Website Business Capital: The Missing Ingredient? (or) Is TV the same as the Internet?

  Let’s entertain a hypothetical: For every 1000 website business startups today, 90% lack sufficient capital to compete. Well, how much working capital does one need to truly compete? $100? $1,000? $10,000? Just as those “couch potatoes who sit glued to the boob tube” some “web entrepreneurs” stand back and secretly disdain, could it be that the chair in front of your monitor is indeed something akin to a “couch” and that many good faith entrepreneurs today are beset by the same plagues that face the TV couch potatoe crowd? I.E. tons and tons of media hype pumped out by well-groomed professionals with no other purpose than to install (or reinstall) the scarcity mentality and promote a barage of virtually worthless quick fixes. Could it be that some of the “internet information gods” we adore and so readily set our mental antennae to are nothing more than snake oil peddlers with logistical savvy working diligently to “scare” the market (internet business) out of a buck (or two or ten thousand)?  For example, presently feeding among all web intrepreneurs is the basest and most vile of all internet business fears, i.e. that one may be relegated to a virtual “non-presence” on the internet unless one aptly subscribes to the doing of A,B,C, and D. At this point the door swings wide and we get to sniff the snake oil of promise and prosperity for only X amount of dollars per month as supported by all the latest charts and bean-counter data. Adding up the potential cost of A,B,C and D, we may discover, oh, that isnt too much for the “promise” of a successful online presence, or, perhaps like the remaining 90% who nourish dreams of internet success without the currrent presence of capital for funding A,B, C and D, we may say “ouch” and move on to more realistic endeavors like finding and mowing a lawn. But what if we instead believe that internet success has startling similarities to all successes in general and that substantial capital alone or the absence of it is not in and of itself required for legitimate success and neither is subscribing to the “Pro Version” of A,B,C or D.  Is there any merit to this belief and are there any relevant examples of relatively recent online entreprenurial successes to back it up. Let’s take a closer look at the scarcity mentality and see how it affects the trend of internet snake oiling. Let’s look at the substance of proven techniques and determine how to most cost-efficiently arrive at the root of the solution without blindly subscribing to the snake oil frenzy that grows exponentially by the moment. Comment.

Domain Appraisals: The Real Truth

Every website hound worth half his or her salt knows of the “free” domain appraisals offered at www.estibot.com and www.leapfish.com . I think these people who build and maintain these websites do an excellent job at gathering and sparking market interest to the extent the scope of these free estimators are understood and appreciated for what they are – mere speculations of worth based on very limited data and automated research. I’ve toyed with the free appraisals myself on various occasions, obtaining oftentimes odd and conflicting results. The key to “enjoying” these free appraisal sites lies partially in appreciating that they offer non-guaranteed judgments of worth based on an analysis of viable “domain name worth indicators”, such as traffic, indexing and other factors.

  If  you frantically peruse the website in search of other free appraisals and are set back at the seemingly astronimcal cost of what commonly is announced as “Certified Appraisals”, you’re not alone. Who in his right mind is going to pay Company X “the very low price of $29.99″ to tell them how much www.hutherfythknowlsitus.com is worth? (No offense intended to anyone seriously intending to market this name or if it even happens to be your last name, but Estibot, with relatively obvious rationale based on their limited indicators ranks it at Reg Fee which means basically “good luck buddy”. From an obvious standpoint we can see that length alone and absence of well integrated keywords work to reduce the value of “huther…”. But, in another vein, KEEP THIS IN MIND: Estibot is not the Bible of domain name value worth and neither is Leapfish. And neither of them pretend to be. WHAT IS IMPORTANT to realize is that almost any name, consisting of arbitrary combination of letters or numbers CAN be the next Big Thing IF marketed by the right set of folks. EXAMPLE: GOOGLE. So what is the moral of this story? Just because Estibot tells you that your 5 or 6 character arbitrary name has no value other than Reg Fee, it could still be a winner if the right company likes it and the right people brand and market it effectively. To that extent, it is never the appraisal, but the demand that drives the value. So keep hope alive and continue to be creative. There are plenty of companies, now and in the future, who may be looking for that odd combination of characters you just happened to think about just before you went to bed last Thursday night (and forgot to write down) and forgot in the morning, that someone else thought about too, placed on the auction block and has since pocketed several grand. Language rocks, doesn’t it.

   So, if market does drive value, what is the worth of a “Certified Appraisal” opposed to one cranked out by Estibot or Leapfish? Well, for sure, it depends on the integrity and analysis depth of the appraisal and the current performance of the domain name in real life. There are times when a Certified Appraisal may support a hypothetical value based on aggregate indexing, but the bottom line is that market demand drives the price, the market is the ultimate indicator of “worth” and with the rapid-fire changing of paradigm shifts invading the internet at speeds greater than light, anything is possible, including but not limited to the implementation of a new extension system that antiquates and even obliterates the .com era. Sound far-fetched? So did the internet just twenty years ago. So does this mean we walk away from premium top level domain names and snub our nose to all the .coms? Please do. Leaves more room for the rest of us.

Kick Start Your Vision – Read and Digest these Business Quotes

• Quote: The moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.
  • Author: James Baldwin 1924-1987, American Author

• Quote: Most teams aren’t teams at all but merely collections of individual relationships with the boss. Each individual vying with the others for power, prestige and position.
  • Author: Douglas Murray Mcgregor 1906-1964, American Management Theorist, Educator

• Quote: When spider webs unite, they can tie up a lion.
  • Author: Ethiopian Proverb Sayings of Ethiopian Origin

• Quote: When two people meet, there are really six people present. There is each man as he sees himself, each man as he wants to be seen, and each man as he really is.
  • Author: Michael De Saintamo

• Quote: What is the good of being a genius if you cannot use it as an excuse for being unemployed?
  
