Sunday, September 7, 2008Grow Your Business and Make the Most of Your Hosting Space: Part 1: Add-On Domains
Posted by Nathan Denny in Small Business Matters, Tips and Advice | Leave a Comment
It’s the same with almost any business: Once you taste success, you’ll probably want to expand. And with online business, that usually means adding more sections to your website, or adding new websites altogether.
And, as a smart business manager, you’ll no doubt want to expand your site without having to pay for more hosting services. Luckily, there are several ways to do just that. Today’s blog entry is the first in a series of three articles to help you better utilize Add-on Domains, Parked Domains, and Subdomains.
Add-on Domains
Sometimes called Hosted Domains, Add-on Domains are domain names located on the same hosting plan as your primary domain name. Just like your main domain name, you own these domains and have to pay for their registration. They can represent a subdirectory on your main site, or they can show a different website altogether. They can also be a type of parked domain. They use the same hosting space and bandwidth as your main hosting service account and are typically managed by the same control panel. (However, even these almost-universal basic facts can sometimes differ among hosting providers.)
The advantage of add-on domains is that you can host more than one website on the same account, saving resources, space, and of course, money. That means, with just one hosting plan, you can create whole new websites under the same account, with completely different identities, styles, keywords, SEO functionality, and so on. Or, if you prefer to brand your main site over a variety of different domain names, you can choose to incorporate a single style and structure throughout all your add-on domains.
It’s your choice. Add-on Domains give you the freedom to maximize the value of your hosting service in the way that works best for you. And, although you have to take extra care that growing traffic among your various add-on domains doesn’t overwhelm your main service’s bandwidth capabilities, this, too, can be seen as a positive factor. After all, if you have that many websites with that much traffic, a second or third hosting plan is probably the best next step in your business plans, anyway. (Or perhaps a larger Professional Grade or eCommerce Optimized hosting plan is now in order.)
Next up: Parked domains and subdomains.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008How to Make Money Selling Domain Names
Posted by Nathan Denny in Small Business Matters, Tips and Advice | 1 Comment
One of the most basic, most proven ways to make money online is domain name speculation. The act of buying domain names and reselling them when their value has increased, domain name speculation can be a lucrative addition to your online business revenues. When it’s done well and taken seriously, it can even be a rewarding business in its own right.
Domain name speculation offers many incentives: It’s easy to do, and it doesn’t require a significant investment. There’s also a huge profit potential. Businesses and webmasters are always looking for high-quality, marketable domain names, and have been known to pay top dollar for the domains they want. R.H. Donnelley currently holds the record for most money spent on a domain name, having acquired the Business.com domain for $345 million in 2007!
So, it’s definitely possible to make a living off of the buying and selling of domain names, and it can also be a smart way to earn revenue. All it takes is a little insider info, and the business sense to make the right choices.
What Makes a Domain Name Valuable?
What gives a domain name its value? Would a webmaster or business ever want to buy it? You should be able to confidently answer yes to that question before investing money in a domain.
The suffix is the most important factor in choosing a valuable domain name, and .com, .net, and .org are by far the most popular. Other alternative domains like .tv and .mobi are becoming popular as well, because they offer much more availability. For example, .info is a consumer favorite not only because of its generally lower price, but also because many basic domains that have long been taken at .com are still up for grabs with the .info suffix. And if you can’t find what you’re looking for there, other newer suffixes (including .biz and .us) offer even more options.
The reality, though, is that .com and .net suffixes are generally more valuable than the newer suffixes (though that does seem to be slowly changing), because they’re much more well-known to consumers.
In the past, the best-selling domain names have been the most basic, the most generic, and the shortest names (such as business.com, as mentioned above). Remember: The simplest way to say something is almost always the best. A site named www.hardware.com will get a lot more natural hits than www.abacus-hardware.com, and those hits are what make a domain name valuable. Focus on short, memorable names that are easy to remember and easy to market. (Of course, that’s also why many of them are taken; very few three-character domain names even exist any more on the main suffixes.)
