1. Find your niche. Pick a manageable topic that will serve as your website niche. A search engine friendly website has a defined niche. Pick one topic or theme that will be covered on your website. If you are targeting leads in a specific geographic location, then choose one-and I do mean one-main area that will serve as your niche.

2. Do Keyword Research. Use a keyword research tool to determine what keywords and keyword phrases are being searched for most. I recommend the following tools:

a. Google Keyword Research Tool – Free

b. Wordtracker – Free Trial (I find that it’s a bit overkill for typical SEO jobs)

c. Yahoo Keyword Tool – Gives precise numerical activity of searches

The goal of your keyword research is to obtain a list of keyword phrases elevant to your website’s theme. Note the levels of searches being conducted for the various phrases. This will help you determine what you want your keywords to be.

Tip: Google’s Keyword Research Tool allows you to Add your keywords to a list and export them into an Excel file.

3. Determine Main Keyword Phrase (Main KP). First, rank the keyword phrases you discover in the order of importance. The keyword phrases that are searched for the most should get higher ranking than the ones with no searches.

Second, rank the keyword phrases in terms of competition. If you find a phrase with a high search volume but a small amount of advertiser competition, you can bet that it will likely have less competition in the natural search area as well.

Choose the keyword phrase to be the Main KP of your site that does all of the following:

a. Has the most searches with the least competition

b. Accurately describe your web site’s chosen theme

c. Describes your product or service in a very common way

d. Includes your main geo-target (city, state, country)

4. Determine your secondary Keyword Phrases (secondary KPs). The remaining keyword phrases play an important role in the content of your website. Keep your ranked list handy for integrating into your website’s content. In fact, these secondary keyword phrases will later become the Main KPs of the interior pages of your Web site.

5. Choose topics of interior web pages. Start writing the content of your web sites interior pages before you write the home page. Decide how many pages of content your site will have and select one keyword phrase from your research that most closely relates to your theme and meets your objectives. I suggest starting with only 3-5 pages when you first launch the website. You can always add more pages later.

6. Start writing interior pages. Start by putting your keyword phrase on the page. This will be your title. Research your page topic and write basic facts pertaining to the keyword phrase. Keep in mind that it’s facts that people are looking for and stay away from all forms of puffery. Give the facts without a lot of hype. This will naturally pull more keywords into the equation. Feel free to weave keywords into your content, but be careful not to overdo it as you can set-off Google’s penalty triggers.

If you find yourself writing sentences just to incorporate keywords-don’t. Stop yourself and get back to the topic. If you are really writing on topic, keywords should flow naturally.

Web Content Writing Tips

a. Write scannable text. People scan the web, they don’t read it so write text that can be scanned

i. Use bullets like they are on sale two for one

ii. Bold keywords

iii. Use a combination of compelling and keyword rich headings

iv. Use headings liberally (practically for each paragraph)

v. Write short, choppy sentences (long ones are for print)

vi. Use the shortest word possible to get your point across

vii. Write at the 9th grade level (even Rhodes Scholars prefer this when scanning)

b. Remember your goal is to provide information. The search engines today have become answer engines. People come on line wanting an answer to their question. Providing the answer to these information hungry visitors will help you put them at ease, gain credibility and build rapport. Credibility and rapport online can lead to the same in person when that visitor becomes a lead.

c. Incorporate KPs and Keywords. Add keywords liberally, but don’t make it sound unnatural. It’s wise to add them to the beginning of sentences, paragraphs and headings. The very end of the page is also important. Staying on topic is one sure way to get more than enough keywords on the page. Be sure not to over do it. You need a keyword density of 6% per phrase to get real recognition from search engine crawlers. More than that can get you penalized.

d. Don’t try to sell too soon or too hard! Save your sales copy for the end. “Give to get.” Provide the information they crave and at the end, offer your services. Do this as opposed to selling from line one which puts people off and puts them on guard. Be the one to give people the answers they are looking for and they’ll respect you for it and be more open to your soft sell approaches at the end of the page or in the right and left columns.

