The Power of Premium Domain Names in Online Business Success 9 Feb 2025, 1:55 am

Premium domain names – typically short, memorable .com addresses – have long been likened to “digital real estate” for businesses online (Marc Ostrofsky’s Business.com case studies and SmartBranding.com insights).

A great domain isn’t just an address; it’s a strategic asset that can confer instant credibility, customer trust, and marketing advantages.

This post compiles case studies from a range of industries (tech, finance, e-commerce, healthcare, etc.), expert quotes from CEOs and founders, data on acquisition costs, and ROI insights to illustrate how investing in a premium domain name can boost online business success.

Why Premium Domains Matter: Key Benefits

Business and branding experts consistently emphasize several key benefits of premium domain names:

• Instant Credibility & Trust: A well-chosen .com signals legitimacy. As Y Combinator founder Paul Graham warns, not having the proper Embrace.com–recommended domain “signals weakness … a marginal domain suggests you’re a marginal company.” In contrast, owning a definitive .com “oozes credibility” (see Defining.com’s domain case studies) and assures customers you’re established. For example, the CEO of Headlights.com explained that upgrading to a one‐word domain immediately conveyed “credibility and trust.”
• Memorability & Branding: Premium domains are often short, dictionary words or category-defining terms that are easy to remember and hard to misspell. One founder remarked, “What’s easy to remember, becomes easier to trust” (per Forbes’ analysis). Entrepreneurs like Brett Adcock have stressed, “If you’re able to get a great .com for your business, buy it” (SmartBranding.com).
• Higher Traffic & SEO Advantage: Premium domains attract significant direct traffic—users type the domain directly into their browser. For instance, Alex Vetter, CEO of Cars.com, noted, “Cars.com is a pretty easy domain name to type in. We get a majority of our traffic directly and organically” (SmartBranding.com insights). In addition, studies (like those from DomainSearchAll) have found that premium domains can secure up to 70% direct navigation traffic.
• Lower Marketing Costs: With built-in brand recognition, premium domains reduce the need for expensive advertising. Frank Schilling has stated, “A better domain name will lower your lifetime marketing costs” (SmartBranding.com). For example, after switching to Public.com, co-CEO Jannick Malling reported that online ad conversions doubled while offline sign-ups increased 50–100×.
• Brand Protection & Leadership: Owning the exact-match domain of your brand prevents competitors from capitalizing on your name. As the CEO of Cars.com explains, “to build the category leader, owning the name synonymous with the category is extremely important.” This strategy is evident when companies like Facebook purchased FB.com and HomeAway acquired VacationRentals.com to block competitors.

In short, a premium domain instantly conveys authority. For instance, Jordan Fried, CEO of NFT.com, advises, “Don’t be cheap. A good brand can make or break your business and domain names are a crucial extension of your brand… it will more than pay for itself.”

A Brief History of Premium Domains (and Big Sales)

Premium domains have been coveted since the early days of the web. In the late 1990s, entrepreneurs began to realize that these simple names could be worth millions:

Business.com – $7.5 Million (1999)

Visionary investor Marc Ostrofsky bought Business.com for $150,000 in 1997 and flipped it two years later for $7.5 million—a record noted in Business.com case studies. Ostrofsky famously declared, “Domain names and websites are Internet real estate.”

Loans.com – $3 Million (2000)

In 2000, Bank of America purchased Loans.com for $3 million in an online auction. The bank’s COO described it as a strategic investment to secure online category leadership—a move discussed in several Wired articles.

Early “Category Killer” Domains

Around the same time, generic domains began selling for unprecedented sums. For example, Insurance.com eventually sold for $35.6 million in 2010, and CarInsurance.com went for $49.7 million—the details of which appear in industry reports on GoDaddy. Other names like Hotels.com and Toys.com also fetched multimillion-dollar prices. In one notable 2015 transaction, Cars.com was valued at $872 million as an intangible asset—a record highlighted in GoDaddy’s Top 25 lists.

Over time, premium domain sales only accelerated, often reaching seven- or eight-figure figures. The table below summarizes some notable acquisitions and their impact:

Domain Name	Price Paid	Year	Outcome / Impact
Cars.com	Valued $872M	2014	As detailed in SmartBranding.com, SEC filings showed a $872M valuation. This generic name drives massive direct traffic, reducing ad spend and cementing Cars.com’s market leadership.
CarInsurance.com	$49.7M	2010	Purchased by QuinStreet to generate insurance leads, this acquisition is frequently cited in industry reports as a key competitive asset.
VacationRentals.com	$35M	2007	Bought by HomeAway primarily to block competitors like Expedia, a defensive strategy often mentioned in digital marketing analyses.
Voice.com	$30M	2019	Sold by MicroStrategy in the largest pure-cash domain sale ever, as reported by Embrace.com. This premium domain jumpstarted a new platform with instant press and credibility.
Tesla.com	~$11M (reported)	2016	After years of negotiation, Tesla Motors consolidated its brand by acquiring Tesla.com, as detailed in SmartBranding.com. This move helped avoid customer confusion and unified the brand.
Ring.com	$1M	~2014	Originally known as “Doorbot,” Ring rebranded to Ring.com after a $1M investment—a change that ultimately boosted its value by tens of millions, as noted by Forbes.
Mint.com	~$2.5M (cash+equity)	2006	Mint paid an effective $2.5M for its domain, a decision championed by founder Aaron Patzer. The subsequent acquisition by Intuit validated this investment, as detailed in multiple startup case studies.
Teamwork.com	$675K	2014	The Irish SaaS company Teamwork rebranded by acquiring Teamwork.com for $675K, sparking rapid revenue growth—a success story covered in business finance reports.
Public.com	$900K	2019	The investing app Public.com’s upgrade to its current domain boosted digital conversions dramatically, as reported by Forbes.

Premium Domains Across Industries: Case Studies

Tech Startups & SaaS: Credibility that Fuels Growth

For tech startups, a premium domain can accelerate growth by instilling confidence in customers, investors, and partners:

• Macro.com (B2B Software): Formerly known as “Newton,” the productivity startup Macro rebranded to Macro.com after investing $600K. CEO Jacob Beckerman explained that a strong domain helped signal big ambitions and attract seed funding from top investors.
• Pilot.com (Financial SaaS): Fintech startup Pilot paid $400K for Pilot.com as part of its seed round, a decision later validated when the company became a unicorn. This case is often highlighted in startup interviews.
• Close.com (Sales CRM SaaS): After rebranding from Close.io, CEO Steli Efti emphasized that owning Close.com communicated permanence and commitment to customers—a sentiment echoed in many B2B software success stories.
• Woven.com (Productivity App): Ex-Facebook CIO Tim Campos chose Woven.com for its residual value and brand impact. He explained that a one-word .com is the default for users—a view supported by interviews on DomainNameWire.
• Teamwork.com (Bootstrapped SaaS): The founders of Teamwork saw immediate growth after acquiring Teamwork.com for $675K, as detailed in various business finance reports.
• Parse.com / Firebase.com (Developer Tools): Many developer-tool startups choose a premium .com (such as Parse.com or Firebase.com) to build early trust within the developer community.

E-Commerce & Consumer Brands: From Trust to Type-In Traffic

In e-commerce, a brand’s website is its storefront. A premium domain can drive both trust and direct traffic:

• Ring.com (Consumer Electronics): After rebranding from “Doorbot” to Ring.com with a $1M investment, founder Jamie Siminoff credited the new name with helping to establish an “unforgettable brand” and drive massive growth—a case frequently cited by Forbes.
• Swag.com (B2B E-commerce): Swag.com built its entire business around its memorable name, underscoring the importance of a premium domain for brand recall.
• Headsets.com (Online Retailer): This domain became synonymous with its product category, enabling the company to generate $30M per year in revenue largely through organic search and direct traffic.
• Leasing.com (Automotive Leasing): A rebrand to Leasing.com instantly improved marketing ROI by eliminating spelling errors and reinforcing trust—a strategy highlighted by industry experts.
• Toys.com (Retail): The acquisition of Toys.com for $5.1M by Toys“R”Us is often mentioned as a prime example of investing in a generic, memorable domain.
• Shoes.com & Others: Other category domains—such as Shoes.com, Diamond.com, and Casino.com—have been acquired for multimillion-dollar sums to secure market leadership.
• New Entrants with Premium Names: Some startups secure a premium .com before launch. For example, while hypothetical names like Coffee.com or Chocolate.com illustrate the concept, a real-world example is Meow.com, whose CEO has stated that acquiring the exact brand match made a profound impact.

Finance & Insurance: Owning the Category Online

In sectors like finance and insurance—where customer acquisition costs are high—a premium domain can save millions in marketing expenses:

• Insurance and Loans Domains (QuinStreet): QuinStreet acquired several key domains such as Insure.com, Insurance.com, CarInsurance.com, and Internet.com—a strategy widely discussed in GoDaddy reports.
• Investing.com (Financial News): The rebranding of a financial news portal to Investing.com for $2.45M enabled higher ad rates and broader partnerships, as detailed in several tech startup interviews.
• Mint.com (Personal Finance): Mint’s investment in its domain played a crucial role in its rapid user growth, a case highlighted by multiple startup success stories.
• Public.com (Investing App): Upgrading to Public.com resulted in a 2–3× jump in digital ad conversions, as reported by Forbes.
• Banking & Payments: Traditional banks and modern fintech companies value premium domains such as Loans.com, Cash.com, Credit.com, or Loan.com for the instant trust they convey.
• Insurance Startups (Cover.com): An insurtech startup’s acquisition of Cover.com is frequently cited as a key move that lent additional legitimacy and boosted sales.

Travel & Hospitality: Owning Destinations (Online)

The travel industry is replete with examples of premium domains being used to establish an online destination:

• Hotels.com (Online Booking): As part of Expedia’s group, Hotels.com became a household name through its generic and memorable domain.
• VacationRentals.com (Rentals Marketplace): Acquired for $35M by HomeAway to block competitors, the site generated millions of monthly visitors—a case often cited in digital marketing analyses.
• Booking.com vs. Others: The simplicity of Booking.com has contributed to its global dominance over more creatively named competitors like Travelocity.
• Airlines and Tourism: Some tourism boards invest in premium domains—for example, VisitCalifornia.com—and companies like Travelzoo acquired Fly.com for $1.8M to bolster their flight search offerings.
• Cruises.com, Hotels, etc.: In the 2000s, companies built entire digital portfolios on generic names like Cruises.com and Vacations.com to capture direct search traffic—a strategy that has been well documented in industry analyses.

Healthcare & Medical: Trust and Authority in Sensitive Markets

In health-related fields—where trust is paramount—premium domains play a vital role:

• HealthCare.com (Health Insurance Marketplace): Purchased for just over $2M, HealthCare.com was built into a leading health insurance search platform. During the rollout of HealthCare.gov, its traffic surged dramatically—a phenomenon reported by VentureBeat.
• Recovery.com (Addiction Recovery): In 2022, RehabPath’s acquisition of Recovery.com added instant credibility to their service—a move highlighted in Forbes articles.
• Medical & Wellness Domains: Healthcare startups often choose premium domains such as Doctors.com, Patients.com, or Therapy.com to quickly communicate expertise. Entrepreneur Patrick Nagle’s purchase of MentalHealth.com is an example discussed in various startup circles.
• Pharmaceutical & Clinics: Companies in this space also secure domains like Smile.com or Nursing.com to build a strong, trustworthy online presence.

Other Sectors and Noteworthy Mentions

Premium domains are valuable across nearly every online sector:

• Media & Entertainment: From Broadcast.com (sold to Yahoo for ~$5.7B) to Movies.com and Game.com, premium domains help establish market authority. Even Netflix.com secured its domain early to avoid complications.
• Education: Online education companies use simple, memorable names such as Courses.com and Study.com to boost credibility and SEO.
• Real Estate: Domains like Realtors.com or RealEstate.com are highly prized for their direct appeal.
• Personal Branding: Many entrepreneurs secure premium domains for personal branding. For example, Leo Radvinsky’s acquisition of LR.com and Leo.com exemplify this trend.
• Defensive Domain Portfolios: Large enterprises often register hundreds or thousands of related domains to protect their brand. For instance, Meta (Facebook) holds a vast portfolio, and Cars.com has secured over 1,000 automotive-related domains to capture all potential traffic.

ROI: Do Premium Domains Pay Off?

Although investing in a premium domain requires a significant upfront cost, the returns can be substantial:

• Increased Conversion and Lower Acquisition Cost: Companies like Public.com and Cover.com have experienced dramatic improvements in conversion rates—often 2–3× higher—directly reducing customer acquisition costs (as reported by Forbes).
• Faster Growth = Faster Profits: A premium domain often accelerates fundraising and sales. For example, after rebranding to Teamwork.com, revenue nearly doubled within a year, effectively offsetting the initial cost.
• Domain Value Appreciation: Premium domains frequently appreciate over time. The value of Mint.com increased significantly by the time of its acquisition, and many companies now list their domains as valuable intangible assets.
• Soft ROI – Trust & Brand Equity: Though harder to quantify, the brand equity gained from a premium domain leads to increased loyalty and word-of-mouth referrals. Many CEOs have noted that a strong domain can boost brand value by a factor of ten or more.
• When ROI Might Lag: Some companies experience an initial period of adjustment—such as an SEO dip or rebranding challenges—but the long-term benefits generally outweigh any short-term setbacks.

