Well, it is over. My best performing domain has been taken from me due to trademark issues.
Just a recap if you don’t feel like reading my first post on receiving a cease and desist letter.

Last summer, my finance website started to take off. I was showing up on the first 3 pages of Google search, and the income was going up along with the page views.

Then the letter came. Apparently, two of the words in my domain were trademarked, and the attorney wanted me to hand over the domain.

I argued, I fought, I asked for concessions, but in the end I handed the domain over. In return, I got nothing.

I might have been able to fight it, but I felt my chances for success were low, and I didn’t want to spend the time or the money. In the end, I moved my blog to a better domain, Money, Debt and Taxes, and now I will just do what I did before to bring it up in the search rankings and build the traffic.

As a result of this I am now much more careful in choosing my domains. I am looking to see if there is any chance that they might be trademarked. I don’t want to lose that much hard work ever again!

Unfortunately, this is the final part of this series on domain name giveaways. But don’t be sad, my dear readers: before this article comes to an end, you’ll find some practical tips on how to get more comments from your visitors.

Site activity

If you own a blog—or a static site that includes comment forms—you know how important comments are. A lack of reader’s feedback can make your blog look “dead.”  This is where domain name giveaways come in handy.

• See what Kat has been doing right here at The WebMaster Blog. It’s an excellent idea that you can adapt to your own sites.
• Before you start giving domain names away to commenters, decide whether you’ll tolerate lame messages like “great post” or not. Make your comment policy clear and easily accessible.
• If your blog or site displays a list of top commenters (many WordPress blogs do), you can choose to reward only those who make it into said list. Remind them that your comment policy still applies, no matter how many comments they post.

Readers’ attention

Are you a fiction writer, poet or artist looking for more feedback? Or do you have a special article you’d love to get more comments on? Yes, you guessed it: you can use free domain names to “bribe” your readers into paying attention to your pieces.

• Do not aim at quantity. If you want true, valuable feedback, remember that quality always comes first.
• Start a review contest. Explain exactly what reviewers should write about. For instance, if you want them to read your novel, have them analyse plot, character development and dialogues. The authors of the best reviews will get free domain names as prizes.
• Decide whether you want both positive and negative feedback or only the former (or maybe only the latter, if you’re brave enough). In case negative reviews are allowed, make sure you’ll have the strength to recognise a  devastating comment as the best of all if it really is.
• Some people have the ability to write convincing reviews on things they’ve just skimmed (yes, it is possible, believe it or not). To make sure your piece has been thoroughly read by those who claim to have done so, you can send them one or two very specific questions by email. Don’t make the questions public, otherwise someone could share the answers with people who may never read what you wrote.

And this is the end … of the “giving free domain names” series, not of The WebMaster Blog! Keep on checking back for more site promotion tips and don’t forget to subscribe to our blog now.

Karen Zara is a full-time writer and blogger. You can read more of her articles at Abaminds Entrepreneurs, a blog for business owners, freelancers and entrepreneurship enthusiasts.

Today you’ll see that offering domain names for free is a good way to get more backlinks for your sites and/or make people subscribe to your content.

Link building

Since building links is a major concern for many webmasters nowadays, I chose to start with this topic. Here’s how you can use domain giveaways for link building purposes:

• Create a contest (e. g., “write a blog post about my site”). Domain names will be the prizes.
• Have contestants link to your site or blog. Make sure they use your desired anchor text. If I were you, I’d offer various anchor text options and let each contestant pick their favourite one.
• It may be a good idea to limit participation to webmasters who own sites related to your niche.
• If your contest is a one-shot event, those who don’t get any prizes may simply remove your links or add a no-follow tag to them afterwards. To avoid this, you could run periodic contests, so contestants feel encouraged to keep your links on their sites for longer.

Subscribers and members

Do you want to get more subscribers to your newsletter or RSS feed? Or more members for your forums and membership sites? Domain giveaways can help you a lot:

• Offer free domain names to your most active forum members. Make it clear that only those who write quality posts will be awarded. Unless you really don’t mind having lots of “me too” messages on your boards.
• Ask your blog readers to subscribe to your RSS feed by email. Then compile a subscriber email list and run a draw. The owner of the drawn address will be given a free domain.
• The idea above also applies to newsletters. To ensure that your subscribers will actually open and read your emails, you could have them answer questions about each issue. Only those who sent you correct answers would be entered in your free domain draw.

These tips are enough to keep you busy until I publish the final post in this series. It will show you how free domain name offers can be used to generate more visitor activity on your site. Remember, you won’t miss my future suggestions if you subscribe to The WebMaster Blog.