WWW.YourDomainName.com © 2001 by Michelle Lee, www.UltimateResourceBarn.com ----------------------------------------------------------- Ok, great you have got your concept ready. You know what you want to sell. You have a product or service in mind. What is the next logical step for you? Get a domain name of your own! If you are serious about online success for your product or service, you MUST get a domain name. Wait, before you hop to a domain name registration company, have you decided on a domain name yet? Have you give serious consideration to the domain name you have in mind? Choosing a domain name is not as easy as you think it is. A domain name is like your store front. Imagine that if you pick the wrong store front to start your business, what will happen? Before you know it, you got to close shop. The same reasoning for your domain name - you got to pick the right one. Having lousy domain name may result in you losing customers and business. So dont let that happen to you! So how are you going to pick the right one? First, your domain name must be easy to remember. Ask your friends their opinions. What is easy for you to remember may not be easy for others to remember. A good way to know if the domain name you picked is easy to remember is to ask the opinion of the people around you. You will be surprise what people will type in their browser address box to get to a certain services or products. Next comes the availability of the domain name you have chosen. It MUST be available. How do you know if it is available or not? You can check it out by going to domain registration websites. These domain registration website usually provide you with a means to check if a domain name is still available. A good one is www.Register.com. There are many of course. You can go to any one you like. But your main purpose is to check that the domain name you want is still available. If it is not, think of a two words or three words combination. However, do not make your domain name too long. If it is too long, not only is it difficult to remember, it is difficult to type a long string too. Also .com, .net and .org domain names exceeding a total of 26 characters are supported by most web browsers. However, certain web browsers, email programs and other Internet related applications may not support domain names over 26 characters. Your domain name should reflect the product or service you are selling. You can create a theme site where you talk about nothing but your product. Visitors to your website should either buy, bookmark your site or leave. I would advocate that you use your product as the domain name. For example, if you are selling an eBook "Guide to earning Big Profit online", you would probably use www.BigProfitGuide.com as your domain name. This makes it real easy for your customer to remember your website url. Your direct response website reflects exactly what you are selling. The other choice you have is to create a overall company/ website branding and market your many products and services under one company/website. Take for example Amazon.com. When they first started out, they are just selling books. But they expand and offers many other products such as video, games, clothings etc. Do you think Amazon.com have thought of selling products apart from books right from the start? I bet they do! (A side note for all doing your business plan - always plan two steps ahead. If you are at stage 1 of your business plan, you should be thinking and researching for your stage 3 of your business plan. Unless if you are just planning for a short stay for your business on the internet.) Amazon.com can jolly well create another video and games website. Or Amazon.com can make use of their existing branded image, and simply offer the other products under one roof. We all know which stragegy Amazon.com adopt. If Amazon.com was MegaBooks.com, they will have to think of ways to introduce videos, games, clothings etc into their existing books product line. So do you see how important choosing a correct domain name is now? Therefore, always also take into consideration future additional products or services that you may wish to sell or provide. If you use a domain name that directly reflect your product or services, you may have difficulties introducing your new products or services. In this case, it depends on your business strategy. Would you market your new products separately in another website/domain. Or are you grouping all products and services under one roof. This is actually a very important point to consider. If you have your business plan well thought out, you will know which strategy to adopt, and hence you can make better decision concerning your domain name. Lastly, you may want to consider searching the United States Patent and Trademark Office http://www.uspto.gov/ to secure a patent or make sure that your domain name did not infringe someone else trademark. Pricing and fees are also listed as well as how obtain a patent or register a trademark. Do your research on trademark regulations and knowing your rights, whether you hold a trademark or a domain name, and you may be able to avoid the possibility of litigation. © 2001 by Michelle Lee ----------------------------------------------------------- Michelle Lee is the owner of the website http://www.UltimateResourceBarn.com and publisher of the @UltimateResourceBarn Newsletter, a FREE weekly publication. Both the website and newsletter are jam packed with Articles, Tips, Tricks on Internet Marketing, affiliate programs, mlm, work at home opportunities & more. Get all these, plus FREE eBooks and 1 FREE ad space! To subscribe, mailto: subscribe@UltimateResourceBarn.com