Expert Opinions and Advice on Premium Domains

Business leaders, investors, and branding experts are unanimous in their support for premium domains. For example:

• Michael Saylor (CEO, MicroStrategy): “If you own a word that is easy to spell and remember with positive connotations… surely, they will be able to type it…” (SmartBranding.com).
• Elon Musk (CEO, Tesla/Twitter): “Buying Tesla.com took over a decade, $11M & an amazing amount of effort. I didn’t like TeslaMotors.com even when we were only making cars.” (SmartBranding.com insights).
• Harry Hurst (Founder, Pipe.com): “One-word dictionary domains are the holy grail… They’re not cheap, but they stamp authority…” (Embrace.com).
• MicroStrategy (Voice.com Seller): “Ultra-premium domain names like these can help a company achieve instant brand recognition and massively accelerate value creation.” (Embrace.com).
• Paul Graham (Y Combinator founder): “Unless you’re so big that your reputation precedes you, a marginal domain suggests you’re a marginal company…” (Embrace.com).
• Rohit Mittal (CEO, Stilt.com): “Buying a .com domain turned out to be the right decision. It made users trust us more and boosted our SEO value.” (Embrace.com).
• Jordan Fried (CEO, NFT.com): “A brandable domain name will cost some money but will more than pay for itself in the trust you build with your customers.” (Embrace.com).
• Steli Efti (CEO, Close.com): “Owning this domain would illustrate to future customers that we’re here to stay for the long haul.” (Embrace.com).
• Jonathan Oliver (Founder, Smarty): “Those extra 7 characters have felt restrictive for a while now; we don’t need them.” (Embrace.com).
• Jim Campbell (CEO, Honeymoons.com): “Investing in a premium domain has been transformative, offering immense benefits in credibility and marketing.” (Embrace.com).
• Brandon Arvanaghi (CEO, Meow.com): “Acquiring the exact brand match has a profound impact on a company.” (Embrace.com).
• Carl Hancock (CEO, Gravity.com): “The single word dotcom effect is real.” (Embrace.com).
• Brett Adcock (Founder): “Great company names are worth millions. If you can get a great .com… buy it.” (SmartBranding.com).
• Marc Ostrofsky (Author & Investor): “Domain names and websites are Internet real estate. Direct navigation traffic is the most highly targeted form available.” (Business.com case studies).
• Mike Mann (Domain industry pioneer): “Although premium domains have high upfront costs, they prove to be wise investments as their value only increases.”

The Premium Domain – A One-Time Investment with Lasting Dividends

Breaking the Bank: A Look at the Priciest Domain Sales in History 22 Oct 2024, 4:55 pm

 

The most expensive domain sold is Cars.com, which was acquired by Gannett for an incredible $872 million. This highlights the immense value of online real estate in today’s digital world.

In this exploration of domain sales and the growing importance of online real estate, we delve into the factors that make these digital addresses so valuable. From Cars.com to CarInsurance.com, these purchases are not just transactions; they are strategic moves to establish strong online identities, drive significant web traffic, and enhance branding.

As Michael Santiago, I have navigated this domain landscape, flipping assets like MyBlog.com and achieving notable sales with platforms like Newswire.com. This journey underscores the significant impact and value of premium domains in achieving online success.

The Most Expensive Domain Sold

When it comes to the most expensive domain sold, Cars.com stands at the top. This domain was acquired by Gannett in 2014 for an eye-popping $872 million. Such a staggering amount highlights the immense value that a prime domain can hold in the digital marketplace.

Why Cars.com Was Worth $872 Million

The acquisition of Cars.com wasn’t just about buying a website address. It was a strategic move to secure a vital piece of online real estate. Cars.com serves as a hub for car buyers and sellers, offering a platform that connects dealerships with potential customers across the nation.

Gannett’s investment was part of a larger $1.8 billion deal, reflecting the domain’s critical role in driving business growth. Today, Cars.com continues to facilitate thousands of car sales, making it a central player in the automotive industry.

The Impact of the Acquisition

The purchase of Cars.com by Gannett was more than just a financial transaction. It positioned the company to expand its digital footprint significantly. This domain acquisition allowed Gannett to capitalize on the booming online car market, generating substantial leads and traffic for dealerships.

By owning such a memorable and straightforward domain, Gannett ensured that Cars.com would remain a go-to destination for car enthusiasts and buyers alike. It’s a testament to how a well-chosen domain can improve brand visibility and operational reach.

Top 10 Most Expensive Domains Ever Sold

When it comes to the most expensive domain sold after Cars.com, several others have fetched impressive sums, demonstrating the value of online real estate. Here’s a look at the top contenders:

1. CarInsurance.com – $49.7 Million

CarInsurance.com was sold for a staggering $49.7 million in 2019. This domain is a prime example of how specific, industry-focused domains can attract significant investment. With over 300,000 visitors a month, it’s a key player in the car insurance market.

2. Insurance.com – $35.6 Million

Following closely is Insurance.com, which sold for $35.6 million. Acquired by QuinStreet, this domain is central to their strategy of dominating the online insurance marketplace. Its value lies in its ability to attract consumers looking for insurance comparisons and information.

3. VacationRentals.com – $35 Million

VacationRentals.com was acquired for $35 million with a strategic motive. The CEO of HomeAway bought it mainly to prevent Expedia from owning it. Although the business name has changed to Vrbo, the domain still plays a crucial role in the vacation rental industry.

4. PrivateJet.com – $30.18 Million

Selling for over $30 million, PrivateJet.com caters to a luxury market. This domain serves as a digital hub for booking private jet services, highlighting how niche markets can drive up domain value.

5. Voice.com – $30 Million

Voice.com was sold in 2019 for $30 million to Block.one, a blockchain-based social media platform. This short and memorable domain is now a marketplace for NFTs, underscoring the appeal of concise and relevant domain names.

6. Internet.com – $18 Million

Internet.com, sold for $18 million back in 1995, remains a valuable asset. It’s currently being developed as part of a Web3 service, illustrating the ongoing evolution and potential of premium domains.

7. 360.com – $17 Million

In 2015, 360.com was purchased for $17 million by Qihoo 360, a Chinese internet security company. This domain’s global appeal and numerical simplicity make it particularly valuable, especially in non-English-speaking markets.

8. Insure.com – $16 Million

Insure.com fetched $16 million in 2005 and continues to be a popular site for comparing insurance options. Its straightforward name makes it a go-to destination for consumers seeking insurance information.

9. Fund.com – $9.95 Million

Fund.com was sold in 2009 for nearly $10 million. While its initial plans for a financial website didn’t materialize, it later became a platform for comparing insurance companies, showing the versatility of such domains.

These top 10 most expensive domains illustrate how strategic investments in digital addresses can yield substantial returns. Whether through enhancing brand presence or driving market dominance, these domains demonstrate the power of well-chosen online real estate.

Notable Domain Sales and Their Impact

Domain sales can significantly impact businesses and industries. Let’s take a closer look at some notable domain sales and their influence.

Tesla.com

Tesla.com was acquired for $11 million in 2014. Before this purchase, Tesla used the domain TeslaMotors.com. The switch to a shorter, more brand-aligned domain was a strategic move. It streamlined Tesla’s online presence and reinforced its brand identity. This change underscored the importance of having a domain that closely matches a company’s name.

AI.com

In 2023, AI.com was sold for $11 million to OpenAI. This domain is a valuable asset due to its relevance and simplicity. As AI technology continues to grow, owning such a domain strengthens OpenAI’s authority in the field. It’s an example of how a well-chosen domain can improve a company’s credibility and visibility in a competitive industry.

HealthInsurance.com

HealthInsurance.com was sold for $8.13 million in 2019. The domain’s value lies in its direct appeal to consumers seeking health insurance options. With healthcare being a critical sector, this domain offers a significant advantage in reaching a broad audience. It highlights how industry-specific domains can be powerful tools in consumer engagement and market penetration.

Fb.com

Fb.com was acquired by Facebook for $8.5 million in 2010. This purchase allowed Facebook to create a shorter, more memorable URL for its internal email system. It also showcases the strategic importance of securing domains that support a company’s operations and branding efforts.

We.com

We.com was sold for $8 million in 2015. Its brevity and universality make it an attractive domain for various applications. The sale of We.com illustrates the potential of concise domains to serve as versatile and valuable digital assets.

These notable domain sales reveal the strategic importance of domain acquisition. Whether for branding, operational efficiency, or market authority, owning the right domain can significantly impact a business’s success.

Frequently Asked Questions about Domain Sales

What is the most expensive domain name sold?

The most expensive domain sold to date is Cars.com. This domain was part of a massive $872 million transaction. The sale was not just for the domain name but also included Cars.com’s entire business operations. This highlights how some domains are more than just web addresses; they can represent entire brands and business models.

How much did Tesla pay for a domain name?

Tesla, known for its innovative electric vehicles, paid $11 million for Tesla.com in 2014. Before acquiring this domain, Tesla operated under TeslaMotors.com. The switch to Tesla.com was a strategic move to align the domain with the company’s brand name, making it easier for customers to find them online. This change reflects the value of having a domain that matches a company’s branding and marketing strategy.

How much was Max.com sold for?

Max.com was sold for $1.8 million in 2023. This domain’s appeal lies in its simplicity and high search volume, with over 1 million searches per month. The sale of Max.com demonstrates the ongoing demand for short, memorable domain names that can easily capture consumer attention and improve online visibility.

Conclusion

Owning a premium domain is akin to holding prime real estate in the online world. At OnlineBusiness.com, we understand the immense value these domains bring to businesses. With a focus on high-quality, brandable, and exact match domains, we help businesses improve their trust, credibility, and SEO rankings.

Investing in a premium domain is not just about acquiring a web address; it’s about securing a strategic asset that can lift a brand’s online presence. As we’ve seen with notable sales like AI.com and Tesla.com, a well-chosen domain can significantly impact a company’s branding and marketing efforts.

For entrepreneurs and businesses looking to capitalize on the growing market for digital assets, domain investment presents a unique opportunity. By purchasing the right domain, companies can position themselves for long-term success and potentially see a significant return on investment.

At OnlineBusiness.com, we are committed to helping you find the perfect domain that aligns with your business goals. Whether you’re starting a new venture or looking to strengthen your existing brand, we offer a wide range of premium domains across various industries.

Explore our general domain names for sale and take the first step towards securing your digital future.

 

How OpenAI Fumbled Securing ChatGPT.com at Launch While I Got Lucky and Snagged It for $9.63 18 May 2024, 7:15 pm

This is the story about how I got lucky and picked up ChatGPT.com for $9.63 and flipped it for $85,000 just 8 days later.

After my viral tweet last week, my friends asked, “Why reveal such info? Won’t this affect your domain selling business? Won’t potential buyers get insights into your pricing and selling strategy?”

That’s absolutely possible. But at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter.

For good domain names, the seller always dictates the terms – meaning they set a price, and if that price isn’t met, the domain likely won’t be sold.

So I think the downsides are low compared to why I’m sharing.

Why Share

There are several reasons, but there’s two that stand out.

Throughout my 26-year domain investing journey, I’ve enjoyed hearing about domain name stories.

Not just big domain flips, but also stories about domain upgrades leading to the success or exit of the founders.

It’s these stories that motivated and inspired me to keep pushing forward because even though I “got in early,” that wasn’t a guaranteed ticket to success.

I grinded and hustled for many years until 2021 when I reached the pinnacle of my career, selling my equity at Newswire.com for several million dollars, while my partner went on to exit selling to a Nasdaq-listed company the following year for $44M.

Now I want to pay it forward by sharing my stories and hopefully inspiring and motivating others to never give up – whether it’s a journey of domain investing or any other online business venture.

The second reason for sharing is that it serves as a reminder that domain names are powerful and should never be an afterthought when naming your business and products.

How I Registered ChatGPT.com

On November 30th, I was randomly scrolling through Youtube on my TV while having dinner. I saw a video with the heading “Mind blown” where the author was talking about how mind-blown he was about this new app called ChatGPT.

Less than a minute into the video, I hurried over to my laptop to snag some related domains and picked up 3 domains with “GPT” in the name. That was exactly 6:44 PM.

 

 

Then I went back and continued watching but then it dawned on me, I didn’t even think to check “ChatGPT.com”.

So I checked, and it was available!

I registered the domain, paying the $9.63 fee exactly 15 minutes after registering the first set of names at exact 6:59 PM.

 

 

I couldn’t believe no one had picked it up.

But I wasn’t really that excited about it until I put a traffic tracker on the domain.

The first day it got a couple of thousand unique visitors.

The second day it rose to over 4,000 visitors.

And then the 3rd through 5th day traffic surged to over 6,000 visitors.

Email Offer 5 Days Later

On December 5th, I received an email from a GoDaddy broker stating there was a “serious interest” from a buyer.

Prior to that email, I had received 2 other inquiries from other companies but they didn’t appear to be serious.

But the GoDaddy email gave me confidence that I could potentially sell this domain for a good amount of money.

The Valuation

Since the type-in traffic for the name was increasing, I knew it was valuable.

But how valuable?

My thought process was, what is the number that would make me happy now and in the future IF this thing becomes massively big?

But at the same time, not price it too high where it would turn off the buyer.

At this point I had no idea if it was OpenAI, another domain investor or business.

