Domain Owl

At this very moment your domain name could be underway to be sold somewhere online. Without your knowledge. Think it can’t happen? One of my colleagues in the domain firmament was flabbergasted today to learn that his domain name (and website) were being vended by a well-known auction site.

One catch: he still owns the domain name.

This can happen in the world of domain name buying and selling and sadly it happens more often than one would think possible. A lot is going on at any time online and it is almost impossible for a domainer with even a few dozen names to keep abreast of everything pertaining to each name taking place. Of course, the fusillades of daily spam don’t help. I am willing to bet some clickjacking or password guessing combined with some clever timing to release the name while owner was busy elsewhere.

Thus all the more reason to vigilantly update sites daily or as often as possible. Weeding through the spam and offers and solicitations for hosting products and suchlike, a domainer can quickly get tired of seeing important notices and notifications because of the sheer volume of the broadcasts. Hosting companies are so notorious for sending out offers and prompts and reminders and advertisements a domainer is practically immune to opening their email.

And that’s when the domain name pirate strikes. It’s a good bet the pirate of any domain name knows your IP address and can track your activity by a login or posting activity somewhere. Just Google someone’s IP address or their corresponding user name with their email and sooner or later a trail forms. What is not so clear is how liable a registrar or auction site is for hosting a sale of a name clearly in dispute of ownership.

This is the dilemma many domainers face when they register a name. If privacy is not purchased, then any working online operator can limp their way to some kind of hack or pose a sale if the domainer is busy enough not to notice. Many domainers watch the droplists and deleting domains auctions for just this reason. Being on good terms with your registrar and knowing their terms of Service doesn’t hurt either.

Keeping track of domain name activity that has been pirated started many years ago, when hijacked popmail addresses and phantom spam campaigns spouted reams of “reply -to” spam aimed at astonished webmasters who’d never even used their inboxes. I personally have had important emails topped out of my administrator email account only to find the limit reached. On a 100 GiG mailbox that’s a lot of spam.

What’s even more frustrating is that if a sale is reached via the fake auction listing, the third party “Buyer” becomes part of the mix. As a buyer in good faith, if he parts with hard earned cash for the name, is he entitled to it if the registrar ever sorts matters out? For a lucrative domain name with marketed traffic and keyword density with a site up, that’s a significant loss to the owner of the name, who wasn’t even listing the name for sale in the first place!

Virtual records are all very well, but printed purchase receipts and domain transfer records with renewal dates and expiration projections can work to demonstrate original chain of title to a domain name. It then becomes the registrar’s responsibility to disclose why they released a name not unlocked for sale by owner. Domain locking is enabled for just this reason. The IP tracking of the registrar or hosting company should underscore this utility.

One final point: if you go into partnership with another domainer or sponsor for a site or name project, keep a record of the email communication where rights and titles and participating profit percentages and shares of the enterprise are clearly spelled out.These can be handy reminders when project leads forget where their enterprise is going or where it came from.

Every development deal is its own ship sailing to a unknown destination. Online webmasters and site operators need to helm their own vessel. Attention to detail is key. Backups and records of performed work are advisable, especially when billing is ongoing. Clarify deal points with partners and keep track of time and billable hours spent contributing to the project. A hosting company will have records to confirm your login time and access.

To keep all your domain names in the batter’s box, review the lineup from time to time. Keep renewal date checks current and know all the procedures to transfer or billing inquiries ahead of time. View the traffic hits as RBI’s and police site errors. (Hostnames may form some kind of infield fly rule). If your domain names are playing every inning, they can’t go AWOL. This way, when it’s time to have a time out and call the umpire, you have all your ducks in a row.

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The blog domain triggers a dilemma for domainers everywhere. Blogging is not for everyone, and many eager new bloggers make this uneasy discovery after too many late nights and scraping the bottom of the barrel to complete one post. But for every domainer I know looking to unload some names for a profit, very few have mined the “domains wanted’ areas of the likely domain name forums.

The domains wanted and domains for sale forums are of critical importance to any newby domainer. Every domain forum worth its salt will have these areas and have them actively posting hourly. They show what the market is like for someone who has a portfolio of names to sell at the right time for the right price. One way to maintain and build value in a blog domain is to set it up and use to fruitful effect.