e. Keep your opinions to yourself. Using words like “fantastic” or “incredible” too often sounds fishy. Take a look at the successful Wiki’s and notice that there is very little opinion going on. Of course, your opinion is valuable, but it’s more important to give the facts, Jack.

f. Edit to the bone. Please do not put copy that’s destined for print on the web. Yuck! Copy written for print is just totally different than that on the web. The web is more succinct, choppier and less visceral, so get out your pencil and click “delete” to many of those extra words you don’t need.

g. Be original. You can’t get away with copying the content of someone else. Google will catch you, and if they even remotely THINK your content is duplicated, your page may never see the light of day. Try to take an angle that no one else is taking. Be thorough and go the extra mile to bring content to the table from sources other than the web (like the newspaper, the tv news or Barnes and Noble).

h. Do a spelling and grammar check. This goes without saying, since it’s easy to get in a hurry when writing on the web.

7. Add photos to the page that accurately convey your topic. A picture really is worth a thousand words, so don’t hold back. The more excellent photos you have on the page (within reason) that help define and describe your topic of interest, the better. Just be careful that you make the photos small enough to prevent your page from taking forever to download. Here’s a few other warnings about photos:

a. Don’t put low-quality photos on a page

b. Don’t forget to use photo editing software

c. Keep photos consistent

d. Don’t put photos up that are not precisely related to the topic

e. Don’t OD on photos

f. Make sure you have padding around your photos to separate it from the content

g. If it’s a short article, one nice photo will do

h. Consider visiting http://www.istockphoto.com/ for cheap photos or http://google.com/images for free photos

8. Use high quality font. Believe it or not, the font you use on your web site IS important. There are only three font types that are universal among all browsers, so you can forget about fancy scripts anyway. The Times New Roman font has been shown to be more difficult to read than Arial and Verdana on the web. I’ve decided that Verdana is the easiest to read online, but that Arial looks more professional. My own site uses Verdana: the-marketing-shop.com/. (Ah, made you look!)

a. Cool Tool to test different Typesets – See which font works best for you.

b. Font Tester -

c. Font Comparison Table – Compare fonts for the web

9. Write your home page. Write the home page of your website only after you’ve completed the interior web page content. Your home page should be mainly about your Main KP, but should also incorporate all the secondary topics and keyword phrares of the interior pages. This will send a signal to Google that you have your site themed and you’re ready for business.

10. Link to interior pages from home page. Link to all your interior pages from the home page using the Main KP of each page as the anchor text for the hyperlink. This will increase the rankings for the home page and interior pages.

At this stage you have an idea of what you want your new site to look like. You open Photoshop create a new .PSD document and start designing your site. Another approach would be to printscreen the site that you intend to use in your design, dump it into your new document and get rid of the unnecessary details and text. When the layout is set you design or copy the same way the additional components that you want your site to have. Don’t forget about the logo, it is also a good idea to experiment and see how it fits with the rest of the web site design.

When you like what you see and give yourself the go ahead, you start coding the website. That means opening Dreamweaver creating a new CSS document and a new HTML document a starting your magic. Along this path, you also start slicing pieces of graphic in your Photoshop and saving these in a separate images folder. As you code it is a good idea to keep IE, Firefox and Chrome open and constantly check your work in all the browsers to make sure you are getting identical results. It is a good practice because if you do it later when you are all finished, you will spend more time troubleshooting the bugs that you missed.

If you hadn’t already purchased your domain this is next on your agenda. Assuming coding went as planned and everything works and all pages perfectly validate in W3C it is time to set up your domain. You configure the DNS from your sever into your domain and wait. The process takes up to 48 Hrs. Don’t forget on your server side to point the path to your new domain. When the domain has propagated, use your FTP to copy all the files to your server as your new site should be up and running!

