Seven frequently asked questions about choosing a domain name

Posted by rimel - 16/07/07 at 03:07:13 am

Tips on choosing a domain name in the format of questions and answers. One of the most common questions I’m asked by my clients is “What domain name should I use for my website?”. In response, I would recommend considering several factors. In th

One of the most common questions I’m asked by my clients is “What domain name should I use for my website?”. In response, I would recommend considering several factors. In the following article, I will go through these factors in a question and answer format:

1. Should I choose a country code domain name (like .CO.UK or .CA), or a global top-level domain like .COM?

If your target market is specific to one country, I would recommend using a country code domain name, especially if you sell physical products that can only be delivered within that country. Many people I have spoken to tell me that they are often uncertain of where online stores are located, and it is not until they reach checkout and are asked to pay in a foreign currency that they are not able to order the products in their shopping basket due to the website not selling internationally. Having a country code domain name instantly lets your potential customers know that you are located in the same country as them, and that your service is designed specifically for that nation.

Alternatively, if you have a website developed for the purpose of sharing information, with little or no content which is only relevant in one part of the world, my advice would be to choose a global top-level domain such as .com.

2. Should I break up words within my domain name with hyphens? Is ‘widget-shop.com’ better than ‘widgetshop.com’?

There seems to be a general consensus within the search engine optimisation industry that using hyphens helps search engines deduce what the actual words within an URL are, therefore leading to those pages being ranked higher in the search engine results. However, there is also speculation that using 2 or more hyphens within the domain name incurs a penalty. With this in mind, I would advise anyone who plans to receive most of their custom from organic search engine results to use one hyphen in their domain name to separate their targeted search keywords.

However, if your business model is not heavy on search engine optimisation, my recommendation would be to not have any hyphens in your domain name, as the vast majority of internet users intuitively enter domain names in their browser address bar without any hyphens. In domain name value appraisal circles, the non-hyphenated version of a domain name is usually considered to be of greater worth.

For search engine optimisation, studies show that one hyphen may give you an advantage, but on the whole I would recommend not using any hyphens in your domain name.

3. Is it better to have digits (2, 3 etc.) or words for numbers (two, three etc.) in my domain name?

Generally speaking, I would dissuade anyone using word of mouth advertising from having any numbers, either as digits or as words, in their domain name. The reason for this is that a domain name should be easy to remember and easy to spell correctly. Lets say for example you had the domain name ‘widgets4u.com’. If you meet someone that is interested in your product, and tell them to visit your website, you are going to have tell them specifically that the 4 is numeric and the U is just one letter. Otherwise, they may input ‘widgetsforyou.com’, ‘widgets4you.com’, ‘widgetsforu.com’ and end up at the website of one of your competitors.

If however you are prepared to accept this risk, in my experience the layperson tends to instinctively put the numeric version of a number in a domain name. Therefore, use ‘widgets2.com’, not ‘widgetstwo.com’.

4. How long should my domain name be?

As short as possible. Long domain names are harder for your customers to remember, take longer to type, longer to spell out (you may find yourself having to spell your domain name letter-by-letter to some clients) and also may be harder to actually fit onto your business cards, print advertisements and similar. I have one client whose business name consists of four words, two of which are tricky to spell. My advice to him was to use a domain name with the first letter of each word only, which has proved very easy to remember.

If you are targeting specific search keywords, I would recommend that your domain name consists of those keywords and as little else as possible. If you were targeting ‘purple widgets’, my advice would be to use the domain name ‘purplewidgets.com’. If that domain name is not available, I would recommend adding one extra word to the end. For example, I personally have a web site which targets the search keyword ‘weight loss’. As one would expect, ‘weightloss.com’ and ‘weightloss.co.uk’ were already registered - so I opted for the domain name ‘weightlossweb.co.uk’. Choosing an added word that begins with the same letter as your first keyword helps your visitors remember your domain name. So, going back to the purple widgets example: Alternative domain names could include ‘purplewidgetpro.com’, ‘purplewidgetpower.com’ and ‘purplewidgetparadise.com’.

5. Are some domain name extensions better than others?

Yes. Generally speaking, the most desirable top-level domain is the .COM. Charitable websites may choose .ORG in order to declare that they are a charitable organisation, but there are currently no restrictions on who can register .ORG domain names or what they need be used for - and many commercial websites still use them.

