If you just started to embark on Internet marketing, whether blogging or website, you will need to have a domain name. You need to plan and consider a few areas before you decide on a domain name. The reason is that if you started on a wrong footing and have register the domain and  setup the blog or website, it will be troublesome to correct it.

A domain name is just like a name given to a business or shop. For example if you see “Jim’s tailor”. You will know it is a tailor shop, right!
So this means we need to think of a domain name that can relate to what we want to promote.
If you are just starting out in trying to earn some money from internet, you might want to consider not to over spend unnecessarily.
When you setup a website or blog, you will need to plan on how to promote your site. Believe me, no traffic will come by itself, you really need to promote your site.

If you want to promote through online, you can use a few ways like:-
• Search Engine
• Pay per click
• Email
• Blog
• Backlinks
• EzineArticles.com
• Joint Venture

If you promote through Offline, you can use the following ways:-
• Brochure
• Advertise in Newpaper and Magazine
• Name Card
• T-Shirt
• Car sticker
• Classified Ads

Therefore a good domain name should be best suited for promoting through online & offline.
Also good domain name must be easily recall and simple to key in the browser.
Following are the recommendations for naming a domain:-

English words
If you plan to promote your site to the whole world, it is recommended to use English words as part of your domain. Unless you are targeting audience of your own country, then you can use your local language.

Keyword
You need to have your keyword(s) included as part of the domain name.
Let’s say you are promoting dog training. Then the words “dog training” should be part of your domain name. This will score high in the Search Engine for the keyword. The higher the score, the higher position the website or blog will obtain in the Search Engine.

3 Words Plus One
It is recommended to have 3 words only in the Domain name. Research has been conducted that people tend to recall one to 3 words easily. With a bit of creativity you should be able to find a good 3 words domain name.
However if you have difficulty in finding a good 3 words domain name, you may use fourth word. The fourth word should be Best, Better, The, Info or alternatively use plural words.

Joint Words
When you joint the words together, you need to read it whether it can meant other things than you intended. How do you read this word “nowhere”? Is it “No Where” or “Now Here”?
The best way is to get your friend to read your domain name and see how they pronounce it.

Dash and Underscore
Don’t use dash & underscore as part of your domain name. If you promote your site through offline, people will need to key in your site name in the browser.
There is a tendency they will key in the dash or underscore at the wrong position. Also people might confuse between dash and underscore.

Same Joint Letters
Try not to have same joint letters like ii, ll, tt. I find that people always make mistakes when keying the web link that have repetitive characters joint together.

Length
Don’t use long words. The longer the words, more spelling error will occurs.
Also long domain name will have difficulty to fit in Offline promotion like Classified Ads or Online (eg AdWords). Google only allow to display 35 characters at the AdWords Display URL field.

Dot Com
Register for Dot Com only. Most of the people will tend to key in Dot com if they are unsure the ending of your domain name. To emphasize how popular the dot com is, there is a shortcut for dot com at Internet Explorer & Firefox.
At the URL , you just need to key the domain name and press Ctrl + Enter. It will automatically fill up with www and dot com.

Conclusion
In conclusion, remember to apply the above factors in your selection of domain name.
It is crucial to give a first time visitor a good experience in keying in your domain name.
May you prosper as you journey through the Internet.

Cheers

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Do you like to know which countries are your blog readers from?

Also you can know which country provides you with the most readers.

At the same time you can display this information at your blog for everyone to see.

Well now you can satisfy the above by having a Flag Counter at your blog.

Unfortunately this is not a Wordpress Plugin. So you need to paste some HTML codes.

Here is a screenshot of the flags & the counter for each country readers that have visited your blog.

Where to get

You can get it at http://s05.flagcounter.com

Features

At the above website you can configure:-

• Number of flags to be shown.

• Column of Flags

• Background, Text & Border Color

You need to click on “Get Your Flag Counter”

The following will appear

Steps to install the above code at your Wordpress blog:-

Sign in to your blog using your Administrator’s ID.

Click on Appearance->Widget

You need to decide which sidebar you want to set this Flag counter.

At the Widget, drag the Text to the selected Sidebar

Copy the HTML code from the Flag Counter Website and paste to the Text box.

No need to fill up the Title. Click Save

That completes the installation steps.

Note:

Plan properly the settings for the flags. This is because once this flag counter is displayed at the blog, it will start counting. If you decide to change it later, you will need to go to this website and configure again. This will cause your counter to initialize again.

Now you can show off to the world where your readers are from.

Cheers

Alwin Chuah

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If you already have a Twitter account and would like other people to follow your twitter postings, you may do so by placing a “Twitter Follow me” badge on your Wordpress blog.

Your blog reader just need to click on the Twitter Follow Me badge and it will be taken to your Twitter’s page

Download Plugin
First you need to download Follow Me Plugin into your PC from http://wpburn.com/wordpress-plugins/wp-followme-plugin

Steps to install & configure
Unzip it and upload to your blog’s plugin folder.
Go to your blog’s plugin and activate it.
Click on Settings->Follow Me Settings

Feature of Follow Me plugin:
•    change the color of the badge
•    change the follow me label (Follow me /  Follow us)
•    change the position of the badge (left side or right side and the distance from top)

Following is the screenshot of the Follow Me configuration screen

The best thing is that as you scroll down your blog page, the Twitter Follow Me badge will be continued to be displayed.

Cheers

Alwin Chuah

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Do you know about half of the world population do not understand English at all?

This meant, if we write our blog in English, only half the world population can understand what we write. The other half will not understand at all.

Therefore in order to increase readers to our blog, we need to have a plugin that can translate English language to other languages. This way we can allow more people to enjoy what we have written, ahem.

I search in the Wordpress plugin and found the Global translator is the most popular plugin.

Following is the screenshot your blog reader will see and by clicking the selected flag, the blog information will be converted to that country’s language.

Key features of Global Translator plugin:-

•    It can translate 41 different languages

•    It support 4 different Translation Engines:

from Google Translation Engine, Babel Fish, Promt & FreeTranslations.com

•    Search Engine Optimized:

It uses the permalinks by adding the language code at the beginning of all your URI. For example the english version on www.domain.com/mycategory/mypost will be automatically transformed in www.domain.com/en/mycategory/mypost

•    Fully configurable layout:

You can easily customize the appearance of the translation bar by choosing between a TABLE, DIV or IMAGE MAP based layout for the flags bar and by selecting the number of translations to make available to your visitors

Plugin Download

You can download the plugin here at http://www.nothing2hide.net/wp-plugins/wordpress-global-translator-plugin/

Steps to install & configure

Download the Plugin into your PC.

Unzip it and upload to your blog’s plugin folder.

Go to your blog’s plugin and activate it.

Click on Settings->Global Translator

The configuration screen appears. You may follow the guide on the screen and configure accordingly. If you not sure, use default settings.

I hope you like this article

Cheers

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