It is stretching the truth to say that there are no reliable SEO companies. Yes, there might be many scam SEO companies but if you know what to look for when selecting a SEO company, the risk of hiring fraudsters is reduced. It is much better if you yourself have a substantial knowledge of SEO and can easily decide if they promise you the starts in the sky or their goals are realistic but even if you are not quite familiar with SEO practices, here is a list with some points to watch for when choosing a SEO company:

Do they promise to guarantee #1 ranking? If they do, you have a serious reason to doubt their competencies. As the Google SEO selection tips say, no one can guarantee a #1 ranking in Google. This is true even for not so competitive words.

Get recommendation from friends, business partners, etc. Word of mouth is very important for the credibility of a company. For instance, we do not perform SEO services but despite that we constantly receive e-mails asking for SEO services. We always direct these inquiries to Blackwood Productions because we have worked with this company for a long time and we know that they are competent and reliable.

Ask in forums. There are many reputable Web master forums, so if you can’t find somebody who can recommend you a SEO company right away, consider asking in Web master forums. However, beware that not all forum posters are honest people, so take their opinion (no matter if positive or negative) with a grain of salt. Forums are not such a reliable source of information as in-person contact.

Google the company name. If the company is a known fraudster, chances are that you will find a lot of information about it on the Web. However, lack of negative publicity does not mean automatically that the company is great, nor do some subjective negative opinions mean that the company is a scammer.

Ask for examples of sites they have optimized. Happy customers are the best form of promotion, so feel free to ask your potential SEO company about sites they have optimized and references from clients. If you get a rejection because of confidentiality reasons, this must ring a bell about the credibility of the SEO company – former customers are not supposed to be a secret.

Check the PR of their own site. If they can’t optimize their site well enough to get a good PR (over 4-5), they are not worth hiring.

Ask them what keywords their site ranks for. Similarly to the page rank factor, if they don’t rank well for the keywords of their choice, they are hardly as professional as they are pretending to be.

Do they use automated submissions? If they do, stay away from them. Automated submissions can get you banned from search engines.

Do they use any black hat SEO tricks? You need to know in advance what black hat SEO is in order to judge them, so getting familiar with the most important black hat SEO tricks is worth before you go and start cross-examining them.

Where do they collect backlinks from? Backlinks are very, very important for SEO success but if they come from link farms and other similar sites, this can cause a lot of trouble. So, make sure the SEO firm collects links from reputable sites only.

Get some personal impressions, if possible. Gut instinct and impressions from meetings are also a way to judge a company, though sometimes it is not difficult to get mislead, so use this approach with caution.

High price does not guarantee high quality. If you are eager to pay more, this does not mean that you will get more. Just because a firm costs more DOES NOT make them better SEO’s. There are many reasons for high prices and high quality is only one of them. For instance, the company might work inefficiently and this is the reason for their ridiculously high costs, not the quality of their work.

Cheap is more expensive. This is also true. If you think you can pay peanuts for a professional SEO campaign, then you need to think again. Professional SEO companies offer realistic prices.

Use tricky questions. Using tricky questions is a double-edged sword, especially if you are not an expert. But there are several easy questions that can help you.

For instance, you might ask them how many search engines they will automatically submit your site to. If they are scammers, they will try to impress you with big numbers. But in this case, the best answer would be “no automatic submissions”.

Another tricky question is to ask them if they will place in you top 10 for some competitive keywords of your choice. The trap here is that it is them, not you, who chooses the words that are best for your site. It is not that probable that they will choose exactly the same words as you suggest, so if they tell you that you just give them the words and they push you to the top, tell them “Goodbye”.

Do they offer subscription services? SEO is a constant process and if you want to rank well and keep on like that, efforts are necessary all the time. Because of this, it is better to select a company that includes post-optimization maintenance, than get a company that pushes your site to the top and then leaves you in the wild on your own.

We tried to mention some of the most important issues in selecting a SEO company. Of course, there are many other factors to consider and each case is different, so give it some thought, before you sign the contract for hiring a SEO company.

2. A LOT of people have made a successful SEO career
There are many living proofs that SEO is a viable business. The list is too long to be quoted here but some of the names include Rob from Blackwood Productions, Jill Wahlen from High Rankings, Rand Fishkin from SEO Moz and many others.

