Domainers that skip the auction threads of the popular domain forums do so at their own risk. The beauty of the one dollar domain is that once the normal tricks of developing a website and enhancing content for SEO optimization are ingrained, value builds with the additional of each domain.

Because for the experienced domainer webmaster, one additional site is simply a matter of acquiring another single domain and putting it up at their hosting account. Dollar domains can maintain growth in value that results in a portfolio sale or a one time profit opportunity when the topical keyword or term heads into the news or fetches interest from portfolio or domainer buyers.

The one time cost of the domain at one dollar should neither be the value the domainer uses to assess how much effort to put into the development of the website or the aggregate of any future price they may fetch for that name in auction.In fact, domainers should consider a handpicked dollar domain as a bargain with additional promotion costs stitched into the profit model. The dollar domain is probably worth at least a minimum subfee over reg fee, for the simple reason that it has been used before and has some traction somewhere, even if it was only parked by the previous owner.

With competitive pricing of a flexible hosting plan, domainers actually leverage more value out of the hosting plan with every domain hosted. Mocking up websites and applying domain names to paid parking, even utilizing the domain names acquired for link presences to support another site name can pay off in the long run. If a webmaster uses a minisite template to provide a web site content layer for his set of dollar domains, then uses their traffic building to supply value to those domain names, then ultimately the domainer has constructed a subset of his own traffic domains.

These traffic domains can become long term instruments of domain promotion because instead of having to rent or buy traffic domains, simply switching the forwarding of the hosting servers can build exponential traffic stats for target domain name sites overnight. For resale of a domain name or a targeted promotion, these types of domains are invaluable to have inside the hosting or registrar account. Thus the dollar domains themselves become instilled with value over time, and it can safely be said that they will resell for more than a dollar.

Dollar domains can also be used as sponsor or product promotion destinations. instead of furnishing every Google Adsense box with Google ads, try editing the text and links to go to products and links that build revenue for you. If the destination web pages have links and affiliates as well, other types of product promotions and sponsor offers can be placed there that are not relevant to original domain name, keywords, and theme. Building traffic domains as well as developing main website domains allows the domainer to reach a wider sphere of contacts. These contacts become vendors and buyers over time.

At some point a portfolio management strategy for all the domain names the domainer will buy will be necessary to organize the names into a strategic order.

The renewal date of each name should be noted as soon as the name comes under review for bidding. Of course, if the seller of the dollar domain is merely shedding portfolio “fat” and trying to rid himself of domains before their expiration, that should take the domain out of the “dollar’ estimation range in terms of cost. But one dollar is never too much to risk when there is the time frame of year before renewal to produce traffic, and gain domain value and leverage it for sale.

No matter whether you’re trying your hand at internet marketing for the first time or you’re setting up a website for your 0% credit cards business, you’ll doubtless reach a point in the process when you or someone else asks ‘what should the domain name be?’. It’s easy to believe that this process should be simple: just take the name of the business, register it, and the job’s done. But it’s not always so clear cut. There are lots of different things to consider when you choose a domain name, one of the most important of which is whether or not you name your domain for the benefit of the users or the search engines. So what do we mean by this, and which one should you choose? Let’s have a look at this question in a bit more detail.

Why there’s a choice to be made

The first thing to understand is that there are many different ways to make an impact on the web. If you’re a completely unique business with a unique offering, it will probably be very easy to gain exposure and therefore visitors. On the other hand, if you’re entering a market rather than creating one (like most companies do), you may have to rely on more grassroots means of generating traffic. These means may include search engine optimisation, and hence could affect your choice of domain name. Which one of these options you choose will come down to who you are as a business, but also down to personal preference, so let’s look at each of the options in more detail.

Naming your domain for your users or customers

The first choice we discussed was choosing a domain name based on your brand. Let’s say, for the sake if argument, that your company was called ‘Megastar Solutions’. You would probably want a domain name that includes these terms, such as ‘megastarsolutions.com’. A name like this will allow your users or customers to search for your brand directly. It will also help for those people who may simply type your name into the address bar and put ‘.com’ at the end, in the hopes of finding you. What it won’t do, however, is net you any gains in terms of organic search engine optimisation. Because your domain name is your business name, you’ll only appear for searches such as ‘megastar’ (at least in our example). So why would you choose a domain name like this? Well, primarily it is a great strategy for any company trying to build a brand. If you want your name to be recognised as a mark of your professionalism and so on, your site must reflect this. If, however, you make your mark in other ways, you may want to try our next domain naming strategy.

