Domain Owl

If you have a website that is not getting the results that hoped for, it is probably because your site is buried to far down in the search results. Enable to get the results that you want, you need to position your website on the first page so that your potential prospects can find you easily.

Knowing Your Customer?

You need to have a clear picture of who your potential customers are. Knowing things like, how old they are, what their gender is, where they live, what level of income do they fall into. Knowing all these things can help you to understand how your prospects find you and if they are willing to pay money for your products and services.

What Do You Want Your Customers to do Once They Land On Your Website?

When you are building your website or redesigning it, you need to know what it is that you want your prospects to do when they land on your website. Do you want them to buy something, sign up for a newsletter, capture their information. Once you know this information you can plan out your site so that your visitors can take action.

Keywords

Finding the write keywords is essential. You will need to do some research to find out which keywords have lots of searches with the least amount of competition. Once you have your list of keywords you will be implementing them into the content that you add to you site. This will allow the search engines to know what your site is about.

Submit Your Site

Now it is time to work on positioning your site in the search results. It is very important that you work to get your website and pages on the top of the search results for you selected keywords. This is done by proper optimization of your website, the content on your site, and getting links pointing back to your website from other websites.

These steps are just the beginning steps. They are broad overviews. There is a fair amount of work involved in all the steps that I mentioned above, but keep in mind the importance of search engine positioning, and the success that it will bring to your business.

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If you are in the market for a domain name, one of the first obstacles that you will face is choosing a domain name. The internet is huge and it does seem like all the good names are taken.

Choosing a good domain name is going to take some creativity and a lot of thinking. One thing that I find that helps is to get ideas from other people. Two or three people will help to come up with ideas that not just one person would have ever thought of.

It helps to grab a piece of paper and write down some key points about your projected website. This will at least help you to get your thoughts moving. In your list, include things like, the products or services that you are offering, your company name, any thing that you can think of that is related to your business.

Deciding to use your company name is questionable. If the name of your company has no keywords in it that makes it obvious what you are offering, it may make it harder for the the general public to know at a glance what your website is about.

When coming up with domain name ideas, try to keep it simple. Simple makes it easier for your prospects to remember you. The shorter the better, for the same reason.

Using dashes is a topic that people just can not agree on. When I am choosing a domain name, I will first try without the dashes, but if necessary, I will use them. But dashes is the limit. Do not use domain names with symbols.

Try to choose .com if possible. This is the extension that people are used to. If someone is trying to remember the domain name, they will instinctively always type in .com.

The main thing is to keep brainstorming until you come up with words that will not only give your potential prospects and idea of what the site is about, but will also help the search engines know what the site has to offer.

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Buying and selling domains can be a profitable business with little investment. Doing your research first before you purchase a domain name is essential. It is the research that you do that will prove profitable. You can start with sub niches. Long tail keyword names will be much easier to find then broad keyword terms for your domain names. There are many ways to find domain names to buy.

Do Your Research

While doing your research you are looking for domain names that are easy to remember, domain names that are niche market specific, keyword rich, popular words, and do not violate any infringements laws.

Looking for Sub Niche Domain Names

When buying and selling domain names, you can to start out by focusing on sub niches. For example, trying to get the domain name, weightloss.com would not only be difficult, but the competition for those two keywords would be fierce to say the least. A sub niche of this domain name might be something like, weightlosspill.com or weightlosssurgeries.com. These are just examples of course, but you get the picture.

Locating Domain Names for Purchase

There are several different ways to do this. There are many sites that you can go to that auction off domain names. This is a good place to start. It will allow you to get the feel of the business. Just searching through all the domain names will get your brain moving and thinking.

Private sales or brokers are another option. If you run across a domain name that you think you might be interested in buying, maybe it’s just parked or it’s a neglected website, it’s possible to make an offer to the owner. You can find out who owns the domain name by going to Whois.net and typing in the domain name.

If you are considering getting into the business of buying and selling domain names, start with your research. Look for sub niche domain names that may have popular keyword terms in them. Locate domain names by searching through auction listings. Often times you can find some domain names for very cheap prices.

