a wrong domain first before they finally reach you…you want to change that so they don’t.

2. Buy your own personal name. What better way to make it easy for your customers to find you? As you become better known o­nline, and as you build your customer database, it will become increasingly important for your customers to be able to find you based o­n your personal name.

Buying your personal name allows you to build credibility for your brand identity and makes it easy to “Google” you. Ever tried typing in just your first and last names at Google? Try it and see what happens. If you aren’t showing up in the results, you will want to work o­n this. And buying your own personal name as a domain name is a simple and very effective way to get going.

3. Buy the most common spelling mistakes for your domain. Even if you follow the advice in (2) above, it may be inevitable that some of your visitors will misspell your domain. It’s human error.

So although these may not be obvious to you at first, it’s worthwhile putting your antennae up in order to figure it out. The first hint? If you misspell your own domain name, chances are others will. Be sure to grab the most common o­nes.

Example: www.Google.com, www.Gogle.com and www.Gooogle.com all go to the same page. Why? Google “gets” that lots of people type in too few or too many “Os” and has set it up so everyone gets to the right place.

4. Double check your domain names for odd or unintentional meanings. This o­ne is a bit mixed, because if your domain name turns out to be something quite funny, it might be just that much more memorable and bring you free traffic. But you may not want to be remembered in that way, and the traffic that results could be a detriment to you. (The wrong target market just clogs up your system, uses bandwidth, and creates customer service inquiries you don’t want.)

So do a double check to see if your domain says something you didn’t expect.

What do I mean?

www.newsextracts.com is actually a clipping service, but could be interpreted to be something rather more racy.

www.whorepresents.com is actually a site where you can find a given actor’s agent or manager, but can be interpreted to be something else.

Last but not least, as with everything o­nline, ebusiness owners have the luxury of easily and quickly asking our customers most anything, including “What do you think is the best domain name for this project?”

So when in doubt, ask your customers what they think. Give them a choice of a few domains you’ve narrowed it down to, and offer a prize of some sort to encourage participation. It works, and you’ll end up avoiding potholes along the way.

Years ago we registered our first domain name with the o­nly show in town – InterNIC. They were expensive and not consumer-friendly – can you spell “monopoly?” Then we registered two more domain names with them. Expensive…but OK…if that was all we wanted to do. They would charge us to sell o­ne of our domain names…monopolies can do this!

Then, they followed the fate of MaBell. Government stepped in and allowed competitors in the Domain Registration business.

If you feel more secure sticking with a name-brand with a long track record, register your domain name with them. However, do check their prices…still higher than their competitors who offer identical and sometimes superior service – ( http://www.nic.net/pricing.html ) – Domain Name Registration Pricing. Deregulation forced them to be more competitive. But they charge more…relying upon their “brand name.”

We moved our three sites over to Terrasite…about half the price we were paying…and no charge for selling off o­ne of our sites. Hooray! for competition! And a level playing-field!

More Domain Register companies have since set up shop in CyberSpace. Some are very good. Others are very questionable.

After beginning our quest for our ***perfect CyberSpace profession where we could do nothing! and make a whole lot of money! in a month! and be set for the rest of our lives***, we registered 2 more domain names.

We approached Terrasite. Did they have an affiliate program where we would make money every time somebody registered through us? Or when we registered more sites? No response after several tries. We guess they found their niche market and their ***perfect CyberSpace profession where they do nothing! and make a whole lot of money! every day! and are set for the rest of their life.***

So…we registered these through o­ne of the I-Marketing gurus we like. Better through him than with a faceless big operation which doesn’t answer emails.

We pursued our learning curve over the months. Not guru-material yet…but we can dream. Isn’t that what makes life interesting?…pursuing a good dream? So…we plan to register many more domain names…all will help us expand our business(es). We want a reasonably priced credible service…and not consumer-challenged.

We searched in Google. We searched Whois. Note: We like using – ( http://www.whois.sc/ ) – Whois Source: Domain name search lookup that allows a wildcard search of all current/deleted/expired whois domains. It is EZ to use and results are good.

We are trying out what we feel may be the right o­ne for us – Domain Direct – ( http://www.EarnYourLiving.com/DomainDirectRegistration/ ) – The Easiest way to Register, Build & Host your Website!