Naming your website for the search engines

Let’s assume that our made-up company, Superstar Solutions, are an acting agency based in London. If they chose to name their domain for search engines, and optimise it for organic traffic, they may go for a domain such as ‘bestactingagencylondon.com’ or something similar. The benefit of doing this is two-fold. First, it is instantly clear to anyone that reads it what the company does. Secondly, the company will benefit greatly from boosted natural SEO. The term ‘best acting agency london’ being a part of the URL will bolster organic SEO efforts, and boost the ranking of the site for search. This option is definitely best for any company that will be sourcing some or all of their business from organic traffic. Search engines like Google are fond of keywords, so having them in the URL is definitely a good idea.

Another great tip to keep in mind if you’re facing this decision is to create a document outlining exactly where you plan to source your business. If the larger slice is away from natural search (direct mail and so on), then you may want to choose a branded domain name. On the other hand, if you want to take full advantage of search engine optimisation strategies, choosing a keyword based domain name can be an excellent idea for both you and your business.

If you are considering using Pay Per Click as a marketing strategy, one of the biggest challenges is choosing a niche to promote. Even though there is no set system in knowing which niche will be profitable, there are some steps you can take that will get you pointed in the right direction.

You will want to create a list of self interests. You should simply take a walk around your house and create a list of things of interest to you. A good place to start would be your bookshelf. What kind of books and magazines do you read? The reason you should consider promoting products that you yourself are already interested in is because you are going to be doing a lot of writing on the subject to get your landing page set up. If you already have an interest in the topic this will make it much easier for you in the long run. Trust me, writing and making blog posts or building a website around a subject that you have no interest in will be hard to keep up. Also, if you already have an interest in the subject, you will have some level of expertise.

Once you have your list it’s time to check for interest. Start with one of the topics on your list and start typing keywords into Google related to your topic. You are going to be looking at the Adwords advertising list that gets displayed on the right side page of your search results. If you find a lot of advertising, that’s OK. If people are advertising, it means that there is money to be made. If you don’t see a lot of listings, it is possible that there is not a lot of interest.

Now that you have picked your topic and determined that there are affiliates making money, you will want to do some keyword research to find out how many people are searching daily within your niche. The more searches per day for your keywords the better. There are free tools out there that you can use to do this.

The only true way to find out if your niche is going to make you money is to run and test the ads. Keep in mind that just because the numbers above check out doesn’t mean it will be a winner. You may have to run through this process several times to find a niche that will convert for you.

Starting with a niche that is of interest to you is better than getting in a niche that you are not interested in. Making sure that other affiliates are also advertising the niche means that someone is making money advertising using Pay Per Click. Setting up your campaigns and running them will be the ultimate test in determining if it is truly profitable.

Do you have a domain allergy? Domainers who acquire large numbers of domain names and even more vast hosting account resources come down with it all the time. The domainer can decide to put their best domain name on hold, or put their hosting development effort at a standstill at the very moment the site’s topicality hits the news for weeks running.

A domain allergy renders a domain owner averse to promoting, marketing or developing a website for their domain name, even some of their best ones. Fixing a domain allergy can take work but the cure must happen!

A domain allergy can be triggered by buying too many domains without implementing development plans. Many domainers get a taste for buying domains without working out any kind of development scenario.

A development plan for a website requires only a timeline and pencilled out strategy to make a site, park the domain, rent or lease it, or at least direct its traffic to an existing domain. If a domainer has ten domains sitting in registrar limbo doing “nothing”, the limited type in and lookup traffic can still be directed to the one name the domainer really wants to bleed its traffic and clicks to.

After putting in the effort to make a portal or website, continue to promote it by attaching new eyeballs to the new portal. Make sure there is a poll offering visitors an opportunity to give feedback and their opinion about your new site.

If ten domains have 90 type in visitors a year, that’s 900 unique visitors additional to your favorite target domain website. And review the poll results. Your biggest feedback could be for the website people want to see. That’s your customer based focus plan for your next website development.

The criteria for assessing a domain name for purchase, resale, or development are fairly open to all.  The keyword value forms one value. Monetary resale is always a goal. Various sites online work to produce an estimation value, although few can claim to be conclusive. Auction sales for domains work well specifically for this reason. Domains can go to the highest bidder according to independent valuation.

