Internet Marketing Strategy

Unless you happen to think of a bad-ass domain name (that is still available for registration) by yourself, the best chance you have of getting a rock solid domain name, for use or sale/trade, is to watch recent domain expiration lists. More specifically, the daily domain expiration lists. I’m not talking about The Domain Name After Market from GoDaddy, where increased interest in a domain name usually results in the non-acquisition of said domain name. I’m talking about drop lists from registrars of domains that are actually expiring and are available for immediate registration through whichever registrar you please. Searching for and through these domain expiry lists can be a bit meticulous, though, so I’ve compiled a resource of links that you can bookmark and save for future reference.

Expired Domain Name Search Engines & Dump Lists

• EBUB.COM Deleted Domains List
  Pretty solid, easy to navigate through, includes Chinese domains.
• NameJet Dump Lists
  Dump lists for the next several days or the entire coming month.
• ExpiredDomains.net
  Easy to filter through dump lists, includes German domains.
• Expired Domain Boss
  Search domains pending deletion up to three days in advance.
• Expired Domains Finder
  Interface is decent, PR/Backlink search, small database though.

Curated Periodicals of Expired Domain Names

• Best Expired Domains
  Curated list of expiring domains, usually with DMOZ links and PR.
• All Internet Ideas Expiring Domains
  Curated list of expiring domains for new businesses or niche sites.
• DNXpert Expired Domain Names
  Curated list of expiring domain names: real words and niche sites.

Do you curate a periodical list of expired domain names or know of a good expired domain name search engine to add to this list? Message me on Twitter, my handle is @typelife.

If you’re not using text citations already, you need to install Link Building Pro, now.

Wait, you want to know what it is, first? You don’t have time! I guess if I have to explain it to you …

Every time someone selects and copies text on your website, this script will automatically append a link giving you credit.

If you still need an example, just copy/paste the text in this paragraph to see what I mean. See, isn’t that awesome?

Download Link Building Pro, upload the .js file to your website, and start using it, pronto!

Happy Friday, everyone! Here’s some good SEO reading for you all to digest throughout the weekend! I’m going to be at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival this weekend, so see you Monday!

• Becoming an SEO Ubergeek / Superweapon
• Using Google Brand Links To Your Advantage
• SEO (Usually) Does Not Create Demand
• How To Track Six Key Web App Metrics
• Leveraging Social Interaction in SEO Campaigns
• Ultimate Duplicate Content Guide

Have you ever searched for the latest gizmo on Google and seen a link to a relevant Amazon search page with the same Amazon Affiliate tag you saw the LAST time you were searching for a random gadget. Who the heck is googhydr-20? Is he some sort of super affiliate, raking in millions of dollars in commission revenue from the Amazon Affiliate program? Is it a bot made by Google that uses their own services to automatically generate links, and thus revenue, based on trending products? What could it be?

Well, to put it short, the Amazon Affiliate tag googhydr-20 is not owned by some sort of elite affiliate marketer, and it’s certainly not owned by Google. It actually belongs to Amazon itself. Whether they did it to effectively launder their own money (I doubt it) or to maintain control of how their brand is presented in paid search results (more likely, I think), I can’t tell you. But what I can tell you is that since the appearance of the infamous googhydr-20, Amazon has made it apparent that advertising direct affiliate links using PPC will warrant you no referrals for any sales made through those clicks, effectively discouraging anyone from purchasing PPC advertisement space directly linking to Amazon through their affiliate tag. (Which supports the second of my hypotheses.)

Anyways, fear no more, there is no super secret affiliate bot network that automatically generated Google AdWords campaigns with Amazon Affiliate links based on trending products; and if there was, they can’t make money any more.

So, sleep safe, and until next time, cheers!