The domain name buyer and reseller must gauge the interest and buying arena of any blog name they have. Yet so many domainers buy blog names in bulk, refuse to develop them, and ten cry foul when an easy resale doesn’t hove into view. The target buyer will not appear like the Ghost of Christmas Past. They need to be cultivated, marketed to, and campaigned. Bloggers are customers too.

Bloggers need to see how they can use their new domain as an email tool. they need to see what it might look like on Facebook. Blog name buyers may never have had any of their named Tweeted before. It’s a heady thing to feel successful online, and marketing using social networks in today’s online e-commerce village does the trick. A new blog domains could be a useful tool for promoting of their extant domains, or some of their private and personal enterprises as well.

A savvy domainer faces the issue every day: keep the horses in the stable or make them earn their apples and carrots? The smart domainer will use the blog domain to further the career of their other domain names or decide to try and establish it as a marketplace for goods and services. But blogs today are lookup sources of information. Original content that is readable and unique should earn page views and enhance site discoverability.

SEO value comes from one blogger realizing something is left out of the discussion somewhere else and employing keyword density and meta tags to let other potential readers know where the data is. Or the domainer could just market the traffic data to other name owners and resell the name due to the sales appeal of the traffic and clicks. Hybrid hosting makes this possible in volume easily.

The blog domain was a promotional tool from the start, a website that was easy to build and accessible to change. This concept was part of the blog apparatus from the beginning.Even now domainers who have a lot to say suffer under perceptions that somehow their words aren’t “good enough” for a blog or that they “can’t write”.  This was what audio voice recognition software was designed for.

But many domain owners quail at blogging. They believe only a ‘true” writer can blog. Very few people originally looking for an emotional or substantive voice online needed to establish their own personal destination unless they had a stored reservoir of things to say or topics to treat. But now a blog can be a mood catcher, a dream space, or a public relations powerhouse.

A rose by any other name….

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I was reading an article about a team of fix it men who post repair guides to their website. The article was about their reverse engineering efforts to discover how a mobile device worked. The online repair guides were developed from the tech team figuring out how the device worked and explaining it to the layman. The high SEO values for repair guides and fix-it searches per device make and model make for a sticky site.

Since the Internet is full of laymen (cough, cough) looking for a way to save expensive repair bills and do it themselves, this idea brings huge traffic. The search queries for how to fix home electronics or mobile devices have grown with the advent of portable technology. Nobody wants to pay a repairman!

Repairing this and repairing that can make for a slew of profitable sites. Just organizing the links to existing videos can make a great site. Keywords and introductions, even reviews of repair and fix-it videos make a successful site model. And the content won’t age. These names can make traffic stats that support a profitable auction resale of the name.

But the focus value should be on a template for development.  The rhythm of successive sites deployed is the goal. Too many  domainers acquire names up the ying-yang and develop none at all. They make the entire website launching process thousands of times more difficult than it has to be. It’s like watching someone starve next to a bunch of bananas, because they are too nervous they’ll peel it the wrong way to get anything to eat.

The marriage of a hot technology and purposeful document available at the site makes for eager visitors. New technology and the use of gadgets people don’t fully understand has become a normal part of everyday life. Also normal is the online access and search for device operation assistance. Those providing reviews, how-to advice, coaching and repair guidance can own a proprietary part of the web and build domain value as well.

But the winning domain development plan does not need to be an actual repair site, but it can be a website addressing any need the visiting site public may have. Figuring out what the public needs to know is the first step,  providing it is the second part, and  figuring how to let them know they need it is the third part. Fourth is massaging the public awareness of the availability.

The keywords to such a site garner various oenatomological approaches. How the domain name word sounds and if it sounds similar enough to what the site is about can matter. The word “repair” should obviously feature right behind the noun. Ideally this would be perfect except that domain speculators have likely taken all those names very early in the original domain real estate gold rush. Buying such a name would be in the five to six figures.