My personal “league table” of favoured domain name extensions is as follows:

1 .COM
2 Country-code (.CO.UK, .CA, .IE etc.)
3 .NET
4 .ORG
5 .BIZ
6 .INFO
7 .NAME

I currently have in excess of 300 domain names registered, none of which are .INFO or .NAME. I would only recommend that one registers .BIZ, .INFO or .NAME domains if they have a large website with a brand name to protect. For example, my business trading name is ‘Starsol.co.uk’. At the time of writing this article, ‘Starsol.com’ is currently registered by a domain name squatter, who is asking for an extortionate price. I have chosen to register ‘Starsol.biz’ to prevent a similar situation occurring in future. I feel it is very unlikely that anyone actually types the domain with the .BIZ extension into the address bar looking for my website - but if I didn’t register the name myself - someone else might and go on to use it for purposes that may harm my brand.

6. What about .TV and .WS?

Although they may be marketed as such, .TV does not mean tele-vision and .WS does not mean web-site or world-site. .TV is the country code extension for Tuvalu and .WS is for Samoa. Tuvalu is small island country located in the Western Pacific Ocean with a population of approximately 11,000 in the Western Pacific Ocean that gained independence from the UK in 1978. Samoa, also in the Pacific, gained independence from New Zealand in 1962 and has a population of around 180,000. If these countries are not your target markets, I would personally dissuade you from using their country code domain names.

Other similar domain names include .FM (Federated States of Micronesia) which masquerades as the TLD for radio stations and .CC (Cocos Islands).

7. Why do some domain name registrars charge more than others? Are their domain names better?

Perhaps surprising, this is a question I have been asked on several occasions. Just like how some supermarkets which charge more than others for identical cans of fizzy drink than others, domain name registrars also charge differing domain name registration costs. Although some domain name registrars may provide extra tools with domain name registration, a domain name registered for $8.95 a year will work in exactly the same way and one registered for $35.00 a year. If I may give my own service a plug here, Starsol Domains offers .COM registration for what I believe are some of the fairest prices on the ‘net.

I hope this article has helped you in your search for a perfect domain name. I would like to add however, that with domain name registrations being so cheap, that registering multiple domains and redirecting them all to your one “main domain” may prove to be a very good idea. If there is one domain that you will be heavily marketing, I would strongly advise you to at least also register the .COM version of that domain name too, and if you are outside the United States to also register the relevant country-code version of the domain name. Many of your customers may input the wrong extension when looking for your site, possibly leading to you losing their custom to a competitor of yours; or like my personal situation which I described earlier, may lead to a domain name squatter registering a domain similar to yours in the hope that you will spend many thousands buying it from them.

Reasons why you should have a Weblogger installed on your web site.

Posted by rimel - 16/07/07 at 03:07:34 am

I don’t know about you, but when I built my first web site three
years back I don’t know anything about the webloggers. One day
when I checking the features of my web host control panel (after
two months of uploading my first home page) I saw the link
‘Webstats’. That was the first time I get to know that I can know
how many people are comming to my site.

For few days I was thrilled to know about this. One day I did a
search on ‘web stats’ on Altavista. In the search results I came
across very good software that tells a lot more about a site
statistics. So I installed a free script on my site.

From till then to now I am using my webloggers to refine my web
site links and tracking the ad campaigns etc.

So here are few uses, why you need a weblogger and how to use it:

***1. How many people are coming to your site:

This is an average number of visitors your web site is receiving
hourly, daily or monthly. By this you can know how your web site
is doing by all means. Are the visitors are targeted or not is not the
question at this stage. Everymonth your number of visitors are increasing
means you are doing a good job as a webmaster.

***2. From where they are coming(referers):

You can know from where or from which page the visitor is coming though
this is not so in all cases. You can know which search engine or which
affiliate sending you most of your visitors.

***3. What pages they are visiting most:

With your weblogger you can know which page getting maximum hits from
search engines, which page frequently revisited by your visitors etc.
If you find one, you can keep your main product link on these web pages.
Offer a discount price for your product.

***4. How many pages they are visiting:

This tells you stickiness of your web site. How much time your visitor
is going to spent depends on his intention to visit your site. If he
comes with a search term ’search engine optimization’ and he finds
a link to search engine optimization web site, he is not going to
stay long.

If he revisits to check and compare your product his stay will be
longer. So have a look on how much time each visitor is staying on
average. Take care of few things like no pop ups, keep fast loading
images, check links, good navigation. These keep your visitor a little
more time.

***5. What keywords they are using in search engines:

Very important in search engine optimization of your web pages.
See what keywords mostly used by your visitors and which web page
coming up with which keyword. Why this is important means you can check
the web page that coming up with that keyword really contain the
product they are looking for. You can also add those search words to your
metatags.

***6. Which search engine sending you most traffic:

This is another good indication about your web site performance. Write
down all the search engine names and try to further optimize your pages.

