Choose the right domain name for your online business!

How do you know you have chosen the right domain name for your blog or website?

There are a few good rules you should always follow. There are also lots of examples of successful blogs or websites that break those rules. Still, following the rules will help make things easier for you to get your site to rank well in the search engines. Keep in mind that even when I give examples of rule breaking domains, these are the exceptions and you will be better off following the rules.

Let’s get started.

Always, always get a .com domain!

This is probably the single most important rule I can think of. Chances are, if you try to work on a non .com domain, all you are doing is advertising for the owner of the .com. You may be tempted to save money with a .info (I was) but after talking to those who have done some research, .info’s seem to rank lower in the SE’s (search engines) than .com’s.

Darren at problogger.net spent years trying to get the .com domain for Problogger. Now that he finally has it, it is not easy to switch the domain over to the .com without taking a hit from the search engines. At least now Darren can redirect the traffic from the .com that he was losing back to his original domain.

An example of another successful non .com domain would be del.icio.us.

del.icio.us is a popular social bookmarking site. Probably one of the few well known .us domains. Of course, if you have the option of a .edu or .gov domain those might make an exception, but most people will automatically put a .com on the end of a domain if they try to type it in. Avoid the chance and stick with a .com over any local or other type of domain.

Try to have a niche related keyword in the domain.

While not as important to SEO anymore, it may still help you rank a bit better if you have a popular keyword for your niche in your title. Also, Google bold faces the keyword if it is in the domain. Also, when someone sees the keyword in the domain itself, they know that site is likely to be about the subject they are searching for. Every little bit helps.

Keep is short and simple.

Shorter will be easier to remember, write down, and spell. Avoid too many words. Avoid words that are easy to misspell. We all want success, but can everyone spell it? Is that with one or two C’s and S’s?

Check your spelling.

I remember a demonstration video where the author did a search for possible domains and purchased a domain before realizing it was misspelled. Double check your spelling before you click the purchase button (triple check if you spell like me). Google is a play on the word googol. Sometimes spelling may not be that important.

Don’t use hyphens or dashes.

These are nearly impossible to tell someone unless they read the domain name. Maybe you will run a radio advertisement or be on a podcast someday. It is really inconvenient to explain dashes by voice. While the dashes or hyphens can make it easier to read the domain in a listing, you are better off just avoiding them.

Avoid trademarked names in your domain.

Even if you are planning to do an affiliate program for a company, avoid using and trademarked names in your domain. Nearly all affiliates will have a list of words that you cannot use in a domain if you wish to advertise their product. Even if you do get permission from someone at the company remember the person that replaces him or her may not feel the same. Don’t become lawyer bait. Find a related generic term. That way if the Zune never takes off your mp3 player site can still talk about iPods.

Avoid using free domain name search tools.

More than once I have read complaints from someone who used one of these services only to find that the domain names they checked were suddenly taken. I understand that there are some sites that apparently use the searches people do to find potential domains to purchase for themselves. Stick with the domain search tools provided by your registrar.

If you have the time and money, a used domain can have advantages.

A domain that has already been used can give your site or blog some advantages from the start. It may already have some page rank associated with it. It may have links pointing to it. It may still have some traffic coming to it. This can help your site hit the ground already running. It could also have been banned or delisted considered spam or associated with bad subject material that will prevent the domain from becoming successful at any level. If you go this route, be careful and check everything you can about the domain first.

Stick with well-known reliable domain registrars.

It will do you no good to save a few dollars on your domain if you cannot renew it because the registrar is messed up. This has happened to me. I also know someone who lost hundreds of domains and thousands of dollars in monthly income after a registrar failed to renew domains that he had renewed.

There are 3 registrars that I trust.

GoDaddy.com , eNom, and NameCheap. GoDaddy is the best known. Avoid purchasing anything other than the domain and whois protection. They will try to sell you everything under the sun. Also, I rarely hear good things about their hosting. I find eNom expensive. I do recommend NameCheap. They have been reliable and very affordable. The GoDaddy link is an affiliate link. This site is registered with GoDaddy, I have one or two with eNom and the rest are now with NameCheap. Personally, I find NameCheap to be much easier to buy from than GoDaddy.

The most important rule is to get your own domain.

Any domain is better than no domain. Use your name (unless your last name is difficult to spell like mine). If you are putting your traditional business online, using the company’s name would be good, or using part of the company’s name.

There are lots of examples of very successful blogs and sites that do not necessarily follow the rules I have given. Many popular blogs are on domain names of the author’s name. There is whatever.com that has become a million dollar business for a teenage girl. However, these recommendations should help your site get more traffic from the SE’s.

Internet marking constantly changing and Keyword Avalanch has changed to NicheRockets.

Why should you care? Keep reading for something really cool (and free) if you are trying to make money online.

What is NicheRockets?

At it’s core, NicheRockets is the same paid forum just like Keyword Avalanche was. In addition to the forum, Keyword Avalanche featured keyword lists that were useful to build niche sites around. However, the Internet marketing world is changing and AdSense does not pay what is used to and keyword lists are not as effective. So to add and keep real value to the forum they increased value of the benefits of being a member.

