Work Ever

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For me, this is the most fun, and sometimes most frustrating, part of the process. Now that we have our list narrowed down to the most possible/profitable subjects, it is time to pick our domain name. The general rule when building a website is .com or nothing. If you are building a business or blog, where you intend for return visitors, you should pick a .com domain, nothing else will do. Now, there are sites that have built on non-.com domains (del.icio.us for example, however they have now converted over to delicious.com), but you are just better of starting with a suitable .com and going from there.

However, we are not building a business or blog, we are building a content site. Return visitors are not nearly as important as getting good rankings in search engines. It is much more important for us to pick a domain name that has our keyword (and hopefully only our keyword) in the domain. The .com is not nearly as important.

In looking for domains, I would much rather have the .com if available, but most likely, if I am developing a site on Ford Mustangs, mustangs.com is long gone, having been registered for 14 years. Many domains are for sale, but any decent keyword .com domain is going to be way over our budget. You are much better off finding another extension. So, here are our rules in searching for a domain:

1. .com is preferred, but not a requirement
2. keyword must be in the domain
3. if domain includes only our keyword, fantastic!
4. The cheaper the domain, the better (for the most part).

There are a few sites I use to check on availability. Domainsite and Name.com are two great sites that search many TLDs. You can also try EuroDNS, they search several options not always available to US registrars. Head on over to those sites, and do a search for the keywords still in your list. Here are a few options I was able to find for my list:

• iPods – ipods.bz, 
• MacBooks – macbook.vc, macbook.tl, macbooks.in, macbooks.bz, macbooks.ws
• Maui – maui.tw, maui.vc

Not too bad, single word keywords as the only part of the domain, fairly cheap extensions. If at all possible, I try to find domains that have renewal fees of under $20 per year. Last thing I want to do is hand someone over $100 per year (or more) for my domain, when I would be just as happy with one that was $10 per year, just money out of my pocket. Now, I have been working on these three for some time, here is what I was able to register:

• iPods.ws 
• MacBook.info
• Maui.in

One other option you can look at is purchasing a domain. If you cannot find something that works for your site, head over to Sedo.com and do a search for your keyword. You never know what you might find.

Once you have found your domain, search around  for cheaper registrars or coupons that may be available. Go ahead and register your domain. On to the next step, setting up your blog.