Thursday 16 August 2012

DOMAIN NAME SELECTION GUIDE

                    DOMAIN NAME SELECTION GUIDE




Setting up a business website is considered as a very important part of present day advertisement. The first and the foremost thing to be done is to select a suitable domain name for the website as this will be the face of the whole business.

A domain name is nothing but the web address that your business will have. When chosen thoughtfully, a successful name will ensure quality advertisement and popularity for the business. The registration of a domain name and website hosting automatically gets the business listed into directories guiding web traffic, different forums and portals, into the search engine rank system and so on.

One can not just blindly choose a domain name as lot of company’s reputation depends on it. Following are some very important tips, necessary guidelines to be kept in mind while purchasing a successful domain name for your business website.
  • Availability: You would have definitely thought of a name that suits your business and will represent it appropriately. But to acquire this name you need to check if it’s available or has already been taken by someone else. To do this you can take the help of tools facilitated by the domain name registration sites(e.g. Bluehost.com,Godaddy.com etc) and check your desired name’s availability.

    Many common names like diet, food, business, travel have already been taken and vastly in use. In case the name you have chosen is already in use, the tool will provide you with suggestions that help you to make changes. It is a good practice to check even US trademark database as you don’t want to face problems later on. Do make it a point that even if some one used a particular name earlier and now you have bought it, it was not used for any illegal purpose. It’s always better to be safe than sorry. 
  • Selection: The name that you choose for your website has to be relevant to your business, appropriately represent it and build identity. You might go in with the company or brand name itself in case the business already exists. Popular websites like eBay.com have carried over their brand names. In case of business being new and domain name is going to play a part in building the reputation, then you experiment. Use keywords that represent your business, bring uniqueness and make it catchy. When the keyword is placed at the beginning of the domain name, it works much better with search engines. Do not make the mistake of reusing the same word in domain name as it just adds to the confusion. 
  • Short and sweet: It is not always necessary to have big or long names to make your business successful. Crisp, catchy, relevant and business minded domain names are always a hit. The most important thing about the name is that it has to be easy to remember and to be printed. Short names will also avoid any spelling mistakes and do no consume lot of space when printed on products. The ideal size of a domain name is 10 characters. Its not easy finding this size though, given the fact that many names have be taken, registered, and sold again and so on. Do not go in for short forms of names because it normally works with company names that are already in use not for businesses that are budding. 
  • Prefix and suffix: The domain name is not alone by itself. Usually a “www” will be prefixed to the domain name and then suffix of “.com” will follow. The general notion in the customer’s mind is that most businesses have .com as suffix. You can choose to experiment with it and use .net, .info, .net, .org etc instead. Though it takes time for people to get used to it, the advantage is that you can take an already existing domain name and just replace .com with any others mentioned above. The one thing to be kept in mind is that you need to look for the most relevant name rather than the popular ones because little mistakes might just take the traffic away from your website. 
  • Easy to remember: Most of us have passwords made of numbers, letters and characters which make them unique. But using the same formula for domain names is not a good idea. You don’t wish that the customers forget the domain name the very next moment that they heard. Opting to use random names, miss spelt words and acronyms for businesses that are yet to be established is a bad idea. When such domain names are advertised on radio or live shows, people are mostly to forget them.

    First thing is that the name should be easy to recite or pronounce. This way it puts the first print on both advertiser and the audiences’ mind. Then follows its uniqueness that is the relevance to the business that it represents like ezinearticles.com, which is all about articles.

    Last it has to be easy to be remembered and recalled at any time. Avoid having words that can be spelt many ways but pronounced same like two, too, to or sea, see and so on. Avoid dashes(-) too in your domain name as people generally don’t remember the dashes in domain names.

