You have taken the time to put together a great website. You have collected pictures, designed or bought a nifty template, and filled it with great text. Your website is ready to go. Everything looks great ? until you decide to host your site on a free hosting account provided by your ISP. Big mistake.

Having no domain name is no big deal if all that you will ever do with the website is post family pictures. A domain name is mandatory though, if you plan to do business online. If you don’t take your business seriously, why should anyone else?

Domain names build trust in your website visitors

One of the biggest barriers to doing business online is the lack of face to face communication. When people can’t look into your eyes and size you up in person, they are slower to trust you. In the absence of being able to talk face to face, your website and everything about it, communicates trust, or the lack thereof.

Registering a domain name is an important first step to building the trust your visitor has in you and your company. Always keep in mind that trust is much easier to lose than it is to build in the first place. It takes a long time to build trust but it takes no time at all to destroy it.

Domain names are portable

When you go with a generic website address from your ISP, the few dollars you save per year are far less costly than the lack of mobility to you get with a free website address. You may have hopes that your part time web project will one day lead to a full time income. When you have a free website address, you are stuck to that ISP. In contrast, when you own a domain name, you can take your domain name to any web hosting company you choose.

As the traffic to your website builds and your website climbs in the search listings, changing its name later is impossible without taking a big traffic hit. When you have a domain name however, changing hosts will have very little effect on your traffic. This is even more important if your website is suddenly hit with a major increase in traffic. You may need to change web hosts but if you don’t have a domain name, that traffic may disappear. On top of that, if you start using too much bandwidth on your free hosting account, your provider will most likely pull the plug.

Domain names make it easier for your prospects to email you

When you have a domain name, it looks more professional. Having an email like jack@yourdomain.com looks far better and is easier to remember than jack.lastname@yourisp.com. Easier for your prospect translates into more money earned for you.

Domain name registration is a no brainer and something you should do right away.

Joe Duchesne is president of Yowling. Business web hosting and domain registration are two of the services they offer. Reprint freely as long as you keep both clickable links found in this resource box.

What makes a good domain you might ask? Is it the length, how it is spelled or is there something that I missing?

Well the length is important, something short and sweet can do the trick, but if your domain names is something like “INeedATunaFishSandwhich.com” that may work as well. Yes it is a bit on the long side, but it is very easy to remember and so there fore, easy for a person to type in at the end of a busy day. It stays in the mind and can be thought of in a second.

Unusual domains can work as well, as they can catch the viewers attention allowing them to also remember them without much problem. Such domains as eBay, Paypal and others have only a few letters, but you will never forget them when you go to type them in. A site I like to visit to find out about updates on currency and other information is XE.com . Yes, just two simple letters to represent their site, but to type it in, is just like second nature to me because it is so simple.

Another important part is to watch how you spell words for your domain. Yes it may sound like one word, but people may here it as something else. Allot of people like using “Nex” or “Nx” because it sounds like the word “Next”, but when you say to someone “go to my website at NexInformation.com”(just an example site) do they really go to your site or NextInformation.com(not the extra “T”), totalling missing your site all together because of one letter. This also happens even if they see it in plain view, as we all have mistyped a domain name before.

Also make sure your domain name says what your company does or is your company name. If people can connect the domain with your business, then you are already one step ahead.

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Anthony Jewell has over 6 Years experience in the Web & Graphics World. You can visit my business at http://www.logo2d.com

?Copyright 2005 Logo2D.com : Feel free to use this article freely but please keep in the copyright

There are a few important facts that one needs to realize before they opt for a dot net address. Quite often when people need to commit the address of a website to memory, they will not remember the dot net and the first place they will check is the given address with a dot com ending. Many times when they do not find it there, they will hardly ever think of using dot net to repeat the search. That is a lost visitor and maybe even potential client.

What is even more worrying is that there is increasing evidence to suggest that an increasing number of people end up at a website after hearing about it either from a friend or acquaintance, or by seeing an advertisement on Television or hearing about it on radio or reading something about the site. When committing the website address to memory very few will distinctly remember the dot net address if that is the domain name that you have chosen.