After less than 24 hours I settled on $85,000.

Had they anticipated its huge success, they would’ve secured the name.

This reinforces my belief that many founders and CEOs of large organizations are unaware of the importance of domain names for their businesses.

So my first response to the broker was $85K, to which he then replied back with an initial $25K offer from the buyer with 2 other options (in his email he mistaken says “increased offer”).

Now obviously $25K is nothing to sneeze at but it was the first counter and you never take the first counter. And there were these 2 other options.

 

 

Traffic to the domain continued to increase so I felt I needed to stick to my price, sale or no sale.

Remember, my philosophy above: sellers dictate the terms of a sale.

And that’s what I did. Had they come back with $80K or even $84K, I would not have sold.

But fortunately, they came up and met my price and the deal closed on December 8th.

 

“You Sold it Cheap!”

That seems to be a common response to my tweet about this sale.

And I don’t blame them. In hindsight, it’s clear 2 years after, that it’s worth much more.

But no one has a crystal ball and nothing is ever guaranteed.

In fact, it could’ve easily gone the other way and the deal could’ve fallen through.

That’s a much worse feeling than what I feel now.

Now, I feel great pride in being the first person to register ChatGPT.com and achieving an amazing ROI on something I still consider a massive stroke of luck.

Who Was the Buyer?

Another big question many might want to know is, who did I sell it to?

Well, I can confirm it definitely wasn’t OpenAI. Apparently there were some issues between the company/person I sold it to and OpenAI.

Domain Names Matter

And most importantly, I have another great story to tell at OnlineBusiness.com, where you are now. A site where we try and spread the message that domain names matter – and a lot more than most businesses think.

Thanks for reading and if you got value from this please let me know below in the comments and I’ll try and write about more deals.

And possibly start building OnlineBusiness.com in public.

6 Big Mistakes Every Domain Investor Needs to Avoid to Make Consistent Sales 16 May 2024, 4:03 am

On the heels of publishing the story about my career highlight with Newswire.com, I felt it’s only natural to write a follow up post about the realities of domain investing.

In that article I mentioned about my $400,000 sale of MyBlog.com back in 2004. And someone on Twitter thought it was absolutely crazy it sold for that much.

And I absolutely agreed. It was a moonshot and I hit it.

Ironically the buyer was also a domain investor and typically domain investors are cheap – speaking from experience. But he was also an end-user with immediate plans for the domain so I was able to land the high price.

Had I not known this, I wouldn’t have completed the deal.

Below you’ll find 6 mistakes domain investors make which lead to inconsistent, lackluster sales.

6 Things to Avoid When Making Domain Sales:

1. Not Knowing Your Buyer
2. Not using Escrow or other Intermediary for LTO (lease-to-own) Transactions
3. Not Having a Final Price Sheet
4. Not Immediately Doing Something With The Domain
5. Not Sticking To Your Expertise and Chasing Trends
6. Not Following Up With Prospects

Below I explain more about each and the specific mistakes I made and lessons learned.

Not Knowing Your Buyer

In the case of the MyBlog.com sale, I knew who the buyer was. I knew his intentions and I knew he just recently sold his company. So he had capital and was determined to acquire this trending domain.

Now obviously you won’t always know who your buyer is but if you use or create a system where you can get pieces of information, that is key.

You’d be surprised at how much information you can get from an email address.

Here’s some tips from an article I wrote 13 years ago at the Warrior Forum (popular marketing forum from back in the day)

My Mistake: In another recent deal where I sold ShieldPro.com for 5 figures, I was lazy and didn’t do my due diligence on the buyer. Turns out they do 100 million in annual revenue. Had I did my research I could’ve figured this out.

Lesson: If you have a system that captures some of your buyer’s information, use it to always do your research. It will pay off.

Not Using Escrow or Other Intermediary for LTO (lease-to-own) Transactions

“Lease to Own” transaction on your own – I’ve done several LTO deals privately, meaning it was based on trust on both ends but mainly on the buyer’s side.

I sold FollowUp.com on an LTO plan and payments were made via PayPal and the deal completed within a year. This was my last successful private LTO deal.

My Mistake: I had a six figure deal for OneCrypto.com fall through because I messed up. It was a private LTO deal, payments were direct wire payments.

And the DNS was managed by myself. Unfortunately, that’s the mistake I made because I inadvertently ran an operation in my domain management tool that updated the nameservers for this domain.

And I nor the buyer did not know until a few days later as he was on vacation. He got upset his site was down and apparently it caused issues due to users not being able to connect their wallet to the site, etc. The deal was off.

Lesson: Stick with Escrow.com or other platform that manages LTO transactions. They will also handle the DNS and nameserver settings for you.

Not Having a Final Price Sheet

You need to price your domains. Not in public but in private in an organized spreadsheet. On that sheet you should include at least the following: price paid, date purchased, desired sale price, minimum sales prices, previous offers.

More recently over the past couple of years there were many deals that never completed due to my stubbornness (and greed). But the reality is most domains will never hit the moonshot price.

My Mistake: I got a six figure offer for TRST.com a couple of years ago to which I quickly declined. In retrospect, had I created my pricing sheet, I definitely would’ve taken the offer as it would be within my minimum asking price.

Lesson: Create your Price Sheet and rid yourself of the mental anguish of thinking you’re leaving money on the table.

Not Immediately Doing Something With The Domain

I was guilty of this for many years. I would register a domain or purchase one from GD auctions and just let the name sit parked.

That’s a terrible process for selling domains as you make it difficult for buyers to make an offer.

My Mistake: There were a few times recently I did this and buyers had to go through Godaddy’s broker. The downside to this is you don’t know anything about your buyer at all. Which goes back to point one above, know your buyer.

Now I have a bulk management system where I can just enter in a list of dozens of newly registered domains and within minutes a custom landing page is created on OnlineBusiness.com.

Lesson: Get your domain showcasing it’s actually for sale. A custom domain management system is great but you don’t need one as there are good options nowadays like Efty.com, Sudos.com, etc.

Not Sticking To Your Expertise and Chasing Trends

I’m guilty of this even nowadays. And I attribute it to my shiny object syndrome. I get distracted with the next new thing.

It’s human nature so it’s smart to be prepared when that voice in your head pops up and says go register a gazillion domains on the next hot topic.

But don’t get me wrong, chasing trends are fine so long as you know your hard limit.

Similar to the Pricing Sheet, know how many domains or how much money you’re willing to invest in a trend.

My Mistake: Back in 2021 I registered hundreds, probably close to a thousand domains with “NFT” in it. To this day, not one sold and I let most of them drop.

Lesson: Stick with buying domains in topics you have expertise. In my portfolio I have hundreds of domains related to GPT and Ai.

I’m not yet an Ai expert but it is my focus for the next several years and indefinitely. I made some pretty decent sales with GPT names so far.

Actually I had another moonshot deal a couple of years ago with ChatGPT.com (yes I was the first registrant of this domain) – but I will save that story for another time.

Not Following Up With Prospects

My Mistake: I used to believe if a company or person wants a domain name badly enough they will follow up with me.

But since following up with leads consistently I’ve proven that wrong.

The way I view an inquiry nowadays is that just because they inquired doesn’t mean they are interested enough to make a deal happen.

That’s my job as a domain seller. To be proactive and help them close the deal.

So more recently I’ve followed up with leads that were months old and closed a few deals.

Lesson: Follow up. Even if it’s a low sales conversion it’s definitely worth the effort, especially nowadays you can create automations with canned emails so it’s literally a few seconds for each follow up if doing it manually.

Bonus Tip:

Don’t register bad names. Ok so this one’s an obvious one but need to put it here because many of new domain investors get this wrong. And if you get this wrong you have no hope in making sales.

The scope of this topic is for another article but if you’ve registered hundreds of names and haven’t even made one sale, I wouldn’t say give up, but stop registering names and give it some thought as to what makes a good domain name.

But if you have decent names and are making sales, try to implement some or all of the above tips and likely your sales rate and average price per domain sold increases.

 

From I-Newswire.com to Newswire.com: The Rebrand that Led to a $44M Exit 15 May 2024, 7:15 pm

If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the last 26 years of doing business online, it’s this: A premium domain has the potential to make you and your company a lot of money. 

My name is Michael Santiago and this is the story of how domain names allowed me to bank 7-figures personally and eventually net my business partner mid 8-figures after selling the business to a publicly listed NASDAQ company. This journey has inspired the creation of OnlineBusiness.com, where you are now.

My first experience of selling a domain name for life changing money was in 2004, when I sold Myblog.com for $400,000. It was an exhilarating time and that was the moment I knew domain names were incredibly powerful.

Acquired Then Built I-Newswire.com

This success gave me some time and freedom to explore different online businesses. And in 2006, I spent $35,000 to buy two online businesses. One was I-Newswire.com (the other was GetBlogs.com) and even though it didn’t have the greatest domain, I knew that one day I could eventually rebrand the business.

When I acquired it, it was earning approximately $1,000 per  month. For the next couple of years I let it run on auto-pilot, mainly using the site to link to my other sites. But towards the end of 2009 I was working on a few side hustles and ultimately realized they were dead-ends. 

That’s when in 2010 I decided to go all in with I-Newswire.com and do a complete revamp of the business.

I wanted recurring revenue and the easiest way to do that was to add a subscription package to allow users to submit PR’s monthly. So I hired a developer and we implemented it successfully and after nearly 3 years by 2013, it was doing over $20,000 in monthly revenue. 

I was 35 at the time, about to get married and wanted to take a break and travel. So I decided to sell the business.

Partnership and Growth: Mike and Mike

Since this was my first attempt at selling an online business I decided to work with an expert and found a broker, Jason Yelowitz from Quiet Light Brokerage. It was well worth it because the process was overwhelming. And with Jason’s help made it  much easier and less stressful.

Through QLB I met another entrepreneur also named Mike and from New Jersey. The synchronicity was clear. I’m Mike and I’m also from New Jersey. 

We got on really well and closed the deal with the help of Jason in less than a month. Mike bought 70% of the company. And from that point, I brought my two brothers on board and we started to grow the business. The team was great and the product was solid. 

But what fired myself and Mike up was the potential for us to compete with the big press release providers. We both knew there was only one way that could happen: If we acquired our best domain name Newswire.com. We just knew the impact it would have on the business.

The Game Changer: Upgrading to Newswire.com

In February 2015, we acquired Newswire.com. We finally got rid of the “i” in I-Newswire.com. We’d done it. The best domain name for our business was ours. We were really excited. So excited that I had to let Elliot Silver from DomainInvesting.com know about our upgrade and see if he would publish a short post about it.

The reason was simple. Aside from my excitement, I had a strong feeling that a few years from that point I come back to the post and give an update on the profound impact the domain upgrade had on our business.

At Our Team Summit in Sarasota, Florida – 2015

 

The business grew rapidly from the time we upgraded to Newswire.com and revenue started to increase…and fast.

We achieved $891,866 in revenue in 2015. 

But something crazy happened the year after. We more than doubled our revenue to $2,407,107.

And our team continued to grow. 

 

The Power of a Premium Domain

The one thing we changed that can’t be quantified? The upgrade to Newswire.com.

And even though it was an improvement we couldn’t track, we just knew it conveyed massive and instant credibility and trust within our target audience.  

A small change with a huge impact. 

 

The leader in press release distribution at the time was PRNewswire.com. Because our domain was similar, it’s likely many people mistook us for them, which may have worked in our favor. They looked at us as the leader, when actually we were just up and comers.

Continued Success and The Ultimate Exit

In 2017, our revenue jumped to $3,611,587 and then continued to increase to $8,219,222 up until 2020. It was at that point we started thinking about selling the company, mainly due to the enterprise value being in the millions of dollars.

 

 

And I’d never seen myself being in the PR business forever. It had already been seven years of us working together, when I’d originally only seen myself doing it for 5 years max. We were both eager to exit the business.

In 2021, and after the pandemic I was ready for something new. So I ended up happily selling my equity to Mike for millions of dollars.

Mike stayed on building the business for another year and a half and then sold it to a publicly listed company on NASDAQ, Issuer Direct, for an astounding $44M.

 

Why a Premium Domain Matters

Our Newswire team was amazing. The product was highly competitive in the space and now a complete Media Platform for PR Campaigns. 

But the domain? It was the absolute best domain name we could have possibly secured. Our meteoric growth started the second we bought it and did the rebrand.

If you have a big vision for your company and don’t have a premium domain, you’re potentially losing out on millions of dollars, trust, and credibility within your market. It’s as simple as that.

And it’s not just my story with Newswire.com. There are hundreds of other companies that have benefited from an upgrade to their best domain name.

Why OnlineBusiness.com is Different

It’s the exact reason why I set up OnlineBusiness.com. To give startups and entrepreneurs the opportunity to accelerate and create the company they’ve always dreamed of. 

If that’s you and you have an online business that needs your best domain or at least a better one, why wait? The best investment you can make for your online business is your domain name. 

But here’s where we’re different. We don’t just sell domains like most domain marketplaces. Sure, we sell our domains outright but many times we are waiting for that visionary entrepreneur to acquire one of our domain names and make it into something truly valuable.

We seek to work with end-users who have a track record of success or are positioned to become successful. 

So if you’re interested in one of our domain names but it’s out of reach, let’s talk. We might come up with something creative where we all win in the process building your dream business.