While one community of domain name buyers and sellers may quote assorted values from estimation sites, those members are never committed to accept those values as indicative of any redeemable or legal citation. The general value of a domain name still remains the value for which it can, and is sold. Other domain values are as spurious as yesterday’s news.

Some domainers prize traffic statistics, and some domainers work from the original sale price.  Domain ratings systems can indicate the value of a domain, but cannot guarantee it will bring that price under the domain auction gavel. But an important component of many a domain names’ assessment is how the buyer or developer uses those metrics to go forward.

Typing a name into a category does not institute monetary value. Many keyword generics lie fallow in domain portfolios worldwide. The rationale for these to not be developed is that no development could renew the value the domainer has already invested and still reap the profit they have planned. These domainers are waiting for big-ticket auctions to vend their names.

Other names are still in the transitory period between acquisition and decision making. Maybe the domainer hasn’t had time to investigate the best of of “x” domain yet.  Or perhaps they are waiting for a spike in related content or keywords to vend the name in a private sale or escrow process. Parking is a time consuming challenge to manage and keep up to date with. And the lack of development attached to a parked name always make me leery of its traffic.

A topical forum post caught my attention debating this topic. Yahoo has a domain rating system which declaims a domain as:  Banned, Trademark,
Quality Control, Controversial, and Restricted are terms no domainer wants to see associated with their names. These names generally will little to no sale value. But one domainer’s name value authority can be another’s temporizing engine.

Where do the evaluation and assessment sites stand? Yahoo has a cloud over it (not a good one), and many domainers deride Alexa while still avidly utilizing it to assess their domain positoning ion te name marketplace. Valuate.com has many fans, and many banner ads. Estibot has some faithful fans, and assessment tools at Sedo, Pool, and Google Adsense can offer some additional metrics.

Since domainers are always looking to revalue and affirm their portfolio total, a trustworthy domain ratings site or evaluation destination tool is mush desired. A domainer cannot guarantee the originating site or evaluation engine for a domain name will still be in operation or still have the same integrity when the resale or auction decision is made.

Domainers need to avoid becoming emotional about their domain purchase choices. The most unsexy of domains can be the hardest workers, reaping affiliate revenues and growing traffic metrics while the big players spend a fortune promoting their varsity level urls. The traffic statistics going forward are what matter, and the business development the current domainer invests in the domain name is what cultivates domain value.

Domain names can be valued at one time ans the equally creditable estimation of that same domain name can be evaluated at another time and the value can be very different but extremely accurate. A domainer assumes risk when a big dollar domain purchase occurs and the lifetime of that value is not the same as the lifetime of the domain ownership. The joy of domaining is leveraged on what values the owner can bring to the name, and any other strategy sounds a lot like sour grapes.

One of the biggest challenges that site owners face is link building. Whether you run an e-commerce site, a niche blog, or a reputation management website, generating quality backlinks is absolutely vital. SEO used to revolve around the on-page optimization, but since the Panda update it seems that backlinks (especially those from relevant sites) are now playing a more important role in the ranking of websites. There are lots of ways that backlinks can be generated, but not all of them are easy. And the ones that are tend to be not worth your time. So let’s look at three mistakes that many webmasters make when trying to boost their backlinks – and how to avoid them.

Assuming that a link from a high PR site is more valuable

The Page Rank system is useful because it lets people know how highly regarded a site is in the eyes of search engines like Google, but it’s not always a green flag. It’s understandable that if a site with a PR of 3 or 4 wants to link to you, that’s a tempting offer, but if you have to pay for the privilege you should do a little research first. The first thing to check is relevancy: does this page have anything to do with your site and topic? If not, the backlink won’t pack as much punch with Google. Another thing to check is how many other links this high PR site has. If your link is one of ten or more on a page, you might as well be throwing money away. Carry out these simple checks every time you’re considering a new paid backlink and you’ll be much better off in the long run.

Believing that NOFOLLOW links are useless

When Google is considering its rankings, it takes into account a great many factors. Some of these are well-known, like keyword densities and the age of the site, but others are a little more obscure. Take NOFOLLOW links for example. While it’s true that these don’t have a direct effect on your page rankings, they do affect the ‘spread’ of your links across the web. For example, if you had spent time and money generating 100 backlinks and they were all FOLLOW, this could count against you because the link spread doesn’t appear organic. On the other hand, if you have a nice mix of FOLLOW and NOFOLLOW, your link spread is much more natural. The bottom line is, don’t always assume that FOLLOW is best – try to mix it up a little.