***7. You can see errors like ‘404 file not found’ error:

This tells you a bad link or wrong URLs with spelling mistakes etc on your
web pages .So that you can correct them. These error links are found as
‘page not found’ errors in your webloggers with the number ‘404′.

If people click to your ‘order.htm’ only to see ‘404 file not found’ error,
you are losing a sale.

***8. Tracking your advertising campaigns:

If you start an advertising campaign you can set up a seperate landing page
for each of your campaign. You can assume that people coming to that page
are coming from that particular ad campaign.

All these are useful in improving your website look, search engine
position,refining your keywords and changing the pages that
sending your visitors away etc.

Site-Digest 7 Simple Steps To Place Your Site Map On Steroids

Posted by rimel - 16/07/07 at 03:07:01 am

Step 1 Use Pseudo Directory Naming Convention

A Recent Article (’See How Using a Pseudo Directory Can Increase your Page Ranking and Organize your Web Site’) discussed how you could increase your Page Rank scores by using a Pseudo Directory.

Briefly keep all your web pages in one Directory but append a Prefix to the name so you could organize your pages like a Directory structure and still get the Page Rank Boost for having all your pages nearer the root.

As an Example For a Web Site about Pillows may have a ‘Buck’ as Prefix for Buckwheat Pillow and ‘Fea’ as a Prefix for a Feather Pillow and ‘Poly’ as a prefix for Polyester pillows. Files would now be named Buck-QueenSize.html, Fea-QueenSize.html and Poly-Queensize.html.

Step 2 Keep Your Pseudo-Directories Small and Manageable.

An Efficient way to use this method is to find and republish 10 to 20 articles at the same time with the same topic. All articles on the advantages of Buck Wheat Pillows would be named buck-article1.html, buck-article2.html, ….

After 10 to 20 Articles are Published to the Web-Site a Table of contents is created as per step 3. A few days later more articles about Buck Wheat Pillows are added and are assigned a Prefix ‘buck2′. All these new pages are now name buck2-article1.html ,buck2-article2.html… and a Table of Contents is Created for ‘Buck2′

Similarly next time Articles about Buckwheat Pillows are collected ‘Buck3′ would be used as a Prefix.

The 2 Main advantages of this method are many small manageable Pseudo-Directories Each with their own Table of Contents. The 2nd advantage is It keeps your Site-Digest in Step 4 always changing.

Step 3 Create a Table of Contents for each Pseudo Directory

So Lets say under Buckwheat you have the Following Pages

Buck-QueenSize.html
Buck-TravelSize.html
Buck-NeckPillow.html
Buck-isBetter.html
Buck-releivespain.html

Create a Table of contents for your Buckwheat Pillows Listing only your Buckwheat Files and Call it ‘Buck-Table-of-Contents.Html’. Similarly you would have a Table of contents for your Polyester and Feather Pillows.

Step 4 Create a Site-Digest with all your Products
Create a File and name it Site-Digest.html and list the Buck, Poly and Feather Table of Contents Files. Of course this Site-Digest File would also contain your Mattress Table of Contents and Towel Table of contents and anything else you may sell.

Step 5 The Google Sitemap File
You would now create a Google Sitemap file. Be sure and tell google that your Site-Digest File Changes often. This way google will grab this page and Index your site

Step 6 Step Keep Your Site-Digest Current
Every time you create a new pseudo-directory and Table of contents for that pseudo-directory simply add it to your Site-Digest. Now when Google grabs your Site-Digest it will Spider all your new Table of Contents and Magically Index your new pages.

Step 7 Super Charge your Site- Digest
If you would like to Super Charge your Site-Digest Name your Hyperlinks with descriptive Keywords. Add A Summary about each item in your Site-Digest

What is Domain Name Backordering Watch Out For This One

Posted by rimel - 16/07/07 at 03:07:30 am

Domain names are the hottest net-real-estate on the internet. It’s no wonder services like: “Domain Name Backordering” is available to the public. Can someone really backorder your domain right from underneath you? Guess again…

Domain names are the hottest net-real-estate on the internet. It’s no wonder services like: “Domain Name Backordering” is available to the public. Can someone really backorder your domain right from underneath you? Guess again…

So what is Domain Name Backordering?

This is a service that allows anybody on the internet to reserve a domain name if and when it goes up for sale! This doesn’t seem harmful does it? Guess again…

Companies all over the internet are ordering this service for website url’s that seem to be popular! What if by chance you just happen to forget to re-order your domain name? Let’s say that you go on vacation and neglect to check your emails that are now telling you to renew your domain name? In this case, another company on the other side of the planet sees the fact that your domain name is soon up for grabs, so they order a backorder on your domain name and simply wait to see what you do with it.