Domains that lead to content rich websites build traffic value that can be used to secure a bid for resale or bolster an auction listing. And the world of video and the inevitable YouTube should shoulder the burden of the hosting. YouTube will be granting $5 million in video blogger awards to its members, and that’s big money for those who have mastered the craft.

Many webmasters invest a fortune in video capable web hosting before realizing they can upload their videos onto YouTube and embed the frame in their lightweight blog. Nabbing a blog app these days is just a borrowed folder with a  redirect, until a better hosting solution comes along. The cementing of a blog’s identity with original content is always going to be the meat and potatoes of any blog.

So, get out those pencils and paper and start mapping a new site plan for your domain based repair site today. Try some morphologies of “fix + noun” or “noun + repair”. Check the registrars to see what’s already taken or what combinations of domain names are involved. Work the how-to video and YouTube coaching craze for all it’s worth. And have fun doing it.

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Domaining an app is the hottest web development move out there. A happening domain needs Tube support. Youtube.content can be developed and produced using simple tools online. The video media format can be packaged by a multitude of resident system applications, freeware obtainable online, and custom retail video editing software.

Domainers can try their hand at helming projects which a wide variety of users will see. Endorsement of the material can lead to word of mouth and end user referrals. New apps are churning out like wildfire right now for new devices like the Ipad and portable handheld and gaming sites too. Video slices or “tubes” can be embedded easily with tags and captions to create an interactive site that gives visitors something to do.

Domains can hold whatever custom content their webmasters decide upon. these can be coaching tutorials, screenshot by screenshot demonstrations, videos, narrated audio slide shows and other media. The affiliate offers can be blended into demonstrational material that encourage visitors to click on ads. Domain keywords can be emphasized with video images and image tags reflecting actual content.

A website authored by a domain holder can be optimized for site SEO and traffic statistics. The content can be tagged as a how-to video and also as educational, occupational, and promotional. This type of material is readily discoverable and very searchable. The ease with which these types of videos can be made and uploaded is a result of the viral video phenomenon sponsored by YouTube’s popularity. Desktop microphones make any webmaster a narrator.

The domainer who promotes their website using coaching video, how-to methods, tips and tricks, shortcut techniques and screenshot demonstrations has many advantages. The webmaster can decide what words and narrative text and captions get featured, presumably keyword-rich and SEO optimized. The domainer can set up complementary sites and link them together.

A site plan which concentrates a density of words and themes in the content around the site domain keywords will be successful in aggregating visitor traffic. Referrals to the coaching material will also get linked to from forums, online bulletin boards, and member communities of the subject topics. The site plan can outline the key steps in each “lesson” and provide yet another spoke in the SEO discoverability wheel.

Beginners making videos and slideshow media can sketch their plan using Powerpoint outline view notes or slides printed out for jotting down ideas. Screenshots can be defined into surgical coaching material by making highlighted areas using Paint and the selection tool with the colored outline box delineating the referred-to area.

Webmasters should provide how-to content by asking and answering questions about the process or technique involved. What kinds of people will be viewing this presentation? What kinds of language and images will they respond to? What general references and specific details will they expect to see? What kinds of action need to be demonstrated, and how does this fall in with the overall site goal?

Uploading video concoctions to YouTube assist in server hosting costs and allows the domainers to build a site channel that refers YouTube surfers back to the target web site. One key draw for site visitation is to allow continued searchability of the video at YouTube and then cover the video space with a link to the destination website. This brings fulfillment oriented site visitors.

But by hosting exclusive video,  a webmaster can originate valuable content. By authoring original programming they turn their domain name into a brand and their website becomes an advertising portal that turns into a channel. And video channels quickly become very sticky websites with a ton of buzz, just the thing a domainer likes.

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Domains are like horses, they take investment, nourishment, training, supervision, contact with people and an opportunity to shine on the track. The domain “racing” attitude can be seen in everything from the domain name buyer’s assessment of the domain name’s “points’ to the resale value and aging potential of the value of any domain name.

Horses need nutrition, exercise, rest, training, and the right jockey. Starved horses don’t succeed, they just drop dead. Horses need the right feed and the right care to grow into blue ribbon winners. These horse racing industry dynamics can translate to the world of domains as content, test launching, SEO optimization and site plan grooming, and bandwidth and hosting provisioning.

