Domains – The Web Marketing Blog

September 9, 2019September 9, 2019

Won’t You Leave A Comment?

So I am trying a little experiment here. This is a really old blog that I have resurrected. I probably should call it the Lazarus Blog, just for fun!

Except for this post, all the posts are very old and some are completely irrelevant. But for now I am going to leave them all here and see if they get any traction.

So if you happen to stop by, could you please leave a comment? Either on this post, or any post you think is worth a comment. Either because it is so terribly good, or terribly awful. (I suspect most will be in the awful catagory!)

Thank you so much for your time.

If you think this is really weird, feel free to follow me on Twitter. @weirdtrep I follow back!

Kathleen

November 5, 2010

Domains for Under $5

The offer is only good through the end of November 2010, so act quickly to get the best domains at the best price!

If in addition to your cheap domain you need hosting, 1&1 has also got some great prices on hosting accounts.

December 13, 2009

The Cease and Desist Letter Saga

: Image by Getty Images via Daylife

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!

January 15, 2009

Free Domain Names: Give Them to Your Visitors and Reap the Rewards – Part 4

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.

December 31, 2008

Free Domain Names: Give Them to Your Visitors and Reap the Rewards – Part 3

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.

December 29, 2008

Free Domain Names: Give Them to Your Visitors and Reap the Rewards – Part 2

I’m finally back and resuming this series on domain name giveaways. As promised in the first part, today I’m going to offer some suggestions regarding niches to which this tactic would be appropriate.

Audiences interested in domain give aways

If you own a blog, website or forum in any of the niches below, you’re guaranteed to catch your visitors’ attention whenever you offer free domains:

General Internet marketing
Make money online
Affiliate marketing
Article marketing
Ebook writing and selling
Blogging
SEO and SEM
Web hosting
Domains (duh!)
Webmaster tips and resources

This should go without saying, but just in case you’re wondering, the reason why domain name giveaways are successful in such niches is the fact that their typical audience already knows the value of a good domain name. So you won’t have to educate anyone. You won’t have to explain why your visitors should care for your offer.

Audiences that may or may not be interested in free domain names

Here are niches whose typical audience isn’t always aware of the importance of domains:

Small business
Work-at-Home Moms/Dads
Anime/Manga

If your site belongs to any of these categories, should you offer free domain names to your visitors? It depends on how educated they are. For instance, some small business owners don’t even realise the importance of a website for their companies. Others are partially or fully engaged in online marketing practices such as SEO and social media. If your typical visitors fall into the latter group, your domain giveaway will likely be successful. So the first step you must take is knowing your audience, really.

Subscribe to The WebMaster Blog so you don’t miss the next post in this series. It will contain some concrete examples of benefits you can obtain when you distribute free domain names.

December 16, 2008

More Winners!

Dec. 9 BobbyT, the only commentator who hadn’t already won!

Dec. 10 No comments

Dec. 11 No comments

Dec.12 Bloggernoob

Dec.13 Only one comment, from someone who already won!

Dec.14 No comments

Dec.15 Escarlata

I haven’t been getting very many comments lately. That is bad for me, but good for you! Your chances are pretty good to win a domain! I’ll be contacting the winners by email to tell them how to claim their domain!

December 4, 2008

December 3 Giveaway

Well, I got a lot more comments yesterday, and it was hard to pick a winner.

John was real nice, left 2 comments, and hinted that he might write about the Giveway on his blog. Very tempting.

Mike said my site looked awesome, and I love compliment 😉

Escoofield commented all over the blog, he left 7 comments, that was great!

But the winner for Dec. 3 is going to be Charles. I checked out his blog, and it is pretty good, but right now he has a Blogspot blog. You know he really needs his own domain, so he wins brandingyp dot com. I think it will make a good fit.

It is not too late to comment for today’s giveaway!

November 18, 2008

Free Domain Names: Give Them to Your Visitors and Reap the Rewards – Part 1

Kat’s recent domain give away made me realize the potential hidden in this kind of offer.

After some brainstorming, I came up with a set of tips to help you use domain names as gifts for both your visitors and yourself.

Why would I want to give domain names away?

Your domains cost you money. Your hard earned money. Why wouldn’t you save them for yourself?

Of course you’re entitled—and encouraged—to invest some money in the purchase of domains for your own use. But make no mistake: when you offer domain names as gifts to your readers, they won’t be the only benefited ones. You’ll reap rewards too:

– Traffic (people must visit your site to learn about your offer).

– Increased site activity (depending on what you ask interested visitors to do).

– A good reputation (you’ll be seen as a nice guy/gal).

Remember that site activity and a good reputation lead to more traffic. The 3 items together can help you make more money.

Why would my visitors be interested in getting free domain names?

Domains are very affordable these days. Your visitors wouldn’t be interested in your domain name give away because they can buy URLs for themselves, right?

Wrong!

A minute ago you objected to offering for free the domain names that had cost you (little) money. But if you could grab some free domains for your own use, you’d be very happy, wouldn’t you? Now why would your visitors be any different? Everyone likes freebies, especially when such freebies can help them make more money, as is the case with domains.

You may have guessed that domain name give aways don’t necessarily appeal to all types of audience. In the next installment, I’ll tell you one or two things about adapting free domain offers to various niches. Stay tuned and subscribe to The WebMaster Blog!

October 16, 2008

Cheap Domains and a Free SEO eBook

If you are like me you like to have a few spare domains around. You never know when you are going to get a great idea for a website and it is just easier if you already have the domain.
GoDaddy is currently selling .info domains for just 99 cents plus a 20 cent Icann fee. That is just $1.19 for a domain. I know many people don’t think infos are that great of a domain, but for $1.19 I think it is a pretty good deal. As always, with GoDaddy, you never know how long the special is going to last, so don’t wait too long to get your domain.

Then, when you are ready to set up a WordPress Blog, click on over to BlogOhBlog and pick up your free WordPress SEO for beginners eBook. The ebook is short and sweet. It is just 5 pages but the advice is sure to improve the SEO of your WordPress Blog.The eBook also contains links to some very popular WordPress Plugins. The best part, you don’t even need to register or give your email. The ebook is free with no strings attached!