Having said that, let us also appreciate the fact it is becoming increasingly difficult for anybody to land a decent dot com address. After years of use, there is hardly any short catchy name that you can think of that will not have been already taken up. Do not even mention search-engine key word friendly domain names which will be virtually impossible to get. This is the reason why folks often settle for a dot net address. Others do not even bother to start their search with dot com domains. This is a big mistake despite the unavailability of good dot com domains, which we have already acknowledged.

Exhaustive efforts should be made to try and secure a dot com domain before you give up and move to dot net. For example you can try and search for abandoned domain names. In fact by making an effort to be really creative and not hurrying the process, it is quite possible to secure a reasonably good dot com domain. You can be sure that it will be well worth the extra effort and time you put into it which will result in better success when you begin to seek traffic. Of course if you just cannot get a dot com domain, a dot net one is a good second choice.

About the author: Lois S. is a Technical Executive Writer for Website Source, Inc. http://www.websitesource.com. Her established writing skills coupled with experience in the website hosting industry have provided internet professionals with marketing, product and service ideas for many years.

This is a service that allows anybody on the internet to reserve a domain name if and when it goes up for sale! This doesn’t seem harmful does it? Guess again…

Companies all over the internet are ordering this service for website url’s that seem to be popular! What if by chance you just happen to forget to re-order your domain name? Let’s say that you go on vacation and neglect to check your emails that are now telling you to renew your domain name? In this case, another company on the other side of the planet sees the fact that your domain name is soon up for grabs, so they order a backorder on your domain name and simply wait to see what you do with it.

So here you are coming back from a very long vacation and what is this? Someone else now owns your domain name because you simply neglected your duty to keep your net-real-estate up-to-date!

Unless you own a Canadian domain name protected by the CIRA, or you have a trademark on your domain name or business name, you are “really” out of luck. Once you are at this point, it may take months before you can prove to the courts that you simply forgot to renew your website address.

Should This Service Be Allowed?

That is a very interesting question. Some would say yes simply because there are literraly 1000′s of websites that aren’t going to be renewed next month. On the flip side, some of those websites are simply a mistake. I think the point here is; avoid making that mistake and renew your domain name for atleast 5 years.

Google is apparently looking through the “WHOIS Data Base” to see which websites have the staying power online and are serious by registering their domain name for more than 1 year at a time.

Again, should domain backordering be allowed?

I say no! Just like a patent for an invention, you should have up to 1 year to claim that domain unless you transfer the domain name to another company or individual. This way we would have less domain name theft and less “hick-ups” from companies who simply forget their important responsibility.

Protect Your Net-Real-Estate!

Your website address is the most important commodity you have online. It is as important as your business name itself. It is what ties your company offline to online. People know you through your domain name. Potential clients may end up visiting your website later on, you woudln’t want some other company in your place?

Please be careful when give out the access information for your domain name to anyone that isn’t within your trusted circle.

I hope this article has helped you out!

About The Author:

Martin Lemieux is the president of the Smartads Advertising Network. Smartads helps small to large companies with their offline and online marketing needs.

International: http://www.smartads.info
Web Designers Directory: http://www.3dimentionaldesign.com

Reprint Rights: You may reprint this article only if it remains the same.

A Cautionary Note

Picking a domain name is like getting married. You are going to have to stick with it till the bitter end. People that use your site will come to know it by the domain name. Repeat visitors will often simply type in the domain name to get to the site, better known as “type in traffic”. As an example, do you search for “Amazon” when you want to buy a book or do simply type in amazon.com? If Amazon were to change its domain name to Desert, there would be a lot of confusion. The same goes with your domain. Once you pick something, stick with it.

Your Choices

Well, the obvious choice is your business name, but it may not be the best. There are four significant issues to consider.

