But today I’m going to tell you about a tip that you can take advantage of today, and it’ll help you today.  But first, a little background in domain kiting.

Go Fly a Kite

There’s a thing out there in the ‘domain world’ called domain kiting or domain tasting.  Basically, it goes like this.  Paul finds a great domain that is a misspelling of another website – say freecrditscore.com.  He buys the domain, forwards it on to a credit score affiliate, and watches to see how much traffic he gets from people fat-fingering the domain.  If it’s a good one (he’s making money) then he keeps it.  If not, he simply requests a refund from the registrar and gets his domain registration fee back.  He put his kite out there to see if it’d get struck by lightning or not.  If not, he wasn’t out any money.  It’s an interesting way to live on the edge, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Buying domains with misspellings is nothing new, but I’ve found a new twist on it that you may be able to take advantage of.

Which brings me to today’s tip.  Something that I discovered only a week ago.

Stealing Traffic Legally

There’s a new domain extension available from most registrars.  It’s the .co extension.  So if you were so inclined, you could go and buy yourdomain.co for around $29/year.  Yeah, it’s a little high, but that’s ok if you’re interested in keeping your brand in check or don’t want others to register your name.

The great thing about the Internet is that so many diverse people use it.  Not everyone is a great typist, some use the hunt and peck method to type in their information.  These are the people that we can target to our advantage.

There are some big companies that haven’t yet claimed their .co domain name.  For those in St. Louis, can you believe:

• KMOX.co
• ecolifestl.co
• KPLR11.co
• RiverfrontTimes.co
• BrownandCrouppen.co
• STLCars.co
• Fox2Now.co

These are just some examples that are available and could bring significant traffic to your website.

Who in your industry is the big hitter?  (If it’s not you,) you should consider purchasing the top .co domains and forwarding them to your website.

I’m Not a Lawyer

Now there may be some instances where trademark law comes into play, but for most domain names, you can probably simply purchase the domain and forward it to your website without problem – especially more vague ones such as autoloans.co or

Your Feedback

What are your thoughts on buying domains for misspellings or domains that others have overlooked?  Sneaky? Unethical? Genius? I’d love to hear what you think.

Joe Starts a Business

Once upon a time there was a man who lost his job.  Because of the economy and his go-getter attitude, Joe decided to start his own company. Joe was eager to get his new business going, and a big component of it would be online.  So Joe went to his favorite search engine and typed in something like ‘buy my .com‘ and minutes later he had registered his business name’s .com address.  During the checkout process, he was offered a few other things, including .net, .org and .info extensions for his business.  He figured the .com was the only one worth having, so he didn’t get the others.

Soon Joe was getting things in his new business together.  He hired a few staff members and starting turning a small profit.  He was signing up a few contractors and even a few decent paying gigs.

Problems Arise

Unfortunately Joe was a scammer.  His business was growing, but he knew in his mind that it had some problems.  Eventually Joe started to have problems with relationships he had started cultivating at the beginning of his new business venture. He started making people mad, promising things he couldn’t deliver and lying to his contractors about payments. One of those people was named Tom, a contractor whom Joe had hired and over the course of only six months had been bilked out of several thousand dollars.

But Tom knew the day would come when he’d cut ties with Joe.  He’d been lied to and cheated once already.  Unfortunately for Joe, Tom -  a business owner himself -  had a penchant for revenge.

Tom’s Idea

A few months passed by and Tom was still fuming from being ripped off.  He was doing work on the computer one day when he had an idea: one that really excited him.  So Tom hopped on his favorite domain registrar and discovered that Joe hadn’t registered his business’s .net domain.  So Tom grabbed it up.

Tom was an Internet guy.  Tom knew that he could easily copy Joe’s entire website in a matter of minutes using HTTrack, a free software package that lets you download entire websites in the blink of an eye.  Within minutes, Tom had an exact duplicate of Joe’s website up on the .net website. He then built a few links back to his website and within a week the search engines had indexed the site.

Since the websites and domains were nearly the same, the search engines started having a little difficulty establishing just who’s was the real site.  Both sites had business-name URLs and both started showing up in various business-related searches. Soon Joe took notice that this other website existed.  He was confused, but not too worried.  The website had everything his did, even the phone number, so he was glad to see the increased exposure.