Horses that can run are like domains that can attract traffic, keep viewers interested, and make consumers interact with commercial or monetary offers or ads that bring the domain name owner revenue. Domains that can “run” are catchy names, clear indicators of the content awaiting them, original material and derived from strong stock. A sponsor name across the saddle doesn’t mar the ability of the horse to race.

The right combination of people to bring a winner to the starting gate is the envy of any domainer. Site jockeys can ride the rails of affiliate ads, link building, and site optimization with skill.  Competitors are always chomping at the bit. Domains need discipline, not to sit in pasture idling away their years in parked pages. Pages fat with unneeded ads and filler won’t race competitively at all. Sites need the right webmaster and domainers are savvy to pursue this wisdom.

Domain racing is a challenging sport but a costly one. Thoroughbred names, like premium auction winners, can cost a lot of money to groom into money earning entities. Experienced domainers always have an eye out for the ‘dark horse’ domain that could net them a fortune. Like many horse racing agents, they scout out young domain talent to see what can be done to bring a new domain name into the senior cup winning form.

Many horse racing fans eye the “pink sheet”, the track betting notes, before a big set of stakes races. Domainers do the same thing for domain names at auction, checking stats, earnings, and provenance of names as well as their past history “on the track”. The knowledge particular to domaining, like horse racing, can pay off with the right set of contacts, advisors, and consulting experts.

Domainers need to be wary of domainer “horse dealers”, domain sellers who go flogging names of little value with falsified stats or claims of affiliate earnings without proof. The SEO or keyword factors are very much like bloodlines, and the provenance of other legacy names performing in the Internet domain world support continued investment in domain grooming.

Sometimes a domainer just feels lucky. Sometimes they want to know what it feels like to be a winner so bad they spend too much money on the wrong horse. Typos names, names purchased and developed for accidental traffic form well known proper domains names, might be said to be stakes horses. These names are practically a secondary marketing domaining, like low cost breeder racing and track traditions.

For a winning formula in domaining, newby domainers could do worse than look to the horse racing world for inspiring ideas about how to succeed in an industry crowded with competitors, fraught with luck, and dependent on the animal nature of the Internet “beast” to perform well at the right time. Timing the right domain name entry into the internet stakes can be a neck-and-neck fight to the finish.

As always, in domaining, “the horses are on the track”.

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One of the most critical decisions any domainer will make is the choice of hosting account and the company they decide to have host their domains online. Hosting companies are online service vendors who garner the host records and domain traffic execution to filed HTML content per the domainer or webmaster. Some registrars offer hosting as well.

The hosting account is a must as a transition stage between mere domain names owned via a registrar and live domain sites and managed parked pages. The hosting buy operates to provide every domainer with resources for website development. The cost can vary, and efficiency handling webmaster requests will dictate which hosting company the webmaster chooses.

But not all hosting accounts are created equal. The online  interface and the ease of use is demonstrably better at some hosting companies online than others. Facility for the domain administrator is key when choosing a hosting account. This means the operator should be comfortable logging in regularly and using the password functions to access the domain hosting administration menu.

Not all hosting companies provide this. While the landing page or “top” page has an index of features, these are often created from templates in the case of resellers. Reseller accounts for hosting are “branch” hosting accounts generated by interested users to function as hosting companies themselves. These may have the look and feel of the “parent” hosting company but they do not necessarily have the service benefits.

In some cases, if a reseller chooses to give a domainer a good deal on hosting it is their choice to go with that host. But keep in mind the communication relay and information for technical and customer support will only be as good as the operator of that account. The quality of this can be hard to predict from just a slick hosting company offering template.

Hosting can be available in blocks known as packages. The packages will likely have names corresponding to the their level of service offering.  The “junior” or “baby” web hosting accounts will likely have one name or single tolerance database structures and installations options. These database allowances determine the flexibility of the hosting account. The amount of websites hosted at that address online can vary.