So here you are coming back from a very long vacation and what is this? Someone else now owns your domain name because you simply neglected your duty to keep your net-real-estate up-to-date!

Unless you own a Canadian domain name protected by the CIRA, or you have a trademark on your domain name or business name, you are “really” out of luck. Once you are at this point, it may take months before you can prove to the courts that you simply forgot to renew your website address.

Should This Service Be Allowed?

That is a very interesting question. Some would say yes simply because there are literraly 1000’s of websites that aren’t going to be renewed next month. On the flip side, some of those websites are simply a mistake. I think the point here is; avoid making that mistake and renew your domain name for atleast 5 years.

Google is apparently looking through the “WHOIS Data Base” to see which websites have the staying power online and are serious by registering their domain name for more than 1 year at a time.

Again, should domain backordering be allowed?

I say no! Just like a patent for an invention, you should have up to 1 year to claim that domain unless you transfer the domain name to another company or individual. This way we would have less domain name theft and less “hick-ups” from companies who simply forget their important responsibility.

Protect Your Net-Real-Estate!

Your website address is the most important commodity you have online. It is as important as your business name itself. It is what ties your company offline to online. People know you through your domain name. Potential clients may end up visiting your website later on, you woudln’t want some other company in your place?

Please be careful when give out the access information for your domain name to anyone that isn’t within your trusted circle.

I hope this article has helped you out!

Building Community Websites Equals Success Online

Posted by rimel - 16/07/07 at 03:07:52 am

In this article I will discuss how important is it to build community websites rather than straight forward sales pitches. Selling online is about bringing people together, not about stuffing products down your visitors throwts and expecting them to buy f

In this article I will discuss how important is it to build community websites rather than straight forward sales pitches. Selling online is about bringing people together, not about stuffing products down your visitors throwts and expecting them to buy from you.

We have conditioned our minds all of our lives to accept advertising billboards, radio ads, newspaper ads, commercials, and all sorts of other advertising materials wherever we go. The same applies on the internet. This “conditioning” has enabled us to see past all the ads and look directly for the pertinant information that we are seeking.

People who are new to the internet are more likely to click on your ads for no apparent reason but to simply search and keep searching. Others that have beed online for years now, tend not to pay attention to as many ads on a daily basis like they used to.

If you are serious about making money online without having to spend too much of your budget, create a “community online”. It is in our nature as human beings to want to belong, or to be involved within a community setting. Communities come in all shapes & sizes and are not limited to gender, race, nationality, or religion. A community can cater to whatever topic you wish and welcome whomever you desire.

Same concept applies to your website!

Building a community within your website is the key to increasing your business, keeping visitors coming back, and keeping your advertising budget in the bank. Show your visitors that you aren’t just here on the internet to sell them something. For example, we (Smartads), we are here to teach what we know about internet marketing. By teaching, we too learn more, gain more business, and attract new visitors.

RESIDUAL TRAFFIC IS THE KEY!

As i’ve always mentioned to my clients & readers, getting people to your website is the easy part. Anyone with a $500 credit card can get traffic to their website, it’s keeping them there and getting your visitors to come back on their own time is what makes owning a website a dificult proposition.

Visitors always come back to communities they can relate to!

and so on… There are many internet marketing resources available for business owners. We are fortunate to have access to the vast amount of resources that we do, in order to increase our business & to increase our knowledge.

More resources online also increases competition. There are literally millions of websites out there and many of them might possibly be your competitors. Without building a community, people won’t remember who you are, or what it is that you do. Infact, if you are spending all of your money on banner ads, pay per click advertising, affiliates, and other marketing areas online, and at the same time you aren’t paying attention to increasing your home base, when your advertising budget runs out so too will the bulk of your traffic.

If your website isn’t good enough, your sales won’t be good enough. Granted; building a website can be very time consuming but just remember that you don’t need to create an empire over night. Just a little here, a little there, and before you know it, it all adds up to something you can be proud of. Over time, your website traffic will constantly be increasing.

PLEASE NOTE: If you stop advertising, your traffic won’t grow. Growing your website is all part of the whole plan.

What do we need to create a community website?

You always want to add extras to your site that interest you. By doing so, you will also attract people with similar interests and help to bridge the credibility gap online.

You can always add these to your website:

Personal blog
Helpful tips
Mini-ebook courses (on how to be a better client for you)
Other people’s articles
Chat forum (requires a lot of maintenance & promotion)
Free business directory listings
Family albums for users
Fun online questionnaires
Mind benders
Games
Contests (with actual prizes)
“How to” articles
Government resources
Local community resources
Support local companies & vice versa

I think we can now get a sense of what building a “community” website means. The key is to take your industry (even if it is boring), and teach someone about what it is that you do. The internet allows us to take in more information than we could ever imagine. There is always someone out there who wants to learn about your industry.

