Finding that Winning Combination...Written by Bill Quimby
A good domain name is valuable, but combination of a domain name and a good vanity 800 number can be priceless in marketing. The right 800 number allows your advertising to reach several times as many people that are not on internet regularly. It generates instant credibility and recognition and helps to create that all important million dollar brand name. But with incredible scarcity of both .COMS and 800 numbers, how could you ever come up that all important combination?All too often companies get one piece (like domain name) without considering other and then often run into also brick wall and have to settle for something less. The phone companies will often tell you that 877 is exactly same thing as 800. And that is true if you consider .CC or .TO same thing as .COM. They may be technically able to do same thing, but in their marketing potential they are totally different. So if you aren’t willing to settle for .CC for your domain, then don’t settle for same thing in your phone number since just like your domain name, that is how so many of your customers will find you. The first step is definitely most important and often one that gets skipped over way to quickly. Creativity is definitely key to finding either a domain name or a phone number. The good news is that it doesn’t cost any more money to be more creative. It just takes some brain power and a little effort. I’ll outline process of getting number briefly but you’re really not ready until you have 50-100 or more possible names. So be prepared to really spend time in this part. The first step of brainstorming is to look for any type of keywords. Just put down everything possible you can come up with related to your company, your message, your product or service, your benefits or your customers and what they are looking for. Take a look at keywords from your website or those of your competitors. Carry list with you for several days, and involve as many people as you can. If there are other people in your organization consider having a contest to see who can come up with most possible names/words. Short words are good because they allow you to combine them with a number of other prefixes or suffixes. Next use some of these mechanical brainstorming exercises and sites which will help you come up with possibilities you may not have thought of. Start with an excellent online thesaurus tool at Plumb Design (http://www.PlumbDesign.com). Next, after you’ve added any possible synonyms, take a look at what other people have done to get ideas at Whois.net (http://www.whois.net). Look at registered and perhaps better, recently unregistered domain names there. Finally use an interesting java search term suggestion tool available (click on option number one) at GoTo.com (http://www.goto.com/d/about/advertisers/othertools.jhtml) Try these tools with each of words that you come up with and you will literally get dozens of additional possible names. You can also try a neat tool for creating new words at a site for inventing new words called, NetSubstance (http://www.netsubstance.com) Then finally, you should combine as many of these names together with my list of possible prefixes and suffixes at http://www.TollFreeNumbers.com/finding.htm to stretch your list even further.
| | "Whois" on first?Written by Bob Osgoodby
No this is not an Abbot and Costello comedy routine, but some serious information you need to know if considering your own web site. If you have ever looked into getting your own domain name, you have no doubt done a "whois" lookup. If you haven't, you can search to see if name you wish is available at: http://www.networksolutions.com/There are three types of extensions available for our use at current time. For example, abc.com is an example of a dot.com site - abc.net a dot.net site and finally a dot.org site. Dot.org sites were traditionally domain of non-profit organizations, but have since opened up, so anyone can have that extension. There are other extensions such as dot.gov, but these are not available to average person. Before choosing a name with an extension, you should be aware that most browsers will allow you to simply enter domain name such as "abc". The browser will then search for a web site with that name - but it isn't as simple as that.
|
