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Contents
Legal Disclaimer ................................................................................... 2
Email 2 ............................................................................................... 4
Domain Name Criteria ........................................................................... 4
Domain Extensions ............................................................................... 6
How To Come Up With Domain Name Ideas ............................................. 8
Things to Check Before You Buy ........................................................... 12
Buying Your Domain Name .................................................................. 16
My Domain Choice .............................................................................. 18
To Do ................................................................................................ 21
Support ............................................................................................. 22

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Email 2

In the last lesson you learned the best kinds of sites that work with Adsense.

Your task was to come up with the topic for your own website.

In this lesson we’re going to talk about choosing a domain name for our sites.

Domain Name Criteria

Your domain name is the address of your website.

When someone asks how to find your website you give them that name to put
in their browser like: extremereviewer.com

You first must come up with an idea for your domain name and then register
that domain name.

There are plenty of domains available for around $15/year.

However, there are other domains that have already been registered by a
reseller and they have much higher prices.

If you look up a domain name idea and see something like this then it’s a
domain being sold by a reseller:

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SKIP THOSE!!!

You also don’t want a domain that sounds spammy or domains that have too
many dashes in the name.

I made that very mistake with one of my earliest websites.

I went for a keyword as the domain name and the only version available had
THREE dashes in the name.

When my family would ask to see my website I would have to tell them to go
to “[word] DASH [word] DASH [word] DASH [word] DOT COM”.

AWKWARD!!!

That’s just not professional sounding at all.

There are lots of articles out there that tell you to use a keyword as your
domain name.

THAT IS CRAPPY, OUTDATED ADVICE.

People used to suggest this because it would help with your rankings in
Google. And, yes, it did – at one time.

But not now.

Your domain name has NO impact on where you’ll

rank in Google.
Instead, other on-site SEO will help Google understand what your site is about
and where you should rank:

• Your home page meta description

• Meta descriptions for your other posts and pages
• Your navigation menu items
• Your post titles
• Your post content
• Your image alt tags

Can you imagine if Amazon had gone with the domain name “Place-to-buy-
books-and-other-stuff-online.com”?

Sure, it’s self-explanatory but it’s awkward and messy.

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In future lessons I’ll cover how to deal with the on-site SEO that will help
Google understand the topic of your website.

Please, please, please go for a more professional domain name every

time and skip the “keyword as domain” approach.

A domain name should:

• Be easy to remember (which implies shorter is better)
• NOT include dashes or hyphens
• Be interesting and unique

If you’re certain of your niche choice and sure that it will never change then
you can include a word related to your niche in the domain.

For example, I wanted to build a crochet site. I have crocheted for more than
20 years. I’m pretty sure I’m not going to lose interest in the niche and I know
with certainty that I’ll have a lot of topic ideas.

In that case I’d be fine with including the word “crochet” in the domain name
and I went with “cranberrycrochet.com”.

If, though, I wasn’t exactly sure I’d really stick with the niche I might have
gone with something like “cranberryhaven.com” because that domain could
be about any niche. I could use that domain for a home décor site or a sewing
site or a site about my home life and it would work just fine.

Domain Extensions

The part of your domain name that comes after the DOT is called the Top
Level Domain, TLD, or extension.

The .com extension is one of the most popular types. Other common
extensions are .net and .org.

But there are many more types of domain extensions today than ever before:

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Which you choose should depend on the comfort level your target audience
would have with that extension.

People in the US are very comfortable with .com domains but not as familiar
with some of the newer extension options like .blue.

Younger generations are more comfortable with the newer TLDs than older
generations.

People who live in the UK are more familiar with domains that end in .uk.

The type of domain extension you choose won’t impact your rankings in
Google but it might impact the perception of your site by your target audience
so choose based on what you know about the people you’re trying to reach
with your website.

Do you think most of your audience will be under 30? Over 50? In a particular
geographic region? Keep those things in mind when choosing your domain
name and extension.

But how do you come up with these domain name ideas? We’ll cover that next.

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How To Come Up With Domain Name Ideas

I use this site to come up with domain name ideas:

https://www.namemesh.com/
Sometimes I’ll follow their instructions and enter a word or words for my niche
in the search box or one word from my niche and a random word or just one
word from my niche and see what comes up:

I entered “slot apps”, scrolled through the different results and found a few
options I liked:

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Sometimes I’ll just enter two random words like “purple” and “star”. This is
useful in generating more options when you don’t care whether your niche is
mentioned in the domain name:

The above search gave me result like the following:

That combination of words might generate choices that sound more feminine
which could be great for some niches but if you’re building a website around
a topic that tends to be more masculine you’d just use different random words.

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A search for “strong red”, for example, might generate more masculine
sounding domain name choices:

That search gave some of the following results:

You’ll notice I highlighted some domains in yellow in the example images.

Those are simply the ones that appealed best to ME.