The key is to add on a little at a time. Talk to your web designer. Try and find unique little ways to build a community website online. Ask people what they look for within your industry. After time, you will know what it takes to keep creating more for your company online, and your wallet will love you for it.

Just remember the more you build, the less your advertising budget will be when you get there. Just keep it up until you get there, don’t give up on yourself, your company, or your future.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this article!

Choosing a Right Domain Name

Posted by rimel - 16/07/07 at 03:07:03 am

Domain names are no longer a web address these days. Many profitable companies have been built around their domain name making it the brand and the company.

Choosing the right domain should be as important as naming your product. Given that status, here are some pointers how to find a name that will see you through it all.

Branding vs. Keywords:

This is probably the most difficult to determine. Yet, should be the first place to start because the rest of the considerations will one way or another relate to this. There are two schools of thought. One group believes you should have your keywords in the domain so that search engines pick up on the keywords and rank you better. To what extent this really affects your search engine ranking is not clearly known or proven. Consider why you are putting the website up in the first place. Most likely it’s for your customers or visitors. So choose a domain that also puts your audience first.

The other group believes a webmaster should go for brand. Most successful companies start off with a brand, including online companies. Brands make the product memorable, create differentiation and encourage loyalty. In the early days of the Internet, everyone wanted a generic domain like searchengine.com, books.com, auctions.com and the likes. Today, very few of those are truly successful sites that rival Goggle, Amazon and eBay.

A branded domain also ensures consistency throughout your marketing efforts. As one web user describes, “Every time the company tells me to visit their generic website, they lose the opportunity to reinforce their brand name in my mind�.

Whether you use keywords or brand for your domain depends much on what you aim to do. If you plan to build a business or website that is going to have staying power, branded domains are a better choice. It might not be easy or cheap to build a brand but there are no shortcuts when it comes to branding either. It’s a slow process that can be very rewarding if done right. Don’t choose a domain simply because of its keywords. First class content, links in and clever optimization are more important to good ranking than anything else. Having said that, a brand name made up of keywords could be best, and you would have the best of both worlds – literally. Take CancerComforts.com. Owner Kathy Browning chose the domain because of its keywords. But apart from being keyword rich, CancerComforts.com is also very marketable and can be a strong brand.

If you are building a resource website, a website for affiliate programs or one that’s temporary in nature, keyword rich and generic domains would be a better choice. Finally, there is no harm in buying both branded and keyword domains that point to the same site. Just make sure you only use one for submissions, directory listings, link exchanges and promotion. This way you build your link popularity.

You should also, make sure the site title or name matches your domain. If your domain is ExtremeBiking.com and your site name is Smith Brothers Biking Tours this makes visitors and directory editors wonder if this is the correct website. It also causes confusion. People who know you tend to look for a domain that reflects your brand and not extreme biking. If you have yet to establish a company name or a site name, it might be a good idea to name it after you find a domain name. This is sensible, consistent marketing.

Company Name:

This is the most common because in today’s increasingly small and competitive world, businesses tend to have rather creative and catchy names. On the other hand, if your business name is very nondescript such as The Smith Brothers, you might want to take the approach that combines part of your company name and a keyword. Although the importance of brand name was emphasized earlier, here the situation is slightly different. Non-descriptive company names aren’t particularly helpful to audiences. Someone looking for you would find it difficult to differentiate your company and the other company with a similar name. In this case, keywords tied to your name are worth considering.

Domain Length:

Short domains are supposed to be best but it’s increasingly difficult to find one without paying someone a lot of money to take over the domain. There are alternatives though, such as expired domains which we will explore a little later on.

Just because a domain is a little longer doesn’t make it bad. For example, TrashToTreasure.com is meaningful, to the point and memorable even though it is rather long. On the other hand, ThisIsAnExampleOfAVeryLongDomain.com is too long, difficult to remember and prone to errors. The other extreme is needless abbreviation. TTT.com is meaningless because TrashToTreasure.com works much butter. Aim for some balance while taking into account ease of use.

.Com, .Net, .Info:

Most people will agree a .com is best. A web user told us, “Whenever I can’t remember the domain name but I know the site name, brand or company, I’ll try for a .com first�. If you have no good .com alternative, start with .net and .org first. Also, be sure to consistently promote your website as a .net or .org whatever you may choose.