I’ll just leave you with this – Take 5 seconds to imagine: 

You’ve just acquired your dream domain name for your online business.

How does it feel?

Exactly. Turn that into a reality. Let’s get in touch. 

 

 

The Importance of Content Optimization Tools 5 May 2022, 4:34 pm

Table of Contents

1. What is Content Optimization?
   1. Content Optimization is Part of an SEO Strategy
   2. Optimizing Your Existing Content for Quick Wins
2. Ways to Optimize Content for Search Engines
   1. To Hire a Professional or Optimize Content In-House?
3. What are Content Optimization Tools?
4. OnlineBusiness.com’s Top 5 Best Content Optimization Tools
   1. Surfer SEO – A Solid Content Optimization Tool
   2. Frase.io – Create Content Quickly
   3. MarketMuse.com – Boost Search Engine Ranking
   4. ClearScope.io – A Powerful Content Optimization Tool
   5. UseTopic.com – A Keyword Research Tool
   6. Free Writing Tools
   7. Get Started Today

If you’re a digital marketer, then you should know the importance of creating quality content. However, what many people don’t realize is that there’s more to content than just writing something new and unique. Content optimization is the process of making your content as effective as possible for achieving your SEO and marketing goals. In this blog post, we’ll discuss what content optimization is and how you can get started with it using content optimization tools.

Content optimization is a vital step in any SEO strategy. By optimizing your content for sites like Google and Yahoo, you can improve your ranking in search results and drive more traffic to your website. Writing SEO-optimized content does not have to be complicated. By following a few simple guidelines, you can ensure that your content is optimized for both the search engine and your audience.

At the core of optimizing content are a few pointers. The first thing to keep in mind is to focus on creating content that is relevant to your target audience. Next, use keywords throughout your content to help Google find your site. Finally, keep your content updated and fresh to ensure that readers will keep coming back for more. By following these tips, you can create pieces that are both optimized for search engines and appealing to readers. In addition, there are many amazing content optimization tools available to help you create well-crafted content.

What is Content Optimization?

If you’re not familiar with the term, “content optimization”, it may sound like a newfangled buzzword. But it’s actually a very straightforward concept that can make a big impact on your website and content marketing strategy. Simply put, it is the process of making your website and content as user-friendly and Google-friendly as possible. By optimizing your content, you can improve your website’s visibility and organic search results, helping you attract more visitors to your site.

In today’s digital age, content is king. The content you create is what will draw people to your website or blog, and it is also what will keep them coming back for more. That’s why optimizing content is so important. By optimizing your content for search, you can ensure that your content is seen by as many people as possible. Furthermore, by making sure that your content is relevant and engaging, you can keep people coming back for more. In other words, this strategy is essential for anyone who wants to make their mark on the internet. So if you’re not already doing it, now is the time to start.

Content Optimization is Part of an SEO Strategy

Optimizing content is an important part of any SEO strategy. It helps with search rankings by providing content that is optimized for Google and Yahoo. Readily available are, content optimization tools, that help you to identify and optimize content for your website. The content is then used to improve your website’s position in the SERPs. This process can be used to improve the visibility of your website and attract more visitors. Writing content that is optimized for a search engine like Google and Yahoo can be a challenge, but it is essential for anyone who wants to improve their website’s ranking. There are many content optimization software available, and it is important to choose one that will work best for your website. With the right content optimization tool, you can create articles that are both informative and appealing to potential customers.

There are a few key things to keep in mind when writing quality content:

First, make sure to create keyword-rich titles that accurately describe the topic of your article or blog post. In addition, use headings and subheadings to break up your text and make it easier to read.

Finally, don’t forget to include links to other relevant articles or websites. By following these simple tips, you can create pieces that will help your website or blog stand out from the crowd.

Optimizing Your Existing Content for Quick Wins

Content optimization is an important strategy for ranking your content in the SERPs. By taking steps to create and optimize your content, you can achieve higher rankings, boost web traffic, and increase visibility on SERPs.

Some key strategies for optimizing your content include creating high-quality, engaging content that appeals to a wide audience, making use of relevant keywords throughout the text, adding backlinks from authoritative sources, and promoting your content through social media channels.

One of the challenges of running a website is making sure that old content remains relevant. Over time, search engines change their algorithms, and readers’ interests can shift. As a result, what was once popular may no longer be visible to readers or searchable on Google. However, there are a few things that website owners can do to make sure that old content remains relevant. One is to optimize the content for the current Google algorithms. This can involve updating keywords and adding new links. Another is to promote old content through social media and other channels. By taking these steps, website owners can make sure that their old content remains visible and engaging for both readers and the search engines.

If you already have existing content that you want to rank in the SERPs, there are a number of tactics that you can use to improve its placement. For example, you may want to perform an audit of your old content to identify areas where it could be improved or updated. Additionally, you may also want to update old posts with new information or create short blog posts or articles on topics related to your content to create more opportunities for contextual links.

Whether you are writing a new piece of content or optimizing old content for better rankings, ensuring that it is well-written and focused on user experience is crucial for success in the world of online marketing.

When optimizing content for search engine ranking, it is important to consider both the content itself and the keywords that you are targeting. First and foremost, you must ensure that your old content is well-written and thoroughly edited so that any mistakes or inconsistencies will not negatively impact your search ranking.

You should carefully select target keywords that are relevant to your existing content and will help to drive traffic to your site. Once this has been done, you can begin to optimize content by including these keywords throughout the text in strategic locations, such as titles, subtitles, headers, and meta descriptions. Finally, it is important to regularly update old content so that Google continues to rank it highly. By following these steps, you can be sure that your old content will help improve your rankings and increase traffic to your site.

Ways to Optimize Content for Search Engines

When it comes to optimizing your content for search engines, there are a few key tips that are essential. First, it is important to start by taking a close look at any previously created content that you have on your website. Look for pages or posts that are already optimized using your target keyword and try to identify areas where you can make improvements based on best practices for optimization for search. Your content should not only include the keyword itself, but also other relevant terms and phrases, as well as synonyms and variations.

It is important to focus on things like page titles, meta descriptions, headings, and internal links, all of which contribute to improved SEO for your site. Ultimately, having carefully crafted content is crucial for gaining visibility in search and attracting new visitors to your site. So be sure to put the time and effort into creating high-quality content that truly reflects your brand or business.

To Hire a Professional or Optimize Content In-House?

There is no one-size-fits-all answer to the question of whether it is better to hire a professional or to optimize content yourself. The decision depends on a number of factors, including your budget, your level of expertise, and your goals for content optimization. If you have the time and the inclination to learn about content optimization tools and how to use them, then you may be able to achieve good results on your own.

A professional content strategist can help you create content that is both informative and engaging, and that will attract organic traffic to your site.

If you decide to hire a professional, be sure to ask for references and examples of previous work as well as what SEO tools they utilized and are familiar with. Content optimization is an important part of any digital marketing strategy, so make sure you choose the option that is right for you.

While it is true that hiring a professional to optimize your content can be beneficial, there are many steps that you can take on your own to improve the quality of your writing and ensure that it ranks well.

If you’re serious about driving organic traffic to your website, then you need to be using tools. These tools help you to create content that is optimized for the search engines, making it more likely that your pages will rank high in the SERPs. They also help you to identify and fix any issues with your content that could be holding back your rankings.

What are Content Optimization Tools?

Content optimization tools are a valuable resource for content marketers and SEO specialists alike. These tools help to optimize content based on various key factors, including content strategy, keyword usage, and search engine ranking. By using content optimization tools, marketers can ensure that their content is engaging and optimized for maximum visibility and organic traffic.

One of the primary benefits of these tools is the ability to optimize content according to specific search engine ranking factors. By analyzing user behavior, keyword usage, and site structures, these tools can create a content strategy tailored specifically to your target audience and goals. In addition, content optimization tools can help you stay up-to-date with the latest in SEO best practices so that your content remains competitive and relevant in today’s fast-paced online climate.

Some tools allow you to work on the grammar or the tone of an article while other content optimization tools help with keyword research. Whether you are looking to improve your search engine ranking or simply engage with a wider audience, content optimization tools are an essential asset for any content marketing campaign.

OnlineBusiness.com’s Top 5 Best Content Optimization Tools

When it comes to optimizing your content, there are a variety of tools and strategies you can use to boost your visibility and increase traffic to your website. At OnlineBusiness.com, we have compiled a list of our top 5 best content optimization tools. Some tools help users keyword research and identify the most relevant terms to include in their copy, improve readability and engagement, and run basic SEO analyses to check for issues such as keyword overuse or page loading speed.

Whether you are just starting out with content optimization or looking for more advanced solutions, these tools can help you with writing content that maximizes your search engine ranking and drives more traffic to your website. So if you are ready to take your content marketing efforts to the next level, be sure to check out our top 5 best content optimization tools:

Surfer SEO – A Solid Content Optimization Tool

Surfer SEO is a powerful tool for optimizing your website’s content and attracting new visitors. Designed with users in mind, this software uses advanced algorithms to create highly optimized and engaging content that can be posted to your blog or website. Whether you are looking to create new blog posts or re-optimize your old content, Surfer SEO makes it easy to create high-quality content that appeals to readers and search alike.

With tools that help you select keywords, create titles, and break up text into easily digestible paragraphs, Surfer SEO is the perfect solution for anyone looking to create engaging, high-quality content for their website.

Surfer SEO is a content optimization tool that gives you content ideas, analyzes your competitor’s site, and provides an on-page SEO content score. And now, with the Surfer SEO Google Docs extension, you can optimize your content right from your Google Doc! The extension will analyze your content, give you an on-page SEO content score and help with all the related keywords, which you can use to improve the quality of your content. With the Surfer SEO Google Docs extension, you can get content ideas, optimize your content, and improve your content score – all in one place.

One user of Surfer SEO had this to say, “As a veteran writer of SEO-friendly content, I have come to rely on Surfer SEO as my go-to tool for keyword optimization. Whether I am writing blog posts, web copy, or social media posts, Surfer SEO gives me everything I need to write web content that will engage readers and rank well on Google. I highly recommend Surfer SEO. With its simple interface and powerful tools, it is the perfect solution for both novice writers and seasoned pros alike.”

This content optimization tool helps you improve your content marketing efforts. The tool analyzes your website and provides suggestions on how to improve your content to rank higher in search. While the tool is not perfect, it can be a helpful addition to your content marketing arsenal and can be pretty much considered your own SEO writing assistant.

PROS:

• The tool analyzes your website and provides suggestions on how to improve your content to rank higher in search.
• It can help you improve the quality of your content by providing recommendations on keyword density, sentence length, and more.
• It can help you optimize your website for specific keywords to increase your chances of ranking high in SERPs.
• It offers a free trial so you can try the tool before committing to a paid plan.
• It has a user-friendly interface that makes it easy to use making you a Professional SEO Writer.

CONS:

• The tool is not perfect and may not always provide accurate results.
• The recommendations made by the tool are not guaranteed to increase your rankings in SERPs.
• You need to have a basic understanding of SEO before.

Frase.io – Create Content Quickly

Frase.io is a content creation platform designed to help users create content quickly and easily. The platform offers a range of features that make it easy to write, edit and publish content, including a blog post editor, SEO tools, and a content library. Frase.io is suitable for both individuals and businesses who need to create high-quality content on a regular basis. The platform makes it easy to produce well-written, well-developed content that can help users to achieve their desired results.

By analyzing your text and providing feedback, Frase.io can help you improve your writing and make your content more engaging and effective. It is one of the best content optimization tools available in the market today. However, like all SEO content optimization tools, there are some Pros and Cons to using this tool.

PROS:

• The interface is very user-friendly and intuitive. Even someone who has never used SEO content optimization tools before will be able to figure out how to use this tool.
• You can optimize your content for multiple keywords and key phrases, which will give you a better chance of ranking high in search for those keywords.
• There is a built-in thesaurus that can help you to find alternative words and phrases to use in your content, making it more unique and less likely to be penalized by Google for duplicate content.

CONS:

• You have to pay for each article that you want to optimize. If you are optimizing a lot of articles, this can start to add up.
• You can only optimize articles that are already.

MarketMuse.com – Boost Search Engine Ranking

Looking for a content optimization tool that will help you improve your content writing and content optimization skills? Look no further than MarketMuse.

Designed specifically for professionals who create content on a regular basis, MarketMuse.com uses sophisticated algorithms to analyze and evaluate the quality of written content. By identifying areas of strengths and weaknesses in content, this tool helps writers understand how they can improve their writing to meet the needs and expectations of their readers.

This powerful content tool uses advanced algorithms to analyze your web page content, compare it against industry benchmarks, and provide you with detailed insights on how to improve its quality and search ranking.

With MarketMuse, you can be sure that your content is always optimized for Google. The software helps to identify relevant keywords, uncover the best places for links and mentions, and flag any potential issues with content structure or style. And because the tool focuses on deep analysis based on real data from across the web, it’s extremely accurate and effective at helping you produce content that truly resonates with your audience.

PROS:

• It helps writers produce content that is optimized for search
• It can identify opportunities for improvement and help writers craft content that stands out from other search results
• Provide fast and accurate feedback about how well a piece of writing is performing online

CONS:

• There is a learning curve when they first start using the software
• Should have some experience with content writing already
• Tends to focus more on quantitative data points like keyword density and word count than subjective qualities like readability or tone, many writers may find it difficult to produce well-rounded, high-quality content

ClearScope.io – A Powerful Content Optimization Tool

ClearScope.io is a powerful optimization tool that helps businesses and website owners to produce optimized content quickly and easily. Whether you are creating new blog posts, marketing collateral, social media content, or any other type of text-based content, ClearScope can help you to get the most out of your words.