First, is there something about your business name that makes using it as a domain an unwise choice? This situation typically arises if you have a long business name or have plural words. “Halstatt’s Rip’n Marketing Campaigns, Inc.” is going to be a horrible domain name. Clients are going to find it difficult to type in such a domain name.

Double letter problems are a second issue that is entirely unique to the Internet. What if Sams Salon wants to use its business name as a domain? The “s” at the end of first word and beginning of the second can cause confusion. Is the domain name Samssalon.com or Samsalon.com? Confusing your users is a bad way to run a site.

The third issue concerns the nature of your site and search engine optimization. If you are shooting for a particular keyword phrase, you may be better off using that keyword phrase in your domain name. Google, for instance, looks at the domain name when evaluating a site. If the words in your domain name are spaced with dashes, many believe it will help in the ranking process. This is why you see so many xxx-xxxx-xxx.com domain names on the net. If your business focuses on a very specific area, strong consideration should be given to using relevant keywords in your domain name.

Finally, your domain name should end in “.com” and I don’t want to hear any argument or see any rolling of the eyes. The simple fact is that when people think of sites, they always type in .com. Yes, there are other extensions and .us, .net, .biz, etc., may seem unique, but it kills your traffic. Pavlov and his dog experiments had it right. People have been mentally conditioned to type in .com, so don’t select any other ending. If you do, a smart competitor will register the .com version of your name to get some free traffic. If you are really lucky, a porn site will do it!

Take a breath before you select a domain name. Like a spouse, it can be either a good or bad choice.

Halstatt Pires is with http://www.marketingtitan.com – an Internet marketing and advertising company comprised of a search engine optimization specialist providing meta tag optimization services and Internet marketing consultant providing internet marketing solutions through integrated design and programming services.

* Initially, you will want the .com version of your domain name. If your internet business takes off, you may want to consider registering other first-level domains (i.e., .net) of your domain name and perhaps even similar domain names to prevent mistaken identity
* Use domain name registrar that will register the domain under your name under all contacts information (perhaps with the exception of technical contact). It should be clear that you own the domain name.
* Use domain name registrar that provide good online account support.
* Use automatic domain name renewal if you are planning to own the domain name long-term

Pinyo Bhulipongsanon is the owner of GreatNexus Webmaster Resources offering visitors with features such as webmaster forums, webmaster directory, webmaster dictionary, programming scripts, and webmaster articles.

Ebay – Selling a website on ebay can perfect for some and completely useless for others. As most people know ebay, it gets millions of hits every minute from people looking for everything from hair nets to race cars. For starters this is a great way to get word out that your website is for sale. It has lots of people viewing your ads but keep in mind your competition is feirce as so many people post sites for sale on ebay. To sell your website on ebay it has to stand out from the rest.

Forums – Forums tend to be a great place to sell websites. They tend to ask alot more questions about statistics and revenue than most other places but if you have a quality site you can sometimes get alot more for it buy selling your website in forums. Good forums for this include sitepoint.com, geekvillage.com and webhostingtalk.com.

Website Brokers – Website brokers normally go out and try to get you the best possible price for your website. They tend to have contacts in the industry and will get into contact with people you can’t or dont even know exist. They generally charge a fee of around 10%-15%. There are a few websites around where you can post your website up to brokers – kind of like a cross between ebay and a brokers firm.

Sell to your visitors – A commonly used technique to get a good profit from the sale of your website is to post a ‘site for sale’ link or image on the frontpage of the site for sale. This targets the audience to people interested in the topic of the site. But be warned not all of these people are or want to be webmasters.

Personal Contact – If you have a low budget, selling your website though your personal contact can be very rewarding. This takes everyone else out of the equation and you pay no broker fees or ad fees. If you plan on selling your website this way make sure you know enough people who would be intrested in the site.

Website Checklist

Before you get to putting up website for sale ads and hiring a site broker, there are a few things you will need. Firstly, find out in detail your statistics. This including unique visitors per day or month, bandwidth used per month and current and past revenue for the website. Most people who are in the industry will ask for the pagerank of the website too. You can find out your page rank by downloading the google toolbar and re-visiting your website. A pagerank is considered by most webmasters as being a large factor.