Hyphens, Suffixes and Prefixes:

Hyphens aren’t necessarily evil especially if it’s in your brand name or is the correct way to write a word. However, they are difficult to remember, type and prone to user input mistakes. Avoid them as much as you can.

Suffixes and prefixes are i’s, e’s, the’s and numbers usually suggested by domain search tools when your desired domain is unavailable. If you choose such a domain, be very consistent in your promotion. Promote the domain as a whole, do not leave out the suffix or prefix. You might also want to avoid domains with very little difference between them. These are usually between plurals and singulars. Aim for singular names whenever possible. For example, petfood.com and petfoods.com; if petfood.com is taken resist the temptation to opt for petfoods.com because people tend to leave out the s.

Can You Say It?

This isn’t always a top consideration but it makes sense you should have a domain name that can be verbally communicated. Take your list of chosen domains and tell it to someone. Does it confuse them? Do you find yourself having to constantly repeat it or spell it? If that is so, move on or go back to the drawing board.

Copyrights and Trademarks:

In this day and age, many companies particularly those with strong brand names are increasingly protective of their trademarks. Avoid the trouble and expense of a lawsuit by spending some time to research your chosen name. Start by looking up the name with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (http://www.uspto.gov/) and your state’s trademark database.

Expiring Domains:

Anyone who has looked for a domain name finds out soon enough more than half the desired names are taken. If you cannot find a suitable one despite numerous searches, why not explore expired domains? Expired domains are those whose original registrant fails to renew commonly are due to website closings or companies going out of business. Within the list of expired domains are some real gems. There are many services that allow you to monitor expired and soon to expire domains for a fee. Before you sign up for them, a good place to start researching for free is DeletedDomains.com.

Some believe recently expired domains with good traffic and rankings allow you to benefit from someone else’s hard work and give your site a head start. Theoretically, that may be true. Realistically, you shouldn’t expect that to last. People consistently return to a website for a reason. If your topic is very different from the original site, visitors will stop coming back because the information or resource they previously had access to be no longer there. If you assume such a domain and want to convert as many visitors as possible, make sure your content is very closely related or similar to that of the old site. You might want to also check that the old site has completely ceased operations. If the previous site still exists under a different domain, loyalists eventually find their way back there; Word gets around among them and could create a negative image on the old domain that’s now yours.

Ownership:

When you do register as domain, have it registered under your name or your company. If you are registering through your host, remember a lot can happen within a short space of time. Companies go out of business or you change hosts, scams, scandals and more. Making sure you own the domain reduces the risk of losing your domain name in the future. Check your host’s domain registration policy. If there are unnecessary expenses to transfer your domain, try to register it yourself instead. Registering a domain is a very simple and straightforward affair. Some good registrars to try are Enom and GoDaddy.

Finally, when you do find the best available domain, get it immediately. Any delays no matter how minor may cost you. Finding the right domain is not easy. It takes a lot of brainstorming, patience and creativity. Once you find it, don’t let it slip.

What is web site monitoring all about?

Posted by rimel - 16/07/07 at 03:07:25 am

In a retail environment, you can quickly see when something is out of place. On the Internet, web site monitoring helps.

What is web site monitoring all about? Here is Carl’s story:

Carl returned to the office after a tough day of negotiations. He still was not sure if the crucial deal was on or off, but dinner would soon be waiting and he had just enough time left to check his emails and his phone messages.

He had twelve phone messages, every one of them urgent. Too late to call back right away; that would have to wait for morning.

His inbox held that familiar email report from his web site monitoring service. He smiled. As usual, there were no error alerts. That’s what he liked to see — his web site still performing well.

He looked carefully at the report. All the forms were functioning. The shopping cart, too. Password protection was functioning. At least he did not have to worry about his web site this evening.

There were still some download speed issues reported by the Hong Kong Monitoring Station. He made a mental note to raise the issue with his web host contact in the morning.

Just as he was putting on his jacket to leave, his cell phone rang.

A few minutes later, he called his wife. “Hi Ruby. How’s dinner doing?”

“Great, Carl. You’ll be home soon?”

“I was just about to leave when my cell phone rang. It was the web site monitoring company calling. It seems the web site went down. They were reporting from London.”

“You mean your European customers can’t access the site?” Ruby asked.

“That’s what I thought at first. When the Hong Kong monitoring station reported an alert, I assumed the transatlantic connection was blocked. But when the Florida monitoring station reported in, I had to check the site. And guess what?”

“I guess that you won’t be home for dinner.”

“Sorry. I have to get on the line with the web host and straighten this all out.”

“Hey, that’s OK. I’m just happy you get instant those alerts. I would hate to see you get that call during our dinner and have to go all the way back into the office. Let me know when you’re coming home.”