“1000 backlinks for just $5.00? What a great deal!”

There are lots of places on the web that you can get something for next-to-nothing. In fact, there are sites that provide nothing but $5 services. And very often you’ll find someone there offering thousands of backlinks for very little money. Now, your logic should kick in here and tell you that these aren’t going to be quality links, but it’s easy to be blinded by what you consider a ‘steal’. The truth is that, wherever you find them, these cheap backlink services are a waste of money. Not only that, there’s a chance you’ll get your site blacklisted because your link will inevitably appear on spam sites. So the end result may be the opposite of what you intend, and your site will be penalized by Google. This will reduce your Page Rank, lower your site’s visibility in SERPs, and make all of the time and effort you’ve put into your SEO a waste of energy. No matter how cheap they are, no matter how smooth their patter, don’t be fooled into buying cheap backlinks – it’s a recipe for disaster. That’s not to say that buying backlinks can work, just always remember that you get what you pay for – and five dollars isn’t going to get you much.
Remember, the generation of backlinks is one of the best tools in a site owner’s toolbox, but going about it in the wrong way can have negative consequences. Tactics such as guest blog posts and link exchanges with other relevant sites are generally successful – just don’t let yourself get suckered into anything that sounds too good to be true. Because, as we all know, it probably is.

This is the Christmas season. That means good tidings and wishes of good cheer and so on. But it is never to early to start next year’s marketing plan for your domains and developed websites. Here are five things you can do today, per domain name, to improve your domain name value, page rank concretely and provide better sales and traffic metrics through the next sell offer or buying negotiations. Santa could bring good things in his sleigh for jolly domainers next year.

1. Rent a browser and plant some homepages

Find five new users per domain name who will put your website as their home page. Every use of their browser daily updates and indexes as a searchability and web presence factor. Finding new users form Craigslist or sifting through email responses to target end users with more precise communications in mind should keep your site bookmarked. Make your bookmark digits the new year’s goal. Added features and ease of use can make some homepages permanent. Use a very positive and well thought out branding approach for this type of marketing.

2. Organize a Traffic Plan

The rainy-day project most domainers never get to is the upstream and downstream traffic click reports. These can be awkward to absorb and bulky to review. But they will clue the designer and webmaster in to where users are likely to be found. Market to those sites, and more clicks will come. Review an updated study of demographics for end users with holiday leisure Web traffic in mind. Got a gaming or entertainment site? School’s out and newly mobile teens and students will be looking for content to test their new devices on. Link up and seed new directory additions for domain exposure.

3. Create Button Sites

Button sites are dashboard pages organized so encouraged visitors can review your broad diversity of online content offerings and select the one closest to their heart for a closer look. But just links won’t do any good. Make some magic with a custom graphic for each link or site, (perhaps the logo), and provide connotative dimensionality like something “fun to drive”. A button is infinitely more fun to punch than a plain old link. End users can find news and RSS feeds from other sites at other sites. These are especially utilitarian for mobile users trying to navigate without knowing how to type in urls via text tools or work their sparkly new phone.

4. Utilize FaceBook Properly

FaceBook is a great medium for social marketing, unless there is value reward or functionality with your end user’s “Like” click. Do they get points, offers, free coupons, or something? Make sure the offer is blended into a slogan or some type of marketing text aimed at the recreational “Like” clicker. Make your ‘Like” message domain name related. FaceBook users want to be the first in their group to know about the cool new thing, class, event, hobby, charity, or website concerning anything. Their announcement or url promotion can bring end users in droves to see what’s up. A cute domain name packs a lot of punch here.

5. Devise a Campus Campaign

Schools and college campuses are the target institutions of choice these days. Find a way that your website and its functions creates value and pinpoint ways to market to those users. Some campus newspapers and institutional trade publications may accept your ad. Your domain name should be prominently displayed. Bored students and people looking for another way to spend their time scan even back pages of trade journals and newspapers looking for something interesting. Your site or its optional participation entertainment give people “something to do”.

The type of material one carries in one’s wallet tells people who you are and what you make, where you live and how you spend. But in the wrong hands this could be deadly. Your Social Security Card, pay stub, occupational health membership card, even your health membership card can be used to social engineer a password or reset at a moment where your email account is compromised. Hackers are that clever, and in this world of online job competition they are motivated indeed.

