SEO and Marketing For Your Blog
They never last long! This promotion is over. 🙁
I don’t know how long it will last but GoDaddy is doing it again!
Click on this link to GoDaddy, use coupon code TEST99 and get a domain for just .99 for the first year.
I just bought workfromhomeblogging.com for my next project!
What did you get? Post it here.
I have only started buying domains a few months back. Before I actually took the big step and signed up for a new domain, I pay attention to the discussions on some webmaster forums. From the discussions there, I realized that everyone has his or her own preferred domain registrars. What’s yours?
The seasoned webmasters would, probably not have a single favorite domain registrar. It is more likely for them to have multiple accounts with different domain registrars, as this would be convenient for sellers to push domains to their accounts. By buying and selling domains registered through different registrars, they actually get to know about them better, their quality of their services, their reliability and efficiency.
For the small time webmasters though, who would buy maximum a few domains per year, there is a big probability that they will start buying their first domains from a single domain registrar and continue doing that for their subsequent domains if they are satisfied with the domain registrar in the first place. A similar scenario can be observed with the purchase of web hosting.
Considering the importance of having a good experience during the purchase of your first domains, I would like to recommend here several domain registrars which I have had experience with. So far I could only comment on the pricing, the ease of use and the quality of the assistance provided by the registrars, I wish I could talk about domain transfer but I don’t have the privilege to do that just yet. Anyway, here are a few registrars which I have tried, I consider all of them to be good and would highly recommend them, but that is my own opinion. In any case, you should take this as a starting point, write down their names, their website addresses, go google about them and enquire further in webmaster forums before you try them out.
GoDaddy
GoDaddy is an unanimous choice among most webmasters, it is fairly safe to say that GoDaddy is the world leading domain registrar. It is a standard setting domain registrar, every so often domain registrars would be compared with GoDaddy. There has not been much complaints from its clients, I suppose that its staffs are very professional and you should have no trouble during domain transfers. GoDaddy is also known to provide affordable and stable hosting. Unfortunately, I do not have the privilege to register a domain through GoDaddy yet, mainly because it does not accept payment from unverified PayPal accounts. Enough said, its price for a new dot com domain is $9.99, there is no free WHOIS protection, but you could probably get discount coupons by googling. Discount for mass purchases is also available.
Namecheap
Namecheap is a good domain registrar, I have 1 dot com domain registered through NameCheap. I do not have any problem setting the domain name server (DNS) to point my domain to my hosting, this is really unfortunate because I don’t have the chance to evaluate the support given by the support team. Its fee for new dot com registration is currently $9.29 per domain, which comes with a free 1 year WHOIS protection. I hope the WHOIS protection is free for subsequent years as well, otherwise I would consider transferring my domain to other registrar. Payment methods include credit cards, verified and unverified PayPal.
Name.com
Name.com is actually my favorite among 3 registrars that I recommend here. I have 2 dot com domains registered through Name.com and helped a friend to register one domain through it too. It is fairly easy to change the name servers of your domain, but on Name.com there are other more advanced settings such as DNS management settings. I have emailed the support several times and the staffs got back to me in less than 12 hours each time, they actually read through my problems and provided me with genuine advices, and don’t just point me to their help documents. Thumbs up for their support! Here are other reasons why I like registering my domains through Name.com: its fee for new dot com registration is only $5.99, and the new registration comes with free WHOIS protection (indefinitely as long as your domain is renewed through them, I suppose) and free Google apps which include 6GB email capacity (which you can create up to 200 email addresses with your dot com suffix for friends and family), free webpage creator powered by Google, calendar, etc. This means that for as low as $5.99 (and $9.99 for subsequent years), any family can have their own firstname@lastname.com email addresses and some simple webpages without having to worry about separate web hosting accounts, now this is a great deal! Payment methods include credit cards, verified and unverified PayPal.
There you go, these are the registrars which I have dealt with and would recommend to any budding webmasters depending on their needs. As for GoDaddy, I would confidently register my future domains through it, if I have my PayPal account verified.
Do you have your own favorite domain registrars? Which one is your most preferred registrar and why? Do you have advices on how to choose a good domain registrar? I hope you would be willing to share your advices and tips with us by commenting here.
Domaining or Domain Flipping has been a very profitable business for a number of years, now. It has been going through a bit of a recession as of late, but that’s probably due to the influx of newbies and scammers to the business. As long as you present yourself well, and show that you are not a scammer, then you will have no trouble in the domain flipping business. Also, since everything in this business is done online, after you’ve flipped your first domain, you can be like “Yeah, I make money online!”
Domain flipping is in and of itself, extremely simple. All you have to do is register a new domain that is available, and sell it for more than you registered it more. For a registrar, I recommend Namecheap. Namecheap allows you to transfer funds for a PayPal account that does not have a credit card attached to it, unlike GoDaddy, or some other registrars. As a bonus, I will tell you Namecheap’s coupon code for this month; It’s MAYFLOWERS. Now, what I just explained is the very basis of domain flipping, but it might only make you $1-$30 depending on the domain you get.
