How To Choose A Good Domain Name For Your Blog

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Choosing a good domain name is as equally important as choosing a name for your newborn child, if not more so, because, unlike people’s names, you can’t reuse a domain name that’s already taken. You also have to keep in mind that the name you choose will be your brand; thus, it should be catchy and short enough to be memorable, preferably with a top-level domain.

Your domain name can give you a successful online presence or it can bury you in the virtual world. A carefully crafted one can draw traffic to your blog and build your brand. And, like a spouse, it’s something you’ll have to live with. You can change it, if necessary, for compelling reasons but you’ll have to redirect and deal with other consequences. From this perspective, you’ll want the perfect domain name when you launch your blog. [Read more…]

6 Domain Buying Strategies to Skyrocket Your Digital Revenues

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There’s money to be made by buying domains.

It’s not limited to being an indirect part of a money-making online venture like buying a domain name to be used for a monetized blog or online store. This post does not aim to show how it’s possible to make money with expensive domain names. You can make domain names additional sources of revenues especially if you employ the right digital branding and marketing strategies.

Consider the following strategies as you deal with the new dynamics of domain investment and exploit new opportunities.

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Pros & Cons of Using a New TLD for Your Blog

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You can tell an old-school New Yorker by their area code: If someone still has a phone number that begins with 212, they’ve been holding onto that number for years.

Once, all of New York carried the 212, but around 1992, 718 came onto the scene for the outer boroughs while 212 held strong. Eventually, there were just too much demand for new numbers. Now a new Manhattanite will be slapped with 646 before the rest of their number. It’s the sign of the times.

The same could be said for the “.com” era of domain names. At the beginning of the Internet, that domain moniker was the only real game in town. Soon .net and .org encroached on the realm in order for even more businesses to set up shop. It was still relatively easy to find a decent domain name. [Read more…]

The Most Expensive Domain Sales Ever

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According to market research firm eMarketer, e-commerce sales will go beyond $3.5 trillion over the next five years, demonstrating the monumental money making potential the Internet can afford. But while today’s online world enables businesses to sell their products and services on a global scale, some entrepreneurs have made money off the web itself.

Recognising the future power and potential of the Internet, a number of visionary people registered lots of .com domain names in the early nineties. Therefore, when multinational corporations wanted to claim the company’s name or another unique URL as their web address, they would have to pay the owner of the domain thousands, if not millions for the privilege. [Read more…]

7 Powerful Tips For Choosing A Domain Name

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If you have a great idea for a website, you’re first going to need to purchase a domain name.  If you’re new to blogging, you have to realize that a domain is quite different than a web hosting plan (which is a term you encounter often).  A domain name is the URL of the site – the “address” where people can find you – while the web host is where all the data in your blog is stored.

While both are important, your priority should be your domain name. Before anything else, sit down and choose the right domain name that is aligned with your goals.

Here are 7 tips for choosing the perfect domain name for your blog

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5 Best Tools for Coming Up with the Perfect Domain Name

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Domain names have always had an impact in the branding and SEO of online businesses. In the past, online marketers used “Exact Match Domains” or EMDs, which are domain names that are the same as a key phrase they are targeting. Although this is no longer as effective after Google’s EMD update in 2012, coming up with a domain name that’s relevant and conveys a meaningful message to your would-be visitors. Adding a keyword or two in the domain name has also shown to increase a website’s performance in ads and SERP listings. [Read more…]

7 Tips for Choosing the Perfect Domain Name for Your Website / Business

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Brainstorming the right domain name for your business idea, product, service or blog requires a lot of imagination, strategy, originality, research and good linguistic design practices. Purchasing your domain name is quite similar to buying a piece of real estate as it truly is an investment that can help you make millions from your idea and create the sticky effect every marketer is aiming for.

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Essentially, it’s not a decision that should be quick and impulsive. Do your research, take the time to think about the name and the factors discussed below. Whois.domaintools.com is a very useful website that provides information on whether a domain is available for registration or not or you could check the registry through any web hosting provider. [Read more…]

Why We Don’t Need More Domain Extensions

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Domain Extension ImageOver the past year, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Named and Numbers (ICANN), the non-profit organization that is responsible for, among other things, assigning domain names on the Internet, has given initial approval for over 1,500 new “top level domains” (abbreviated as TLDs and sometimes referred to as “domain extensions”).

This means, fairly soon, you could start seeing sites like http://www.site.love, http://www.site.beauty and http://www.site.toys, among many others.

However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll be snapping up your own .baby or .love domain any time soon, many of the extensions may wind up being controlled by private organizations, such as L’oreal’s bid to control .beauty, where there are obvious business interests in the TLD itself, not in selling new domains. As such, many of those applications are for closed registrations, meaning that the operators of the extension will be selective in who they allow to register.

This has already sparked a predictable and understandable fear of corporate control over the Internet. But while the discussion about the balance between corporate control and Internet freedom is important, it’s also important to ask why ICANN is so eager to expand the number of extensions so quickly and what the impact of that expansion could be on the Internet.

Sadly, if previous expansions have taught us anything, it’s probably the latter. [Read more…]

If I Could Start My Blog Over Again…

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In August of 2005 I sat down to write my first few posts for a new blog, Plagiarism Today. It was my first attempt at a blog and at the time, it was viewed more as a side project than anything big.

Yet, with time it grew, not just in terms of readership, but also in terms of the amount of time I spent on it. First becoming my primary site and then a full-time business. Currently, I spent about 60 hours a week on PT-related issues and am very stunned by what the site has become.

However, with this experience came a lot of lessons, many of them hard. Some things I did well from day one, many things I did not. Though I’ve been able to go back and fix many of my mistakes there are some I haven’t and probably never will.

Still, if I could do it all over again, there are many things I would change. Here’s a list of five of the more important decisions that, if given a second chance, I would not repeat. [Read more…]