You should choose the ones that appeal best to YOU.

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To use Namemesh:

1. Go to https://www.namemesh.com/
2. Enter one or two words in the search box and click the Generate
button:

3. Scroll down and you’ll see a set of categories with domain name
options under each one:

4. I tend to focus on the options in the Similar and Fun categories –

look through those and make a note of any that appeal to you
5. Pay attention to how some letters together cause a domain name to
be read two different ways and might be unappealing – the domain
below is for Speed of Art but it can also be read as “speedo fart” –
NOT GOOD:

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 6. Keep trying different word combinations until you have 5-10 domain
ideas you like the best

Things to Check Before You Buy

There are a few things it’s important to check before registering a domain
name (I’ll cover how to do these things in a minute):

• Make sure there’s no trademark for the name - if there’s an existing

trademark and you register a domain for a trademarked phrase you
could lose the domain
• Check whois information to find out if the domain has ever been
registered before. If a domain has been used before you might get
saddled with someone else’s bad backlinks.
• If the .com isn’t available and you’re considering the .net, .org, or some
other extension for that domain always look up the .com version of the
domain name to see if it’s a well-developed site. If it is then you may
look like a copycat of that other site and will struggle with branding in
order to look different or struggle to outrank the other site for the name
of your site.

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 • You also want to look up the domain as a phrase – for example, if the
domain choice is gooddeepbreath.com then you’d look up "good deep
breath” (without quotes) to see if there’s anything that comes up that
might cause you issues with that domain name. If there’s a product that
goes by that name or a site that has a different domain but uses that
phrase in their branding then you might be better off with a different
domain choice.

To check domain names before you buy:

1. Do a trademark search to make sure there’s no LIVE trademark for

the phrase you want to use as your domain:
a. Go to: http://www.uspto.gov/trademarks-
application-process/search-trademark-database
b. Click the “Search Trademark Database” button that’s just a
bit down the page:

c. Click the Basic Word Mark Search option:

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 d. In the Search Term box enter your domain name as a
phrase (include spaces between words) and click the Submit
Query button:

e. If you see a message saying there are no trademarks, then

you should be okay to use that domain name. If you see a
list of possible trademarks, look for any that are LIVE and
are an exact match for the phrase you’re researching. If
there is a Live trademark for your phrase, cross it off of your
list of possible options. You don’t want to risk receiving a

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 cease and desist letter from the owner of that trademark by
registering a matching domain name.
2. Check whois tools and make sure the domain has no history:
a. Go to: http://whois.domaintools.com/
b. Enter your domain idea into the search box (ie,
slotsoul.com) – keep in mind that you can usually only do
about 3-5 checks on these lookup sites for free per day so
start with the ones that interest you most or you’ll have to
wait a few hours or a day before you can check any more
c. Scroll down the results page and see if there’s any history
showing the domain was registered in the past year or
two. If so, you might want to skip using that domain since
you won’t know if the previous owner ditched the domain
after getting a Google penalty or building bad backlinks to
the domain. The safest option is to start with a clean
domain. This domain showed it had never been registered
before so that means there’s no recent history tied to the
site. I’d be starting out on a completely fresh domain:

3. If you’re looking at a .net domain because the .com wasn’t available,

look up the .com version of the domain. If the .com version has
content on it then skip that domain choice. If the domain is simply
parked or up for auction then you’re okay to leave the .net on your
list because no one has yet built up the .com as your competition.
4. Go to Google and look up each domain idea as a phrase to see if
there’s any product by that name or some other sort of popular

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 reference to that name that could cause some confusion with your
branding efforts
5. Choose the domain that you like best, that has no recent domain
whois history, has no live trademark, doesn’t reference a product
name, and doesn’t have a competing .com if you’re looking at a .net
or .org extension

Buying Your Domain Name

Once you’ve chosen your domain name, it’s time to buy.

You can buy domains one of two ways:

1. Through a domain registrar (like Namecheap)

2. Through your hosting company (if you’re already set up with a hosting
account – like SiteGround)

Ideally, experts say to buy your domain from someone OTHER than your
hosting company. The reason for doing so is basically an insurance policy.

Suppose your hosting company goes out of business and you have both your
site files (which are housed with your hosting company) AND your domain
name registered with the same company. You could lose access to both
items at the same time.

Or, suppose your hosting company messes up and they close or suspend
your account and you don’t notice it right away. You could lose access to all
of your site files and you can’t log into the account to manage your domain
name and switch it to another host.

It’s sort of like when you have two sets of keys for your car and instead of
keeping them in separate places you store them both in your purse and your
purse gets stolen. You’d lose both sets of keys at once.

That being said, in the 10+ years I’ve been building websites I have always
purchased my domain names from my host.