If you’re wanting to make more than $30 a pop, they you’re going to have to invest time, resources, and maybe even some money into the business. First of all, people want domains with some sort of traffic. There are a variety of ways you can obtain traffic, but there are two good free options. These two free options are, PPC websites, and StumbleUpon. PPC websites are easy, but they take up some of your precious time, but they are a viable option for the domainer who isn’t lazy, and has a lot of free time. Basically, you click on ads, and/or view other people’s websites in exchange for credits, which you can use to put your website in the site viewer. This will guarantee that people will view your website for at least 30 seconds, and can bring some significant traffic to your website. Most people know what StumbleUpon is, but just in case you don’t know, it is a social bookmarking site, where you submit websites and people vote thumb up or thumbs down and can give reviews when they “Stumble” onto it, which means they clicked the Stumble button which gave them a random website according to their interest. Another good way to advertise the website and get free traffic is to put the link in your signature in any forums you are active in. Now, this link will appear under every single post you make, and if you are active on forums like I am, then that is a lot of links, and a lot of potential visitors.
Putting good original content on your site is also a good idea. This will increase the value of the site, which will allow you to sell the content with the domain to increase your profits. You can hire a freelance writer like myself to write the content for you, or you can save the money and just do it yourself. See Jacob’s post on Hiring and Running Effective Content Writers if you are looking to hire freelancers. Doing it yourself is a viable option in this case, even if you are not the best writer, because as long as it is original and SEO friendly, meaning keyword rich, it will serve its purpose of driving free traffic from search engines. You can also include links to other privately owned websites in your content. The private website owners are almost always curious as to who is linking to them, and will most always visit the site that is linking to them, which in this case i s yours. Even if they just visit one time, that’s more than no one visiting you site. Also, think of how many links you can include in one page or article; that’s exactly how man back visits you can expect from other webmasters, who will be unknowingly helping you flip domains.
Now that you have the domain, and its getting traffic, you’ll need to track it. Otherwise, you’ll have no proof that it is receiving traffic, and you won’t be able to sell the domain for what it’s really worth. I recommend Google Analytics for this, as it is completely free and completely comprehensive. The reporting takes a little while, but you shouldn’t mind because the service you are getting is great, and it’s from Google, so you know it’s reliable. On the subject of selling, there are two types of places I suggest that you sell domains. There are forums such as DigitalPoint and SitePoint, where you can buy and sell domains that are on the cheaper side. Then they are domain auction sites like Sedo with listing fees and commissions similar to eBay. Obviously, Sedo is going to be better for domains that are going to cost more money, where the listing fees and commissions won’t wipe out your profits from your domains. Forum selling and buying is completely safe so long as you are cautious. I got a domain for only $6 on there that I plan to develop and then flip, I just always make sure the person has iTrader, or I have seen them do successful deals before, or hopefully both.
Now that you know everything you’ll need to do to start flipping your domains, go out and do it! Let me know how my guide helped you, and if you have any more questions, I’ll try to answer them.
In the first part of this series, I talked about the disadvantages to hosting your site or blog for free. In case you think those statements were a bit too radical, let me confess one thing: I agree with you. I do believe that free webhosts aren’t necessarily the root of all evil.
Here are some reasons why free webhosts shouldn’t be totally ignored by webmasters and bloggers:
1. Free! Does that word ring a bell? We all know it does. Although one might say that all free things have little or no value, that’s not always the case. And let’s not forget that there are times in life when our financial issues are so serious that every single penny we can save makes a huge difference to us — or to our family. Besides, depending on the country you live in, paid webhosting may not be as affordable as it’s usually said to be.
2. Is it harder to make money from sites hosted for free? Probably. Is it impossible? Certainly not. There are still some advertisers who will want to buy ad spots and reviews from such sites. Affiliate marketing is another option to take into consideration, as well as certain pay-per-click programs (AdSense anyone?). Several bloggers and webmasters who use free webhosts are generating decent income from their pages. Some of them will even teach you how to achieve similar results.
3. Many of the complaints about free webhosting are made by people who are unable to follow rules. If you choose a free webhost that doesn’t allow adult content and still you insist in running an adult-oriented portal on their servers, you just aren’t entitled to whine when your site is deleted. It’s really that simple.
4. Unstable people shouldn’t spend their money with paid webhosting. Some individuals suddenly fall in love with a singer or band and proceed to create sites, blogs, photoblogs and forums devoted to their idols. A year later they realise that they couldn’t care less. And then they feel a bit ridiculous for having spent money for reasons that now they admit to be futile. If you recognised yourself in this description — replace “singer or band” by any subject that might inspire sudden yet temporary feelings in you –, free webhosting is the way to go.
5. Free webhosts are great for test sites. By the way, I’m going to post a whole series about test sites here. Subscribe to The WebMaster Blog now and you’ll have my new article series delivered to your favourite feed reader within the next weeks.
If you can think of yet more reasons why free webhosts aren’t that evil after all, please post them on the comment form.
In my next article I will give you some advice on when and how to choose a free webhost.
Karen Zara has been involved with Internet-based projects since 2002. She is the creator of Abaminds, a blog for content producers that you can visit by clicking here.