The Link Strategy

Tom was a patient guy.  He waited until everything was indexed by the search engines before he started the next phase of his plan.  This step involved buying cheap links from some not-so-safe neighborhoods.  Soon his site had links coming in from (and going out to) various Viagra, poker and pharma sites.  Tom didn’t need to get many, just enough for the search engines to get a bit more confused about the two websites.

Tom did this for about six months.  A few links here, a few there.  His site was quickly becoming hated by the search engines for it’s spammy linking and duplicate content.

The Final Blow

Tom’s final step was a beautiful one.  After building up plenty of links, confusing the search engines, and creating a bad reputation, he simply did one thing: 301 redirected his .net site to Joe’s.

For those that don’t know what a 301 is, it is a total redirect of one site to another.  When the search engines come across this, they give any link weight, value and ‘reputation’ of the old site to the redirected site.  Something like this could send your rankings straight to the bottom in no time.

My Thoughts

There are a lot of legal issues here, which I’m not even about to tackle.  But I think the lesson is clear: spending the few dollars to buy your .net .org and .info domains is worth it.  Your business is probably your livelihood, and being online is becoming more and more of a must-have than a must-also-do.  Protecting your brand is paramount, especially for those just starting out.

Could Joe sue Tom? Probably. But what would be the cost vs just paying Tom what he was owed?  And what about the hassles? Can you afford to have this kind of negative exposure to your domain online?  Maybe, maybe not.  It depends on your brand, how much you value it, and how much it plays into the overall search volume for gaining future clients.  Obviously the easy lesson here is that you shouldn’t be a sheister business owner.  Pay those that you say you will.

Are there people that would do this? Absolutely.

What are the long term effects of this happening? I don’t know, but I wouldn’t want to find out, either.

Do you side with Joe or Tom, or neither?  Did Tom act outside of his rights?  What about the ethics involved? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this parable.

Business owners know that they’ve got to own a really good domain name in order to get online.  Most go with their business name, which is a perfectly good strategy for most businesses.  But where the owners fall short is that they only buy the .com version, and ignore the others. This mistake is easy (and cheap) to fix, and could save some big headaches down the road.

Last year I had a very prominent Saint Louis company contact me to get started on a new website.  They didn’t have anything, so we had to start with their domain name.  Problem was, it was already taken by a squatter, and was for sale for $60,000.  Not a good way to start my relationship with them, but I broke the news to them anyway.  Obviously they weren’t happy.

There have been plenty of documented cases online where squatters have purchased business name domain names in attempt to do just that, sell at a profit.  It’s an uncool thing to do, but it’s out there.  Sure, there are ways to possibly reclaim the domain name, but that can put you into a long and drawn out legal battle, something that no one wants.

So grabbing your .com domain name is very important – if you haven’t done it, you need to do it TODAY.

Secondly, there are other domain names available, such as

• yourbusiness.net
• yourbusiness.org
• yourbusiness.us

and many more, too.  These are the most popular (after .com).  I advise every one of my customers to purchase all of these domains for as long as possible (usually ten years at a time.)  The cost is generally around $125 or so for ten years (per domain), but it’s well worth it.

The biggest reason to purchase these alternate domain names is simply so your competition can’t get them.  Can you imagine if you owned bluewidgets.com and a competitor bought bluewidgets.net and started to outrank you in the search engines?  Of course you’d want to shoot them.  Don’t let them get the upper hand.

At a minimum, purchase the .net, .org and .us domain extensions of your main domain.  If you’ve got the cash, get others too, like .info, .me and .biz.

Need help securing domain names?  Just contact me and I’ll help you out.

Here’s a great SEO tip that nearly no business owner is aware of.

Did you know that a simple 4 lines of code can help your website move up the rankings?  Those lines can take any visitor that comes to your site by typing in domain.com and automatically forward them to www.domain.com.  Of course, domain is your website address.

But why would you care if they typed in the w’s or not?  Well, you might not care, but the search engines do.

To most all search engines, anything before the domain.com is considered a subdomain.  There are tons of subdomains out there, and they have their great uses.  For example, most hosting companies use mail.domain.com as their incoming and outgoing mail addresses.  Perfectly good example.