“OK. I’ll let you know as soon as I do. Bye.”

Carl checked the more detailed report online. ( Here is an example. )

As Carl dialed his ISP, he realized it would likely be a long evening. But not as long as if he received less frequent reports. And not as long as the next day would be if the web site had been offline for the next.

And that’s what web site monitoring is all about

Robots.txt File Generator Support

Posted by rimel - 16/07/07 at 03:07:53 am

Find out exactly how to develop a robots.txt file for your web site here.

A robots.txt protocol file, or robots exclusion standard is a conventional tool to prevent web spiders and web robots (which index your website on search engines) from being able to access certain parts of your web site.

If you are developing a robots.txt file for yourself, I would highly recommend using a robots.txt validator to ensure the search engines will properly recognize the commands for indexing your web site that you have set. That way, you can be completely confident there are no syntax errors. I hope this article has helped you. Please leave a comment if you’d like, I encourage feedback. For more information check out my post entitled “Creating A Robots.txt File”

This text file should be placed in your root directory. Below are a few examples of how you can design your robots.txt file in notepad.

This example allows all robots to visit all files because the wildcard “*” specifies all robots.

User-agent: *
Disallow:

This example keeps all robots out:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /

The next is an example that tells all crawlers not to enter into four directories of a website:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /cgi-bin/
Disallow: /images/
Disallow: /tmp/
Disallow: /private/

Example that tells a specific crawler not to enter one specific directory:

User-agent: BadBot
Disallow: /private/

Placing Robots TXT In Your Meta Tag

You can also place a notice to your robots.txt file in you page’s meta tags.

To do this, simple place the following in your web site’s head tag.

The 8 Things You Must Know To Build A Great Website

Posted by rimel - 16/07/07 at 03:07:17 am

Last week we talked about how a bad website can do your business more harm than good. That column brought several emails asking what is the key to building an effective business website.

Last week we talked about how a bad website can do your business more harm than good. That column brought several emails asking what is the key to building an effective business website. I replied with the same answer I always give: building an effective business website is a simple matter of definition.

Before the first graphic is drawn or the first line of code is written, you must define the website’s budget, purpose, target audience, design, navigation, and content. And when that’s all said and done you must define the marketing that will bring visitors to your site.

It sounds easy, but you’d be amazed at how many really bad business websites there are out there. Yours might even be one of them. If so, listen up. For nearly ten years now my company has been building and rebuilding websites for every kind of business you can imagine: from mom-and-pops to multinationals. We’ve designed (or redesigned) a couple hundred websites and along the way I have come to the conclusion that most business websites do a pitiful job of working for their owners.

What’s that, you didn’t know your business website should work you? You think it should just sit on a server somewhere taking up digital space and collecting digital dust?

Wrong. Every website, business or otherwise, must serve a purpose, and that’s usually where most websites falls short. They serve no purpose because the website owner never gave much thought to it. It’s not the website’s fault. A website is inanimate. It is only what you make it. The only life a website has is the one given to it by its designer and owner. If the human element doesn’t do a good job of defining the building blocks, the website will serve no purpose and eventually die a digital death.

Building an effective business website isn’t brain surgery, thank goodness, since that’s how I make a nice percentage of my living. Building an effective, well-designed website that works for its owner, that actually serves a purpose, is all about definition.

Define the Budget
Every website, no matter how large or small, must have a realistic budget, with “realistic” being the key word. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat with a potential client as they listed off the eight million cool things they wanted their website to do, only to find out that their budget was just a few hundred dollars. I always feel like saying, “Well you just wasted three hundred dollars of my time, so here’s your bill…”

Define the Purpose
Every website must have a purpose. Purpose drives everything: the audience, the design, the navigation, the content, and the marketing. I could do an entire column on purpose, but suffice it to say that there are five categories of purpose under which most websites fall: the purpose to inform, to educate, to entertain, to generate leads, to sell, or a combination thereof. If you fail to define the purpose of the website, all else is just wasted effort.

Define the Target Audience
Your target audience refers to that segment of the public that you hope to attract to the site. For example if you sell shoes, your target audience would be anyone with feet. Taking it a step further, if you only sold women’s shoes, your target audience would be women (with feet) Why is defining your target audience so important? If you have no idea who your audience is, how can you expect to design a website that will appeal to them? Your target audience could be customers, investors, job seekers, info seekers, etc. Define your target audience, then figure out how to serve them.

