1. Niche - Decide on a
niche to
concentrate on for the "session". Meaning for the time
you have set aside to look for domains focus on one subject
area. Hopefully an area you know a fair amount about.
For example we have some IT certifications so we focused on IT
certifications for our niche.
a. Keep track of the
niche's you work on and the domains you go to find information
on them. It will be useful if you need it for
registering generic names or even for develop and why research
things twice.
2. Research - Research possible keywords
we prefer to go to the main web sites for the
subject like certmag.com
and see what type of words people tend to use. Also do
some searches on Google. Search for both the correct
spelling and the misspelling to get an idea of potential
traffic for the domain and the typo respectively.
a. One easy thing to do is
go to a main web site of the industry and view the web page
by Source (IE go to View > Source) and look at the meta tags
(right after the title a meta tags) this gives you some
keywords to research.
b. Use other tools
like Acronym Finder,
for names try Names,
for the largest US cities try this
wikipedia list. Use your imagination and
experience. For more tools check out the
Resources.
c. The main sites you
go to come up with names can also be potential candidates
for typo traffic. Just make sure there are no
trademark issues it's not worth the risk. If you do
expect to see an C & D letter (Cease & Desist Letter) asking
you to stop using the domain and transfer it to them. For example soyn.com would be a great typo for sony.com but you will
definitely have trademark issues. If you stick to
generic terms like shoes.com you are usually okay. For
more information on trademark issue click
here.
d. To find out
possible Typo's try using tools like the
typo suggestion
tool. You can add this to your site by going
here. For more typo tools check out the
Resources page.
e. There are
different types of typo's for more information try this
article:
- QWERTY Keyboard slips vank.com instead of
bank.com
- Missing Letters -
gogle.com instead of google.com
- Double Letters -
celllphones instead of cellphones.com
- Look a likes - 1ife.com
looks like life.com
3. Stats - Check to see how
much people actually do search with these words using tools
like
Overture, Google by running a search your looking for over
a 1,000,000, but sometimes can take less.
a. This is where
Overture really shines. Type in the exact domain into
Overture for example certmag.com it returns a search of 26 for
January 2007. This means 66.165 people searched for
certmag.com which should mean more typed it directly so this
is a great candidate for a typo, except it 's trademarked just
checking to see if your still awake. Want to go with the
exact domain since are traffic is based on people mistyping
when going to another domain.
b. It doesn't hurt to
keep track of the overture results to speed up the research
process later, although they hopefully may be updated later.
c. Some people will
even start typing out the domain to see how they mistype it.
4. Bid Rates - Once you have some
terms check out tools to see how much advertisers are biding
on those keywords from your potential domain name. Try
Symbiotic,
Blogger.com, and check out other tools in
Resources.
a. A great name with
low searches and low keyword bids in Adsensee is not a good
candidate for parking, possibly for developing but not
parking.
b. Look for a
combination of solid searches something good in Overture
over 1,000 is great, solid search in Google over 1,000,000
is good, decent money on bid's say over $1, and most of all
use Common Sense see step 5.
5. Availability -
Open up a
registrar's page and try to find one with bulk registration
like GoDaddy.com which
allows you to search up to 500 names at once. Or if your
looking for country .TLD's or to see everything available with
the domain name I like
Network Solutions,
but it only allows 10 domains at a time. At this point
you just want to see if it's registered at all.
a. Usually for typo's
most people will stay away from most of the .tld's unless you
know for sure that a site is up that gets a fair amount of
traffic or it's a good enough generic name to get
type-in traffic.
6. Common Sense -
Okay your happy so
far now use your common sense even if your working with
typo's. Just because Michigan DWI
Lawyer pays a lot and is searched a lot does not mean
LawyerMichigandqi.com is a good name. In fact some
people will
research names a session and then wait 3 days prior to
registering them to make sure they are not out of my mind.
Yes you'll lose some but you make up for it in the money you
save. Take a look at some of the horrible domains that
have been
registered when people were starting out -
Bad Domains.
6. Register - Finally your ready
to register your domain name. Check out the
Domain Registration section and then the
Domain Parking to learn more about how to park a domain.