Some handy tips:
  1. The keyword has to be what your business is all about. For example, if you are marketing gardening tools, this is your keyword. This also helps you get visitors who are specifically looking for what you are marketing. 
  2. Many a times when you find that the desired domain is already registered, try adding an action word at the end, for example, gardentoolsinfo. Some other commonly used words are sale, shop, deals etc. you can even put a few numbers that have some significance like the day this company was started or even your birth date. This way you will be able to gain uniqueness and also get the desired domain name. 
  3. Play a trick by using very common search keywords like news, image, video etc. This automatically matches your site name with more searches and visitors than it would otherwise. This helps your ranking in a great way. 
  4. Stick to using popular top level domain(TLD) like .com, .net and so on. You might be tempted to use something like .tv but that will only drive your customers away because it has nothing to do with your business. It is better to make alterations in name rather than in domain TLD. There are plenty of sites that will help you to acquire a reasonable name with the help of the keywords that you provide. 
  5. Using hyphens was a trend a few years ago but now it’s a big no. This is mainly because it affects your ranking in the search engines. 
  6. Take help of your friends, associates and clients to finalize on your domain name. This will also help you to understand what they think of your business and in turn build its identity. 
  7. Do not waste any time once you have decided on the name and got its availability.Immediately register it so that no one should take away the name before you do. Registering names is happening at lightening speed and you should not left behind. 
  8. Keep a check on how much you agree to pay as domain names are not as expensive as they used to be. Collect information and do a survey in your circle as to what is a reasonable price to pay and do not get fooled by paying more than you really should. You should not pay more then $10 to $20 for a year of domain name registration. 
  9. Some common don’ts in selecting a domain names are: using words that are not relevant to your business, repeating the keywords and using more than 2 keywords. 
  10. Setting up a domain name is a big task in itself. But that’s not the end of it; in fact it’s a beginning of many things to follow. People will come to know about your website only when you advertise it. Some great ways to market your domain name and thusadvertising your business are as following: run ads on forums, discussions, newsletters etc.

    Use it as a part of your signature whenever you send an email or write a blog or comment in forums. According to the traffic on your website, the popular search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing will update your domain name in their ranking. Apart from this you can print it on anything that your business is related to like your business card, products, ads in news papers and magazines and so on.

    By understanding the importance of a domain name you will also know the kind of impact it will have on your business. It is much more than just a name, thus it has to be selected tactically keeping in mind all the above mentioned points. One should remember that after a domain name is registered it automatically becomes a part of search engines and forums. In case any change is to done later, you might have to suffer a great amount of loss. Do not make haste but do it in time to boost your business to great levels. 

HOW TO CONFIGURE AND PUBLISH WORDPRESS


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After you have successfully installed WordPress, installed and activated your theme and you understandhow to properly organize your WordPress content, you’re ready to configure your WordPress options.
NOTE: The following screenshots are from WordPress 2.8.4, the latest version of WordPress at the time this post was written.
Login to your WordPress admin area (www.yourdomainname/wp-admin) and we’ll go through the options tabs one-by-one from left to right. Keep in mind you will have to revisit some of these after installing certain plug-ins.

Posts

NEW WORDPRESS INSTALLS ONLY: Delete the default post title “Hello World”
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Pages

Even if you don’t have all of your content yet go ahead and create all of the “static” pages for your blog. (i.e. About Us, Contact, Privacy Policy, etc…)
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Categories

Now, let’s create all of the main categories for your blog using your primary keywords as much as possible in each. In addition to creating new categories you will also want to change the default category. This list doesn’t have to be comprehensive. You can always come back later and add more.
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Link Categories

If you choose to use Links / Blog Roll, delete or change the default link category to one that matches your niche. Add other link categories that may apply.
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Manage Links

For now you can either delete all links in the blogroll or you can add a few links to other well respected blogs related to your topic. While this may sound counter intuitive it’s not. Remember, blogging is about community and it’s never a bad thing to be associated with leaders in your market even if it just means linking to them.
Later, if you create some reciprocal linking agreements, you can add links to those sites here.
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Settings | General

imageBlog Title: Make sure your blog Title contains your main keyword / phrase twice. We’ll go into greater detail on how to tweak this when we talk about the All-in-One SEO plug-in below. This one tweak can result in much better search engine rankings. (Ex: Dog Breeding Tips From Dog Breeding Expert Bubba Jones)
Tagline: The tagline may not be important depending on your theme setup but, go ahead and include it anyway. Again, be sure to include your primary keywords in the tagline.
WordPress address (URL): DO NOT Change this. It will “break” your blog!
Blog address (URL): DO NOT Change this. It will “break” your blog!
E-mail address: Enter the email address for the admin of this blog. This is the address where all comment notifications and form info, by default, will be sent.
Membership: Leave these unchecked unless you want people registering for your blog. Most likely you will not want them subscribing here. Instead you will want them subscribing to your RSS feed and email list which we’ll cover in the plug-ins section.
New User Default Role: Unless you have a specific plan for this and really know what you’re doing Select Subscriber. If you are NOT allowing people to register this really won’t matter.
Click Save Changes