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Pay Per Click allows you to list your website at the top of the search engine results when a searcher enters in keywords that you are bidding on. This is a quick and easy way to get immediate visitors and buying customers to your website, allowing you to sell the products and services that you have to offer. Using search engine optimization takes time and a lot of work to get on the first page of the search engines. This is why some business owners prefer to use the Pay Per Click advertising model.

It is a very clever technique really. You only have to pay for your Pay Per Click advertisements when someone clicks on the add that leads them to your site. The higher you bid for your keyword, the higher up on the list of the search results you will be. You simply need to outbid your competition.

You also have control of how much you are willing to spend on a daily basis. Once you have reached your maximum budget the ads will stop running. So if you want to spend $5 dollars a day, and pay 5 cents a click, that could buy you 100 visitors to your site on a daily basis. If your site converts well, this is a great deal.

Pay Per Click has become quite profitable for some marketers. There is a lot to learn at first, but once you get the hang of it, you can be on your way to big profits.

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You would think that keyword stuffing would have died off a long time ago. But it is still common practice for unscrupulous webmasters to use this method. The practice of designing a site, with keywords hidden from viewers in every nook and cranny, just so the search engines will rank the website high within the search results for certain keywords is just silly.

I once visited a website at which I accidentally highlighted the site and was amazed at all the hidden text in the white area of the website. They had used keyword stuffing by turning the text to the same color of the background color of the website so that it was not visible to the viewer.

With sites such as Google, Yahoo and MSN using complex algorithms, these sites are sure to get caught red handed. The penalties are steep, de-indexing of the site or banning the site all together is a high price to pay for a site that one has put time into. Besides, where is the challenge in cheating?

I guess the bottom line is, don’t try it. There are to many other legitimate methods for ranking your website well within the search engines for your given keywords. Learning how to optimize your site correctly will help you to build a virtual real estate that can earn you a repeated income for a very long time to come.

Let us know what you think. Have you had experience with this?

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Finding a good domain name can provide a huge return on investment. There have been people who have purchased domain names and turn around and sold them for as much as 7 million dollars. Just imagine if you where the owner of the name football.com or sports.com.

People make a huge living off of buying and selling domain names, and the people who do this have become known as domain speculators.

So what is domain speculation? It is the registering of domain names based on generic terms such as, flowers.com, cars.com, cat.com and so on. This is done in the hopes that a large commercial company will want to by one of these generic names for commercial use.

There is however a difference in buying so called trademark names, like the name of a famous person or business. This would be called cyber squatting and it is illegal.

Domain name speculation is simply forecasting or using trends to grab up domain names that will become popular or desired by big companies that are willing to pay big dollar. If you are the type of person that keeps up on current affairs and reads up on the latest trends going on in the world today, you just may have a head start in the domain name speculation game.

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I was recently asked what the difference is between Adwords and Adsense. It was only just a few years ago that I was asking this very same question myself.

Adwords

Google Adwords allows you to create an ad and have it displayed on relevant websites for your business. The purpose is to bring traffic to your website when someone of interest clicks on the ad. You can limit your ads to your budget, and only have to pay for running the ad when a person actually clicks on it.

When someone does a search using Google, the ads show up on the right hand side of the browser. You also have the option to have your ads displayed as text, video or images. Another benefit of using Google Adwords is that you can track and analyze your ads, how often they are displayed, how often someone clicks on them, and many other statistics.

Adsense

Google Adsense allows you to make money by placing Adwords on your website or blog. Each time someone clicks on the ad you make a little money. The goal of course is to get as many people to your website and clicking on these ads. Adsense does not cost any money to have them display on your website.

For both Adwords and Adsense policies are strictly enforced. So if you are to use any of the two, make sure you read their program policies so as not to get banned.

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The other day I was going over some of my earlier articles posted here. I came across one that particularly caught my attention. Domain name speculation is a subject that involves many aspects. I am posting this excerpt just to refresh all of us on this subject. Enjoy.