3.Search Engine Optimizers make Good Money !
SEO is a profession that can be practiced while working for a company or as a solo practitioner. There are many jobboards like Dice and Craigslist that publish SEO job advertisements. It is worth noting that the compensation for SEO employees is equal to or even higher than that of developers, designers and marketers. Salaries over $80K per annum are not an exception for SEO jobs.
As a solo SEO practitioner you can make even more money. Almost all freelance sites have sections for SEO services and offers for $50 an hour or more are quite common. If you are still not confident that you can work on your own, you can start a SEO job, learn a bit and then start your own company.
If you already feel confident that you know a lot about SEO, you can take this quiz and see how you score. Well, don’t get depressed if you didn’t pass – here is a great checklist that will teach you a lot, even if you are already familiar with SEO.

4. Only Web-Designing MAY NOT be enough
Many companies offer turn-key solutions that include Web design, Web development AND SEO optimization. In fact, many clients expect that when they hire somebody to make their site, the site will be SEO friendly, so if you are good both as a designer and a SEO expert, you will be a truely valuable professional.
On the other hand, many other companies are dealing with SEO only because they feel that this way they can concentrate their efforts on their major strength – SEO, so you can consider this possibility as well.

5. Logical step ahead if you come from marketing or advertising
The Web has changed the way companies do business, so to some extent today’s marketers and advertisers need to have at least some SEO knowledge if they want to be successful. SEO is also a great career for linguists.

6. Lots of Learning
For somebody who comes from design, development or web administration, SEO might look not technical enough and you might feel that you will downgrade if you move to SEO. Don’t worry so much – you can learn a LOT from SEO, so if you are a talented techie, you are not downgrading but you are actually upgrading your skills packages.

7. SEO is already recognized as a career
Finally, if you need some more proof that SEO is a great career, have a look at the available courses and exams for SEO practitioners. Well, they might not be a CISCO certification but still they help to institutionalize the SEO profession.
Some Ugly Aspects of SEO

1. Dependent on search engines
It is true that in any career there are many things that are outside of your control but for SEO this is a rule number one. Search engines frequently change their algorithms and what is worse – these changes are not made public, so even the greatest SEO gurus admit that they make a lot of educated guesses about how things work. It is very discouraging to make everything perfect and then to learn that due to a change in the algorithm, your sites dropped 100 positions down. But the worst part is that you need to communicate this to clients, who are not satisfied with their sinking ratings.

2. No fixed rules
Probably this will change over time but for now the rule is that there are no rules – or at least not written ones. You can work very hard, follow everything that looks like a rule and still success is not coming. Currently you can’t even rely on bringing a search engine to court because of the damages they have done to your business because search engines are not obliged to rank high sites that have made efforts to get optimized.

3. Rapid changes in rankings
But even if you somehow manage to get to the top for a particular keyword, keeping the position requires constant efforts. Well, many other businesses are like that, so this is hardly a reason to complain – except when an angry customer starts shouting at you that this week their ratings are sinking and of course this is all your fault.

4. SEO requires Patience
The SEO professional and customers both need to understand that SEO takes constant effort and time. It could take months to move ahead in the ratings, or to build tens of links. Additionally, if you stop optimizing for some time, most likely you will experience a considerable drop in ratings. You need lots of motivation and patience not to give up when things are not going your way.

5. Black hat SEO
Black hat SEO is probably one of the biggest concerns for the would-be SEO practitioner. Fraud and unfair competition are present in any industry and those who are good and ethical suffer from this but black hat SEO is still pretty widespread. It is true that search engines penalize black hat practices but still black hat SEO is a major concern for the industry.

So, let’s hope that by telling you about the pros and cons of choosing SEO as your career we have helped you make an informed decision about your future.