Settings | Writing

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Default post category: Select the category you want to be the default.
Post via e-mail: Leave as is
Update Services: Copy and paste the following list into the form field.
http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2
http://api.feedster.com/ping
http://api.moreover.com/ping
http://api.moreover.com/RPC2
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC
http://blogdb.jp/xmlrpc/
http://coreblog.org/ping/
http://ping.blo.gs/
http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/
http://ping.cocolog-nifty.com/xmlrpc
http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
http://pinger.blogflux.com/rpc
http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/
http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/
http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://topicexchange.com/RPC2
http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2
http://xping.pubsub.com/ping
http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping
Click Save Changes

Settings | Reading

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  • Front page displays: Whether or not you choose “Your latest post” or “Static page” will depend largely upon the theme you choose and whether or not you want your Home page to be static or a listing of your most recent blog posts. In most cases you will choose “Latest Post”.
  • Blog Pages: Show at most: set to 7
  • Syndication Feeds: 10
  • Show the most recent: set to 10
  • For each article, show: set to Full text
Save Changes

Settings | Discussion

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Usual settings for an article: I usually check all 3
E-mail me whenever: I usually check both of these especially, on new blogs so, I will be notified of any new comments and respond quickly.
Before a comment appears: I usually check the middle option only. If I start to get a lot of undesirable comments then I may tighten it up a little by requiring that all comments be approved. But remember the idea is to get interaction and build community so the easier the communication the better. Plus, we’ll address comment spam in the plug-ins section below.
Comment Moderation: This feature is mainly used to help control comment Spam. While it is helpful there are better ways to deal with comment Spam. I’ll discuss those later in the plug-ins section.
Comment Blacklist: This one’s pretty self explanatory. Just think of all the bad words you don’t want showing up on your blog and start typing them in.
Save Changes

Settings | Privacy

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Blog visibility: Check that you want your blog visible to everyone including search engines.
Save Changes

Settings | Permalinks

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Not only are the WordPress default permalinks ugly and non seneschal, they don’t help you much with SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Therefore, I like to change mine to the following: /%category%/%postname%or just /%postname% Here’s How:
  • Click on “Custom, specify below”
  • Enter “/%category%/%postname%” (without the quotes)
  • Click Update Permalink Structure
  • Now your URL’s will look like this: http://bestfriendscatering.com/blog/custom-cakes/wedding-cakes
  • Instead of this: http://bestfriendscatering.com/blog/?p=123
Click here for a comprehensive list of other Permalink tags you can use.
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NOTE: If your Permalink Structure will not update make sure your .htaccess file permissions are set to minimum of “644″ (You do this using your FTP program or cPanel)

HOW TO INSTALL WORDPRESS

                       HOW TO INSTALL WORDPRESS


1.WORDPRESS_MANUAL INSTALLATION


If you do not have the Fantastico auto installer on your account or just choose not to use it, you have the option to install WordPress manually. Please, follow the step-by-step guide below in order to activate Wordpress on your hosting account:

How to install Wordpress manually

 Step 1: Download the installation archive from the WordPress download section by clicking on "Download.zip" or "Download.tar.gz". This way you will get the latest stable release of the WordPress application.
 Step 2: Upload it to the public_html folder of your hosting account. You can do that via FTP with a client like Filezilla or via cPanel -> File Manager. -> Upload file(s). This way, after the installation is completed, the WordPress blog will appear once you visit your website.
Another option is to create a subfolder in your hosting account and upload the archive in it. The WordPress installation will be accessible at:
http://www.yourdomainname.com/subfolder

 Step 3: When you are in cPanel -> File Manager, navigate to the uploaded file and extract it by clicking on "Extract". The other option is to extract the file on your computer and then to upload the content in the desired folder via FTP.

 Step 4: Once the files are extracted in the desired folder, you should create a MySQL database for WordPress. You can do that from cPanel -> MySQL Databases. Detailed instructions how to do so can be found in our MySQL tutorial.

 Step 5: Rename wp-config-sample.php to wp-config.php and edit it. Fill in your database connection details in the following lines:
define('DB_NAME', ''); // The name of the database
define('DB_USER', ''); // Your MySQL username
define('DB_PASSWORD', ''); // ...and password
Please note that you should type the full name of the database and the MySQL user. Let's assume that your cPanel username is "mynewsit" and your domain name is mynewsite.com. If the name of your database is "wpress", the user is "wpuser" and the password for the MySQL user is "0la;mip" you should update the lines in the wp-config.php file to:
define('DB_NAME', 'mynewsit_wpress');
define('DB_USER', 'mynewsit_wpuser');
define('DB_PASSWORD', '0la;mip'); 
You can also change the default database prefix in order to secure your WordPress installation. 

