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In the physical world, you can distinguish a business because of
its structure, window displays, or signs. You can tell that a bank is a
bank, or a clothing store is indeed a clothing store.
In the Internet, however, it is an entirely different story
altogether. Your domain name is the only clue to your online business.
You do not have visual clues: no location, no look, and no store
design. Instead, users have to type in a word or a set of words to
reach your site. Your prospective visitor has no way of knowing what
your site is all about until she finds it and reads its contents. Who can
ever tell that Amazon.com sells books? Or that Excite is a search
engine?
Your domain name can spell your success on the Internet. A good
domain name is the best asset you can ever have. It can make your
business stand out in the crowd, or just float aimlessly in space.
The need to provide immediate clues to an online business led to
the prevalence of generic domain names. Generic names instantly
provide the user with an idea of what a business is all about, what to
expect and look for in a site. For instance, Etoys.com is a toy store.
The temptation of the generic name has been so powerful; that
some companies even paid ridiculously high prices to get the name
they want. The domains Loans.com and Wines.com were both bought
for $3 million each. Telephone.com was acquired for $1.75 million,
while Bingo.com sold for $1.1 million.
However, generic names do not necessarily create the “buzz” that
you’d like surrounding your website. Branding has always been about
proper names: McDonald's did not name their store Hamburger. Hertz
is not called Car Rental. FedEx is not Mail Carrier. Kodak is not
Photographs. Google is not Search Engine. Microsoft is not Computer
Software.
For better branding results, your domain name should stand out
and be easy to remember. Consider the following tips when creating a
domain name:
The domain name should be short
The domain name should be simple
It should be suggestive of your business category
It should be unique
It should be easy to interpret and pronounce
It should be personalized
It should not be difficult to spell
It should not be difficult to remember
Domain names can be registered through many different
companies (known as "registrars") - a listing of these companies is
available at ICANN.org. You can register for domain names from 1 to
10 years in advance and prices can vary anywhere from $8 to $30 per
year for each registered domain. Most website hosting companies, as
explained later, will handle the registration process for you, but make
sure that you are properly listed as the owner of the domain when it is
registered. If you have registered a domain name for a specific period,
make sure you renew it in time. You’d be surprised at the number of
cases, where website owners have lost their domain name to a
competitor by not renewing it in time.
Using Expired Domains to Skyrocket Your Traffic
Domain names provide a great opportunity to make easy money.
Thousands of webmasters invest time, effort and money to
promote their site and build up traffic. Many of them then lose interest
and move on, leaving their site active. That means that although they
still own the domain, they’re not actively promoting it. But they don’t
need to. All the automatic marketing systems they’ve put in place are
still bringing in traffic. The site runs itself.
Now, at some point the ownership of those domains is going to
expire. If you snap up those domains once they come back onto the
market, you’ve got a pre-built stream of customers. You can either
rebuild the site, or redirect the traffic to your domain.
It’s that easy. In fact, websites like DeletedDomains.com
actually do all the legwork and let you reap all the rewards.
Do be careful when using other sites though. There are some
swindlers out there that will sell you subscriptions, provide you with
outdated lists, take your money and keep the good domains for
themselves. It happens, and there’s little point in taking a risk with
other companies when DeletedDomains.com does such a great job.
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