1. Too Much Information

Take a look at the information inside your wallet. The worst type of identity slacker has their computer password or even printed out documentation with their passwords on it folded inside. This is the mother lode to a hacker looking to hack your corporate account by way of your personal email account. Little strips of paper and notes tucked inside for later use can be forgotten, but a hacker has plenty of time to figure out why they are so significant to you.

Solution: Carry a sport version of your everyday full wallet. reduce the full wallet and use it only during travel or International commerce, such as stock exchanges, border travel, or purchasing cruise tickets or anywhere you’ll need passport level documents with you. Keep a drawer in your desk with spare bit  of addresses passwords, and other task reminders. If you think you need the information somewhere in your everyday travels, transfer it in code to an email. A hacker won’t even know what it means in a sentence or subject line but you will.

2. Stacking the Deck

Another crime of wallet stuffing is carrying every credit card you ever got in a rubber banded stack. This can let thieves know you won’t miss one if it goes away or if you copy them the job you’ll have canceling every card will give them enough time to run up some charges. Hackers have bogus mail drops they can ordered goods delivered. Do NOT keep blank checks in there “just in case”. Keep your checkbook separate or have your wife carry it in the purse.

Solution: review what cards you carry every day and slim down the deck.

3. Layers Upon Layers

If you can’t tell tell by one look at the cards in your wallet what is missing, reduce down the number of cards and information you carry. Just trying to check if everything is there could take another ten to fifteen minutes hackers can use to set up a bogus account and use it to qualify for charges. Pickpockets know to steal the cards and information behind the visible layer. A man finds he left this wallet behind and has no idea someone has looked through it and seen what cards he has, what car he drives and his work and home address.

Solution:

4. Schedules

That work schedule or the department’s work layout plan?  Thieves really want to get their hands on these. This shows where you will be (and where your car will be left unattended) and when certain co-workers of yours will be present or not. Why do thieves and hackers want to know when you are not at home? because they can drop by you place and use your router or hack your desktop.

Solution: Keep your schedule online in a scanned version or text yourself pertinent days and hours you need to be at work.

5. The Phone as PDA

Think twice before committing a lot of sensitive information to your portable device or planner. If your phone is stolen, what will be more compromising, the renewal of phone service, activation of a new device, or chasing all the Internet access services you accessed by phone? And how much information about you social network is in there? Hackers usually start with emergency contact data, since this is a close relation to you and subject to being more vulnerable to social engineering.

Solution: carry either your cellphone with ID scanning and smart payment option  and some cash or your wallet, but not both. That’s two payments methods muggers can steal that hackers can enjoy all night long online. Or at least make sure you use a password on your phone that hackers can’t break.

Source: ClickJacker.com – July 30th, 2011

Hey domainers get out your small change. The $4.95 Godaddy special is up and working!

Remember when Groupon was just a funny little website with a unique sounding domain name? Groupon has now become the domainer’s pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. But the GroupOn story has grown and grown, until the tombstone headlines in the business journals have proclaimed it a blue chip investment worthy of underwriting on the metropolitan stock exchanges worldwide.

The ongoing opportunity in the online space for a domainer to build a brand, establish a service, deliver a product and find a market still exists. As many experts observe, the SEO search result B2B offering has barely been tapped, domainer clams to the contrary. The SEO business available online is a green market ripe for plucking. Domainers needy for SEO development and cementing into the virtual universe on the vine.

Domainers and their service providers have fallen short of delivering the full scope of SEO quality services, as one observer notes in an article “The B2b of SEO”.

“Even with the popularization of SEO value present in the current online media community, actual search engine penetration is rare. But the cause of this is more counter intuitive than even the most qualified experts can defend.”

GroupOn was smart enough not to listen to the naysayers who scoffed at their idea or nodded knowingly at one more undevelopable app coming down the pike. They ignored even further the people who said according to the extant rules GroupOn might fail. Every domainer should doff their cap to GroupOn for extending the domaining possibilities for every name in every domain portfolio in existence.

Yes, I am talking to YOU. Why aren’t you marketing your domain harder? Don’t you want an IPO? Get on the stick and get your marketing department clicking. It costs NOTHING to plant urls and post comments, yet so many ambitious domain owners haven’t posted a self-serving blog comment or forum post in YEARS.

Physician, heal thyself.