Why Is It Important to Renew Domain Names

For those building an online business, it is vitally important to renew domain names early. We often do not think to renew domain names usually because they are generally inexpensive to do, yet it is important for more reasons that you might initially realise. Consider the effort and work you put into building your online business is founded on your domain address, much like a brick and mortar store is founded on their street address. When they move any distance away, they lose some customers who do not know how to find them. When you don't renew domain names, you will be losing your entire business and potentially starting from scratch.

How will your customers know where to find you if your domain name expires? Even if you have decided to switch websites and domain addresses, many of your customers will go to your old domain name and not find any information to know where you are now. This is especially important for older customers who may not have purchased from you in a while, but still have your old domain name bookmarked for reference. In these situations, they might try to look your new URL on a search engine site, but then again they might think you've gone out of business and look for someone else.

Another reason to renew domain names is that you are essentially starting from scratch when rebuilding your presence on the web. Your search engine ranking will have to start all over again as you try to climb back up and re-establish your ranking. This means losing even more customers than the ones you had because new potential customers will be harder pressed to find you.

One aspect to renew domain names is one many people do not immediately consider and that is changing your email addresses as well. Your clients and customers who are your primary contacts through email will now have their messages returned without knowing your new email address. This means potential email orders and possible client contacts for more business are now gone.

Plus, many of your internet services such as online banking will have to be changed as well. Given the number of services that many businesses use, it can be quite easy to lose track of all of them and wind up not receiving important information from services that have not been updated to your new email address. The thought of missing an important bill or payment from letting your domain name and email address go is certainly one to make you pause and consider that the relatively low cost to renew domain addresses can be far more beneficial than you first might think.

Consider another aspect when businesses do not renew domain names, anyone else can take them over. This means your old domain address can be taken by one that receives website traffic meant for you. When you consider that on average 15% of non-renewed domain addresses are picked up by someone else within a single day and almost 8% within 10 seconds, the idea that someone else is either getting business that should have been yours or worse yet, constructing a website that might be "spam" related or worse could damage your business image.

Chris Mather is a Project Manager for CMather.com and Bendigo Web Hosting. The company offers expert advice on Website Design, cPanel Hosting and Domain Name Registration. www.CMather.com
and Bendigo Web Hosting.

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?Is Your Domain Name the Best That It Can Be

In theory, choosing your domain name should be simple, particularly if you are building a website for an existing company: take the name of the organisation, remove the spaces and add a .com or similar extension to the end. While this may seem to be the best practice, there are a number of drawbacks in not thinking about your domain name in a logical manner.

While you may consider your company name to be vital to the promotion of your services, it is important to understand what you are hoping to achieve when you take your project online. It can be difficult to step away from a name steeped in tradition that you feel speaks of the values of your company and look to something completely different, but this may be the best way forward.

If your organisation has a particularly long name, think about how that would look written down as a web address. Would it transfer well to your print advertising? Would it fit well in a limited-width print advertisement or affect the way your business' stationery is designed or printed?

When it comes to promoting your website, think how easy it is for someone to remember your domain name. It goes without saying that something such as "brilliant.com" - a name that is both short in terms of the number of characters and memorable in the fact that it is a striking everyday word - is far easier to tell somebody over the phone or face-to-face than one that is many times longer.

Don't force a domain name either, adding dashes or underscores simply because another person has registered the name that you think you want. Again, trying to convey a domain name either in a one-to-one environment or in something such as a radio advertisement could prove tricky. The same can be said for using a name that relies on a unique or awkward spelling. If you choose "dynamik.com", how many people are going to try to spell that name with a "c" rather than a "k"? How annoying will it be to have to remind people each time you tell them your web address, "that's dynamic with a 'k', not a 'c'."

If your domain name is set in stone, ie your website has been online for some time, is generating a fair amount of traffic and places well in high-value search-engine results, then the upheaval of changing it for something more catchy may not be appealing, or even necessary. However, if you have recently launched a site and feel it is underperforming, asking yourself and your peers how they feel about the domain name and canvassing opinion on what may be better may prove to be beneficial in the long run. Indeed, by following this process at the outset, before a line of code has been written, may prove to be the best decision you ever made.

Dom Wint is the owner of Clean Page Design Limited, a web design company based in Saddleworth in the UK which specialises in getting small businesses, clubs and charities online. For more information, visit www.cleanpagedesign.co.uk.

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Online Marketing Tools - How To Find A Great Domain Name

Online Marketing Tools are extremely important to business owners nowadays. Even the fledgling company looking to break into the online marketplace or the home worker looking for an online presence can benefit from the myriad of online marketing tools available.

When setting up any online business, the first thing that needs to be considered is what your name will be online. You need to give thought to what your website domain name will be. This is the location, or address, your customers or clients will go to connect with you online.

When coming up with a domain name, there are two main styles of domain name you need to think about. 

1. Do you want your business name to be in the domain name?
2. Are you looking to generate large volumes of leads for your business from Search Engines?