What names are selling? Do some research on popular domain name auction sites like Afternic.com or eBay.com to see what kinds of names are selling. and for how much. A quick visit to Afternic on almost any given day will show new domains selling for tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Remember, though: It’s illegal to register a business name with intent of extortion, or which someone else has trademarked. This is called cybersquatting, and laws are in place to protect against it.
Where to Find Domain Names?
In the past, finding a domain name could be a frustrating process. It usually took a time-consuming, one-by-one search to find the name (and all similar names) that you were looking for. But today, technology allows these searches to be vast and almost instantaneous. The Aplus.net domain name finder, for example, not only offers instant results for searches, but also more than twenty alternate versions of the searched-for name. You can also get lists of domains that have expired from the sources below, and watch the status of domain names you want to buy when they do expire with Aplus.net’s Domain Monitor service.
The conventional wisdom is that all the good domains have already been taken. This is partially true (thousands of new domain names are indeed registered each day), but there are still good names to be found, and there will always be demand for newer variations on what already exists. The best way to find great domains is to subscribe to domain lists, which are regularly (usually daily) compiled lists of thousands of repossessed domain names that have been put back into the available domain pool. Subscribing to sites like Deleted Domains or JustDropped.com is easy and inexpensive, and can help keep you notified of what new domain names are up for grabs.
Domain Registration
Once you’ve found a domain you want to purchase, you’ll need to register it. In the past, this could cost as much as $70 for just two years! Luckily, domain name registration has become much more affordable in recent years, which adds up to more profit for you. Domain names can now be registered for less than $9 a year. A wide variety of sites offer competitive rates for the same basic registration service.
Selling Your Domain
When it comes to selling your domain name, the most effective places have typically been auction sites such as eBay.com, Afternic.com, and SEDO. There are also domain name brokers who will list your site for a fee when sold, a fee to list, or both.
GreatDomains.com is a highly useful, high-traffic site where you can list for-sale domains, and if you make a sale there, you’ll only have to pay a small percentage of the sale price. If you’ve truly found a valuable domain name, and you set a smart price that reflects the market, you shouldn’t have long to wait before a buyer bids or contacts you.
Many new domain sellers make the mistake of trying to sell every domain name for thousands of dollars. In fact, you’ll probably do much better selling more domains for a few hundred dollars. This gives you a much higher turnaround rate, and still maintains a healthy profit — at less than ten dollars for the registration fee, sales of even $50 represent a significant profit.
Good Luck!
Domain name speculation is a very cost-effective way to make money, with an extremely low overhead. It’s something you can do in your spare time, and it’s fun trying to figure out what domain names may be worth big money in the future. Get started today by subscribing to ModernDomainer.com, DNForum, and any of the other domain listing sites mentioned above. Make your purchase, then register with eBay.com and Afternic.com and start selling. Good Luck!
Thursday, August 28, 2008Top 10 Search Engine Ranking Factors from About.com — Plus One More
Posted by Nathan Denny in Tips and Advice | 1 Comment
About.com’s Online/Hosting Expert Gregory Go recently wrote up a highly instructive list on search engine optimization basics called the “Top 10 Search Engine Ranking Factors”. It’s a great primer on how to optimize your site for that most important online marketing element, search engine placement. To write it, he compiled information from “the top 37 search engine optimization (SEO) professionals,” adding some of their quotes to his own advice.
Mr. Go acknowledges right away that search engine ranking can never really be an exact science, due to the fact that the big players are always changing their criteria — which they also choose to keep secret. And let’s face it, Google dominates so much of the market here that their search engine algorithms are almost the default standard. And they keep a very tight lid on things.
Of course, that’s necessary to make sure people don’t exploit a too-familiar or too well-known system, which some people would certainly do. But, it can also really make a challenge out of staying on top of the art of search engine placement.
That being said, there are some fundamental guiedlines that are always going to help. Here are the top 10 search engine criteria, as compiled by Gregory Go:
- Keyword Use in Title Tag
- Anchor Text of Inbound Links
- Global Link Popularity of Site
- Age of Site
- Link Popularity within the Site’s Internal Link Structure
- Topical Relevance of Inbound Links to Site
- Link Popularity of Site in Topical Community
- Keyword Use in Body Text
- Global Link Popularity of Linking Site
- Topical Relationship of Linking Page
Each point is backed up with pointers and quotes from the relevant experts. It’s a great read, even if you already consider yourself to be an SEO expert. Read it here.