But when it comes to the www. part, search engines see things a bit differently.  To them, the www and non-www versions of your website are copies of each other.  They are two different websites, each with the exact same content.

I’m Seeing Double

The search engine’s “job” is to provide their searchers with the best results possible.  So they love original content that hasn’t been copied from other places.  Since they spider your website, and see the same exact content on “another website” (even though it’s yours), they penalize the domain for having duplicate content.  And duplicate content, to them, means you’re copying from someone else.

Worst of all – it hurts your ranking.

Fixing the www problem

As I mentioned earlier, there are just 4 lines of code that can fix most websites.  You put these lines of code in your .htaccess file, (just step 1) and bang – you’re in business.  Problem is, many business owners have signed into some crappy web design service and they can’t get anywhere near the actual server to fix this.  So we’ve got to find another way.

Luckily, there are other ways.  One is the canonical tag.  This simple fix can help you “teach” the search engines what’s the best way to index your website.  More information on canonicalization can be found at Matt Cutts’ website.

You can also set your preferred domain in the Google Webmaster Tools section.  Click on Site Configuration and then Settings.

This will help Google know what you prefer for the best way for them to access your website.

No Matter How You Do It, Just Get It Fixed

While the latter two things will help your website, the best one is still the modification of your .htaccess file – something many business owners can’t get to.  To do that, you’ll need to call your web person.  And if they don’t know how to do it, you’ve got the wrong web person.

Did you know about this simple fix? If not, that’s ok – there are professionals that do.  When you’re serious about hiring a professional to help you dominate your industry online, hire me.

Will,

I have a general question for you.  I am looking to register a domain name or two.  One would be for widget sales.  Anything obvious like widgets.com or greatwidgets.com are all taken.  Obviously with many people selling these, placement would be important.  So.how critical would it be that the phrase “widgets” is in the title? For instance.I considered other names like classywids, or I have considered using a long name like widgetsbygreg.  What would be the best strategy starting out?

Greg, thanks for the question.  I’m going to answer this with a lot more questions, so get ready.

All the Small Things

Search placement is all about small things. One change to a page or site can result in more traffic.  One well-placed link on another’s (relevant) website can result in a higher ranking for your site.  One modification to your title tag can move you up a few slots. One keyword in your domain name may give you an advantage.

But there is no one thing anyone can do to climb to the top of any niche.  Just like the game Jenga, it’s not one piece that tumbles the tower, it’s the culmination of many pieces that finally brings it down.

There is definitely an advantage to having your keyword/keyphrase in your URL.  If you’re up against some decent competition, every little bit helps.

Hi, I’m Domain. Remember me?

But you should also realize that there’s more at play here than just a domain name.  There’s also the ‘rememberability factor’ to consider.  Will someone who sees your domain on a passing car or billboard still remember it when they get to work?  If you mention your domain at a networking event, and two months later someone needs a widget, are they going to remember your domain name?

The rememberability factor may outweigh the need for a keyword rich domain name.  Notice I said may outweigh. It just depends.  Amazon isn’t about a rainforest, it’s about books. Zappos isn’t about people being shocked, it’s about shoes.

One thing I often mention when speaking is that your domain should always pass the phone test.  The phone test is simple: If you can call up a stranger and say “Go to my website.  www.widgets.com” and the person at the other end understands what you said (without you saying anything else), you pass.  Many companies have domains with dashes, misspellings and other craziness in them.  They have to spell out their domain to everyone that calls.  Not good.

I once had a client who had www in the middle of their domain. As in www.thewwwstore.com.  Talk about confusing! People would hear the second set of w’s and really misunderstand.  They’d end up not finding the site, and would probably go on to a competitor.

This also rings true for dashes in domain names.  They may help you rank well because they ‘break apart’ your keywords, but will word-of-mouth referrers be able to remember your domain name and the dashes? Not usually.

Don’t Dig Yourself Into a Hole

There are other things to consider, too.  How are you going to market the website? Social media? Search placement? TV/Radio/Traditional methods?  Classywids or Classywidgets are nice names, fairly easy to remember, but they pigeonhole you into only selling ‘widgets’.  What happens if you want to expand to doodads or contraptions?