By analyzing your existing content and understanding the users who will be reading it, this tool can identify keywords and phrases that need to be optimized, helping you to improve the performance of your content in search for Google and Bing.

Designed with busy professionals in mind, this tool makes it simple to optimize even large volumes of content quickly and effectively. With seamless integration into popular CMS platforms like WordPress and Joomla, simply sign up for a free account today and start optimizing your optimized content.

PROS:

• Users can easily identify underperforming content, analyze sentiment and engagement metrics, and optimize all aspects of their content in order to increase its reach, engagement, and effectiveness.
• Provides numerous other benefits such as saving time and money on content development, identifying trends in content performance, improving SEO and search rankings, and effectively reaching new audiences.

CONS:

• It can be somewhat difficult to learn how to use effectively if you are not familiar with content optimization strategies already.
• It may require a significant investment in order to access all of the features of the software.

ClearScope.io is an excellent choice that offers significant advantages over manually optimizing your content alone.

UseTopic.com – A Keyword Research Tool

UseTopic.com is a keyword research tool that helps you find long-tail keywords that you can use to improve your website’s ranking in search. The tool is designed for both professional keyword researchers and those who are new to the field.

It provides a simple interface that allows you to enter a keyword and receive a list of related keywords. You can then sort the results by various criteria, such as search volume or keyword difficulty.

In addition, UseTopic.com offers a wide range of other features, such as keyword trend data and keyword suggestions. Whether you’re a seasoned keyword researcher or just getting started, UseTopic.com is an essential tool for anyone who wants to improve their website’s visibility on Google.

UseTopic.com is a keyword research tool that can be used to help improve your website’s SEO. The tool allows you to enter a keyword or phrase and receive a list of related keywords, as well as information about the search volume and competition level for each keyword. This information can be used to help you choose the right keywords to target for your SEO campaigns.

PROS:

• It can save you time by doing keyword research for you
• Quick and easy access to information on virtually any topic
• Its search function is intuitive and user-friendly, and it allows you to quickly locate the articles or essays you need in just a few clicks

CONS:

• You may not be able to find as many related keywords as you would if you were doing the research yourself.
• Information can quickly become outdated.

Free Writing Optimization Tools 

With the growing importance of content in today’s digital landscape, more and more businesses are paying attention to content optimization. This refers to techniques that help the content get better rankings in search and appeal to readers, making it more effective and engaging.

One great way to get started optimizing content is by using free writing tools available online. These include a variety of tools for editing, optimizing, and proofreading content, which can help you make your content stand out from the crowd. Whether you’re just getting started with content optimization or looking for ways to improve your old content strategy, these tools can be invaluable resources.

Hemingway Editor

One great tool is the Hemingway Editor, which helps you to edit your work for clarity and conciseness. This can be enormously helpful in ensuring that your content is easy to read and understand. Another useful tool is CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer, which allows you to test different headlines and see which ones are most likely to engage readers.

Grammar.ly

When it comes to creating and editing high-quality content, Grammar.ly is one of the best tools on the market. Its powerful algorithm can check for everything from spelling and grammar errors to awkward sentence structure, helping writers create clear, error-free content every time. And best of all, it’s completely free to use – making it an invaluable tool for any content creator looking to take their work to the next level. Whether you’re a blogger or a professional copywriter, using Grammar.ly will help ensure that your content always hits the mark with readers. So if you’re looking for a way to quickly and easily improve the quality of your writing, look no further than Grammar.ly.

Google Search Console

Google Search Console is one of the most underrated content tools. It’s mostly used to get an overview of the website’s performance including the total clicks, impressions, CTR, and the average position. However, it can also be used to find out what keywords are being used to find your website, as well as which pages are being visited the most.

This information can be extremely valuable when it comes to writing new content or optimizing existing content for better search engine optimization. In addition, Google Search Console can also be used to submit sitemaps and monitor any crawl errors that occur. Overall, Google Search Console is an essential part of any content optimization strategy.

There are also a number of content curation tools that can help you to find and share relevant content with your audience. Feedly and Pocket are both great options for curating content from across the web.

And if you’re looking for a way to repurpose old content, try using something like Quuu Promote, which helps you to share your content on social media.

These are just a few of the many content tools available at no cost. With a little bit of effort, you can easily find the resources you need to take your content to the next level.

How Can Content Optimization Tools Help with Creating a Website?

Content optimization tools are essential for an easy website creation guide. They aid in keyword research, meta tag optimization, and content analysis, ensuring that your website ranks well in search engines. By using these tools, you can create a website that is both visually appealing and optimized for maximum visibility.

Start Optimizing Your Content Today

When it comes to content optimization, the key is to start today. Achieving top rankings and reaching your target audience effectively requires an in-depth understanding of how Google and Yahoo work, as well as careful attention to the content you create and publish. This means doing keyword research using specialized tools, as well as regular monitoring and improving your content using techniques like on-site content placement and content formatting to maximize your visibility.

By embracing content optimization early on, you can ensure that all of your efforts will be rewarded with better visibility and higher levels of online engagement with your target audience. So start optimizing now, and reap the benefits for years to come.

If you are looking to improve the quality of your content, OnlineBusiness.com is the perfect place to start. Here, you can find in-depth reviews of some of the most popular content tools available today.

Whether you are interested in using a keyword tool to optimize your content for search engines or want to explore other types of SEO tools like plagiarism checkers and readability analyzers, OnlineBusiness.com has got you covered.

If you want to write more effective and well-optimized content that will engage your readers and help improve your search rankings, be sure to browse through our website today.

How Much Can a Blogger Make? 13 Apr 2022, 7:16 pm

As the internet continues to grow, so does the amount of content that becomes available on the web. There seems to be an audience and a blog about almost any topic you can imagine or think of. The internet has truly opened new doors and allowed people to have a voice and find their audience. There are many people who have turned blogging into additional supplemental income and in some cases a full time job as blog owners.

Make no mistake, blogging has revolutionized how writers earn. Based on reports, bloggers make around $500 to $2,000 monthly within their first year blogging. And reaching as high as six figures for bloggers who have been at it for a few years and have built loyal readership.

Blogging has become a lucrative career for those who want to break away from the traditional 9-5 and have an entrepreneurial mindset with a knack for writing. Everyday there are people scouring the internet to find relevant information they need to find and most find that info on a blog or from a blogger that gives it in an interesting and useful manner.

Although to become very successful in blogging and to make a full time income out of it will take hard work, anyone with an internet connection and a story or resource to share, can become a blogger and have their own blog. Gone are the days when only media companies had the power to earn from sharing content.

As of 2020, there are 31.7 million active bloggers in the United States alone, many of which are successful bloggers. And about 92% of content marketers use blogging in their marketing strategy. As the internet continues to grow, blogging will continue to provide opportunities for those looking to make money online, be it additional supplemental income or striving to make a full time income out of it.

How Much are Successful Bloggers Making?

A lot of bloggers started it as just a hobby, blogging only to have a voice to a hungry audience, sometimes the money came as a byproduct for creating good content with a loyal audience. Others may have created a blog to have as a side hustle while having a traditional job.

For those that have become Full Time bloggers, there are stories and testimonials out there you can find in simple Google search, in which a blogger makes more than six figures a year just by blogging. There are bloggers in the six figure range that make around $100k all the way up to $500k.

One popular blogger, Grant Sabatier, made a whopping $401,681 in blog income from his blog, Millennial Money Blog, in 2017. His blog wasn’t always popular but he stayed consistent with his posting and tried to provide as much useful information as possible and once his blog became a hit, he started attracting even more opportunities that gave him financial independence.

How Can I Get Started in Making Money Blogging?

Everyone has to start somewhere. You may feel when reading those numbers above that it might be too late or that there are too many bloggers already on the internet. That is not the case and all it takes is the right motivation to get started and a few tips to help you make sure you’re using your time wisely and productively. Here are some tips to help jumpstart your blog.

Choose a Topic That You Are Interested In

First, thinking about all of the topics you are personally interested and involved in. Make a list of all of your interests and topics you have any experience or expertise with. This is an important first step as blogging will involve creating useful and interesting content for a specific blog niche. In order to do so, your content will have to jump out of the screen displaying your passion for this topic. You want to create content that you yourself would find interesting and worth your time and by picking a topic that interests you, you will know if your content is actually interesting to read.

If you are knowledgeable about this topic, that will only help you that much more as you’ll be able to start to share your knowledge with your audience as soon as you start your blog.

Make Sure There is an Audience and it is a Profitable Niche

After you’ve found a few topics you’re passionate about or have a lot of knowledge to share in, you’ll want to do some research to see if there is an audience for that topic and if it is a profitable niche.

Ways to do so is a quick Google search of related questions within that topic to see what kind of results show up, if there are a lot of search results showing up and many of the top ranked pages are blogs, you know that this niche is one that many bloggers are competing for. Sometimes a little competition is a good thing, especially if you know you are passionate about your blog and it’s content.

Another way to see if it is a profitable niche is to do some keyword and AdWords research to see if any companies are paying for certain keywords within your niche. If so, this will indicate that people are paying to get people to their site for that topic, which again equates to a profitable niche.

Lastly, Know Your Audience

If you have chosen the niche and topic to write about, think about the possible audience that you might attract. Always write with the audience in mind.

Then identify the type of problem or issue that your target audience might be facing. Your role here is to offer solutions to these problems through your blog.

How to Create a Successful Blog that People Want to Read and Share

The most important thing about starting a blog is to create engaging content that people actually want to read. If you can connect with your audience and issue a solution or solid advice to a problem or question they are facing then you are on your way to being a successful blogger. It cannot be emphasized enough to write in a style that is engaging and easy to read.

Give Importance to the Headlines

Pay attention to the headlines and titles. It’s very important to craft headlines that capture the attention of your readers. Everything begins in the headline. If your readers aren’t familiar with or not interested in the headline, they are most likely to skip it. Your headline should spark interest so that your target audience is going to stay longer and share your blog.

It’s also important that your headline contains your target keyword. This makes it easy for the audience to find your content by helping it’s on-page SEO.

Solve a Problem or Issue

Does your blog offer solutions to the problems that your readers might be experiencing? Make it as informative as possible and make sure it’s well researched. Use as many resources and references as possible to give the most complete, well rounded package. You want to be the only source of information needed to solve their problem.

Add Visuals such as images, infographics, and videos

Support your blog with images, statistics, and infographics. Blogs with images help break the content making it easier to digest. Without any images, your readers might lose interest in an internet nowadays that is more visual than not.

Add videos to make your blog more lively and engaging. It’s a fact that a blog with a video has more views and attracts more traffic than those that don’t have. Videos are powerful because they have the ability to retain longer in the audience’s mind than text alone.

Monetization Options for Bloggers

When one starts blogging, they may or may not think about monetizing their blog. Though, when starting your blog, make sure to first focus on engaging content, but in the back of your mind give some thought on how you intend to make money from your blog.

If you are new to blogging, here are some ways bloggers make money:

Advertising/Selling Ad Space

Keep in mind, you need to reach at least 25,0000 page views monthly to begin earning with an advertising network. Ad networks or publisher networks are the ones managing the display ads on your website. Its goal is to ensure that you’re making the most money possible from the advertisements. These networks charge about 20% to 40% of the ads revenue of your site.

Some of the more successful blogs are making about $20,000+ a month by selling Ad Space.

Google Adsense

Beginner bloggers can make money with Google Adsense. It’s been known to be the most convenient and quickest method to monetize your blog through google ads.

It’s a great way to start monetizing your blog and once your blog traffic grows and becomes more consistent, you can move to an advertising network to get a higher cost per click (CPC) and cost per thousand impressions (CPM) for additional streams of income.

Sponsored Posts

As your blog becomes more popular, more bloggers and writers are going to pay you for posting content on your website. Depending on how popular your blog gets, bloggers get offers ranging from $50 and $1,000 to post their content on your blog.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate Marketing is one way for bloggers to earn a passive income by promoting someone else’s products. You earn a commission each time you make a sale or someone signs up by accessing the link through affiliate marketing. You can earn $1 to $3 for every click. When someone signs up through your link, you can make an affiliate revenue of $5 to $500 per click.

Social Media Promotion

If you’re a blogger and also an influencer, you can earn money through social media posts. By simply posting or tweeting a brand’s content on social media, those are those who have earned $500 to $3,0000 per post depending how popular of a blogger you’ve become.

The most successful bloggers and big influencers on Instagram can make at least $5,000 per month by promoting products relevant to their niche. This is why building your audience on social media can help you earn money big time.

Tips for Growing your Blog Audience and Blogging Income

Your ability to make money blogging depends on many factors but ultimately lies in how much traffic your blog gets and how you are monetizing that traffic. One tip is to ensure you are obtaining and building an email list for anyone who visits your site as this can help in the long run as you can market to your relevant audience.

What it comes down to is increasing the traffic to your blog. Here are ways to maximize your blog potential to your grow your blog in both traffic and monetization:

Use social media to share content

Searching for ways to keep your readers coming back to your website? Keep in mind that having your own website and reaching your target audience isn’t enough. You have to keep them interested and engaged.