The competition for the domainer’s web hosting dollar has gotten severe and the attractiveness of cost friendly hosting options is different with each hosting offering. Affordability and performance will shake out the best hosting company buy. The thin marginal differences in components inside the hosting offering will be what webmasters and SEO optimizers are shopping for.

Multiple websites can be hosted inside the hosting account purchased for one domain. The key benefit in today’s development market for websites is how many blog installations and portal or forum installations a website hosting account can provide. But there are SEO and ad credits for the advertising side of domaining as well with some hosting packages.

No formal license or minimum coding experience is necessary to buy a hosting account. Price breaks per individual hosting companies exist for quarterly and annual and biannual billing, some on a prepaid basis. Free hosting does exist yet the sites made from such a resource often have ads from the hosting company the user or site owner cannot control.

Owner incorporated accounts directly administrated by the domainer are best. Cost effectiveness and uptime are the optimum qualifications for a web hosting company. Reviews and recommendations should be plentiful. the monetary method of payment should have some protections as well, such as Paypal or via credit card.

Industry domainers can refer the better choices in hosting companies for those domain name owners who don’t want to take a risk.  Some hosting companies actively encourage new commerce and offer discount coupons, like Godaddy.com. Some advantages of one webhost like a free parking option or a unlimited email might matter to one domainer more than another.

Some hosting companies offer sterling references, like HostGator. They will have some good testimonials at the site.  Other web hosting companies specialize in price or online versatility when it comes to variety of open source or Windows based site building applications.

Soon the newb domainer will have experience handling domain name transfers, addressing host records, resolving HTML files with type in traffic, and other hosting tasks. And hosting can always be changes. The best practice is choosing a hosting account is to start making websites for the domains, using a small account,and build from experience.

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What matters most in a domain that becomes a website? To a domainer it is easy to state the most important criteria when building a website. The hosting company. Because without the juice, the bandwidth, the psychic and electromagnetic energy driving those page rendering and HTML pages, the viewer has nothing. Without robust hosting, the website disappears. Literally.

Today I watched the finale to LOST on ABC TV. The series finale. That is, I tried to. Six years of mystery enveloped in a solution of two and half hours of television. But ABC must be low on cash, because the streaming LOST video kept stalling. The picture froze a lot. I spent six hours watching about twenty five minutes of fractured “LOST” video. The timelines and independent start sequence operability was nil. I have watched about half of it. By 3 p.m. I gave up.

This stalling and lack of prompt online response is what will fuel a thousand or more rogue LOST video streaming sites for one of the most rewatchable and searchable video episode of television for all time. Any domainer with a video hosting capable hosting account and the ability to embed YouTube or other video format sequences that has a LOST or TV related website up that will snare thousands of page views hourly from around the world.

Many hosting company service levels fluctuate from month to month year to year. But video content is one of the most watchable and linkable data bits a webmaster can add to their blog or website. Video content from “Lost” will be attracting viewers and researchers from search engines around the world for months and years to come. Happy “Lost” domainers will be seeing monster Adsense reports very shortly.

First to market gets the gold. This is still true online. But when faster is measured in milliseconds, hosting speed counts. The entrepreneurs are the ones making fan videos and splicing the video scenes into easily watchable and loadable LOST snippets. Those who invested in ‘Lost” names are reaping huge traffic rewards right about now. Their minimal site design and density of keywords is hitting the best market of LOST fans now than will ever be present anywhere.

The TV and film entertainment scene is a constantly changing domain market. For domainers who have no hosting accounts or less than robust hosting support, their domain related website development looks  grim. When a website has that much resistance to loading, Houston, we have a very big problem. And it’s not just “Lost“. It’s the Desperate Housewives and Grey’s Anatomy shows as well. ABC should be known as a tech company and a brand that can get ‘er done.

Not.

I must have seen the “hosted with limited commercials” message about a hundred times. What it should have said was “Shown with limited hosting and best speed to commercials.” A reasonable person might ask, why make a site where video will be hosted that is being shown on the network broadcasting source of that show? The above comments tell the tale. The originating network isn’t interested in supporting the video, just hosting enough bandwidth to load commercials.

Enter the domainer.

