What many small business owners or inexperienced domain holders learn the hard way is, a good domain name is worth the time it takes to pick the right one and the cost of paying for a perfect choice (as opposed to a lower end, confusing or cheap one).

There are some basics that anyone should know before diving head first into the pool of “can I purchase my domain name or not”? The first thing to understand is that that your domain name is the very first way you’ll market yourself online. You don’t want to be so preoccupied with being clever about a catchy name that it misses the target of what your company is all about altogether. Don’t confuse your audience about what you’re all about. Keep your domain name unique but simple. Continue reading →

Many small business owners build their websites without understanding exactly how their customers will find it. This can lead to a major letdown after you’ve put a lot of time and energy into building a great looking site, only to have few if any visitors coming to check it out.

It can also put a lot of pressure on you financially to get people over to your site. You may feel compelled to turn to a search engine optimization service. Or you may learn how to optimize your site for search engines yourself. These can both work very well. But unfortunately SEO costs money, and learning it yourself can be confusing and complicated. Additionally SEO takes time and the results are never guaranteed.

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After a domain name is shut down or rejected, many people struggle to understand what caused the problem. There are thousands of names that can easily be registered as domain names, but not every name or idea you come across can be registered for free instantly. There are rules and regulations regarding what domains can be registered, and what they can be used for after registration.

There are endless choices as to what can be registered as a domain name. However, there are several restrictions as well. Without these regulations, it would be impossible to have fair competition and ensure ethical practice in the industry. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, also known as ICAAN, is responsible for creating and enforcing the regulations necessary to keep the industry ethical worldwide. Continue reading →

Tablets. Big news in the IT industry today – people are using, creating for, and reviewing them all the time. So we thought we’d take a look at the subject. Now, if you have access to the Internet, and you’re very, very, patient, you can track down the current number of tablet PCs on the market today (and keep in mind that that market is only three years old).

It’s 32,000,000. That’s a lot of tablets. Continue reading →

With any start-up there are certain costs that can give a business a good start, or send them into debt immediately. So many aspects of business are needed to be considered in order to properly assure a great start, especially when launching your company online. Websites are no longer a luxury in business but rather a necessity. In every marketing strategy and proposed business plan, a website is included. Those without are missing out on an opportunity to generate business by reaching a vast consumer base.

When deciding to launch your online presence there are many considerations that need to be addressed. As such, there are also many ways to save money on the design, implementation and overall completion of your website. With so many hosting companies, web design firms, and freelance designers, you have many options for getting your website designed, built, and online. Of course with options comes cost. Most start-ups are limited by a budget much less than that of a large corporation. Therefore, you must weigh your options and compare each route to assure you save money and still get the product you want and need. Continue reading →

A good blog should be keyword targeted, to attract visitors looking for content relevant for your site. The most popular way to find out what people are searching for on the web is Google’s Keyword Tool. In fact, there are hundreds of “keyword discovery” software programs out there to help uncover niches and keywords…. but they all mine data straight from this one tool from Google.
With everybody focusing on the same keywords, its no wonder the competition is so fierce. But Google itself admits that most search queries are “one off” searches. In other words, people rarely type in the “exact” keyword, but usually some variation. You may have targeted the term “gold watches” but people are typing things in like “i need a gold watch”, “where can i find a gold watch”, “best gold watches in atlanta” and tons of random, unpredictable variations.

I run a website on film schools. I am on page 3 for the exact search “film schools”, but each month I get more than hundreds of visits through Google from people typing things like “what are the best film schools” or “film schools top 20 USA”. These are searches that are usually performed once, by a particular person in a particular time, that will never happen again. Continue reading →

Facebook Ads are becoming a popular and powerful tool for businesses of all sizes to market themselves online. According to MerchantCircle, some 22% of local businesses are using Facebook ads and, of them, 65% would do so again.

With the available resources such as tutorials, guides, tips and tricks, it is relatively easy to start and create a new website. However, what most website builders neglect to anticipate is how they will be able to increase traffic on their website.

Wikipedia defines web traffic as the amount of data sent and received by visitors on a certain website. It can be measured by the number of users that visit your website and how frequently they visit it. Accordingly, this can be determined by site monitors available over the web. Continue reading →

Everyone knows how easy it is to start a website these days, but linkbuilding and generating traffic is still a challenge for most fledgling websites. Once a website has been built, it is all about building links and getting traffic in order to generate advertising revenue or to help facilitate the sales of products and services.

Link building is all about getting other relevant websites to link your back to your website. Websites that end with .edu and .gov carry more authority as well as other websites with high PR (Google PageRank). Link building has actually become a rather costly aspect of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) as there are many consultants and firms that specialize in link building. Though link building can be somewhat time consuming, it is a process that anyone can learn and do for themselves for free. Here are some tips to get you started on link building for free. Continue reading →