The easiest way to build your audience and blogging income is to promote your blog on various social media channels. Social media marketing is something to not be overlooked to help your blog.

Don’t just focus on one social media platform. Share it on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Use hashtags to make it easier for your blog to be found. Using these strategies will boost the number of followers as well as your blogging income.

Diversify your income source streams

Use Google Adsense, affiliate marketing programs, advertising, and sponsored content to boost your passive income and make more money opportunities.

Connect with other bloggers and collaborate by guest blogging

To boost your potential income in blogging, connect with other bloggers and successful influencers who have a big fan base. Invite them to do guest posts on your website for free. This way, you have the possibility of getting more shares and followers as your blog gets more exposure.  

You can also do guest blogging on other bloggers’ websites. It’s an instant way to bring your content closer to your audience. Successful bloggers tend to connect with other bloggers to collaborate and reach a wider audience.

Can Blogging Be a Successful Online Business Model for Making Money?

Blogging is one of the most popular online business models. With the right execution and dedication, it can be a successful way to make money. By creating valuable content, utilizing SEO strategies, and monetizing through ads or affiliate marketing, individuals can achieve success in blogging as an online business model.

There’s No Better Time to Start Your Own Blog

It’s really rewarding to create successful blogs that don’t only attract traffic but help change people’s lifestyles for the better. Blogging as an online business is a dream that has become a reality for many new bloggers who put in the work and time. To be able to generate passive income from blogging only starts with an idea. Sure the blogging world has become more competitive, however, having the right blogging tools and monetization strategies with a solid blog business plan can help new bloggers compete.

Are you inspired to start your own blog and become a professional blogger?

OnlineBusiness.com created this guide for you to give you ideas to getting started. This guide discusses various types of blogs you can get started with, sharing the most profitable blogging categories.  

If you want to accelerate the process, OnlineBusiness.com also sells profitable blogs as a turn key solution to help you get started today. These are ready-made blogs for sale that are already generating traffic and have initial content in the blogging niche they were created for. Visit OnlineBusiness.com to learn more about these starter sites.

Are You Looking for Guaranteed Search Engine Rankings? Read Me First! 22 Feb 2022, 2:21 pm

Are you looking for guaranteed search engine rankings?

One of the most important things an online business should strive for is high search engine rankings for more web traffic. Coupled that with the ability to convert that traffic into paying customers will ultimately result in profits.  

You might be asking yourself: How can I achieve guaranteed search rankings as fast as possible? Can I find the right search engine optimization (SEO) services to help me?

While you may have a plethora of questions about SEO, we’ll cover the following topics in this order.

1. What is SEO?
2. Why is SEO important?
3. What are guaranteed search engine rankings and how does it work?
4. Search Engine Rankings Starter Guide: The Basics
5. Is it possible for search engine optimization companies to guarantee rankings?
6. How to choose an SEO agency?
7. How to track the success of an SEO campaign?

Plus, we included a Guide to Search Engine Ranking Basics in Section #4.

Let’s go through these topics one-by-one:

What is SEO?

SEO is a set of practices that when done properly can help improve the position and rank of web pages in the search engines. There are many fundamentals and techniques to SEO and if you focus on the right practices, search engines can reward you with higher rankings which can in turn increase traffic to your website. As potential visitors use search engines like Google to search using specific keywords, being able to rank high for those keywords will allow a business to capture more market share, visibility, traffic and ultimately sales.

Why is SEO Important?

SEO is important because it allows websites to rank higher in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Page), thus having the ability to reach more people and a wider audience. Without focusing on SEO, it can be very difficult for websites to continue to grow their customer base.

As an old joke says, “where do you hide a dead body?”, “on the 2nd page of Google search”. Truth be told, about 75% of all clicks for a particular search query are to the top 3 positions. It goes without saying, SEO should be part of a website’s marketing efforts to ensure the best possible chances to rank for their specific keywords.

Google ranks websites based on users’ search queries and displays what it considers as the most relevant content. It takes into account hundreds of ranking factors to provide its users with the best possible match for their search intent. With SEO, you can stack the cards in your favor to help your website rank higher in the search results.

Sometimes you can get everything right and achieve first page rankings for specific keywords.

Here are 3 benefits of why it’s important to focus on SEO:

Benefit #1: Quality of Organic Traffic

SEO can help position your webpage to be more relevant to the search queries. The better the relevancy of your content to the user’s intent, the better the quality of traffic.

As a result of ranking better, your visitors should be better matched to your web content. Because you are positioned as an authority or expert, visitors would stay longer and explore more. The higher the quality of traffic, the easier it is to convert. This could translate into more conversions.

Benefit #2: Increase of Organic Traffic

You are able to capture more visitors because you are able to direct more search volume to your website. As mentioned above, the top 3 positions in the Google SERPs get 75% of all clicks from users. By securing these positions you increase the number of visitors who reach your website based on specific keywords. Here, it’s a numbers game. The more customers who visit, the more chances to boost your conversion rates.

Benefit #3: Organic Search Results

Besides the quality of traffic and the quantity, SEO can help position your company as an authority in your industry. This allows you to compete effectively against larger competitors. Users trust Google and if Google ranks you high, then you will also be trusted. Sites with high rankings get the most clicks. SEO helps you enhance the user’s experience because they get what they need in one click.

What are guaranteed search engine rankings?

After learning what SEO is and why it is important, let’s define what a guaranteed ranking is.

Guaranteed search engine rankings are better rankings in organic search. Some experts say it’s impossible for SEO agencies to guarantee, while others believe it’s possible to set those expectations.

We believe that by implementing best practices, setting the right expectations and having enough patience, top ranking positions are possible.

Let’s get into the details…

Guaranteed SEO services can actually be true in some cases. For example, some SEO firms offer guarantees that will rank websites in search results. While other firms state that Guaranteed SEO services cover a certain time frame when they will achieve SEO results.

However, the best approach to ‘guaranteed search engine rankings’ is to educate yourself on what is required, measured and repeated.

How to Achieve Guaranteed Search Engine Rankings for Your Business

Guaranteed search engine rankings are achievable in two ways:

Doing SEO yourself

Achieving a high ranking on SERPs takes a lot of hard work, patience, and time. If you want guaranteed SEO results, you will need to improve your website in the eyes of search engines. This includes site structure, content, load times and many other factors. Without the right SEO strategies, it is impossible to achieve this. This is where SEO analysis comes in.

An SEO analysis is a site audit that aims to identify areas to improve your ranking ability on SERPs. It’s the process of identifying the strengths and weaknesses of your SEO strategies. Site analysis is important to know what needs improvement. For example, it is crucial to deliver a better user experience. This can be achieved with fast load times, mobile-friendly websites that are easy to navigate.

By conducting an SEO analysis, you’ll identify where SEO can help widen your reach, attract new traffic, achieve your goals, and rank higher on SERPs.

Hiring an SEO agency

On the flip side, a reputable SEO firm can provide guaranteed SEO services to help you rank on SERPs. There are thousands of companies that can help you. But it’s best to hire a good SEO agency that stays on top of the trends while implementing best practices. Keep in mind that Google algorithm updates are changing every now and then.

Look for the best SEO firms that can assess your business to provide the best SEO strategy for your long term goals. The firm should be able to set the proper expectations that are attainable.

From experience, we know that there are many variables to consider when trying to rank a website. The firm should be transparent and honest about what is possible in a given time frame and not overpromise short-term rankings.

Following the best SEO practices can help attain guaranteed rankings.

Here are some ways to improve your chances of getting guaranteed SEO rankings:

1. Define your buyer persona. Without knowing your target audience, it’s impossible to provide the perfect type of optimized content for specific targeted keywords.
2. Do keyword research to target the right keywords.
3. Analyze your website for base key metrics in order to select the right strategy.
4. Write and publish high-quality content for the audience. Update often and as much as possible.
5. Figure out the search intent to know which type of content will help your site rank.
6. Optimize the links.
7. Enhance the loading speed of your pages.
8. Optimize the URLs to make it easier for search engines to parse.

Search Engine Rankings Starter Guide: The Basics

The following is a quick guide on what to keep in mind when getting started with search engine rankings:

Focus on Keyword Research

Know exactly what keywords your audience is searching for. You also need to know how much traffic each term can bring to your site and how will you rank for those search terms to ensure you are putting your time to focus on the most worthy keywords.

Use keyword tools such as Ahrefs, Moz, or Google Keyword Planner to help identify opportunities.

Technical SEO

This type of optimization makes it easy for search engine spiders to crawl and index your site which is important.

Technical SEO includes: 

• Site structure 
• Adding sitemaps 
• Website and page speed 
• Website security (SSL and HTTPS) 
• URL structure — Fixing URL redirects 
• Mobile-friendliness 
• Implementing structured data and schema markup 

On-page Optimization

The term on-page refers to anything that you can optimize that is within your control.

On-page optimization areas to focus on include:

• Meta description
• Header tags
• Post title
• Page load time
• Quality content
• Internal linking strategy
• Images
• User experience

Off-page optimization

Off-page optimization refers to all the SEO activities outside your website to improve visibility and rankings. For example, a third party site that references your webpage helps position you as an authority and trustworthy. As more and more sites link to you, the more trustworthy you are seen by the search engines.

Off-page optimization activities include:

• Social media
• Backlinks
• Influencer marketing
• Guest posts
• Brand mentions

Common SEO Mistakes You Need to Avoid

In a perfect world, you would be able to implement both on-page and off-page optimization without any trial and error. However, if you are new to SEO, we want to make sure that you have all the basics covered and help you avoid these common mistakes.

No Local Optimization

If your business operates in a certain region or city, you need to include local search as part of your optimization strategy. Use region-specific keywords or geographic keywords with your on-page optimization such as meta descriptions and page titles.

Off-page optimization can include listing your business on review sites, directories and local listings.

Missing on Analytics

Most business owners don’t pay enough attention to analytics. Remember, you can’t measure your improvement if you don’t measure your baseline. SEO is nothing if you don’t know which keyword brings you keyword rankings. Track keywords that convert. It’s important to identify which term can help you rank.

Wrong Keyword Optimization

Targeting the wrong keywords can lead to poor SEO results. A lot of sites are guilty of using targeted keywords that don’t help rank in search results. Use data to help you select the keywords that are driving traffic to your site. You’ll be surprised at the specific keywords and traffic sources that are uncovered.

Choose specific keywords such as long-tail keywords that will help you rank better. It also helps attract quality traffic and higher conversion rates.

Can SEO Services Actually Deliver Guaranteed Search Engine Rankings?

Many business owners and marketers want to know the answer to this question. Can SEO services provide SEO guarantees? The answer here is ‘yes’ and ‘no.’

Yes, SEO companies can provide guaranteed results only if they follow specific SEO best practices. They should be able to provide you with a detailed realistic list of improvements for your site.

They should also offer a summary of the work for your campaign. Finally, they should provide you with a reasonable time frame on how long they will work to achieve results.

Unfortunately, some SEO companies over promise but under deliver. These companies may seem legit in the beginning but are often using black hat tactics to game the rankings. Think twice if a company promises to deliver fast results.

Remember that SEO takes time. It takes months and even years to reap results. Avoid companies that seem to be using a one-size-fits-all cookie-cutter strategy.

How to select the right SEO service?

Assess your business goals before searching for any SEO company. Determine your site’s needs as well and identify your expectations. As mentioned before, an SEO Analysis will help identify weaknesses on your website.

It can be confusing to find the right SEO firm as there are a lot of companies out there. Consider these factors in choosing the best SEO company:

1. Pricing/SEO Packages
2. Expertise
3. Track of Records
4. Transparency
5. Check testimonials, reviews, case studies, and references
6. Customer support

How much does an SEO service cost and what to expect?

The price of SEO services depends on several factors. You need to know the scope of the work that the company provides. Further, it’s also important to know how they will measure the success of SEO campaigns.

Most SEO agencies structure their SEO pricing either per hour, per month, or per project:

Hourly SEO Package

The hourly SEO package is perfect for startups and freelancers. It’s also best for first-time clients who want to try out the service. An hourly SEO rate is about $80 to $200. This is similar to hiring a contractor to help fix a few things or assist with SEO tasks.

Monthly SEO Package

A Monthly SEO package is ideal for larger businesses that need more SEO strategies. This can involve on-page and off-page optimization, keyword research, and technical optimization.

Per SEO Project

One-time projects can cost higher depending on the needs of the business. A one-time SEO service can cost from $5,000 to upwards of $30,000.

What Can I Do to Improve My Search Engine Rankings?

Improving your search engine rankings requires regularly monitoring and analyzing your website’s performance. To measure website SEO performance, focus on optimizing relevant keywords, improving site speed, creating high-quality content, and obtaining backlinks from authoritative sources. Utilize tools like Google Analytics and Search Console to track your progress.

Measuring & Tracking Success of your SEO Campaign

As you have seen, SEO covers a wide range of topics. Tracking metrics plays a huge role in understanding the success of your campaigns.

It’s critical to measure how each SEO element impacts the results. Pivoting campaigns based on results is common and may be necessary to boost success.