About The Author

Matt Dobinson is the owner of PageBrokers.com – A website dedicated to buying and selling websites online for the best possible price.. He also runs WebmasterFreebie.com – an online community for webmasters.

So what makes a “good” domain name? Usually short, single word domains and 2-3 letter .coms, .nets, and .orgs are the best. The more specific the better. These can be hard to come by but when you find them, you can almost guarantee that you can make good money from them. Once you have purchased a nice domain name, get a good appraisal of the name to get an idea of the possible worth (see AppraisalBlast.com). In order to sell your newly appraised name, you have to find a buyer. Here are your basic options for selling your domain name in a nutshell:

1. Sell it on Ebay

This is the easiest and quickest way to sell your domain name. There are several tricks to landing a good sale at Ebay. One is, start your price low. People want a bargain. Once you have received an initial bid, it will draw peoples attention to your name and create more bids. You may want to set a reserve price if you want to make sure you get X amount of dollars. When selling your domain on Ebay, make sure your domain name is in the title of the description. Also, include an appraisal to show to possible buyers the value of the domain. Keep your description short, clean, and really emphasize how important and rare your domain is. For example, if your domain is 3 letters and ends in “I”, stress how most 3 letter domains that are highly valuable end in “I” because it usually stands for “Incorporated”. If it ends in “E” it could stand for “Enterprise”. A little bit of marketing saavy can go a long way. I once sold the domain 0pp.com for over $200. It even has a number in it making it worth very little. But I emphasize its possible uses and potential. Also, spend the extra $1 for the Bold Listing and make sure your auction ends on a Sunday afternoon or evening. This is when most people are browsing Ebay. It will make a big difference.

2. Sell it on Domain Sites

The only sites you should even consider putting your name up for sale is on ebay.com, Afternic, or Sedo. These are the most popular and where some huge sales have taken place. The only downside is that there are high numbers of domains already for sale and usually the site will get a commission of something around 10%. There also may be a small fee to join. Appraisal Blast charges a minimal fee but no commission. Your domain will get more exposure there just because there aren’t hundreds of domains for sale. You may also have luck selling it on forums such as DomainState. The prices of sales there seem to be lower.

3. Contact Large Businesses with Deep Pockets

This approach takes some time and patience. Let’s say you have acquired a great domain name that would work great for any business in the field of the stock market. You may want to locate some of the bigger sites or businesses and make an offer to sell your domain name. Make sure the name you own doens’t have any elements that are already trademarked because you may be forced to give up the name. You may want to go on the Internet and look up current websites that deal with stocks and find ones that don’t have the greatest domain names. Make offers to these sites stating how your domain is much better and will HELP them. If you get a company to bite, the rewards are usually very generous!

In summary, selling domains for high amounts of cash depends on two key elements. First you must have a quality domain, one that doesn’t have numbers or isn’t too long. It must be clear and easily recognizable. “.com” is the best, but even domains such as the “.us” are gaining popularity. The second key is Marketing, Marketing, Marketing! I can’t stress that enough. You have to create a good reason for someone to buy your domain. How can THEY benefit from it. When these two steps are fulfilled, a sale is almost guaranteed!

About The Author

Dayne Herren is a domain seller and buyer, web developer, and artist.

Find out if your domain name is worth THOUSANDS at http://www.appraisalblast.com

Also get your website evaluated by our experts!

What Is A Trademark?

A trademark is a distinctive item that is used to identify a logo, product, device, package or service. The trademark identifies the item as being provided by a particular firm. To protect these items you can obtain a mark from the patent and trademark office that prohibits others from trying to gain economic advantage from your mark.