Domain name speculation may be tied to current events. If there is something of great interest in the news that is getting a lot of attention, the idea would be to purchase the domain name and sell it quickly, as the opportunity of selling it may be limited.

Being able to find domain names very early in the market is essential. The top level domain of .com is the most sought after as it is well established. Other top level domains such as .net or .info are also used, but not as popular.

Other domain name speculation techniques are secondary market domains. These are domain names that have previously been registered but have expired. These domain names can be profitable as well. They have age associated with the name and established back links that may still bring visitors to the site.

Pre-owned domains with short names are greatly in demand. Three letter domains are near impossible to find, but upcoming expiration for these domain names can be watched and purchased quickly when they do expire.

Doing a little research, watching market trends and keeping an eye on current events can payoff. Not a bad way to make a living really. Sitting in front of you computer all day, researching.

In this Holiday season I might suggest a domain name gift to someone special. I have been doing this for years. Check the availability of the persons name, like JohnSmith.com, or SusieBlue.net.  I have given these personal names quite often and they are a “Big Hit” on the receiving end.

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Submitted By: Halstatt Pires

When you first start promoting Adsense on your site, the potential is obvious. After a few months, however, you need to move to the next level to maximize revenues.

When it comes to Adsense optimization, most will talk about different ad sizes and colors. These can make a difference, but the biggest and best enhancement has everything to do with placement.

Assume you are reading the sports page or some other part of the paper one morning. The page is full of images, text and advertisements. What do you see? Typically, you first read the headlines and look at the images. After that, you either read a story of interest or turn the page.

You will note that I didn’t mention looking at advertisements. This is because you will have developed a filter over time that causes you to ignore the ads on the pages. In practical terms, this is the equivalent of Pavlov’s dogs, but backwards. You know the ads are in certain areas and you just tend to avoid them naturally so you can focus on why your team is losing, you stock bombed or the latest scandal. This concept applies to the web as well.

People inherently avoid advertisements on web pages including Adsense ads. The number one Adsense improvement you can make is to move your ads. Should you place your ads at the top? The bottom? The side columns? The answer to all of these questions is absolutely not. Here comes the secret [drum roll].

The best location for your ads is in the middle of the page. For most sites, this means between the paragraphs of text on a page. Few sites take this approach, so readers are not conditioned to skip over the ads. Since Adsense ads track with the keywords on the page, this position is a gold mine because the ads are read by the visitor as the naturally move down the page. If they naturally read it, a higher percentage of them will click through and that is good news for your revenues.

There are a lot of tips on how to generate more revenue with Adsense. When you cut through the riff raff, however, the placement of your ads is everything. Try it and see.

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So you may have heard of the idea of buying multiple domain names and pointing them to your existing website. But how exactly is it done? And what are the risks? It’s true that many websites try to use this technique and effectively hurt their search engine rankings. Yes, there is a wrong way and a right way of doing this.

Multiple Domains – Doing it Right

As always, the right way is to follow best practices. If you have a website www.mysite.com, but you also have www.mysite.net and www.mysite.biz,  the proper way to point these other domains to your main site is to use 301 redirects in your .htaccess file. This will allow visitors to be redirected to your main .com site and also allow Googlebot and all the other spiders to crawl through. Using 301 redirects also allows your .net and .biz sites to NOT compete with each other.

Multiple Domains – Things to Avoid

Cloaking is a technique that Google sees as deceptive. The reason this is deceptive is that when a user is redirected to the new destination, the domain name still shows in the address bar of the browser. This makes the user think that they are at a different website address then they really are.

Duplicate Content

If you try to set up all of your sites with the same content, it is possible that Google will see this as duplicate content. Google will not actually ban sites with duplicate content unless they think that it is being done to purposely try to be deceptive and manipulate the search engine results. Besides, all your sites would be competing with each other and would also be a lot of extra work to keep up, so you might as well do it the right way and use 301 redirects.

It is always best to play by the rules and never try to trick the search engines. The search engines are getting smarter everyday and you can not afford to lose a domain name after putting work into the site.

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