Search engine optimization is an ever evolving game, but there’s several fundamentals that are pretty key to any strategy for tuning your website for search engine takeover. Here’s a few rules I make sure to follow on any of my websites:

• Choose a memorable and relevant domain name.
• Carefully choose a few keywords and keyphrases to optimize your website for.
• Optimize TITLE tags on all website pages, aim for ~70 characters in your TITLE.
• Make unique and relevant ALT tags for all of your website’s images.
• Carefully craft META description tags and META keyword tags for each of your website’s pages, keep descriptions at ~150 characters or less, and keywords at ~10 or less.
• Employ proper use of H1, H2, and H3 tags to draw reader and search engine attention to important text on each page.
• Optimize the URL structure of your website through URL rewriting.
• Keep your keyword density between 2% to 6%, you can use Textalyser to weigh keyword density.
• Create and maintain quality backlinks, from relevant websites and web registries.
• Don’t rush to totally adopt and switch over to new metrics and audience measurement tools, but certainly do not be afraid to test them, as new ones often have new methods of measurement that eventually get standardized, if not by that application.
• Use Google Alerts to monitor search results for people talking about your website and specific topics in your niche. Being the first person to respond to comments or questions can often lead to a great influx of traffic to your website, as well as do wonders for your brand recognition

Information originally from a post on Ahmed Belal’s blog called Ultimate SEO Checklist, that I have paraphrased and appended to.

I haven’t really minded or noticed the new WordPress administration bar that appeared after updating recently, save for on a few websites where it conflicts with the header in a really odd way. In these cases, I’ve had the need to disable the new administration bar entirely, which can be done by putting the following snippet in your WordPress theme’s functions.php file. You can access this file through WordPress’s Theme Editor.

/* Disable the Admin Bar. */
add_filter( 'show_admin_bar', '__return_false' );

How far does your social influence reach? How fast can you saturate your online network with information? Is there a way to quantify these metrics? Yes, of course there is!

Klout is a free web application that helps measure the effectiveness of your interaction with your social networks. It breaks down your “Klout Score” into several different comparisons as well as gives you a layman’s summary of what Klout thinks of your goings-ons of your social network.

Klout’s free (unregistered) version only supports measuring your Twitter statistics, so make sure to sign up to profile your reach on other social networks.

Finding a domain name you like that is available for registration as well can often be a chore enough, let alone picking a domain out that utilizes a TLD extension as part of it.

What, you say? I’m talking about domain hacks, which are domains that are words or phrases that use a TLD extension as part of the URL. Sites like blo.gs, del.icio.us, domai.nr, and ma.tt are domain hacks. Let’s just say it gets a little frustrating sometimes.

Well, you can quit worrying (a little bit at least) because there are several search engines that do the bulk of the work for you. You can perform dictionary searches against these websites, and they even have suggestions for you!

• Domainr
• Wordy
• Xona Domain Hacks

Last time, in WordPress on Steroids Pt. 1, I expressed the important of accommodating users who were accessing your website via a mobile browser. Now, let’s make the experience better for all of your users.

WordPress Optimization

Optimizing your website now prepares you for an influx of traffic in the future, as well as just making things run smoother (not to mention faster) in general. Optimization is an ongoing process that never really stops, but you can do one thing immediately, and that is to start using caching.

DB Cache is a caching engine that stores database query results as opposed to html output, resulting in less space on the disk that is taken up for cache storage. Your visitors always get real information while keeping CPU use to a minimum.

Leveraging Scheduled Posts

Most blog authors use the scheduled post feature to pre-load content into WordPress to be displayed at a future date. Why not build reader anticipation and generate hype for posts you’ve already scheduled? Well, it’s easy, with this little snippet. You can place it anywhere in your template files, or create an HTML Widget and place it in there.

$show = 5;
$q = new WP_Query('post_status=future&order=DESC&showposts=' . $show);
if ($q->have_posts()) {
    echo "<ul>\r\n";
    while ($q->have_posts()) : $q->the_post();
        echo "<li>";
        the_title();
        echo "</li>\r\n";
    endwhile;
    echo "</ul>\r\n";
}

Expose ALL Content to Readers & Search Engines

It’s very common to see a “Most Popular Posts” or “Featured Posts” widget on a blog, and yes, they are effective. However, this draws the reader to a very specific point in your site’s workflow, and this point is at the very end of the user experience. Why not highlight all of your content equally? You can do so by showing off random posts from your archive in your sidebar, with the Random Posts Widget. Who knows? You might have more diamonds in the rough than you think, and you could get your user stuck in an infinite loop!

Brian Solis (Principal of FutureWorks and author of BrianSolis.com, a coveted source of business and marketing resources derived from real experience, as well as real success.) has updated the social topography infographic once again with his most current views on what he calls the “social media panorma” and how these networks are being applied in real world scenarios.

It truly gives you an idea of the vast possibilities of information dissemination and how big the “social world” is outside of the big hitters.