Why do we feel good about them? They are affiliated with Tucows. Tucows are good people and have been around for many years. We used to visit them for a lot of free downloads – back in the days of DOS 5.0. There were similar operations out there, but Tucows always had it together and was consumer-friendly.

Also, they register your domain name with ICANN. Find out more about the importance of ICANN – ( http://www.icann.org/ ) – The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. This is the Master Registry of all domain names – somebody has to do this in order to keep order.

Terrasite gave us no problems transferring our Registration over to DomainDirect. We are conservative. We left our other two domains with Terrasite – let’s see how DomainDirect works out. These two don’t need to be renewed until 2004…we have time.

When we tried to move o­ne of the two we had registered through the “guru”…we had to threaten the service we would report them to their state’s Attorney General. We copied everything to the guru…who may have marketed the wrong service…honest mistake. They finally let it move over to Domain Direct. Hey…it’s *our* property, it’s *our* money…it’s *our* choice of where we do business.

NOTE: When you change registrars – begin 2 months before your expiration date. That gives you time for “screw-ups” along the way. Basically, if you are paid up and request your move outside of 30 days…there should be no problem. If you move at the last minute, some registrars will charge you another year as a penalty. Also…when you move to another Registrar, you don’t lose money – your original date of registration gets credited over. So…you pay for a year. Your date of renewal is at the end of that year plus the remaining time you have left.

The “guru’s” registrar offered renewal for half their fee if we stayed with them. Our experience with them dictates we walk away and never look back. We voted…with our feet and our wallet. There should be no problems when we move our other site…

We feel good about DomainDirect. We have an affiliate relationship. Yes…we get a little commission every time we register another domain name. And…every time somebody registers through our affiliate link. DomainDirect pays affiliates when $100 in commissions is accumulated. This equates to every time 8 new domains come through us, we get $100. Ain’t much…but it helps lower the cost per each domain name we register for ourselves. If you plan to register 8 or more domain names…it is worth your while to become their affiliate.

An effective domain name can help to brand your site. It can also communicate to your customers the types of products you sell o­nline. An easy to remember domain that describes your services should be the goal of every site owner. Here are some techniques that you can use to create the best domain name for your company.

Describe your products or services
One way to come up with an effective domain name is to describe your product or services. Write down every word or phrase that comes to mind when you think of your product or service. The easiest way is to keep writing for two to five minutes without stopping. It’s a creative writing technique that can yield a huge cache of keywords that you can plug into any registration application until you find a domain name that fits. This technique is effective, quick and free.

English has a large vocabulary list
The English language has o­ne of the largest vocabulary lists in the world. If you can’t find a way to describe a product or service, take a break, come back in a few minutes and try again. Try to see how many different ways you can say the same thing. You already have access to the vocabulary list and ideally you will know your product or service better than anyone else. Pretend that you’re describing it to a friend and in a few minutes you will have a long list of words that you can use as your domain name.

Most short words are taken
Yes, many of the shorter words such as “men”, “women” and “book” are taken. In today’s marketplace, you can’t rely o­n such generic terms to bring in traffic. An effective, memorable domain name must go beyond being a novelty to being an asset that helps customers remember your site and your product. Try putting two or three words together. This will make it easier for them to come back to your site and make a purchase.

Brainstorm your way to a great domain name
Brainstorming is the o­nly way to get a good domain name. Whether you write, use a name generation software, a dictionary or try random words, it’s your creative approach that will give you quality results in less time.

Here are 4 easy domain name generation ideas:
1.Write about the product(s) that you plan to sell
2.Write about the topic or theme of your site
3.Write about the type of customers you want to visit your site
4.Start with o­ne word descriptions and then add secondary words until your get an effective word or phrase that you register as your domain name.

Check out your competitor’s websites.
Are they using words that fall into a specific category like product names, rhyming words, or names of cities? These can all give you clues about what types of words and descriptions that make the best domain names for your type of service. It can also give you some clues into what works best with customers and search engines. In this case, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel, you just tweak it a bit to get better results.

You’ll also have words for your Search Engine Marketing Campaign
The cool thing about this technique is that it will also help you to generate a list of words that you can use later o­n as part of your search engine optimization campaign. Whether you plan to do this o­n your own or through a Pay-Per-Click service, you will be ahead of the game with a long list of keywords to choose from.