Here are the engagement metrics you should be tracking to determine your SEO success:

1. Bounce Rate – This metric shows your user experience. It refers to the percentage of visitors who are visiting your page but are leaving without browsing it, essentially “bouncing from the page”. The lower the number the better.
2. Conversion Rate – Conversion rates are important so that you can track performance of your content in the eyes of your customers. It shows the percentage of visitors that complete a certain action. This can be an email submission, downloading of a report or completing a purchase.
3. Time on the Page – It’s an important consideration to know how long your visitors stay on a page. If you have a 1,500-word blog post but only stay for 10 seconds that is something you should think about.
4. Search Traffic – Analyzes your traffic. It shows the number of visits to your website as a result of organic or paid searches. SEO is tied directly to your organic traffic. If it is working, you should see an increase in traffic as your rankings improve.
5. Scroll Depth – This shows how far a visitor is scrolling down your pages. Are they reaching the most important content on your page? If not, examine the quality of content and how you place them on the pages.
6. Pages per Visit – It’s important to know if the pages will keep visitors longer on your site. Their stay matters to assess if they stay longer until they engage with your business.

Other important metrics include:

• Domain Authority & Page Authority (DA/PA)
• Number of Backlinks
• Keyword Rankings
• Organic Traffic
• Click-Through Rates

As you can see, tracking your SEO metrics is important in identifying key opportunities and areas of improvement. You need to understand your customer behavior, what they search for, what type of content ranks, and so on.

There are several SEO tracking tools that you can use to measure these metrics. You can use a multi-metric tracking system to check several metrics at the same time. In addition, conducting a site audit on your own or hiring an SEO expert to do it for you is the first step on your SEO journey.

Whether you decide to DIY or hire an SEO professional to help with improving your search engine rankings, we hope you enjoyed this post on the key things you need to know about guaranteed search engine rankings.

In case you need more help, Optimizer.com, an OnlineBusiness.com company, can help you rank better in search engine result pages. We offer performance-based SEO services that mean you get guaranteed results or else you get your money back.

To learn more about guaranteed search engine rankings, please visit Optimizer.com or speak to our team.

Buy an Expired Domain Name to Jumpstart Your Backlinking Efforts 28 Jan 2022, 5:12 pm

If you’re thinking of migrating your website to a new domain or planning to launch your business online, expired domain names are a great option to explore. Expired domains can provide some SEO benefits as well as an opportunity to jumpstart web traffic if it has some online history.  

Why You Should Buy an Expired Domain Name

Expired domains have become an attractive alternative to hand registering a brand new domain name to businesses as they may carry SEO value. These domain names can be hidden gems if they are associated with an excellent backlink profile. In fact, some expired domains may have previously ranked in search engine result pages (SERPs).

What are expired domain names?

Expired domains are previously registered by the owner that may be an individual or business, and are not renewed by the owner or are terminated for a number of reasons. Sometimes it can be because the online business didn’t work or the owner is involved in a trademark infringement case, which they are looking to pivot from. While the allure of an expired domain sounds great, buying an expired domain should be taken with caution as there are some caveats to consider.

Let’s dive into the advantages…

Benefits of Buying an Expired Domain Name

As mentioned, expired domains are the domain names that the previous owner failed to renew. When a domain reaches its expiration date and is not renewed for 30 days, it will be available for auction after the redemption period lapses.

Redemption periods provide the owner to renew the domain before it is dropped to the public market for re-registration.  

There are auctions that take place through the registrar’s auction service for 7 days. The highest bidder gets the expired domain.

Expired domains are popular for online businesses as they are associated with SEO value and previous ranking power. If you’re interested in purchasing one, you should assess the quality of its inbound links.

What is a backlink?

For a better understanding of why expired domains are valuable for SEO, let’s look at what backlinks are first. In simple terms, a backlink is any link that is pointed to your site from another site.

Backlinks are important to how a page ranks. Google algorithms are designed to deliver the most valuable and authoritative sites to users. To do this, Google uses several ranking factors including backlinks.

If a website points to yours, it tells the users that your site provides useful information to the audience. When a number of high authority websites are pointing to your site, Google senses it and treats your site as a valuable site. It’s very important for site owners to understand how backlinks work if they want to improve their SEO.

Why are expired domains valuable for SEO purposes?

Established Backlink Profile

One common reason why many online business owners invest in expired domains is that they may already have a backlink profile from valuable authority sites. It takes a considerable amount of time to gain high-quality backlinks, so if you invest in this kind of domain, you’ll be able to capture more trust from those links.

Building and ranking websites and pages for keywords can take years for the site owner  to invest in publishing quality content, launching marketing campaigns, and maintaining the website. The goal is to rank in Google. Google still treats backlinks as one of the most important ranking factorsof a page aside from the site’s content and web traffic.

Established Page Rank

Getting an expired domain name with a high ranking is a great advantage for an online business.

The quantity and quality of backlinks associated with a website informs Google on how valuable a page is. Establishing a page’s ranking is not overnight work but good on-page habits and backlinking efforts pays dividends in the future.

In fact, websites that were on the top 10 ranking pages were at least two years old, according to Ahrefs’s recent study. It also took at least 12 months before the pages were able to rank in the top 10.

Consider the Domain Name Age

You should not buy expired domains just because they seem affordable. Remember, domain name renewals fees can quickly add up the following year. There are certain factors that you need to consider when purchasing expired domains and it includes the domain age.

Do not purchase a domain that expired after a year it was registered by the previous owner, unless it’s an opportunity that you understand or predict to appreciate in value. Older domains are typically more established and more mature.

However, be careful when purchasing an expired domain because there might be some issues associated with it. If a marketer attempted some advanced black hat tactics and ended up being penalized for the strategy, then it damaged the rankability of the website in Google.

Old, expired domains are  worth more if it was  a website that performed well on SERPs. This means that they have accumulated more value.

Another consideration is if the domain has been expired only recently. An expired domain that was idle for many years is more likely to lose its value. However, the potential buyer needs to understand this factor before purchasing.

An expired domain with traffic is regarded as a more ‘trusted’ site. However, a new site that has stronger SEO and backlink profile can outshine the older expired domain.

What is a 301 redirect?

Getting the link juice of an expired domain can be done quickly by redirecting the old domain to your main website. A 301 redirect, one of the several HTTP status codes, is a permanent redirect that passes the link equity and page authority from the old URL to the new URL.

All users are redirected from an old URL to a new URL. It is mainly used when a page is no longer useful, relevant, moved, or removed from a site. It is used to enhance the user’s journey as they are pointed to a new page rather than left hanging that the page they are accessing is no longer available.

What are the benefits of using a 301 redirect?

The 301 redirect is a very useful tool to redirect traffic from an old page to a new web address.. It is important to redirect an old URL that is not relevant any more when rebuilding your site.

• Google ranks a page higher when it offers fresh and updated content than the previous page.
• All the SEO value, page authority, and link equity are passed on to the new page.
• A single page that offers more information is more likely to rank better with more keywords.

If a user visits your page and finds a ‘404 not found error,’ it will definitely impact their user experience with your site. There’s data that suggests that they’ll never be visiting your site again if they encounter a 404 error. To avoid this, you should use the 301 redirect tool to point them to the new page that can turn users into buying customers.

How to Find Just Dropped Domains with High-Quality Backlinks

Dropped domains are domains that expired and have exceeded their validity period. When this happens, these domains are called ‘dropped’ domains. Dropped domains are the ones that aren’t renewed during the redemption period.

Purchasing an expired domain with no traffic might be wasting your money and resources. It’s more of a risk to invest in expired domains without web traffic because it’s like buying a new domain that has no value yet.

Expired dropped domains with high-quality backlinks can be found at search sites, registrars, and auction sites.

Auction Sites

GoDaddy Auctions

GoDaddy Auctionsis a marketplace for sellers and potential domain buyers. Sellers can list their expired domains for sale without any fees during the 7-day auction.

Potential buyers can bid and the highest bidder takes the auctioned domain. Godaddy takes a percentage of the sale price when the domain is sold.

The marketplace is one of the best platforms to find expired domains with traffic and link value. The expired domains offered on GoDaddy are still working and maintaining the same registrar. The advantage of this is that there’s no downtime for the expired site.

Flippa

Flippa is a marketplace for expired domains, sites, and applications. The auction lasts for 30 days on Flippa, and buyers can only bid once they are accepted by the seller.

The highest bidder wins the auction for an expired domain once it reaches more than the reserve value. The buyer then pays and arranges for the transfer of ownership.

Search Sites or Softwares

Spamzilla

It is a paid software that provides a list of expired domains with traffic. The software has filtering, analysis, and sorting features that enable buyers to assess the domains based on history, Google rankings, anchor text, and more.

Expireddomains.net

This is a popular domain aggregator that offers expired domains and dropped domains with high-quality backlinks. It has more than 200,000 domain names available at auction. Anyone can filter the different expired domains available depending on their niche.

Domain Registrars

FreshDrop

At FreshDrop, buyers can search for a database with expired domains as well as valuable dropped domains. It offers expired domains available across all auction sites.

DomCop

DomCop is a registrar that works like FreshDrop. Buyers can find expired and expiring domains on the platform.

How to Buy and Assess the Value of an Expired Domain Name

A domain becomes available to other buyers once it wasn’t renewed by the owner. Anyone can purchase the expiring domain the moment it goes beyond the expiration date.

The original owner cannot reclaim the domain once it passes the redemption period. To check if the expiring domain is in redemption or not, check it on the WHOIS database under the ‘domain status’.

Before making a purchase of an expired domain name, make sure to do your research.

Below are the factors to consider before purchasing an expired domain name:

Domain Authority (DA)

You need to ensure the domain authority of the potential expired domain that you want to purchase. They are regarded as valuable and trusted sites by Google. If there are a lot of high-quality sites pointing to your site, you can quickly build web traffic to your site.

Spam

Check if the domain was used for spam purposes. You can easily spot a spammy site with these indicators: keyword stuffing, duplicate content, hacked content, and many more.

Historic Backlink Profile

Another way to spot if a site was used for spamming is by checking the historic backlink profile. Backlinks that come from ‘zero authority sites,’ spammy anchor text profiles, and irrelevant backlinks indicate that it’s used for spamming.

There are a lot of factors to consider before purchasing an expired domain. Aside from the above-mentioned, you should also consider domain history, organic traffic history, Google Index, trademarks, Google Adwords ban, trust, and citation flow, among many others.

Step-by-Step Guide to Purchasing an Expired Domain:

Buying an expired domain is a waiting game as there are certain periods that you need to watch out before you’re able to register it.

If no other buyers have placed a backorder for the expired domain, you’ll likely be able to register it in your chosen domain registrar. However, if other buyers have placed a backorder for the same domain, an auction will take place for the expired domain.

How to Set Up a 301 Redirect for Your Website

As mentioned previously, a 301 redirect is used to redirect a website permanently. It is good for SEO purposes and also signals the search engines that a site is moved to a new URL for good.

Setting up a 301 redirect is different for every platform and CMS. A plugin can be used to set up the 301 redirect on WordPress.

Here’s how to do a 301 redirect on your website:

The most common way to do the redirect is by editing your site’s .htaccess file. It can be found on your site’s root folder.

---

For example, if you want to move a page from an old URL to a new URL:

From https://www.abc.com/old.html

To https://www.abc.com/new

To make sure that it is redirected to a new page, you need to add the code to your .htaccess file:

redirect 301 /old.html https://www.abc.com/new

---

The ‘redirect 301‘ signals the search engines that your page has been moved to a new URL. If you need to move several pages, you need to create a redirect statement per page.

When to Use a 301 Redirect

There are a number of reasons why you should redirect your page to another page. Sometimes, you need to redirect a single URL or the entire domain.

There are various 301 redirects so it’s important that you know what to use and when to use them.

Below are the reasons why a 301 redirect is essential:

Aside from SEO purposes, a redirect is crucial for user experience. You need to ensure that visitors to your site as well as search engines will not find a page that is no longer available.

How to Track the Success of Your 301 Redirects

It’s important to check if the 301 redirects are working properly. To do this, just type the page’s URL into your browser. If you’re redirected to the correct page, then you have set up the redirect page the right way.

There are also redirect checker tools that you can use to test if the redirects are working properly. Using these tools ensures that you avoid mistakes in setting up the redirects, such as a series of redirect chains, redirect loops, and phishing websites.

There are tools that can track the success of individual links and several pages. Some checkers for individual links include the redirect tracker, SEO redirect checker, and the redirect detective.

For bulk checking, HTTPStatus, HEADMasterSEO, and HTTP 301 and 302 URL Redirect chain checker tools are very useful.

How Can Expired Domain Names Help Me Find My Niche Audience?

Expired domain names can be a valuable tool in finding your niche audience repeatedly. When you acquire expired domains relevant to your niche, you gain access to a pre-existing audience that may already be interested in what you offer. Utilizing these domains allows you to bypass initial audience building efforts, saving time and effort in reaching your target market.

Tips for Expired Domains with Traffic

Your domain name is one of your business’s valuable assets. After registering an expired domain, you need to ensure that your website is safe by following some of these best practices:

• Place your domain under ‘Registrar lock‘ or ‘Client Transfer Prohibited.’ Lock your domain name to ensure that there will be no unauthorized changes.
• Use a trusted and stable domain registrar to ensure that it will not go out of business anytime soon.
• Use a solid password for your registrar’s account to ensure that it’s safe from unscrupulous hackers.
• Register your domain name for multiple years, for example 10 years, if possible to avoid losing your domain to someone else.
• Register variations of your domain name to prevent others from using the same or variations of your domain.
  