The second style takes a bit more research and can involve the use of other online marketing tools for keyword research. The outcome would be a list of search keywords people use to find related results to the business you are in. Using these keywords you can set up domain names that match the keyword and, with some Search Engine Optimisation, end up driving large volumes of new customers to your website. Examples of this style of domain name are PlumbersInSacramento.com or ChocolateChipCookieRecipes.com. There is no end to this style of domain that you can apply to your business are or niche.

Whatever style of domain you choose, you need to find an available domain name that has not yet been registered. Out of all the online marketing tools I use for domain name research, I've not yet come across one better than DomainsBot.com.

Use DomainsBot.com to find a domain that matches your needs and is available to register. You are able to see at a glance which ones are available to buy.

Once you have found a domain and you know it is available, find a registrar's website to register the domain. Search Google to find such a website. There are lots to choose from.

One Top Tip before registering your domain. Search for 'discount vouchers' using Google for the registrar you have chosen. You may find that you can get a discount on your domain name. They can be pretty easy to find. Remember, Google is also one of the best online marketing tools out there.

Andrew Briggs combines his years of experience in software development and internet marketing to help you find the right internet marketing tools for your business. Read his blog @ http://www.InternetMarketingToolTips.com and let him guide you through your choices of internet marketing tools.

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For More Professional Email - Buy A Domain Name

Email services such as Gmail, Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail are robust, have plenty of features and are free. However, if you're in business you really should buy a domain name and use it for your email communications.

As we all know, first impressions count. If you're trying to woo new customers, they may be a little more open to your approach if your mail is coming from a domain name you've bought (registered) associated with your business; rather than an address from a free email service.

The reason is two-fold.

First, so many scams are carried out via free email services. Secondly, a business person using a free email address may seem like an amateur, or very new to whatever industry they are in; even if this isn't the case.

With domain name registration so cheap these days; a business relying on a free email address doesn't exactly scream success.

Another very important reason to buy a domain name is it becomes part of your branding efforts - advertise your business wherever you can; not your ISP or a free email service.

By acquiring your own domain name, it doesn't mean you have to build a web site too (although this can certainly help your business). You can just use it for email purposes until such time you are ready to have a web site designed.

You don't have to be a business person to benefit from email under your own domain name either. For example, your own domain can be useful in job-hunting; helping you stand out from the pack - particularly if the name you choose is your own; e.g. "firstname@firstnamelastname.com".

Using your own domain also doesn't mean you need to stop using Gmail or whatever free email service if you would prefer to continue to use those interfaces. Simply set up an email address under your domain name as a forwarder and in your free email account, configure your "send as" name to reflect your domain name email address.

Clarification: "buying" domain names is somewhat of an incorrect term; but one that is commonly used. A domain name you register yourself is actually leased from the registry to which the extension belongs. When registering the name, you are being provided a license to use that name for X period, with option to renew perpetually - assuming you are observing the registry guidelines.

Even when you buy an existing domain name from another party; all you are purchasing are the rights to be listed as the registrant and administrator of the name and to operate the domain. Nobody can truly 'own' a name.

Michael Bloch is a consultant for Australia-based Domain Registration Services. Getting ready to buy a domain name? Pick up some tips on choosing a good name.

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6 Things to Consider When Choosing a Domain Name

Just like in the real world where a strategic location plays an important role for the success of a brick and mortar business, a good domain name is one of the fundamentals to the success of your website. If you still do not know the characteristics of a good domain name, the followings are six characteristics that you have to look for when choosing a domain name.

1. Short

When choosing a domain name, you have to keep in mind that shorter is better, because people can easily remember a short domain name. Since those three, four or five-letter.com domains are already gone; the reasonable target is to choose a domain name between 5 and 20 characters, or not more than 3 words.

Example: Loan.com is an excellent domain name; StudentLoan.com is a good domain name; BestStudentLoan.com is an average domain name, but it is still usable; but YourBestStudentLoan.com is worthless.

2. Easy to remember

Although there are many bookmarking features, the majority of internet users do not use them. If your domain name is easy to remember, people can easily type your domain name when they want to search information from your website. If your domain name is complicated, the possibility to lose visitors is very high. For an example: Ghrbx.com is a short domain name, but it is very difficult to remember.

3. Easy to spell

You have to keep in mind that just one letter misspelling can bring your visitors to your competitor's website. Therefore, you have to ensure that you do not use strange letters combinations, words with difficult pronunciation, foreign words or anything that can make your potential visitors misspell your domain name. For an example, people will type coffeeshops.com instead of coffeeshopz.com.

4. Use a.com extension

There are several reasons why a.com extension should be your priority. The first reason, a.com extension is the most popular extension around the world, and it is what most people type after typing the domain name. The second reason, it helps to slightly reduce your promotion efforts. For an example, your domain name is SouthBeach.com and your competitor's domain name is SouthBeach.net. Even though your competitor's website might be better than yours, you can take advantage because you have the.com extension.

5. Descriptive

Visitors can come from anywhere. They can come from the search engines or referrals. However, one factor that can drag their attention to visit a website is how descriptive the domain name is. For an example, if your domain name is GamingGuides.com, most likely your visitors can guess what your site is about even before visiting your site.