2. Ignoring the Title tag
Leaving the http://www.webforward.ca/articles/2009/06/08/making-domains-your-business/ http://www.webforward.ca/articles/2009/06/08/making-domains-your-business/#comments Mon, 08 Jun 2009 19:52:13 +0000 admin http://www.webforward.ca/articles/?p=24 What is Domaining?
The classic definition of domaining is to buy domains for the sake of buying domains. A domainer is someone who purchases domains as an investment without planning to develop them. I know people who register domains, develop them, and end up with a portfolio of sites, but I wouldn’t really consider this to be domaining in the true sense of the word. Of course, many domainers also register domains in order to develop them, so there is significant crossover here, but in this article we’ll look specifically at domaining without developing. To make domaining work for you, you need to start out with a strategy that details how you’re going to make a profit on a domain without developing that domain.
There are two primary strategies for domainers:

1. Buy a domain because you think you can sell it for a higher price than you’ll pay for it.

2. Buy a domain for the traffic it attracts, which, you hope, will produce a steady stream of revenues.

Most domainers that I know use both strategies, but buying domains on a speculative basis, with the intention of reselling them for profit, is certainly the most common approach.

How to Value a Domain
As with real estate, there’s often a lot of hype around domain purchases. When you’re planning a purchase, it’s very important to remain calm and rational, and not allow yourself to become too invested in the idea of acquiring a specific name.

You’ll hear comments from domainers along the lines of, “this is a ‘category killer’ domain,” but I personally don’t buy into this hype. Even though having a premium domain is a great start for a new web site, I don’t believe there’s such a thing as a ‘category killer ‘domain. If there were, Software.com would have knocked out Microsoft.com long ago. Amazon would be a rainforest in South America and we’d buy our books at Books.com. Auctions.com would have surpassed Ebay.com years ago, and nobody would use Del.icio.us when Bookmarks.com is easier to remember and type. And did I mention Google? It should be easy enough to knock them off, right? After all, their domain is just a typo of a word that nobody knew anyway.

Having said that, it’s important to understand that there is a basis for the hype. According to Rick Schwartz, one of the pioneers of the domain industry, big business is missing a huge opportunity because of its lack of understanding about the quantitative and qualitative values of web traffic that high profile domains naturally receive. He speculates that “businesses will be wiped out because of this mistake.” Type-in traffic has meant millions in revenue to him, and would most likely be worth exponentially more to large corporations who are better positioned to take advantage of that traffic. “Could you imagine 1-800-flowers not owning flowers.com?” he asks. That’s just one example of a business that “got it” and got into the market ahead of the curve. Companies that don’t take web domains seriously now are going to be behind the curve — and they’re going to pay for that mistake.

Of course, understanding the value in a domain can be a matter of perspective. One person might view recent sales prices of domains and be astonished by the high prices, while another wishes he had more cash on hand to take advantage of the bargain pricing. To illustrate the point, Schwartz wants us to “imagine if Westin or Marriott had the vision to get [hotels.com]” years ago, or even now, when there are still undervalued domains. “Millions of people type hotels.com directly into their browser each month” he explains. This could equal millions of new customers for the Westin or Marriott, for a fixed, one-time expenditure. Not only that, but Schwartz contends that type in traffic that reaches premium domains such as hotels.com “converts to sales at a rate 3 to 10 times that of normal traffic.”

For those of us who aren’t the Westin or the Marriott, thankfully prices for great domains can be more down to earth. Pricing domains based upon revenue is fairly simple. You’ll find that many sources will quote a valuation of “10 x annual revenue” as a good starting point for traffic domains (that is, domain names that attract type-in traffic which produces measurable income — typically using a domain parking service). Don’t even bother trying to argue with a domainer that the multiple should be more inline with the market for web sites (generally 1 to 3 times the annual revenue). The key difference is that parking a domain takes absolutely zero effort. You don’t even need to make a trip to the bank to cash the check, as most domain parking services pay by direct deposit these days. This is the reason why it can be difficult to convince a domainer to sell a revenue-generating traffic domain in the first place.

Other types of domains can be more difficult to value. The best advice is to see if you can categorize the type of domain you’re after and search out comparable sales (using the list of marketplaces at the end of this article). You’ll notice, after observing the market for a while, that domains of a given type often sell for similar prices. For example, currently there’s a trend towards four-letter domains. Naturally, four-letter domains that form common words buck the trend, but otherwise you’ll notice four-character domains selling at around the same price regardless of the marketplace at which they’re posted for sale.