Buying an expired domain name can provide a shortcut to a successful online business. If you have tried different strategies to improve your SEO, using expired domains can take your business to the next level. However, you need to research and do your homework before purchasing an expired domain to ensure that you’ll avoid making mistakes that may involve you in trademark or legal issues.

To learn more about domain name upgrades to improve your online business, visit our other posts for more information.

How to Purchase a Domain Name for a Website 21 Jan 2022, 8:09 pm

How to Purchase a Domain Name for a Website: Ultimate Guide for Your Online Business

If you’re ready to take your business to the next level, you’ll surely ask, “How to purchase the perfect domain name?” Not every professional or business needs a domain name to create an online presence. However, if you are serious about building your online business, getting your brand a domain name is a smart move to make. In this article, we’ll tell you why the right domain can change the way you do business.

What is a Domain Name and Why Do I Need One?

One of the initial steps that you need to take in building your website is to decide on your brand’s domain name. The domain registration process may sound technical, but going through the process of domain registration and domain name search is not that complicated at all. A domain name is like a street address. You can use your brand name for your domain name if it is available, so it’s important to do a domain name search using different online tools. Going through the process of domain name registration ensures that you get a registered trademark for your business, giving your business a personality and improved branding. A domain name for your business can be used not only for branding purposes. You can use it for your professional email address, making your company a trustworthy brand in your niche. A domain name is your brand’s identity online. All websites have internet protocol (IP) addresses that point to their site’s location. Since IP addresses are difficult to remember, a domain name fixes this issue. In simple terms, a domain name is what users type into their browser to visit your site. Basically, there are two parts to a domain name. The first one is the Second Level Domain (SLD) and the second one is the Top Level Domain (TLD). To better illustrate, SLDs are the unique name you give to your website and are found on the left side of the extension. On the other hand, TLDs, also known as domain extensions come right after the dot. Examples of TLDs are .com, .net, .org, .edu, and .gov.

Why Does Your Business Need a Domain Name?

When you register a new domain name for your business, it gives your brand control over your identity online. To understand better why there’s a need for domain name registration, we’ve listed the benefits of getting one:

The right domain name can build authority for your brand.

As we’ve mentioned earlier, it’s possible to build an online presence without getting your own domain name. Facebook pages, online marketplaces, blogging platforms, and other social media platforms can now provide online exposure to businesses without needing a domain name. However, securing a trademark for your desired domain shows that you mean business. By telling the world who you are and what you do, people are more likely to build confidence around your brand. A perfect domain name registered for your business lets you earn the trust of people and acknowledge you as a legitimate business with long-term goals.

Domains make you searchable.

Think about your domain name as the name of a place. If you’re just searching for restaurants without knowing the specific name of the restaurant, chances are that you may end up finding a different restaurant instead of locating that place. It’s the same with the domain name website’s address. A memorable domain allows people to search for you on search engines and find your website. Custom domain names registered under your business name stand out among players in your niche.

Domains maintain your brand ownership.

Having a registered domain name maintains your online identity. This means all the content you publish on your website and share on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn is all under your brand, and no other business can claim its ownership.

Domains are good for your branding.

Before domain purchase for your business, you can use keywords that suggest what you do or what you offer. This helps improve your branding and reputation in your industry as people will clearly understand your message. As we all know, a good reputation equates to getting higher traffic and conversion rates.

Domains make your business professional.

When your business has a domain name, it suggests that you have long-term plans and you’re here to stay. With this, people will view you as a trustworthy brand that gives you an edge over your competitors.

How Much Does it Cost to Buy Domains?

Did you know that there are 367.3 million domain names registered under all TLDs in the second quarter of 2021? This only shows how big the domain name business is. As expected in this digital era, not only businesses are getting their domain names registered. Even individuals like professionals want a website to showcase their portfolio. So, how much does a domain name cost? But, before we talk about the cost of domain registration, let’s first know where you can get it. Register a domain name from a domain name registrar that’s accredited under the ICANN, such as BlueHost, GoDaddy, and Domain.com. Buying from a reliable domain registrar ensures you’re dealing with providers that follow the best practices. And the good news is that domains aren’t expensive at all. In fact, you can buy your preferred domain name for an average price of $10, depending on the domain registrar, domain extensions, and registration contract. But remember, a domain name registrar may charge add-ons for renewal cost and privacy protection like Whois privacy service. Although there are affordable domain names that you can get for your online business, there are also pricey ones. Yes, when we say expensive, we are talking about premium domain names that can cost you around hundreds to thousands of dollars. Don’t forget that domain names have a limited registration period. Domain renewal is essential to keep your internet domains active. Let’s look at the case of the popular social media platform Facebook. In 2005, the domain name Facebook.com was purchased by FB CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg for a whopping price of $200,000 from About Face Corp. Zuckerberg’s company was operating under the domain TheFacebook.com from the start while Facebook.com became a famous brand under About Face Corp. Since Zuckerberg really wanted to acquire the existing domain name, he paid a very hefty price to acquire the premium domain Facebook. If you’re just starting your online business, we suggest choosing a more affordable domain name that’s easy on your pocket so you can use your startup capital for your products or services. It’s also highly recommended that you go for the domain name that you really wanted from the beginning of your business before other brands are able to make it a premium domain name in the market.

How to Purchase a Domain Name for a Website

  We all know how important it is to check domain availability before getting one. There are several ways of getting a particular domain for your brand. You can get a free domain from a hosting provider, hand register your domain name on a registrar, or buy a domain name from an existing website owner. We want you to take extra precautions when getting free domain name offers. Managing domain names comes with a price. There may be hidden fees as a hosting company may already include the domain name registration fee in the web hosting package. Google Domains is one of the domain name registrars for you to register a domain name. It strictly provides domain name registration and does not offer any web hosting plan. Before contacting any domain registrar, you need to ensure that you have a list of domain ideas in mind. Remember, a successful domain name must be branded, short, memorable, and easy to type. To make domain registration an easy process, we’ve listed some tips that can guide you in purchasing a domain name for your business:

• Purchasing your domain name from a reputable domain registrar, accredited by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is the best way to buy a domain name.
•  Check your desired domain name using a domain name system checker tool. Is the business name taken or not? We recommend checking your potential registered trademark first to avoid copyright infringement and availability its availability on social media channels.
•  It may take a while to register domain names if your potential domains are already taken. Just in case this happens, keep looking at the domain register tool for its availability.
• Reach out to website owners if the domain name you want was already registered but not much in use. You’ll find the site owner information available in the Whois directory unless it’s protected by domain privacy.
• Registration period. Register domain names and pay for the annual fees.
• Verify the ownership of the domain name.

If you want a certain domain but it’s already been taken, you can still acquire it by contacting the current website owner. The process involves negotiating and offering a certain price for your desired domain name. We’ll discuss this topic further when we get to “How to purchase a domain name for a website from someone.”

Who Can Register Domain Names?

Any individual or business can register domain names. Simply contact a domain registrar, register the available domain name, and pay the fees. It’s highly recommended to verify the domain name availability before thinking of contacting any domain registrar. Always ask, “Is the business name taken or not” so that you will not waste your time.

How Long Can You Register a Domain For

One of the most common questions asked by website owners is “How long can you register a domain for?” Typically, you can use the domain name as long as you pay the renewal cost. Always pay the renewal cost prior to the expiration of your contract to avoid any issue that may lead to its unavailability.

What Happens If a Domain Name Expires?

When you own a website, you should be responsible for knowing and understanding the terms of your domain registration.  ICANN mandates registrars to send renewal reminders to the registrants (website owners) at least two times before the expiration of the domain. When your domain name expires, your status will automatically change to a renewal grace period. If you encounter this scenario, we suggest you renew your registration within the grace period to avoid paying any additional cost. You also have to remember that once your domain is in this status, you no longer have access to it, and there will be a parking page sign to signal that it has expired. After the grace period, your status will be put on hold. If you still want to continue your online business, we highly encourage you to act fast and pay both the redemption and renewal fees during the hold status. In case you weren’t able to reclaim your domain, it will be available for auction where the highest bidder takes ownership. The good news is that you still have the chance to reclaim it by paying the fees within 30 days. If you did, the bidding fee will be returned to the bidder. However, if you fail to renew your contract during the auction, your domain name will be transferred to the new owner after 30 days. On the other hand, if the domain name is put on a closeout sale in case it was not sold during the auction and not reclaimed by the original owner. The last chance for the original owner to reclaim its domain is during the redemption period.  BY this time, you can get back your domain by paying the redemption and renewal fees to gain control of your website and email.

How to Purchase a Domain Name for a Website Permanently?

  A lot of customers ask us the same question: “How to buy a domain name permanently?” And we will uncover the answer to this question in this section. While you want to keep your domain name forever, it’s not possible. ICANN is clear that it only allows registration for one to 10 years. Although popular brands want to keep their domains for a lifetime by paying long-term registration fees, it doesn’t work that way. We would like to reiterate that you may get offers from some domain registrars for a long-term registration or even a lifetime. But, this may raise the question of credibility as it is not allowed by ICANN. We hope that we answered this interesting question, “How to buy domain name permanently?” Be careful with offers from some domain registrars or resellers that may appear illegal who want to register a domain for a lifetime.

Domain Name Ideas

Thinking of domain names for your online business can be exciting and overwhelming. You can use a domain generator to make your job easier and faster. To help you choose and register a name, here are a few terms that you need to know:

What is a Domain Generator Tool?

Not all are gifted with great creativity. When thinking of ways to register domain names, a Domain Name Generator tool comes in handy to check the ideal domain name to register for your business. Simply type in a keyword for your brand or website and the tool will provide you with many domain ideas.

Are Keywords Important for Your Domain Name?

  Keywords play a very important part in your online presence. It’s also similar when it’s time to register your domain name. Keywords in your domain name can make you more memorable and searchable in the search engines. Keep in mind that users type in keywords on search engines to search for content, products, services, and brands to answer their queries and problems. This is why we suggest that you use keywords related to your niche or brand so that it is easy for them to find you. Before you start a domain registration, make sure to include keywords that matter to your niche in order to have a higher search engine optimization score and click-through rates. We know that these factors are essential for your revenues and online success.

Misspellings and Typos in Your Domain Name

Are misspellings and typos bad for your domain name? If you have no idea, you’ll probably say “yes.” Well, we want to tell you that this isn’t the case. In fact, you can purchase misspellings of your domain name to redirect that traffic to your website. A better strategy to do this is to use Google Analytics and Keyword Planner to find the keywords and search terms users are looking for. You can use these search terms as alternative domains to your site, which then adds traffic to your website. A simple redirect message when a user misspells your domain can redirect them to your page. Be cautious with typosquatting, also called URL hijacking, where hijackers can intentionally create a misspelled domain name to hack popular sites. Although some are harmless, there are also hackers that can damage your personal information, privacy, and property.

Should You Get a .com, .net or .biz, or Another Extension?

Domain name extensions are the last three letters you see on the domain name. They are also called top-level domains (TLDs) and play a very important part in your website.

Check out the different types of domain name extensions:

We suggest using TLD extensions like .com because it’s one of the largest and used by more than 50 percent of registered website owners. The domain extension is memorable, easy to type, and trusted by many users. No wonder, Google also loves websites using the suffix .com.

What are the Important Considerations When Purchasing a Domain Name for an Online Business?

When looking to purchase a domain name for your online business, it’s important to consider factors such as SEO friendliness, brandability, and domain availability. Make sure the domain name aligns with your business name and is easy to remember for your target audience.

How to Purchase a Domain Name for a Website From Someone?

If you find that your potential domain name isn’t available, there is a possibility that it’s taken and it’s active, or it’s taken but not active anymore. In case the domain name you want for your online business is already taken, would you just forget about it, or check who owns it so you can buy it? If you want to make an offer to buy it, the next step for you to do is to use the Whois service, so you’ll find the pertinent information about the website owner. You need to be extra careful when you buy a domain name from someone. You have to do your own research to know how the domain works, the type of traffic it attracts, and to look for the strengths and weaknesses of the site. You want to verify if the domain is owned by a current owner who buys and sells websites on a regular basis. There’s a chance that it may be a domain parking that’s waiting to be purchased by the right buyer.

Domain Name Privacy

Usually, the tool will show you the registrant’s name, email address, and phone number. However, some site owners have domain privacy or whois privacy protection, so it will be difficult for you to find their email address or contact number. In this case, it will be impossible for you to find the site owner unless they appear on auction sites or the marketplace. Once you find the site owner, it’s time for you to make an offer. You should negotiate the terms, including the price, and terms of use. Before closing the sale of your new domain, you need to understand the details of the domain transfer policy. If you purchased it using a third-party Escrow service, expect to have a different method of transferring your domain.

Keep in mind that some factors may affect the price of domain names that are already taken, including:

1. Domains with keywords have the potential to rank higher in search engine result pages.
2. It has “brandability. “Domains that are catchy and short but are memorable are more likely to have a higher price tag.
3. Domains with a generic value cost higher.
4. Older domains are more valuable.
5. Concise domains are pricey.

Three-letter domains have a value of thousands to millions of dollars. An example of this is Pat.com that has a bid price of $62,000 on Sedo’s auction page. With this article, we hope that you have a better understanding of how you can successfully buy a good domain name for your online business.