Soon the network will move its rotation of live LOST episodes to the back burner, to sell them on DVD. Then the DVD LOST extras market and video clips sites will heat up. Youtube   and the other streaming sites will enjoy that bump in traffic and searchability as well.

That’s the long game of domain site hosting, keeping relative content up with search friendly discoverability for years. When these sites are stacked up inside one hosting account, the profits total real money. Connecting the domains and cutting together the clips makes a film or TV themed website grow. And the visitor fanbase will always have something to say.

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The rush of getting a great domain for reg fee or selling a domain for a profitable margin can’t be duplicated. Cooking up  a great domain sale or domain acquisition creates a entrepreneurial fervor that is a completely new career in marketing, sales, and advertising. There is no drug more compelling or more rejuvenating than domaining fever. But a few caveats wouldn’t go amiss.

The domain trade blogs and domain newspapers tout the sale of big dollar domains and six figure auction sales many domainers may never see. They can dream about them, but they may never see those big ticket paydays in the domain world personally. Domain forums are places where the highs and sometimes the lows of the domain world get seen, but not everything in between.

I have known million dollar domainers and can appreciate the unseen time and effort they put into their domaining careers can be lost in the melee of a celebratory domain name sale. They have spent early dawn hours and late night sessions plugging their domain name candidates into the matrix for profit and assuming link building, SEO techniques, and domain name marketing and promotion will support the inflated resale price.

The domain sale headline of a huge price for a single domain name has a back story. Those responsible for big sales might be teams of promoters and investors acting behind the scenes. The consulting advice they receive and the strategy to sell the name go unseen, by and large. The auction may not be the first time the name was offered for sale, and many sleepless nights may have been spent agonizing over the reserve price.

Many domain name buyers and sellers aggregate multiple domain name sales across weeks, months, and years to establish a financial longevity and career perspective on the domain name career and what it means to them. These domain name entrepreneurs may spend countless hours talking to prospective buyers, campaigning at live auctions with bidders, and days and weeks of travel time attending domain name trade shows and conventions.

The big ticket domainers have some serious mileage and dues paid for those big auctions sales. And for every big ticket domain sale, you can bet the seller has a sizable portfolio of unsold names waiting at home. That domainer has spent years combing through every name drop list and every auction site spreadsheet, scrutinizing each proffered name for potential future value.

When the “ordinary” or newbie domainer gets started, their eyes should not be in the clouds. Luck and lightning may strike, but they really don’t bolster the family checkbook. Domain lightning in a bottle is a fun read but can’t be counted on. Every domain investment, large or small, should answer to measurable likelihood of gains and multiplicity of return on investment.

Domain name buying, domain name creation, and domain name acquisition is a fun and stimulating activity. Trading domain names opens up the mind to future possibilities. But the actual monetary involvement with the domain name career should be delimited to specific timetables and renewal dates that shore up the concrete edges of the domain name buy.

Financial constraints for marketing and promotion should follow the marketing plan. A map for stages of investment of time, money, and website or link development should be assigned milestones. These chronological datelines in the life of any domain ownership should include SEO results when keywords are added in, page rank changes (if any), and potential bidders or buyers for that name.

These types of notes and metrics can keep a distance between the emotional relationship many domainers have with their online real estate and the dollars and cents realities of ongoing maintenance, hosting, and renewal that come with domain name management. Any model of prurient investment urges reconsideration of ongoing effort, time and resources toward lesser probability return entities.

The wise domainer will streamline their efforts towards the domains that really count, and survive the ups and downs of the domain market with equanimity. The trade papers and the domain blogs can promote the big ticket domain sale until the (Tu)cows come home, but the sensible domainer will keep numbers, analysis and cool headed thinking on their side.

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People think you need a great big powerful computer to do these internet domain startups. But you really don’t. A pencil and paper can be one of the  powerful imaginative tools available when a creative mind strikes. Using thought instead of rote online mechanics can bring something new to the domaining mix.

One of the best and freshest approaches to domaining I see often is that just by turning off the computer and putting pencil to paper a webmaster or domain owner can jump start the enterprise. Here is a cheat sheet to working on your domains or your next big domain project without a wireless connectivity or or laptop device anywhere near.