You can use this kind of knowledge to your own advantage in pricing. You’ll always find domainers who will hold out for prices much above what the market justifies, but armed with knowledge of the market you’ll be able to avoid those domains and go for the ones that are priced below market.
How Do You Identify a Great Domain?

Before you begin surveying the market for available domains, you need to identify in your own mind the reason why you’re buying a domain.

There are many legitimate reasons for buying a domain — more than I could list here. Some of the more common reasons are:

* because the name fits the business
* because you know it’s already receiving significant traffic

When you buy a domain because the name fits a business, your goal is usually to establish it as a brand. Traffic domains are self-explanatory for the most part — you want them because you immediately get the boost of attracting relevant traffic to your web site without having done anything other than build the site and buy the domain.

Buying Brandable Domains
Since buying brandable domains is a more opaque business, we’ll start there. It’s easy to lose sight of the fact that it’s the buyer who holds the upper hand when you’re buying brandable domains. When you truly understand what a brandable domain is, and why you should buy it, you’ll realize why.

A brandable domain is a domain that’s unlikely to receive much type-in traffic, usually because it doesn’t consist of a dictionary word — for example, sitepoint.com. It could also be a keyword domain, but one that doesn’t receive a significant amount of type-in traffic (one that gets significant type-in traffic is a traffic domain). Remember the sitepoint.com brand? A keyword domain that would work in the same field is WebmasterForum.com. Take away the established branding and user loyalty to these domains, and I doubt there’d be much (if any) natural type-in traffic that pre-existed the web sites.

The task of finding a great brandable domain is intertwined with creating the company name. It can involve a much more intense creative process than finding keyword domains, which is more a matter of crunching data. If you’re looking at brandable domains, you’ll want to find something that sticks in the memory and is easy to pronounce — usually, the shorter it is, the better. I usually look for a single word that contains fewer than twelve characters. However, a two-word domain might also be perfectly suitable. Some companies make up new words, like Wufoo. Two-word domains that are descriptive often work very well — for example, WordTracker and RapidShare work well to evoke a sense of purpose.

Buying Traffic Domains
Traffic domains are another animal altogether. It’s much easier to place a value on a traffic domain, and they’re usually more expensive than brandable domains. As I mentioned earlier, the industry standard for a traffic domain sale is ten times the yearly revenue. The most common problem with traffic domains is convincing the seller to part with them. It’s also important to make sure that the traffic isn’t fake (fake traffic is usually created by bots, or may be the result of a click farm. You also want to make sure you’re not buying a domain that infringes on an existing trademark, but for the purposes of this discussion, I’m speaking about generic domains. For domains that are product-oriented, or can be utilized in lucrative service industries such as mortgages, real estate, health, and so on, you may consider paying a higher multiple of revenues.

Negotiating to Buy or Sell a Domain
When I was building my hobby community, I wanted to build it on a brandable domain. I made a list of several domains that I thought were great choices. If you limit yourself to one choice, or if you fall in love with a specific name, you lose your advantage over the sellers. If you have several options to choose from, it’s much easier to walk away from the negotiations if you don’t like the price.

When I was getting started, I began with a sizeable list of domains, made some initial inquiries, and eventually whittled down my list to two choices: eHobby.com and Zealot.com. After a series of negotiations, I discovered that the owner of eHobby.com thought his domain was worth $45,000, and wouldn’t take a penny less. This was more than I wanted to pay, but luckily the seller of my other choice, Zealot.com, was prepared to negotiate a price of about one quarter of what eHobby.com would have cost me. Besides, ‘e’ domains went out with the 1990s, so the only one who lost out was that domain’s seller, who had unreasonable expectations of his domain’s value.