Let’s talk about the fourth point, Age of Site, for a moment. In your search engine optimization research, it’s probably a term you’ve come across more than once. Among the criteria that search engines use to rank your site is its age, which is determined by the date of your domain registration. That information comes directly from the WHOIS, the widely used database search interface that compiles ownership and details of domain names and IP addresses. Each and every domain name is indexed on the WHOIS database, and when a domain name expires, it’s eventually removed after a certain period of time. To learn more about this process, and to take advantage of an advanced WHOIS search tool to investigate your domain name or others, go to Aplus.net’s own Advanced WHOIS Search page.
Aplus.net’s “Plus One”
As great as this Top 10 list, there’s an 11th factor that might would make it even better:
11. Keyword Use in URLs
Understanding the basics of URL structure is important when determining SEO. Remember when optimizing your web copy and linking structure for SEO that it’s also very important to include your main keywords and phrases in your website’s URL address. This is a big factor in determining your page ranking.
URL keyword use is not only a useful addition to this list, it’s a topic in and of itself. A whole article could be written about how choosing the right domain name is key to URL structure, and the enormous impact that has on your search engine placement.
What are the factors that led you to choose your domain name? Were you thinking about the identity of your company? For most of us, the domain name is the first part of our website that we build; oftentimes, whole websites are created around a good domain name. But does your domain name contain your key word? Or a number of key words? It’s more important than you may realize. And it’s something we’ll cover in a future post.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008Aplus.Net Expands WebImage Design Service
Posted by Nathan Denny in Aplus.Net | 1 Comment
Big news from Aplus.Net! We’re happy to announce a whole new suite of add-on features for WebImage, our world-class web design service. The official press release is copied below; you can also click here to link to the official Aplus.Net news page.
Leading Web Hosting Company Ramps Up Web Design Product Suite with
Business-Enhancing Upgrades
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE.
OVERLAND PARK, KS – August 19, 2008 – Aplus.Net, a leading web hosting company and Internet solutions provider, has expanded WebImage, its web design service, to offer a full assortment of add-on options specially designed to facilitate online business growth.
The new features were designed to provide WebImage’s customers with the ability to add fundamental business functionality to their small business-oriented websites. Foremost among these upgrades are a basic shopping cart to support eCommerce functionality and a company logo service to help kick off marketing and branding efforts.
For website managers interested in monitoring visitor and web traffic data, WebImage now offers a Google-branded Advanced Site Statistics feature, as well as a basic web hit counter. In addition, customers now have the option of adding an unlimited amount of additional web pages to their existing design.
“For its price point, WebImage is absolutely the best value in professional-quality web design that this industry has to offer,” commented Alex Yevelev, Aplus.Net’s Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing. “And since Aplus.Net is dedicated to helping entrepreneurs grow their websites into successful businesses, we wanted to make sure WebImage provided every additional option any small business may need to succeed online.”
The new add-ons are available now at the company’s website, located at http://design.aplus.net/webimage-addons.html. For more information on Aplus.Net and its line of award-winning hosting plans, please visit the company’s website, http://www.aplus.net.
About Aplus.Net
One of the industry’s longest-running web hosting and Internet services provider, Aplus.Net specializes in helping small businesses build an online customer base with a comprehensive range of services that includes shared hosting, dedicated hosting, web design, online marketing, eCommerce, domain name registration, and more. Aplus.Net has received multiple awards for excellence, including the prestigious CNET Editors’ Choice Award, and has been featured in top U.S. business publications such as Forbes, Entrepreneur, Black Enterprise, and PC Magazine. For more information about Aplus.Net, please visit www.aplus.net.
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Thursday, July 3, 2008ICANN Opens Up Domains
Posted by Gina Crosby in Industry News: Trends | Leave a Comment
This is huge, huge step forward for the group that oversees the development of the internet. The board of the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers–ICANN–unanimously approved some proposals that could open up domains past the standard .com, .org, .info, etc. This could open a lot of new websites in the future that are tailored to industry-specific websites, maybe like www.mymanolos.shop or www.arthurbryant.kc, for example. They look a little strange now, but I bet they grow quickly! Read the whole article here.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008Hooray Flash!
