I'm on holiday the next little while so I thought I'd share some links to five of the all-time most popular articles I have ever written for my blog:
Apparently blog posts with numbers in the title do very well. ;+)
I hope you enjoy these, and I look forward to resuming writing again later this Summer.
One of the more unusual aspects of my job as General Manager of a large portfolio of premium domain names is that I see all the "poison pen" letters from lawyers representing clients who believe (usually incorrectly, I should add) they are legally entitled to a domain name that we own. Since we own over 100,000 domain names, we get quite a few of these letters every week!
I make sure that we respond to each and every one of these inquiries, and now that I've seen and dealt with hundreds of these letters I wanted to make a suggestion to the marketing community at large:
"You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar."
Admittedly, I didn't come up with this age-old concept, but I'd like to remind people that you will have better luck resolving a dispute - any dispute - by playing nice than by being hostile.
For instance, the next time you think that someone owns a domain name that you think you are legally entitled to, don't make your first move a "nasty lawyer's letter."
Instead, just reach out to the current owner with a courteous phone call or email (which you can get from checking the public WHOIS records) and let them know you have some questions or concerns. You might discover that the current owner is a lot nicer than you think, is not a hardened criminal, and is more than willing to negotiate in good faith. You might even learn that the original basis for your complaint is flawed and that - surprise, surprise - you aren't legally entitled to the domain name after all.
Not only will you save yourself the time, hassle, and significant expense of going the legal route (fighting a domain name dispute can cost many thousands of dollars), but you will begin the dialogue on a positive and constructive basis, not an adversarial one.
I go out of my way to help the small minority of folks who approach me nicely and are willing to listen to and consider our side of the story. Between us, we can usually resolve the situation within a few days. Unfortunately, I can count these "honey" folks on the fingers of one hand.
I'm not so sympathetic towards the "vinegar" folks - those who courier me six-inch thick stacks of legal documents that make all sorts of false accusations, ridiculous demands, and set unrealistic timelines for a response. (One law firm did this to me, quite deliberately, on Christmas Eve, two years in a row.) Sadly, these "poison pen" letters make up the vast majority of inquiries I receive. Sure, we respond to them as well, but I'm not going to cut them any slack or do them any favours. Why should I?
In the end, this boils down to one simple suggestion: be nice. ;+)
(A version of this post originally appeared on the Canadian Marketing Blog.)
It's 2009, so I would hope by now that any marketer reading this article online understands the importance of securing your company's brands as domain names. In other words, Acme Furniture should own and control the domain name acmefurniture.com (and, if it's a Canadian company, acmefurniture.ca as well) even if you don't yet have a Web site.
My question for you today is, "Have you done the same for Twitter?"
Twitter is a micro-blogging platform that is growing in popularity at an astonishing rate. The purpose of this article is not to explain or promote the benefits of Twitter; that topic has been covered by others.
What I want you to understand today is that Twitter IDs (or "user names" or "handles") are the equivalent of domain names.
For instance, the Twitter ID for my personal brand, Bill Sweetman, is @billsweetman (which corresponds to the URL http://www.twitter.com/billsweetman) and for my corporate brand, YummyNames, it is @yummynames.
Even if you don't understand Twitter or don't think it has a role to play in your company's marketing efforts today, I strongly urge you to still secure your Twitter ID now.
In my case, I do all my Tweeting (as its called) as @billsweetman but I made sure that I registered all my other professional brands as Twitter IDs so that when and if I want to use Twitter for those other brands I already have the most intuitive Twitter ID.
I predict that over the next few years, millions of dollars will be spent by companies buying, selling, and fighting over Twitter IDs. I have already seen a number of nasty legal spats develop, and I have personally brokered the sale of several Twitter IDs already. And this is only the very beginning...
If you are Acme Furniture, you should make sure you get your hands on @acmefurniture right away. Since there is no fee to register a Twitter ID, you have no excuse not to do this. Simply head on over to http://www.twitter.com and sign up for a free account.
Don't be the person who in a year or two is having to explain to their company President why you didn't secure the company name as a Twitter ID. Take two minutes and do it today.
One final tip: Twitter will eventually suspend an account if it has not been used for six months, so make sure you post something once a month just to keep your account active and not risk losing your valuable Twitter ID.
My good friend Kindha Gorman officially launches her own Web writing boutique, MightyThink, this week. Since I have always admired her wit and way with words, I thought that interviewing her about her new company and writing for the Web might be both educational and fun.
Q. So I just have to ask you, Kindha, what motivated you to leave the stability of a full-time job to launch your own boutique, MightyThink?