You should never accept the first price that’s offered to you, whether you’re buying or selling. Dave Evanson of NetVantagePoint didn’t take the first offer when he was contacted about his domain InstantApprovals.com. Later, the owners of LowerMyBills.com ended up paying him $60,000 for the domain. They key is to own a generic domain that a buyer absolutely cannot live without. Dave registered the name in 1999 for the cost of the registration fee alone, and at the time it was purely generic name that did not infringe upon any trademarks. Several years later, when LowerMyBills.com decided it could not live without the name, Dave held all the cards and could demand a high price for the name.

As a buyer, you may find yourself in a similar situation. If you become overly focused on a specific domain, you may find out exactly how high a domainer will make you go for a quality name.

Domain brokerage services are another way to approach a transaction. On a number of occasions, I’ve acted as an agent for domain buyers and sellers who either lacked the time to conduct the negotiations or wished to remain anonymous. Depending upon who you are, or who you represent, the price of a domain that you want to purchase may easily slide up the scale behind the scenes, so it often makes sense to be represented by an independent party. Alternatively, you could create a portfolio web site where you list domains for sale — there’s probably even a market for online real estate agents which list domains for sale on behalf of others, like BigTicketDomains.com. I don’t see that happening as much, which is probably the result of the fact that so many great marketplaces, like the SitePoint Marketplace, already exist.

How to Avoid Being a Cybersquatter
Cybersquatting is one of the most controversial topics among domainers — you can’t have a conversation with a domainer for very long without cybersquatting being mentioned.

However, there is in fact much disagreement about exactly what cybersquatting entails. Most people would agree that if you register a domain with the word “Microsoft” in it, that would make you a cybersquatter. On the other hand, if you wanted to build a web site about a rainforest in South America, and included “Amazon” as part of the domain name, few people would suggest that you were cybersquatting.

The grey area lies around cases where someone registers a domain with “Amazon” in it, but doesn’t develop it — instead, they attempt to play off Amazon.com’s brand. Is it cybersquatting if you were to register AmazonBooks.com and then try to sell books about the rainforest?
Beyond Dot Com

Based on the examples I’ve used so far in this article, you’ve probably noticed my heavy predilection toward buying .com domains. Do I also recommend buying domains with a different TLD? Certainly! In fact, I include a good number of .net and .org domains in my own portfolio. There are a number of reasons why you’d go with the .net or .org domain. If your goal is to build a site that will rank for a specific keyword, and you anticipate only attracting search engine traffic to that site, a .net or .org should work fine if the .com is not available or would come at too high a price.

Traditionally,.net domains are evocative of networks, and the .org domains of non-profit organizations. If your goal is to give the impression that your site is associated with a network or a non-profit organization, choose a .net or .org respectively. I don’t usually recommend the .info domains, as spammers have abused them so heavily due to the low registration costs. However, a very nice keyword domain might work out fine for you and can usually be had at a small fraction of its .com equivalent.

Another category of TLD that’s worth your consideration is country code domains. There are some compelling arguments for using a domain with a .ca, .de, .pl, and so on. Obviously, if your target market is a specific country, the country code TLD is a natural choice. It signals not only to your target market, but to the search engines, that this content is meant for the people living in that specific country.

You may have seen some alternative uses for these country-specific domains — names such as del.icio.us and caboo.se are cute uses of the country code domains that spell a word. I typically wouldn’t recommend them, because they can cause a lot of confusion, and in a case like caboo.se, I wonder how much traffic their success drives to caboose.com. On the other hand, it’s difficult to measure how much of these sites’ success could be attributed to the ‘cute factor’ of their domain. If you could somehow control the .com version of the domain, it could be a win-win situation. Otherwise, step into country code domains with extreme caution.

The interesting thing about the domain market today is that it’s both a buyer’s market and a seller’s market. For the huge majority of domains being registered by would-be players in domaining, it’s definitely a buyer’s market. One of the reasons that “dropped domain” lists are so long is that so many of these domains were registered on a whim, but should never really have been registered to begin with (a sin of which I, among many others, are also guilty).

It’s the rare domain that truly commands a high price — almost all of these rare domains have already been registered, but you’ll find that many of the domain marketplaces on the Web are littered with tens of thousands of almost-great names. It takes a lot of digging, but the gems are out there.