6. Do not contain numbers or hyphens

Numbers and hyphens are two things that you have to avoid when choosing a domain name. People often type a domain name without numbers or hyphens. For an example, if your domain is Carpet-Cleaning-Limbong.com, most likely your potential visitors will type CarpetCleaningLimbong.com and ignore the hyphens.

As a conclusion, finding a good domain name can be very challenging these days, especially a domain name that meets the six characteristics mentioned above. However, do not get discouraged because there are many popular websites out there that only meet four or five characteristics, so having four or five characteristics is still fine. The six characteristics of a good domain name mentioned above are basic considerations that you can use when choosing a domain name for your website.

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Content Creation for the Internet Marketing Beginner

Internet marketing is a very diverse niche with many components. For those who are just starting out, the landscape can be overwhelming at first glance. The question is, where do you start? The basis for any good online marketing campaign is content. Content creation is the single most important element in determining your online success or failure.

OK, that's a lot of pressure to put on you especially if you are brand new. The good news is that content creation does not have to be that complicated. With a solid game plan you can be creating quality content that will keep your audience coming back for more and more. To set up your game plan you are going to have to brainstorm and ask yourself some questions.

First, you want to identify who you are going to be creating this content for. Understanding what niche you are going after will start to plant the seeds for the type of content you will create. Next, ask yourself what are my audience's needs and challenges? Finally, do a little research on the demographics of your target audience to find out how the like to consume content.

A real world example of this is as follows. You decide that you want to go into business online in the golf market. Your specialty (niche) is going to be youth golf. You identify that youth golfers need inexpensive equipment, appropriate places to play, and instructors geared towards younger golfers. Their main demographic is between the ages of thirteen and eighteen.. They are very involved with social media and love to watch videos.

As you can see, content creation is simply knowing your audience and giving them quality information in the format they desire. The format you choose is critical and has to be geared toward your target audience. It can be written text, images, audio clips, videos, or a combination of whatever you feel will best convey your content. There is no point writing long, drawn out, technical articles for youth golfers as this simply is not the way they consume information.

Now that you know what content creation is, where do you put the media that you create so it can be found? Starting your own blog is the easiest, most effective way for new marketers to get recognized. You are able to post written information, images and videos directly on your blog giving you the ability to reach any niche you desire. A blog is also the easiest way for you to build your brand through social networks.

Article directories also serve as a great vehicle to get noticed. They are limited compared to personal blogs but because of the large amount of people that rely on them for information, the can be a very effective form of marketing your content. Like article directories, social video sharing sites are also a great way to get exposure. Uploading your videos to these sites puts you in front of millions of potential customers from all over the world.

The most effective marketers on the internet use a combination of blogging, article writing, and creating videos to attract like minded people to their sites. They use these mediums to build trust with their audience thus creating a following of people that are interested in the products they have to sell. The bottom line is that anyone can use content creation to achieve success online. It takes some time and practice just like anything else but once you master it, you will have an invaluable skill set that you can use in any business.

For more information about Content Creation, please visit http://seandegraaff.com

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?Rip Off Report: What Do You Look For When Investigating Online Business Opportunities

This rip off report was designed to provide people with the know how of what exactly to look for when it comes to searching for legitimate online business opportunities. Many off us out there already have been taken by these dirty rotten scandals. Cyber fraud is all over the web and everyday it seems to be another scam out there. These 4 Tips will help you make an informed decision when investigating these opportunities, therefor have and open mind, but have your guards up and know what to look for.

1. Do Your Research

Do a simple search online to see what type of reviews are written about the company you are investigating. You can also go to any online forums that pertain to that subject. Don't believe the sales letter or webpage, these are probably written by a professional writer who knows how to lure people in. Instead do your due diligence on the company with the offer.

2. Look at the Claims

Most scams involve ridiculous claims that are really unbelievable. Use your judgement on this. A little common sense will save you an abundance of time and money. The old adage "if it sounds to good to be true, it usually is," will help you make an informed decision on the opportunity at hand.

3. Call the Phone Number

If there is not a phone number on the webpage then you should not go any further with this opportunity. The webpage should always have a phone number that when called you actually talk to a real person. Some of these companies will have an answering service that if called you leave a message and they return your call in the order received. In any event, if you talk to a real person about the income opportunity at hand, this will help you with your decision.

4. Look For An Address

If there actually is an address on the website, search internet maps to see exactly where the location is. You can even zoom into the property and see what the actual building in question looks like. If the business in question is suppose to be a very large company, but when looked on map it show an empty lot on that address, it is probably a rip off.

If you feel you have been taken by the online cyber robbers, file a complaint with one of the agencies below. Hopefully this rip off report will help you in the future. Thanks and good luck.

The Attorney Generals Office

The Federal Trade Commission

Better Business Bureau

Arthur K Walter has been investigating online business opportunities for about 8 years. With his expertise he helps people find legitimate and honest ways to make money online. If you want to discover a proven online business opportunity, just visit us at http://legitincomeonline.net and click the blinking free website icon.

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