Internet Marketing Basics

I've noticed a bit of traffic here lately and only just realized that I plum forgot to update this site. Please note that I've sort of transferred most of the ideas I was going to discuss here over to the site It's My Business: http://www.itsmybizniz.com.

My apologies for the lack of new entries here. I do have entries sketched out, but I am still trying to find time to implement the new page design. I'm hoping to relaunch by January 1st. The URL will remain the same for the time being. Check my "hubsite", Chameleon Integration for general news.

In the last two posts, I talked about choosing a domain name and the difference between having a .com, .biz, .info, etc., TLD (Top-Level Domain). Before you can actually register a domain name, you will want to check what is available. Your Internet Hosting Provider will likely have a domain-availability checking tool. I like to use ExpertHost's tool because I can check several domains and TLDs at the same time. (Initially, you enter one domain name. Once you submit that for checking, you get a new page that allows you to enter several choices.) ExpertHost's tool also is secure in the sense that no one can poach the names while you're checking. That is not true for some of the domain registrars the last time I checked. Name poachers watch there to see who is searching for names, and if someone doesn't register a name they searched for, the poacher may register it themselves. [Note: I do have several domain names registered through ExpertHost, as well as one hosting plan, but I am not an affiliate.]

I also tend to use GoDaddy's tool, as that's where I'm now registering all my new domains and my clients' domains. [Again, I am not an affiliate at the present time, but that may change.] As their tool only lets you check one name at a time, I often use a variety of domain-checking tools that are not part of a Hosting Provider. My favourite is DomainsBot. It's an excellent tool for not only checking on the domain name you want, but related names as well. Using their tool, you can enter a word or phrase, and it'll give you back a long list of related options for domain names (including different TLDs) that are available. For example, if you are selling mushroom-related products and services, you can enter "i love mushrooms". DomainsBot will tell you, in this case, that ilovemushrooms.com is taken (you can backorder it in case it expires without renenewal), but that iwantmushrooms.com, iloveshrooms.com, ilovefungi.com, and many other variations (including .net, .info, .org, .biz) - some good, some silly - are available. It lets you check the ones you are interested in registering. That is, you can register the names with them, and then when you find a Host Provider you like, you can transfer the name registration records. As you'll find out in my next post, I prefer to register with my Host Provider instead of elsewhere.

(c) Copyright 2005-present, Raj Kumar Dash, htttp://www.chameleonintegration.com/blogs/netmarketing

Technorati : domain names, internet marketing, web basics, web marketing

In choosing a domain name for your future website, you may be wondering what the difference is between ".com", ".org", ".net", ".edu", ".biz", and so on, is. These suffixes are called TLDs - Top Level Domains. Originally, when the (public) Internet was born, there were very few TLDs: .com, .org, .net, .gov, .mil and a few others. The country-level TLDs were added soon after, followed over the years by several other TLDs. Each TLD was supposed to represent a category for a website. For example, .com was originally meant to represent websites for American corporations. Other countries might use something like .co.uk (United Kingdom) or .co.jp (Japan). But things didn't quite work out that way. And in the psyche of the Internet user and the public in general, .com was associated with the Internet. If you didn't have a .com TLD, your site didn't matter. At least that was the attitude.

That attitude is changing, and with so many .com names used up, alternatives have popped up, sometimes costing much less to register. People have also made clever use of older TLDs. For example, .us represents United States websites; however, many people have shied away from country-level TLDs until more recently. The social bookmarking web site http://del.icio.us and several others have made .us popular. More recently, .biz, .name, .tv, and even .ws have become popular.

So what should you choose? The short answer is, stick with .com if you're not sure. But if you are planning on running some sort of media website, consider the charm of a .tv domain. If you can't get the .com you want, consider .biz. If you are running an informational site, try .info. A non-profit organization? Use .org. A technology-related site? The .net TLD is pretty common for Internet Service Providers and other tech-hardware related businesses. Many people who want to somehow register their own name are using the .name TLD. This latter choice actually isn't a bad idea if you run a number of different businesses or services. For example, I might register something like rajdash.name or rajdash.com and run websites such as mathgeek.rajdash.com, consulting.rajdash.com, and so on. (These two website names are called "sub-domains" because the "www" portion is replaced with something else.)

Using your own name in your domain name isn't for everyone. Ultimately, the domain name you choose will be based on three factors: (1) Your business name; (2) Availability of domain names; (3) Your business needs, if you have to use a name variation. For example, as I said in my last post, I had to settle for a variation of my business name. Whatever you do, choose a domain name carefully, as it'll be the moniker with which people will remember you on the Internet. Once you've got a short-list of possible domain names, the next post will show you how to check for availability.

(c) Copyright 2005-present, Raj Kumar Dash, http://www.chameleonintegration.com/blogs/netmarketing

Technorati : domain names, internet marketing, web basics, web marketing

Even if you're new to surfing the Internet, you probably know what an URL is. But in case you don't, a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is essentially an address on the Internet for a web page or some other file (image, document, script). An example is the address of this blog (at the time of writing): http://www.chameleonintegration.com/blogs/netmarketing/index.html. This is the "address" that you will see in your web browser while viewing the main web page of this blog. Actually, you may see http://www.chameleonintegration.com/blogs/netmarketing, which is considered to be the same thing, but that's a story for a later post.

Another term you will come across on the Internet is "domain name". In the above URL, the website's "homepage" (front door) address is http://www.chameleonintegration.com. The domain name is "chameleonintegration.com". A domain name is the base identifier for setting up a website and related services. If you want to run your own website, you will need a domain name. Presumably, you would like a domain name to match the name of your business or service, or possibly your own name. My consulting business is called Chamleon Integration Systems. I did not want to have chameleonintegrationsystems.com, as this is quite a long name. I checked a number of different variations, but many of them were already taken. I finally settled on chameleonintegration.com for my domain name, but realized after the fact that I might also have selected cisystems.com, chameleonis.com, etc. Choosing one of these, of course, is more than likely to impact my company logo. Which brings me to an important point: Don't have your online logo designed until you have selected and registered a domain name.

Before you choose, make a small list of possible domains that appeal to you, and that you think would be relatively easy to for your website visitors to remember. In the next post, I'll talk about the different types of domain name suffixes (.com, .biz, .net, etc.) and which ones are best to choose from. In the post after that, once you've selected a domain name, I'll tell you how to check to see which domain names are available for you to register.

(c) Copyright 2005-present, Raj Kumar Dash, http://www.chameleonintegration.com/blogs/netmarketing

Technorati : internet marketing, web basics, web marketing