Starting a content development firm like MightyThink has been one of my long-time goals. After spending considerable time learning about the domain name business, I saw an opportunity to contribute.
As the domain industry changes, relevant and quality content is becoming essential for premium domains. Websites have so much more potential when the content is useful, timely, and engaging. That's where MightyThink comes in.
Sure, a cushy full-time job has its perks but writing is my passion. Launching MightyThink is my way of being involved in this exciting domain industry by doing what I, and my team of writers, do best.
Plus, my fourth grade teacher said I had a problem with authority, so I figured I should just become my own boss. It's best for everyone.
Q. What's the most frequent mistake you see people making when it comes to the copy on their Websites?
Sadly, the Web is full of boring, irrelevant, and outdated copy.
Above it all, the most common mistake I have noticed is Websites that don't properly cater to their target audiences. When creating content for your site, think of your readers and the reasons they're likely on your site. Does your site give them all the information they need? Is it clear? Is it engaging? Is it visually friendly? Is it easy to read?
When you have a domain name, or a brand you want to market, you have a great opportunity to captivate your audience and make sure they visit again.
Since we're on the topic, here a few more of my pet peeves:
- Unclear messages;
- Long pages;
- Outdated information;
- Long paragraphs and no white space;
- A lack of keywords to entice the search engine;
- Off-topic and/or boring copy; and
- Spelling and grammar mistakes (A big no-no easily fixed by hiring an editor. The spellcheck function, by the way, is not an editor.).
Q. A lot of companies are interested in launching a blog but struggle with creating the content for it and keeping the blog updated. What advice do you give to clients like this?
A blog is a great tool to ensure there's fresh content on your site. The downside is that you have to invest a certain amount of time and energy to make sure people come back regularly. It sounds easy but there's some planning involved.
If you want to get your blog bookmarked by your target audience (and I imagine you do), the blog needs to be:
- updated daily;
- about relevant and timely topics;
- written in a conversational tone;
- professional looking and sounding; and
- interesting!
This may seem like a daunting task, especially since there are only 24 hours in the day. Many companies hire outside writers, who understand their goals and messages, to act as their voice. This frees up much-needed time, but still maintains a relevant blog.
Q. How important are online press releases?
A keyword-rich and well-optimized press release is quickly becoming an invaluable marketing tool for businesses to generate traffic and drum up clients.
Not only do online press releases tout news about your business quickly and effectively, they also can be easily optimized with keywords to ensure they're indexed by the almighty search engines. By adding some strategic links and relevant keywords, your little press release (and your Website) will attract the eyes of journalists, researchers, RSS feeds, search engines, news subscribers, and most importantly, your target audience.
Here's a tip: If you're writing the news release yourself, keep your press release to one page, two pages if absolutely necessary. If it's any longer than two pages, journalists become grumpy. No one likes a grumpy journalist.
Thanks, Kindha, and best of luck with your new company!
Kindha Gorman is the owner and brain behind MightyThink's brawn. With over 10 years of experience in writing, marketing, and strategic planning, Kindha has written for magazines, newspapers, Websites, large retail chains, healthcare organizations, financial institutions, and high tech outfits. Throughout her varied career, she has learned a thing or two about good writing. Just ask her. She has bored many of her friends with lectures about the proper use of commas, hyphens, and semi-colons.
Last week, I officially launched my newest online venture, Hollywoozy, the first Website devoted to reviewing movie domain names.
One of the many reasons I am always launching new things is that it gives me a chance to experiment with and refine different marketing tactics, and Hollywoozy is no different.
What is different this time, however, is that I am going to lift up the curtain and share some of the marketing tactics I am using to promote my venture, along with the results. In most cases, these tactics do not involve spending any money, although they all require spending some time to implement.
In this first chapter of my Internet Marketer's Diary, I am going to list five of the key tactics I used leading up to Hollywoozy's official launch on July 20, 2008. I consider these the essential building blocks of a good online marketing campaign.
1. Build the Site with Search Engines in Mind
In addition to following SEO (search engine optimization) best practices, one of the best ways to ensure a site is very search engine friendly is to create it using a blog platform, because search engines love blogs. My site was created using TypePad, which is my favourite professional blogging platform, however you could probably achieve similar results using WordPress. I also made sure that my site featured the most heavily searched keywords and key phrases that I was targeting. For instance, since Hollywoozy is about movie domain names, I made sure the phrase "domain names" was used extensively throughout the site on every single page.