 Step 6: Open in your browser:
www.yourdomainname.com/where_wordpress_is_extracted/wp-admin/install.php
This should set up the tables needed for your blog. If there is an error, double check your wp-config.php file, and try again.

 Step 7: The installation procedure is finished. You can save the administrative username and the password. You will need them to access the WordPress installation admin backend in the future.

2. WORDPRESS_FANTASTICO_INSTALLATION

Please, follow the step-by-step guide below in order to activate Wordpress on your hosting account:

 Step 1: Please, login to your CPanel and locate the Fantastico De Luxe icon:

Wordpress - CPanel - Fantastico

 Step 2: Find and click the WordPress link.

Wordpress installation

 Step 3: Then choose New Installation:

Wordpress - New Installation

 Step 4: Decide upon the location of your blog - if you would like to have it as your site front page, leave the directory box blank, otherwise fill in the appropriate folder name. Next, fill in the administrator details and the e-mail account configuration then click the Install WordPress button.

Wordpress installation folder

 Step 5: A new confirmation page will be loaded for the installation. Click the Finish Installation button if no errors are reported.

Wordpress - Finish Installation

If else you will have to go back and rectify the specified issues.
 Step 6: After completing the installation the final screen will load, providing you with the installation details. You will be able to e-mail the details to a specified address also in order to keep them for future reference.

Wordpress - installation successful

Well done! You have successfully installed the Wordpress application!

3.WordPress Softaculous Installation


This tutorial is designed to show you how to use Softaculous to install a WordPress application to your site. It will take only few minutes and literally no advanced skills to have a fully functional WordPress instance in your hosting account.

First, login to your cPanel account and find the Softaculous icon under the "Software Services" section. It should be located in the lower part of your cPanel page, right under the "Domains" section.


Once you click on the Softaculous button, you will be redirected to the page where you have to chose the application you want to install. On the left side of your screen locate the "Blogs" category, click on it and then click on the "WordPress" link that will appear. 


On the next page, press the Install button at the top of your screen to specify that you want to perform a brand new WordPress installation.


Finally, enter the required fields for your site - title, description, administrative username and password, administrative e-mail etc. and click on the "Install" button. Please note that by default Softaculous will install the application in a "wp" sub-folder. That being said, if you would like to be able to access the website only via your domain name you should delete the wp string from the "Directory" field. If you want to install the application in another sub-folder you should simply type it in the field.


That's it! Your WordPress application is installed and ready to use. You can now login and start blogging!

 




HOW TO SET DOMAIN NAME SERVER AT YOUR REGISTRAR


         Change Name Severs At Domain Registrar


After you have purchased Web Hosting Account you need to modify Domain Name Serversat your domain registrar who in our case is GoDaddy.
Once you get Hosting Account Login Information email from Web Hosting Company, i.e. HostGator in our case than in that email you will also find the name server details like:
ns1.hostgator.com
ns2.hostgator.com
NameServers usually start with letters ns like ns1 or ns15 or ns3233, etc and should be two or more NameServers in number. If you are unable to find it then contact your web hosting company through phone or email, and they will inform you the name servers being allotted to your hosting account.
Once you have the Name Servers then login to your GoDaddy Domain control panel fromwww.GoDaddy.com
godaddy-logged-in.jpg
1- After you are logged in Go to an option on top menu named Domains–> Domain Management
You will get list of all domain names you have registered with Godaddy.
godaddy-change-domain-name-servers-1.jpg
2 – Click on your Domain Name there.
godaddy-set-name-servers-2.jpg
3 - Then on next Page Click on Option Nameservers–> Set Nameservers
godaddy-name-servers-3.jpg
4 - There select the Last option i.e. “I have specific nameservers for my domains.”
Enter the 2 nameservers you got from your web hosting company e.g. Hostgator.
Click Ok.
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5 - And on next page you will get a confirmation message like:
“Your changes have been submitted.
These changes usually take 2 hours. However, it may take up to 48 hours for these changes to take effect. These time frames are estimates and not guaranteed.”
In case if you are unable to change the Name Servers then just contact GoDaddy, and they will provide you instructions on how to do it.
However, after changing the NameServers, you still need to wait for 24-48 hours for Name Servers to propagate around the world and then only your site could be published online.