NicheRockets gives you five businesses in a box on a monthly basis.

More than just five niche sites ready for you to build, they are actually 5 businesses. You get a complete site. Graphics and template plus articles for content. You also get a complete Nichebot keyword search so you can change the content for your articles and know what keywords are hot. The real kicker is the product. A quality ebook for the niche site with sales page. That is not just one, but five per month. All you need is a domain, hosting, and to set it up.

Why not just sites and articles?

The fact is, Adsense is not as great as it used to be. Having a product to sell can really help create a true income from the sites. Let’s face it, if 10 out of 100 visitors click an Adsense ad, you are lucky to make $10 from all of them and in most cases you will make less than $1 from those 10 clicks. Now, if just 2 visitors buy your product, you’ve made over $20 instead. Plus, you can run your own AdWords campaign (or even set up your own affiliate system) to send more traffic.

Curious about NicheRockets’ business in a box? A free offer!

NicheRockets has a free business in a box for you to check out. Yep, a free site with content, graphic, product, and sales page and even a Nichebot keyword search done for you. You can even create the site and sell it. It is also not a ebook on making money online!  NicheRockets places the value of this gift at $1000 and it could very well make you more than that if you know what to do. I would suggest you download it right now before they remove it. Use the following link:

Free Business In a Box

What if you do not know how to set up a niche site?

That is where the NicheRockets forum comes in. With NicheRockets you can get complete training. They have videos to guide you each step of the way, including both a more basic system to get you started and guides for a more robust system when you are ready. If you find that you have questions after the videos and instructions, you also can ask in the forum.

The Nichebot forum is a real value by itself.

There is real advice there from people that really make money online. Tim Gorman (who is one of Ezine Articles top authors) shares his advice and experience. You cannot get more practical than a full time Air Force recruiter who makes the kind of money he does online. What he does works! There are other members that give great advice too. While there are not any real "secrets" in internet marketing, there is also advice that cannot be shared "out in the open" that some members feel safe to share in a closed forum like NicheRockets. There are also other products made available to members on the forum including resale rights products to sell that others are paying just to read (and members get them free). Great products, great education and great advice all in one place. What more could you ask for?

How about a $1-7 day NicheRockets trial?

Check it out for 7 days. If you do not like it, $1 is nothing to worry about it. If you do decide to stay (they wouldn’t make this kind of offer if they did not think you would be impressed) you get $50 off the normal monthly subscription. Give the $1 trial a trial and save the $50 on the subscription using the link below:

NicheRockets $1 trial

If you are interested in making money online, NicheRockets may be a good investment for you.

I am not going to tell you it will make you thousands per month. Most people buy the guru ebooks and never make a dime. Sometimes, it is because the information is useless and everyone is already using it. Other times, it is simply because they do not use the information. Ether way, they have wasted the money they spent. Sometimes that can be hundreds or thousands of dollars. You can see the what the NicheRockets product will look like for free and test the forum for just $1. I feel safe recommending that to anyone.

Once more here are the links:

Free NicheRockets business in a box

NicheRockets $1 trial and $50 off monthly subscription

I have been with NicheRockets nearly 2 years.

It is one of the two paid forums/products on internet marketing that I can really recommend. If you just want to run a blog, it may not be for you. If you are looking at eBay, it may not be worth the monthly expense. If you are interested in affiliate income, Adsense, and niche sites, I would think it definitely would be worth it. In any situation though, I would recommend you see for yourself because $1 is nothing that will set you back financially and it may be just what you need.

Free keyword research has now gotten a lot more difficult to find.

*Edit: It now seems that rumors about the death of the Overture Keyword Research tool have been premature.  It is still running, although at reduced responsiveness.  It is still believed that Yahoo does plan to replace the Overture Keyword Tool.  I have decided to leave this post up because it does look like the Free Overture Keyword Research Tool will eventually be taken down.*

The Yahoo Overture tool that most free keyword research tools used has been taken off-line.

  This makes researching keywords for your articles much more difficult, if not expensive.

There is no cheap or free replacement for developers who develop keyword research tools.

This means there are no longer very many free keyword research tools anymore.  There’s the Google Keyword External Tool, NicheBOT Classic, and the halfway working tool at Digital Point.

Keyword research is a very important part of Internet marketing and website development.

It looks like it is also going to be costly.  Some of the paid keyword research tools are very expensive.  And you will need to do a lot of keyword research with them in order to make them pay for themselves.

If you need to do keyword research I suggest you take a look at NicheBOT.

 With NicheBOT you’ll also get access to Keyword Discovery and Wordtracker, two of the other paid keyword research tools.  NicheBOT also offers a lower price plan.  I believe they have a very inexpensive trial too.  You can watch the NicheBOT Wordtrend video here.

Give NicheBOT a try.  I’m sure you’ll find it one of the most useful keyword tools like I have.

NicheBOT Tour Page for $1 Trial Offer

WordTrend Video