Define the Design
Website design theory has changed over the last couple of years, primarily because the search engines now ignore graphic heavy websites and give preference to those that take a minimalistic approach to design. If you look at some of the big boy websites like GE, Oracle, Raytheon, HP, and others you will see that in many cases the only graphic on the homepage is the company’s logo. Search engines now give higher preference to websites that offer keyword-rich text over flashy graphics. Don’t fight the design trend. You will lose.

Define the Navigation
Bad navigation is the number one reason website visitors abandon a website. Navigation refers to the chain of links the visitor uses to get around your site. If your site has an illogical navigational hierarchy or too few or too many links or is simply impossible to get around, you’ve got problems. We live in a microwave society. We stand in front of the microwave tapping our foot and glaring at our watch wondering why it takes so damn long for a bag of popcorn to pop. Why can’t a three-minute egg be done in thirty seconds? If it takes a visitor more than 3 clicks to get to any page on your site, your navigation needs improvement.

Define the Content
Content refers to the information on your website, be it graphics, text, downloadable items, etc. Since the top search engines no longer use HTML Meta tag data to index websites, it is vital that your website content be text heavy, succinct and well-written to appeal to the search engine spiders.

Define the Build Method
Next, who will build the website for you? Will you do it yourself using one of the point and click website builders or will you hire the kid next door? Will you hire a freelance designer or a professional firm? Budget usually dictates the build method, but be warned, when it comes to website development, you get what you pay for. Sure, the kid next door will throw up a site for you if you buy them a pizza or make your daughter go to the prom with them, but you will end up a with a website that looks like and performs like it was designed by the kid next door.

Define the Marketing
If you build it, will they come? Not on your life, at least not without a good marketing campaign. Your website should become a part of all your marketing efforts, online and off.

Put the website address on your business cards, brochures, letterhead, and all collaterals. Include the address in your ads; print, TV and radio. If you prefer to do online marketing, figure out where your target audience surfs and advertise there.

If marketing is foreign to you, do yourself a favor and call in an expert. Many businesses fail because they simply do not know how to market their products and services effectively. This is also the downfall of most business websites.

HTML Editors

Posted by rimel - 16/07/07 at 03:07:33 am

In this article we’re going to go over some HTML editors, some very popular and some not so popular. There are more editors made to create web pages than Carter has liver pills.

If you’re the typical non professional user then you are probably familiar with the more popular ones and have absolutely NO clue about some of the obscure ones that are available. We’ll cover a few of each.

Probably the most popular HTML editor is Microsoft’s Front Page. The first version of Front Page came out in the mid 90’s. If you’re interested you can actually find an article online that talks about the first Front Page beta. You can find the article at http://www.byte.com/art/9607/sec13/art10.htm. The first Front Page had limited functionality and needed a server extension to work it. Today, Front Page has come a long way. It is one of the most powerful editors you can get and can do just about anything. It is also probably the one used by more people than any other.

Of course users of Macromedia’s Dream Weaver would say that Front Page is not anywhere near as good. The company and the software haven’t been around quite as long as Microsoft but what it lacks in a track record it makes up for in functionality. Supporters of Dream Weaver will claim that the interface is more user friendly and that those who have limited HTML experience can get more out of it than with Front Page. Technically, Dream Weaver doesn’t do anything that Front Page can’t do. Some functions are handled differently and of course if you’ve been using one and try to go to the other you’re going to get lost when it comes to the hidden functions. The help index alone of each is massive. With great power, which both have, comes a big learning curve. There is just no way around that.

But what if you don’t need all that functionality and only want to design simple web pages that don’t require extensive Java and PHP capabilities? Fortunately, there are plenty of simple HTML editors out there and most of them can be downloaded free right off the Internet.

One of the most popular ones today is HTML - Kit. To date, this editor has over 1.7 million downloads. Obviously they must be doing something right. And the editor itself does have some neat little features that you might not expect in a free download like the ability to convert RSS and XML files to HTML. And it does have some limited functionality by way of plug ins to handle ASP, PHP, SQL and other scripting languages. Not too shabby for a free download.

Even America Online, probably the largest ISP, has their own HTML editor called AOLPress. Now this is what you call a bare bones editor. It doesn’t do too much. Just your standard creation of tables, lists, insert images, etc. If you’re looking for anything serious then you can forget about this thing. But for somebody who just wants to put up a page with photos of their wife, kid and dog in a table layout, AOLPress will work just fine.

This is just the tip of a huge iceberg. The list of HTML editors includes the likes of Hot Dog PageWiz, Hot Dog Professional, Tidy, Web Notepad, Ultra Edit, BBEdit and the list goes on and on. There are as many editors as there are companies that make them. Some are good and some are not so good. The only way to really know is to download one and try it. That alone should keep you busy for a very long time.