Watch me choose a domain name for my site

As promised, I'm letting you look over my shoulder as I build a new website, www.HeartBeat-Childrens-Music.com.

If you visit Website Building 4 Newbies, you'll notice the first step is niche research (also known as keyword research).

I already know I'm offering children's music classes, even if it isn't promising, because I love it. So did I skip this step? Yes and no.

Google's AdWords tool is a free tool for doing keyword research. It can help you find a good niche. But it can also help you find good keywords to use in your domain name and web content.

So I looked up "childrens music" and "family music". You can't use apostrophes in the domain name, which is why I didn't use it in the search.

Turns out "childrens music" gets about 60,500 monthly searches for the exact phrase, and "family music" gets about 4,400. If the number is over 3,000, that's promising. The tool also said "family music" is far less competitive than "childrens music". So I should go with heartbeat-family-music.com, right?

Well...

When I Googled "Family music" I found it gets 278 million organic* results! Wow, that's a lot of competition! And the results aren't necessarily targeted to my audience of parents with very young children.

"Childrens music" gets 47.3 million organic* results. That's still a huge number. Probably too big. But surprisingly, it's much lower than the "family music" results.

What about competing with pay-per-click ads? Google's tool tells me if I place AdWords ads, "childrens music" will cost 60 cents per click, while "family music" will cost 51 cents.

I'm hoping to avoid paying for AdWords, or I might analyze this more carefully. But the 9-cent difference is not a huge.

Now, realistically, I'm not likely to get up in the search engines for either keyword. But you never know - it doesn't hurt to be optimistic, right?

So I decided to go with "childrens music."

In this case, either domain name would probably have worked as well, but it's worth checking with the AdWords tool. It's not unlikely that your niche might include some great keywords with a lot less competition than this.

Next time, I'll tell you where I registered my domain and how I avoided losing my chosen name to a practice known as "front running" or "domain tasting".

To be sure you catch my next post, click on the orange button at the top right and subscribe to my blog.

Wishing you peace & prosperity,

Janet

*Organic search results are the natural, non-sponsored search results.

Watch Me Build a New Site!

I just purchased a new domain name, www.HeartBeat-Childrens-Music.com. I'll be offering classes to young children in my area.

It occurred to me that this is a perfect opportunity for you to watch me build a new site.

I can't afford a web designer, so I'll be stumbling to get this right. I'll be updating my progress right here on this blog.

So far it's just a parked domain. I took the first step yesterday, which was to visit www.namecheap.com, check the availability of my preferred domains, and buy the one that was closest to what I wanted. The cost was just under $10 for one year, so don't fall for any company that tries to charge you more than that.

You can find out more about choosing a domain name at the Domain Name page and its related pages at Website Building 4 Newbies.

If you'd like to subscribe to my posts (which will include more than this project), click on the orange button to the right, the one that says "posts."

Looking forward to having you along on my journey!

Wishing you peace & prosperity,

Janet

Beware of Domain Name Renewal Notices

A while ago I got a domain renewal notice in the mail for Website-Building-4-Newbies. A company called Domain Renewal Group was kind enough to inform me that my registration for that domain name would expire on July 30, 2009.

Just one problem: My domain is not registered through them.

That didn't stop them from offering me the following deal:

Renew for 1 year for $30

Renew for 2 years (Recommended) for $50 (save $10)

Renew for 5 years (Best Value) for $95 (save $55)

Those parenthetical comments are theirs, not mine.

Now, you can register a domain name at namecheap for less than $10 a year.

So if you get a "bill" telling you you'll save $55 by paying $95 by renewing your domain name for five years through them - even if they are your real registrar, get a new one!

What makes me really angry about this notice is that it is indeed made to look like a bill.

Here's a paragraph from this "Domain Name Expiration Notice" as it is labeled:

"You must renew your domain name to retain exclusive rights to it on the web and now is the time ot transfer and renew your name from your current Registrar to the Domain Renewal Group. Failure to renew your domain name by the expiration date may result in a loss of your online identity making it difficult for your customers and friends to locate you on the web."

Never mind that it takes a day or two to renew a domain name, that this domain name doesn't expire until July 30, and that they requested a reply by March 30, 2009.

The moral: If you get a domain renewal notice in the mail, first, be sure it's from your actual domain registrar! Second, if you're paying more than $10 for your domain name, be sure there's a good reason why (for instance, you want several extensions - e.g., .com, .net, and .org).

Hope this was helpful.

Wishing you peace & prosperity,

Janet
Website Building 4 Newbies