HOW TO SETUP YOUR HOSTING ACCOUNT


After you have registered your domain name as in Step1, you need to host your website.
In order to publish your website on WWW(Word Wide Web) you need to purchase a web hosting account so that you can upload your website online. You can even create professional email ids like anthing@yourdomain.com through a web hosting account.
A Company that provides you web hosting service is known as Web Host or Web Hosting Company.
HostGator.com is one such web hosting company, which is very reliable and offers hosting plans to all types of users. It’s very important to choose a reliable hosting company as if their hosting server goes down then your site will also become offline and your visitors would not be able to open your website which seems to be very embarrassing. So never go for cheap hosting companies as at first it sounds good but in a long run, you will only lose time and money with such cheap hosting companies.
Therefore, we highly recommend HostGator as its trusted by thousands of website owners, and they have a very strong server uptime record, and their support staff too is very friendlyand fast.
However if you are looking for cheaper but reliable hosting option then you may also try hosting at GODADDY.COM .


Images Showing How to Order Web Hosting at Hostgator
hostgator-web-hosting.jpg
Screenshot 1 – Click on Web Hosting option at Hostgator Homepage and you will get the screen like above.
You can select from any of the plans given there.
hostgator_hosting_2.png
Screenshot 2 – After you click on Order Now button as in Screenshot 1, you will get this screen on next page to complete your order.
Enter your domain name and click on Continue To Step 2 to make the payment and complete your purchase.

HOW TO REGISTER A DOMAIN


                    Register a Domain Name


A good domain name(www.yourname.com) is a must for any business, or even if you are creating a personal website.
If you have a registered a firm with a name say Stigma Solutions then register a domain name like stigmasolutions.com or stigmasolutions.net
If those names are not available then you can use some stop words like global, online, etc.. Therefore, you can register domain name like stigmasolutionsglobal.com or stigmasolutionsonline.com, etc. You can even add City or State names at the end like stigmasolutiontexas.com. There are a lot of ideas, and you just need to think over what suits your business. You can even register an unrelated name like mycoolwebsite.com
Check our Domain Name Selection guide for more information on how to select a good domain name.
To register a domain visit GoDaddy.com as its the best and most reliable domain registrar in the world, and you can easily register domain name under $12. We register all the domains for our clients through GoDaddy only as we know that our domain names are fully secured with them.
Here are a couple of Godaddy Screenshots showing How to Check Domain Name Availability & Start Domain Registration Process
godaddy-domain-registration.jpg
Screenshot 1 – Check Domain Name Availability at Godaddy Homepage
godaddy-available-domain-name.jpg
Screenshot 2 – After you click on GO button as in Screenshot 1, you will get this screen on next page to complete your order

HOW TO MAKE A WEBSITE

Learn How To Make Your Own Website In 4-5 Simple Steps

Would you like know the steps you have to take to create a website all on your own? Really, there are just five simple steps you need to follow to design one easily and effortlessly.What five steps do you need to take to make your own website so that others may see what you have to say or even sell?

Step 1 – Register Your Domain Name


Step 2 – Setup Your Hosting Account

Step 3 – Set The Domain Servers At The Registrar

Step 4 – Installing WordPress Cms In A Few Clicks

Step 5 – Configuring WordPress and publish  Making Your Website Your own


Step 1 – Register Your Domain Name


You don't need a domain name to put up a website. You can put up a site on free hosting or even paid hosting plans without a domain name. A domain name provides extra branding for your site and makes it easier for people to remember the URL. But domain names cost money, typically between $8 and $35 a year. LEARN HOW TO REGISTER YOUR DOMAIN NAME

Step 2 – Setup Your Hosting Account



Hosting is where you put your website and all the Web pages. While it's possible to build a website on your personal computer and never move it online, it's somewhat pointless. No one but you will ever be able to see it. So the first thing you'll want to do is find a Web hosting provider.There are several types of Web hosting options you can choose from:LEARN HOW TO SETUP YOUR HOSTING ACCOUNT

Step 3 – Set The Domain Servers At The Registrar

After you have purchased Web Hosting Account you need to modify Domain Name Serversat your domain registrar LEARN HOW TO SET DOMAIN NAME SERVER AT YOUR REGISTRAR

Step 4 – Installing WordPress Cms In A Few Clicks

The best choice for a blog application would be WordPress. Wordpress is an Open Source blog tool which offers a rich set of features as well as a large supporting community.WordPress has an intuitive administration interface which anyone can handle. In WordPress you will be able to compose a post and publish it on your website with just a few clicks! With WordPress you can easily customize the look of your website for there are lots of free WordPress themes available on the Net.LEARN HOW TO INSTALL WORDPRESS

Step 5 – Configuring WordPress and publish  Making Your Website Your own

After installing the WordPress you need to Configure WordPressSelect Design, inputContent for your various Pages and Publish.LEARN HOW TO CONFIGURE AND PUBLISH WORDPRESS .