Domain Name

The patent and trademark office views domain names in a unique way. The office views the “http://www” element as a part of the file transfer process, not your domain name. The “.com”, “.net”, etc., designations are considered top-level domain identifiers and are also disregarded for the purpose of a domain name trademark. For example, our domain name is http://www.sandiegobusinesslawfirm.com. If we submitted the domain name for registration, only the “sandiegobusinesslawfirm” portion would be considered for a mark.

Locators Cannot Be Registered

A domain name is a locator for file pages. When you type in your domain name, a server locates and displays files. If a domain is used solely for this purpose, it will not be granted a mark. Instead, the domain name must be incorporated into the site. For instance, Amazon is recognized as an online bookstore and the site actually has the word “Amazon” on every page. Since “Amazon.com” is more than a locator, Amazon can apply for and receive a trademark. If Amazon used the domain name, bookstore.com, the company would be able to register “Amazon”, but not “bookstore.”

Generic and Descriptive Terms

Domain names that are generic or descriptive in nature cannot be registered because they fail to designate a distinctive product or service. For example, “sandiegobusinesslawfirm” is comprised of generic terms and describes who and where we are, to wit, a San Diego business law firm. This domain name cannot be trademarked. The same result would occur with bank.com, book.com, advice.com, etc.

You may be thinking, “What about ‘Coke?’ “Coke” is a trademarked term because it is a distinctive term for a soft drink product. It just so happens that a brilliant marketing plan has convinced most people to refer to soft drinks as “cokes”, even if they actually prefer another brand!

Trademarks are an important factor in protecting your Internet business. Armed with a trademark, you can keep competitors from pulling traffic off the search engines when people search for your site.

Richard Chapo is with http://www.sandiegobusinesslawfirm.com – a law firm providing legal advice to California businesses. This article is for general education purposes and does not address every facet of the subject matter. Nothing in this article creates an attorney-client relationship.

Some of the domain names were similar to existing web hosting company names (or derivatives of web hosting company names). Others simply had ‘hosting’, ‘host’, or a related term in the domain itself.

So my friend and I were talking and he said something like, “Yeah, it’s a shame ? if only I had the time to develop some content for some of these domains then I might make some money form them”. It turns out that he had no content on any of the domains ? just parked pages, or no content at all. When I investigated the domains, it turned out that there was a small but steady traffic stream that visited these domains. Some simply typed in the domain, others apparently found the domain through a search engine that had categorized the parked page.

So I suggested the following to him ? why not use a service that will take the domain as is ? with no content whatsoever ? and suggest search options that generate revenue for each click? He took my advice, grudgingly I might add, and guess what? He made $50 the first month from just a few of his domains.

He was so excited that he asked what he might do to further increase his revenues from his domain names. I suggested that he use his parking pages (these can be customized with some hosts) to test banners from affiliate programs with the highest paying hosting companies. He placed only three banners at the top of his pages ? with a brief description of the company’s product offerings taken straight from their web sites. This also proved to be a great success ? and his revenue stream increased.

My friend has since invested some time and energy in monetizing his other domains. He has either pointed the domains to a pay per click search engine, or listed affiliate links on almost every domain. This has turned a lackluster domain speculation business into a profit generating pay per click and affiliate business that requires almost no effort to maintain. Needless to say, my friend has taken my out to lunch a couple of times since then.

If you have parked domains and what to try getting paid for search results on those pages, check out this service offered by Sedo (there are others out there as well):

http://www.sedo.com/services/parking.php3

Good luck in transforming your parked domains into cold, hard cash!

About The Author

Derek Vaughan has been actively marketing on the Internet since 1995. Mr. Vaughan has marketed products at the Walt Disney Company as the online marketing manager of ecommerce for ESPN.com. Mr. Vaughan is also the founder of Cheap Hosting Directory – a web hosting review site. Mr. Vaughan holds degrees from both the Indiana University and Purdue University. He has also received a Master of Business Administration degree from the Owen School at Vanderbilt University. Cheap Hosting Directory – http://www.cheaphostingdirectory.com – is a part of TechPad Agency’s network of web hosting portals.