2. Invite the Search Engines to Crawl the Website Prior to Launch
I wanted to give the search engines a head start on finding my site, so I added discrete links to my new site from some of the other heavily trafficked Websites that I own. This got my site indexed by Google a few days prior to its official launch, so that when people started to search for "Hollywoozy" in Google on the day of launch (which many did, according to my Web analytics reports), the site was already listed in Google's search results.
3. Use Tags to Define the Content of the Website
Prior to launch, I registered my site with Technorati (the leading blog directory and search engine), complete with a keyword-loaded description and lots of relevant tags. Technorati is frequently and deeply crawled by the search engine spiders, and within 24 hours Google had found Hollywoozy's listing on Technorati.
4. Generate Targeted Traffic via a Multiple Domain Name Strategy
I am proud of the unusual brand name I came up with for my site, however I am the first to admit that "Hollywoozy'" is not a descriptive name. That's why I also registered moviedomainnames.com and a few other descriptive, keyword-loaded domain names, which I pointed to my new site. The $28 (total) I spent registering the four domain names was the only cash outlay I made towards marketing the Website. That's peanuts to pay for the targeted type-in traffic my site will likely get from these domains over time.
5. Invite Some Enthusiasts to a Sneak Peek
In the week prior to launch, I used my Facebook status line (and Facebook's message service) to invite my friends and colleagues to let me know if they were interested in getting a "sneak preview" of my newest venture. The curious keeners who responded got early access to my site. Not only did they tell some of their friends and colleagues about the site (thank you, everyone!), but they were also a great source of feedback and ideas. Michel Neray, for instance, suggested I make a small but important tweak to how I displayed my domain name reviews, and I quickly took him up on the idea. All told, about 20 people in my personal network got an early peek at the site, and they helped to quickly spread the word post-launch.
In the next chapter of my Marketer's Diary, I will reveal the tactics I used to kick off the official launch of the site, as well as share some of the results to date. For a taste of how successful the launch was, try doing a Google search for "movie domain names" (which is the focus of my site) and see if you can spot Hollywoozy in the search results. ;+)
Because I am fascinated with the world of domain names, I truly believe I have the coolest job in the world as the General Manager of the Tucows Domain Portfolio.
Now I have the pleasure of adding a new person to my existing team. That's right, I'm looking to hire someone in the role of Associate Domainer. Maybe that someone is you or someone you know?
Here are some more details about this special role:
Associate Domainer at Tucows
Tucows is currently seeking a unique individual to join our Domain Portfolio team as an Associate Domainer. As a key member of this exciting and rapidly evolving business area, you will report directly to the General Manager, Domain Portfolio. (That would be me.)
Tucows has one of the largest domain name portfolios in the world, and these domain names are currently monetized through domain parking and domain sales.
In this full-time position, located in our office in Toronto's Liberty Village, you will assist in reviewing and selecting domain names from daily lists for possible acquisition by Tucows. You will also grade and price domain names, manage, restore, renew and transfer names, and optimize the landing pages of parked domains. You will generate daily, weekly and monthly reports on data trends and patterns as well as respond to internal and external email and phone sales and support inquires about domain names in our portfolio. Your ability to work in a fast-paced environment will contribute to the growth of this evolving business area and the ongoing success of Tucows.
The ideal candidate will have kick-ass Internet research skills and excellent verbal and written communication skills. Proficiency in Word, Excel is a must, while database experience (MS Access/SQL) would be a nice bonus. Previous experience in and/or passion for the domain name industry, domaining, or PPC advertising would be very useful.
If you can multi-task, are detail-oriented and have the ability to manage your time effectively under minimal supervision, then this is the job for you.
To apply and for more info, go here:
I have to say that this is an amazing opportunity for someone who wants to break into the booming but still relatively unknown industry of domaining (domain name investing). Here's a fascinating and seminal article on the topic of domaining that got a lot of people buzzing about domaining and domainers (those folks that practice domaining) when it was first published a year ago. It provides a rare 'behind-the-scenes' perspective on this fascinating industry and some of its key players. With any luck it will also inspire a few people to apply for the Associate Domainer position at Tucows.
Update: May 16, 2008
I am pleased to report that we have found someone to fill this role. I was delighted by all the interest in this position and impressed by the quality of the folks that applied. Thanks everyone!
Earlier this week I got an email from my friend Mike. In it, he wrote:
"I just received a letter from the Domain Registry of Canada asking me to renew [my domain name] through them, and I'm confused... Do I renew through them or through [my current registrar] Register.com? Or does it really matter?"
As fast as I could, I fired off the following reply to him:
"Hi Mike,
I am SO glad you asked, and you will be too.