I got a great idea today just working in the library using the free wi-fi. One guy couldn’t get his laptop to connect. It took 25 minutes of tweaking settings and executing dialog boxes to get the thing connected and online without error messages. I even carried my (connected) netbook over to let him see which screens he should be looking for. I didn’t know them by heart either.

This got me thinking. Almost all of the help options inside a troubleshooting screen require an online connection and a way to view the solution online. What if there was a way to download screenshots of navigating the problem troubleshooting windows in a path like a site plan while offline, when unconnected laptop users really need it. Then without help they might see where the path to their fixed alignment of configuration vectors lies.

1. Identify a Problem

Think hard about some kind of issue people have and what kinds of frustrations and pain points you have observed in yourself and others. What things do you find difficult or irritating to do? What stops in productivity put a wrench in your day? Just by identifying one of these issues and seeing that nobody else has put up a website with the best domain name for it is a head start. Then pencil up some names that apply to the problem.

In the example I have suggested, this is a laptop or notebook problem. or some kind of variation of the word “fix’ or “tweak”. Of course there are many technical places online that furnish this information. But who wants to page through manual text? Nobody. Who wants a resident page view of the navigation to the end of their problem in Windows? Everybody.

2. Devise a Solution

Internet and Computer users want solutions, and they want them before they get into a situation where they need the solution but didn’t look for it before. The type of solution may take a form like a video, photograph, downloadable form, printable file, white paper, or audio recording. This solution object needs to be packaged in a easy to use format most computer users can read.

In the above example, a site with written information about what troubleshooting and glitch fixing for wireless connectivity is useful. A schematic view with a slideshow (like in Powerpoint) to convey exactly what the user should see on the screen to fix their errors and get online is what should be provided. Clipping screenshots of such troubleshooting or camera work that supports this process (like video) can be helpful.

Using pencil and paper, the domainer should list all the steps necessary to complete each leg of the site building task. How many screenshots before the files get too big? What should the site look like and hos much accessible information should be navigable from the landing page? What resolution should the images for the screenshots be reduced to yet remain readable?

3. Brand the Solution

After penciling in some names, work with drop lists and online domain auctions until you find a name that is right. But gathering valuable links for the site and capturing the site material into a media format can happen well before the domain name is sourced. Use combinations of keywords that makes sense for a destination with the intended content.

For the above mentioned technical solution, words like “page,” “screen,”, wifi, “fix”, “tech” and “online” may work. Phrases work too, like “getting online”, wi-fi fix” and others. But the longer the name is, the less typeable it is. Work with pencil and paper to derive top choices. Then when you are online, hunt down those choices using a WHOIS query and a domain purchasing portal.

4. Mount the Solution

Devise a site online within your hosting account. Connect the domain to the url pointer or hosting record. Build a logo that displays an existing and memorable visual image of the brand. Furnish explanatory text about what the site does and articles about what solutions the site provides. Then seed the download files or link up the videos. Optimize content using SEO keyword density and subject-relevant prose.

In the above example, the user can find their computer model and operating system and work from there. If the entries are categorized correctly, Visitors can utilize the site for their computer model and check back for updates. A lot of computer vendors claim to provide this service  but the interface and usability of what is provided can absorb too much time for most laptop users.

5. Publicize the Solution’s Availability

The launch of a website should include a press release, an email campaign, invitations to visit the site at likely user forums, and social network incorporation. With enough material properly mounted online, these should be a snap. In the above example, a YouTube video showing how the screenshots help offline computer users would be made and uploaded.

Then the Youtube would be part of a link campaign on Facebook. Joining groups of technical and computer groups by laptop model name would publish the solution efficiently. The FaceBook entries would get Twittered. The Twitter, YouTube, and FaceBook traffic would visit the site. Feedback and registration could prompt expansion of the site to new computer models and solution types.

The paper and pencil part of this step becomes even more clicks and mortar. Make copies of your business card with the domain on it and print flyers and put the card or flyer up on bulletins boards at places with wi-fi, like Starbucks, internet cafe’s, and libraries. Savvy users will take note and visit your site.