At first, I did so because I didn’t know any better. Now, I know better but I
still don’t follow that suggestion because I’ve been with the same hosting
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company for years and never had an issue. My hosting company has a long
history in the business so the risk they’re going away is small.

I do back up all of my site files so I won’t lose those – although I could still
run into challenges managing my domain names if something happened.

The other reason I don’t like to buy domains from a company other than my
host is that when you have your domain with one company and your hosting
at another you have to take steps to POINT your DNS NAMESERVERS from
your domain account to your hosting account. It can take up to 48 hours for
that change to kick in which means you have to wait before you can
complete setting up your site.

One more point - if you don’t yet have a hosting account some hosting
companies will throw in the cost of your first domain when you sign up and
that can save you a few bucks.

I recommend two hosting companies:

1. SiteGround – they are reasonably priced, have a strong reputation,

nice added features, and extra server security
2. Bluehost – they’re cheap, they’ve been around a long time and they
throw in a free SSL certificate for sites on shared hosting

I use Bluehost and have for over 10 years. Their live chat service is not
always good but if I call them by phone they’re great (and their service
center is just the other side of town from me so if something happened I
could always drive over to their office and make a scene….).

If I had to switch, I’d go to SiteGround. I’ve worked with them a fair

amount when helping coaching students and like what I’ve seen.

You do not need expensive hosting. You do not need a private server or
special WordPress hosting when first starting out.

I build all of my new sites on SHARED hosting (usually the cheapest hosting
plan in any hosting companies list of plan options).

I have a second hosting account with Bluehost where I have a Managed

WordPress plan. I then switch my sites from the shared hosting account to
the Managed WordPress hosting account after they reach at least 10,000
visitors a month.

This keeps my costs down while I vet a site and work through building it up.
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When I buy domain names, I always choose automatic renewal so that I
won’t accidentally lose the domain name.

I also always get domain privacy because I don’t want my hosting account
or domain registrar email address out on the web to be scraped and added
to spam email lists but if you’re short on funds skip Privacy and just use an
email address with your domain or hosting account that is separate from
your regular email box.

That’s it!

My Domain Choice

For my new site I’m going with the domain slotgiants.com.

I’ve chosen to register the domain for two years. You could choose to do just
one year at a time or more than two years. Your selection determines the
final price you’ll pay for your domain at the time of registration.

This is the shopping cart view in my Bluehost account once I’ve selected my
domain, added Privacy, and chosen to register the domain for two years:

Even though I’ve purchased the domain through my hosting account rather
than another provider you still have to ASSIGN your domain to your hosting
account. (If you’re buying your first domain bundled with your first hosting
account this step may be done for you by your host.)

Bluehost doesn’t know if I plan on hosting this account elsewhere or not

which is why it is not assigned to the account by default.

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Once I’ve completed the purchase of the domain within Bluehost I see the
option to Assign and follow these steps to complete that task:

1. Click the “Assign Domain” button:

2. Select the option to “Use a domain that is already associated with

your account” and then use the drop down to choose your new
domain:

3. Because I’ve purchased the domain from Bluehost I don’t have to

do anything to verify ownership so this step is “n/a” for me:

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4. Because this is not the main domain for my hosting account I have
only the option of assigning the domain as an “Addon” domain (a
domain other than the main one associated with your hosting
account that you want to manage within the same hosting account),
a “Parked” domain (a domain that you own but aren’t currently
using and want to have a “parked” page show when someone
accesses the domain), or an “Unassigned” domain (a domain you
own but aren’t sure what you’re going to do with yet). Because I’m
going to build my site’s files on this hosting account I choose to add
this domain as an “Addon” domain:

5. Your site files need a location in your hosting account. This is called
a “directory”. Your hosting account should show a default option
and most people will want to go with that option. Bluehost gives me
the option to create a new directory within my public_htlm folder
called “slotgiants” which works fine for me:

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 6. Once all your settings are finalized just click the “Assign this
Domain” button:

If you use a different host your screens may look slightly different. You
should see an option someplace in your toolbar called “Domains” and
clicking that option should take you to a list of your domains.

Within that screen you should options like “Manage” or “Assign” and can
then follow your host’s steps to assign your domain to your hosting account.

To Do

Your tasks:

1. Decide whether or not you want to include a word from your niche
in your domain name
2. Skip any spammy sounding domain names
3. Come up with good ideas that are short and memorable
4. Set up your hosting account and register your domain
5. Assign your domain to your hosting account

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Support

If you need to contact me during the 30 day program because you have a
question or have not received your emails:

Send an email to [email protected]

If I do not respond within 72 hours that could indicate a delivery issue

has occurred between my email system and yours. Following are
backup methods of reaching me should you not receive a response
from that email address:

• Email [email protected]
• Email: [email protected]

Facebook (you’ll have to friend me first, though, so I see the message):

https://www.facebook.com/erica.stone.1272

I look forward to working with you!

Sincerely,

Erica Stone

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