You were about to fall prey to an old and nasty trick called "domain slamming". Google the term "domain slamming" and you will find lots of articles about this slimy practice and the havoc it causes, as well as more information on the companies that have been accused of domain slamming.
Renew your domain name via your current registrar ONLY. You can always identify who your current registrar is by doing a WHOIS search."
Mike is a highly educated technology professional who has worked in the Internet industry for over a decade. If someone like him can come close to being duped by domain slammers, imagine what could happen to someone who is less tech-savvy (or less suspicious).
You may be reading this and saying to yourself, "yeah, yeah, this is old news, I'd never fall for something like this."
And that's great. Good for you.
But I'll bet some of your colleagues, clients, friends, or family could get suckered in.
Do them all a big favour and spread the word. Share this blog post and/or the following list of domain slamming resources with them, and help protect them from being the next victim of the domain slammers.
Domain Slamming Resources:
Domain Slamming
Be Aware: Domain Registry of Canada Scam
Domain Registration Scams
Beware of Fake Domain Name Renewal Notices
Domain Registry of America Scam
When it comes to choosing a domain name for your business, it helps to have a 'dirty' mind. Otherwise you might end up being stuck with a domain name that will get you into trouble with word-based content filters.
That's right, if your domain name inadvertently contains a 'naughty' keyword or phrase, your entire Website may be blocked by content blocking filters still commonly used by large corporations, libraries, schools, and overprotective parents. Your site might also be hindered from showing up in some search engines, and some of the email messages you send from your domain could end up being blocked by spam filters.
Here are some fictitious examples of what at first appear to be innocent domain names:
Look closer, however, and you will notice that the first domain contains the word "sex" and the second contains the phrase "sex world." Both of these domains could end up running into trouble with filters, especially the second one.
And can you spot what's problematic with these domain names?
Both contain the word "anal" which also poses a risk of running afoul of filters.
You get the idea...
So before deciding on your next domain name, be sure to scrutinize it carefully. Look for any and all 'troublesome' words and phrases. The last thing you want is to have your seemingly innocuous domain name misinterpreted by word-based content filters.
I am so not into book reviews, however last week I had the honour of leading a roundtable discussion on podcasting at the Digital Marketing Conference. Near the end of the session I was asked to recommend a book on the subject of podcasting. That book was, and is, Podcasting for Profit, by the multi-talented Leesa Barnes.
Leesa's book was published a few months ago, and I've been meaning to blog about it ever since. Podcasting for Profit is unique in that it's not a technical 'how-to' manual about the production side of creating a podcast, nor is it one of those cheezy 'become an Internet radio star' publications. Plenty of those kinds of books kicking around already!
Podcasting for Profit, on the other hand, is focused on the business side of podcasting. Amen!
This is the book to pick up if you're struggling with whether or not you or your company or your clients should be podcasting. And if you've already decided to move forward with podcasting, Leesa's book will help you identify new business opportunities related to podcasting that you might never have thought of.
Written in a warm, honest, and down-to-earth style (it's by Leesa Barnes, after all), Podcasting for Profit is highly recommended to anyone interested in understanding the business implications of this exciting new medium.
You can find out more about the book at http://www.leesabarnes.com/book/.
P.S. I'm also supremely flattered to be mentioned in Podcasting for Profit, along with lots of other podcasters whose work I admire. Congratulations, Leesa!
The death of Princess Diana. The Bre-X scandal. James Cameron's Titanic.
Where were you in 1997? And what were you doing?
Although it seems hard to believe, this year marks the - gasp! - 10th anniversary of the Canadian Marketing Association's Digital Marketing Conference.
I'm on the organizing committee for this conference and we've really tried to pull out all the stops in honour of this year's first decade mark.
Some of the featured speakers we've lined up include Mike Murphy from Facebook, Chuck Porter from Crispin Porter + Bogusky, and Simon Assaad from Heavy.com.
Ipsos Reid returns for a second year with the results of The Canadian Digital Marketing Pulse survey and we've just added a very special surprise session for Thursday afternoon featuring four Canadians you won't want to miss.
The enormously popular roundtables, "The Experience Exchange," are back by popular demand, and yes, yours truly will be moderating one of the roundtables on podcasting.
If you're serious about Internet marketing, please join me and a few hundred other Internet marketing enthusiasts at the 10th annual Digital Marketing Conference in Toronto, Canada on Thursday, October 25 and Friday, October 26.
For more information and to register, visit the 2007 Digital Marketing Conference Website.
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