  • Author: Gerald Barzan

• Show me the business man or institution not guided by sentiment and service, by the idea that “he profits most who serves best,” and I will show you a man or an outfit that is dead or dying.
  • Author: B. F. Harris

• There is less to fear from outside competition than from inside inefficiency, discourtesy and bad service.
  • Author: Anonymous

• The measure of success is not whether you have a tough problem to deal with, but whether it’s the same problem you had last year.
  • Author: John Foster Dulles

• The vision must be followed by the venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps – we must step up the stairs.
  • Author: Vance Havne

Examining the Guts of a Domain Name

Imagine “finding” the perfect Domain Name for your personal site or business, only to discover late in the transaction phase that registration is flawed, or worse, that the seller doesn’t even own the Domain Name! Our “DomainNameComs.com” domain names have been promptly and proudly registered on Whois with 1&1, the World’s No. 1 Web Host and our domain names are verifiably registered. Registration by long-standing professionals such as 1&1, assures the details of your transaction will be seamless and expedient. After all, we’re a business too. We understand that once you choose your Domain Name, you’ll want your site up and running as soon as possible. And we’re dedicated to making that happen, so you can get down to business and begin your online success.

The Art of Crafting Keepers

Is it possible that one extra letter, one missing letter or the absence of a keyword can weaken the “pull” of a Domain Name and keep your online presence unknown? The short answer is Yes. Although there is no “Magic Key Formula” for the choice of a successful Domain Name, there are a few general “common sense” rules to follow during the name-picking process. In “creating” our Domain Names, we follow these common-sense rules while incoporating creativity and intuitive “sound-feel” to the mix, which makes for a ‘catchy’ Domain Name. I am a published author, have written for over thirty years, so the “sound-feel” process is not new to me. The sound and feel of words are my business and this extra dimension is used in proper ratio in the creation of our Domain Names. Examine our Domain Names on your tongue. Pronounce the Name, speak the Name and taste just how it feels. Tasty Domain names are easy to recall and easy-to-recall Domain Names is a proper baseline increasing your chances of optimal traffic, assuming of course that you want traffic on your website.

Attuned to the Market

As the market changes, so will we. Currently, speculators seem to enjoy tossing about hypotheticals as to the potential “theoretical value” of certain newer Domain Name extensions and we certainly feel there are legitimate grounds for such research and that new paradigms in the internet will continue to appear, however, as things are today and as a general rule for personal and private business use, we recommend and believe along with the major core of other professionals that your most solid value is the extension .com, because most people are just naturally inclined to type it in due to its long-standing tenure and legitimacy within the internet community. It’s not exactly brain surgery to figure this part out. Choosing the most valuable extension for your particular needs will  greatly impact your site’s effectiveness and your success. Having said that, we’ll say it again, we do prefer .com.

 

Time to Examine YOUR Website: What Image Are You Projecting?

Attentive viewers of my website may have noticed that the following point I make here also has appeared on at least one former website of mine. As a personal rule, I seek to avoid redundancy as it eats up valuable time. However, due to the major significance of the following point (correcting your website of harmful typos) I felt compelled to restate it again. If this comment saves just one person the embarasssment and agony of dealing with website typos or other snafus then I consider it worth it. And so here is the comment:

Every time I visit a “professional website”, examining large print, fine print, policies and the like, and notice glaringly obvious typos, it makes me wonder at least two things: One, have the owners taken time to even proofread their own site; and two, what do these “mistakes” “tell” me about the company? Are they forgivable flukes or flagship indicators of sloppy company practices? Of course occasional typos will slip in to even the best websites, (this one not excluded) but an overabundance of them paired with mismanaged verbage can plant legitimate doubt in the minds of potential (and existing) customers as to the company’s level of professionalism, awareness, credibility and care. Our job is to keep you off the hook here. We review your entire website, advise you of typos and formatting snafus and work to get them fixed to keep your image looking fine and groomed in your customers’ eyes, because, let’s face it, with competition being what it is these days, those are the only eyes that matter. Please remember this little motto: “Everything counts.” You can boast the best products in the world or tout excellent services, yet if your website reflects inattention it can quickly mock those pronouncements, drive away market share and pull the plug on profit. (Well, somebody needs to tell you.) Beyond full site proofreading, we can also create catchy brand mottos, unique by-lines, perform section editing and write or rewrite your entire website*, based on your goal targets and preferences, and you get to bask in the credit. I am a published author with over 30 years of writing experience. We offer a full money-back satisfaction guarantee.

Meta-Tags…I hope you know what they are!

 

 

 

If you have a website and aren’t familiar with meta-tags, I would encourage you to become familiar with them! Meta-tags are the little hidden communicator codes that send “messages” to search engine crawlers and spiders that collect and index websites. If you’re having a problem with traffic on your website, you should check out your meta-tags. Could be an indexing problem. To facilitate indexing by search engines, update your meta-tags on each page of your website; include the main search topics in the first few lines of text on the home page (default or a/k/a “index”) and don’t forget your search engine submission forms! (Note: If you’re working off a master dynamic template and enter meta-tag keywords on that “page”, by default those meta-tags will appear on every other page of the remaining pages of your website. This is what you DO NOT want.Instead, beginning with your “Home Page”, hand-tailor the most relevant keywords in the meta-tag section that best describe the content and function of each page of your website. The search engines also pick up on this distinction too so be very attentive and hand-tailor the meta-tags for each individual page of your website!