Posted by Gina Crosby in Developer's Corner, Industry News: Trends | Leave a Comment
Adobe is teaming up with search engine powerhouses like Google and Yahoo to enhance search engine indexing of Adobe Flash content. Read the press release here.
This is an amazing step forward for web content writers and producers! Now it’ll be easier and faster to make engaging, interactive, rich web content and still leave it accessible to search engine crawling. These are the kinds of trends we look for when we research and develop marketing solutions for our clients–and you better believe this will impact the deliverables we provide.
Thursday, June 19, 20088 Million Downloads
Posted by Gina Crosby in Aplus.Net, Consumer Tech, Developer's Corner, Industry News: Players | Leave a Comment
The first day of availability for Mozilla’s Firefox 3 saw more than 8 million downloads of the browser. Guinness is verifying the number. They were hoping for more than 1.6 million. Congratulations!
OTHER THINGS THAT ARE 8 MILLION:
The number of millionaires in the U.S.
The age in years of a bacterium found in ancient ice.
Number of people who watched So You Think You Can Dance last week.
The number of sharks that are accidentally killed each year off the coast of Africa.
The quantity of mobile homes in the U.S.
Thursday, June 19, 2008Aplus.Net Earns Gold Certified Partner Status in Microsoft Partner Program
Posted by Gina Crosby in Aplus.Net, Industry News: Players | Leave a Comment
Effective June 13th, 2008, it has earned gold certified status in Microsoft’s Partner Program, which recognizes Aplus.Net’s expertise and impact in the technology marketplace. As a Gold Certified Partner, Aplus.Net has demonstrated expertise with Microsoft technologies and proven ability to meet customer needs. Microsoft Gold Certified Partners receive a rich set of benefits, including access, training and support, which gives them a competitive advantage in the marketplace.
“Only companies that have demonstrated high levels of customer service, proved their experience and attained advanced certification receive the designation of Microsoft Certified Partner,” said Allison Watson, corporate vice president of Worldwide Partner Group at Microsoft Corp. “Today, Microsoft recognizes Aplus.Net for its skills and expertise in providing customer satisfaction with Microsoft products and technology.”
To read the whole press release, click here. If you have any questions or would like to know more, contact us at http://www.aplus.net.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008Windows Server 2008 for our Dedicated Hosting Plans
Posted by Gina Crosby in Aplus.Net | Leave a Comment
We are glad to announce Windows Server 2008 for our dedicated hosting plans.
In addition to the upgrade, Aplus.Net is offering a limited-time promotion of free setup on Windows Server 2008 with all our dedicated servers. We’ll set up your server for free when you get a dedicated hosting plan. The monthly fee is $89 for Windows Server 2008 licensing.
At Aplus.Net, we are devoted to providing the latest technology and resources to our customers, They expect us to be on the on the forefront of emerging technology, and we’re passionate about providing the tools they need—and want—to succeed in today’s dynamic environment. Aplus.Net’s launch of Windows Server 2008 shows our commitment to providing every resource our customers are looking for; it’s another step for the new Aplus.Net.
Said Dennis Kittrell, Senior Product Manager in the official Windows Server 2008 announcement.
If you have any questions, make sure you give us a call at 877.275.8763, or chat with a live person about it by clicking on the chat button in top right corner of our website.
Friday, May 30, 2008Google’s Favicon
Posted by Gina Crosby in Industry News: Players | Leave a Comment
Did you see Google’s favicon? It’s such a small change but I think it’s important. I spent a good couple of minutes trying to find the right tab–I couldn’t find it because of a change to a very small image from a section of the browser I hardly every look at. You never realize how much these small things really incorporate into your overall web image. I’m amazed that such a small detail can prove to be so important to such a huge audience.
So why the change? What’s the point? Is there something coming? I can’t imagine such a departure from the branding just being nothing. What do you think? Do you have a favicon for your website? How’d you decide what it should be? What comments have you had?
keep looking »