The name of your web site is fundamental to your success. In physical world you can have a difficult to remember name and overcome it with a great location, convenient parking, low prices, great quality or some combination of these. A hard to remember name may even be an advantage in some cases. A name like TCBY (which doesn't predict service and is difficult to remember) doesn't hurt sales because yogurt is an impulse buy and success depends on foot traffic. But Internet is different. It is better if people can remember your name!

What makes a great name? Opinions vary but here are some facts.

A great name is memorable. Perfectly memorable names include Amazon.com and Yahoo.com. Equally memorable names include www.pitneybowes.com (the people who make machines to put postage on letters), www.fedex.com, and www.realty1.com. Amazon and Yahoo are memorable because they aren't obvious while others are memorable because they are obvious.

Some great names are acronyms. www.ibm.com and www.ups.com prove that acronyms work just fine. But some really terrible names are acronyms too. Other acronyms are misleading (who do you expect to be at end of www.aa.com? Alcoholics Anonymous or American Airlines?). In my opinion, acronyms are best reserved for people who have a billion dollars to sink into advertising and branding. Otherwise, you risk getting lost in acronym soup.

A great name for a web site is also recognizable from real world. In Internet bazaar I think people still like to do business with people they have heard of and know. For instance, who do you think is on other end of www.margaritaville.com? And we know who is on other end of www.whitehouse.gov.

"An expert is a guy that traveled more than an hour to get to job." - Anonymous

If it is true that further from client you are more of an expert you are, then internet is for you. And if you really do know what you are talking about, opportunity is even greater and certainly things will work out better for client! This article describes 'expert' web sites and how you can promote yourself on internet by providing expert advice and services on line.

Expert web sites are meeting places, almost bulletin boards, where members (aka unsuspecting public) can meet experts (you, me, and my 2nd year of law school son) to get advice. The sites make money from advertising and from a share of revenue expert charges for her consultation. We know who unsuspecting public is. But definition of an expert on these web sites is generally just someone who says they are an expert. I've signed up as an expert in a couple of places and no one has checked my quals. In fact disclaimer for members generally includes following kind of language: vendor 'does not have control over quality, timing or legality of services actually delivered by Experts'. In words of a carnival barker, 'you pays your money and you takes your chances'.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing - who could guarantee quality or exercise control of all of advice passed out over internet? Who would want to? What you must recognize is that credibility is an issue you need to seriously address in these systems. You will get a reputation so you want to think carefully about kind of, and range of, service you provide.