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Think you’ve got what it takes to be a domain name professional? A domainer starts the day early, or “urly” as the case may be. Yet the true domainer’s day is packed with conflicting needs and time traps. Evaluating media, reading blogs, writing content and designing sites is absorbing. The time seems infinite, yet by the end of the day, it’s all gone. It happens in the blink of an eye, every day.

The domainer day must be navigated with key efficiency for multiple tasks. Managing business plans for websites, building site plans, choosing domain name, and checking auction sites takes time. Domain site bookmarks and favorites are natural time savers. Anything that shortens a task completion cycle, like a domain auction service, data reporting tool, domain forum, or tips update form a domain industry source is valuable.

Domainers must always be referencing their chosen domain news platform, or reviewing their hosting functionality and related discounts and offers. Domains come up for sale every day. Keeping competitive while managing existing domains is tricky. Budgets and timelines are the religion of true domainers. Rapid execution of these domaining tasks  is key across many different domain name sale, promotion, marketing, and development objectives. The reward is the profit.

Here is a sample agenda schedule in the day of a domainer:

6:00 a.m. Conference call between domain name investment partners.

6:30 a.m. Check email and review pertinent notifications and messages.

7:00 a.m. Login blog #1 and administrate comments & build new blog entry.

7:45 a.m. Check domain forum #1. Read messages and respond.

8:00 a.m. Review daily Pool auction and aftermarket drop listings.

8: 45 Log best picks from drop and deletions lists. Make min and max offers.

9:00 a.m. Peruse Droplist keyword lists and budget 2nd and 3rd offer ceilings.

9:30 a.m. Take call from domainer contact with bulk portfolio sale.

10 a.m. Register for a new topical forum for new domain name. Post 10 threads and then establish link to url of domain name in signature.

10:30 a.m. Check domain auctions and drop list bids between forum posts.

11:00 a.m. Make 3 blog entries with url link and domain name trackbacks.

12 noon. Munch lunch while listening to domain radio shows. Watch domain SEO information videos from live streaming or attempt some halfhearted cardio exercises and stretching hardworking neck and back muscles.

1 p.m. Open domain portfolio report and check date files for tickler spreadsheet with passwords and user names and visit 5 domain keyword related forums and make three posts in each one. Mark date of visit and adjust spreadsheet to next “tickler” sites for the next online development domain link promotion session. Print out report for domain portfolio notebook update.

2 p.m. Brainstorm new domains to buy, forming potential domain names from keywords and terms from clipped media reports. Use the Network Solutions WHOIS,  Godaddy, and other resources to verify if domains already exist and how much they might cost. Scan for current Godaddy coupon codes and determine if a bulk buy is in order.

3 p.m. Collect text files of custom content ordered form members of online domain forums. Evaluate keywords in Textalyser, and verify originality using Copyscape.

4 p.m. Make custom logo for new domain minisite using Cooltext. Experiment with textures, colors, fonts and sizing.

5 p.m. Submit Google and Adsense data for a new domain. Compose the minisite file with text content files collected and test the new site appearance in your resident browser or HTML viewer.

6 p.m. Proof marketing email for key domain site and send to broadcast list from registrations at the site. Submit new articles and graphics to the open source application and jot in a notebook the most viewed recent articles.

7 p.m. Review domain expiration report in domain portfolio software. Submit two domain names “for sale” threads for BIN auctions in two domain forum auction categories.

8 p.m. Sign up for streaming video webinar from trusted consultant in the domain world. Download videos from archive to review offline. Log into domain forums and change signature link to newest domain venture.

9 p.m. Review email bids and counter offer for bid domains. make payments to content authors, domain owners, and graphic artists for custom logos and themes for new partnership site. Browse SEO blog for reminder tips.

9:30 Stream favorite TV show on one LCD screen while adding keywords and doing text searches on the other. Use commercials for ad hoc keyword and meta tag addition in window with open source application site login in the article editor administration interface.

10 p.m. Review Alexa ranking for each domain in the portfolio spreadsheets. . Perform domain name and website analysis & compose review charts. Determine priority tasks for the next day.

[Rinse, lather & repeat.]

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