This is a two-edged sword.  If you want to dominate the widget market (and only the widget market), a widget-based domain name is the way to go.  But if you see yourself expanding in two years after dominating that market, you’ve got another issue on your hands.  Now you need a more ‘generic’ domain name.  No longer can you really have your keyword in your domain name because you’ll end up with headaches when you try to expand.

You can, or course, dominate one market with a widget-based URL and then start a completely new website with a doodad-based domain name.  Problem is, you’re completely starting over.  You’ve jumped into a new market with a completely new set of competitors.  Had you selected a different name, you’d have two years of history and credibility behind you to fuel your new niche.

Do Some Research

There are a few things that can help you decide what’s the best route for buying a domain name.  GoDaddy (and some other domain registrars) offers some tools to help suggest ideas for domains.  Look up your main keyword (which is most likely taken) and then look at their suggestions.  You may get some good ideas.

I also suggest you use a thesaurus to check out other names and ideas.  Perhaps contraptions.com is a more generic name than widgets.com.

Also think about what the product does for your end user.  If your widget makes them warmer, perhaps something like warmernights.com is up your alley. Once again, be careful of pigeonholing yourself into a corner with these sort of domains.

Hopefully my suggestions help you pick out something good, Greg.  Good luck in your sales!

My process is simple: Get hosting. Buy your domain.  Develop your website. Launch.

Purchase Web Hosting

Since my business started doing web hosting way back in the 90′s, I’m a bit partial to hosting with my own company.  For less than 11 bucks a month you can have everything you’ll need to get just about any website a place to live.

There are tons of hosting companies out there, just do a search and you’ll find plenty.  For SEO purposes, I’d recommend staying away from Windows servers, though.

Now, you don’t have to have hosting when you go to buy your domain, but it is highly recommended.  We’ll discuss that below.

Making the Decision – Domain Purchase

There are literally thousands of domain names being researched and registered every day.  Heck, every hour!  If you find a good domain name, you should register it immediately.  This is without question the most important step.

Let’s say you’re building a new website for your company.  You know your name is available, but you want to get the site up first.  You don’t want to have one of those ‘under construction’ banners on your website, and I can’t say I blame you.

Finally you get your site ready, and then you go to get the domain name and sure enough, someone has registered it.  What could have cost you $20 bucks or less now may cost you hundreds, thousands, or even worse, the person doesn’t want to give it up.  Now you’ve got to come up with something else.  That bites.

The Development Period

During the time after you buy the domain and before you launch the website, you can do a few different things.

Under Construction – Back in the early to mid 90′s this was the norm.  People would buy a domain name and put up a crazy (or boring) message saying something to the affect of “This site is under construction. Check back later”.  Like someone is really going to check back.  My recommendation: don’t do it.

Block the Spiders – If you’d prefer, you can simply block all spiders from crawling your page.  This will allow you to build your website right on your domain (if you so choose) or you can put up the God-awful ‘under construction’ banner, but it won’t get indexed.  I’d only use this method if you are in no big hurry to get indexed. Need to know how?

Park the Domain – Another one I’d probably not recommend.  Most domain registrars, when you purchase, will offer you the option to park the domain for free on their server.  They’ll put up a splash page with ads and basically make money off any type-ins that may occur.

Probably the biggest reason that parking occurs is because you have purchased a domain name, but haven’t got around to getting the web hosting yet.  This is something you need to have prior to getting your domain because they’ll ask you for information (such as name server addresses) when you purchase the domain name.

Splash Page – If you want to at least let the search engines know you exist, and briefly what you do, you can put up a simple page of content (text, not graphics) that explains what your website will be about.  This will give your visitors a reason to check back (if they like what you’ve written) and will also be a small bit of fodder for the spiders.

From a marketing standpoint, this is probably your best option.  While you won’t have much info out there, at least it’s something.  And you can start doing some low-end link building too, which may help you when you finally launch your site.

Conclusion and Cheap Plug(s)

If you come across a good domain, or if you have a business and want to register your name before someone else does, do it.  Don’t wait.

If you don’t know anything about registering domains, or need ideas for good marketable domains, just contact me or visit my business website.  If you need hosting, I’ll throw the domain in free for the first year.  What could be easier?