A long time ago, when search engines were not around, webmasters used to submit their sites to web directories, and people looking for sites that they were interested in would browse through these directories and bookmark the sites that they wished to access later. Search Engines were unheard of and Web 2.0 was the wet dream of all budding programmers.

Usability and Accessibilty were two different factors and never the two’d have met, and people used to ‘send across links’ to others because they were too difficult to pronounce or remember – unless Google came along and gave the Internet to us.

With Google, MSN and other search engines coming into the play, everything about the Internet became important, lucrative and more importantly simple. Websites and webmasters understood that the future is ‘search’ (that was back then, today its social) and they started taking lessons from what the search engines were telling them. Some of these golden lessons were:

• The average Internet user has no time. You are losing 50 percent of your traffic because of the snazzy Flash intro that does not allow anyone to go ahead unless they have watched it, even at 32 kbps.
• The average Internet user thinks that multitasking is their birthright. So you and your website will just be something that they are visiting in one of their multiple Explorer windows (this was before multiple tabs were unleashed unto us)
• The average Internet users wants to be informed, entertained and have a good time at your site, and get some work done via a feasible, practical and hassle-free service – without having huge lurking advertisements telling them to connect with their school friends. – They had survived it then, they do not want you to remind them of the horrible time they had.

Did the above paragraphs seem too much of a history lesson? Well, I am the last person to ponder over history unless there is good reason to, and in this case there is – these facts are still relevant today. Many people and websites lose out on relevant traffic because of at least one user behavior trait that has been discussed above. Which brings us to the next part of this series – How to create an identity for your website.

The identity of the website has always been an important part of a website, but it is much more important today because most of the traffic that a new website would get is via the referral traffic through social networks, forums, and more. Creating the identity of a website is a complete and complex procedure, and the first step towards this is deciding the domain name for your site. Here are the basic tips that you would need to keep in mind before deciding on a domain name for your site.

Keep it Short – Very Short

Before deciding on a domain name, you can try out how easily accessible it is by typing it out yourself. If you are a maven at the keyboard, you could get someone who is not. This is the quickest way to find out whether a domain name that you have decided can be typed easily or not.

Ask Eddie Murphy

The best way to keep it short is by actually looking for synonyms for the concepts that you are willing to work in. One of my sites is Mush Maven, and how I came across this name is quite interesting.

I had decided to start a site about dating and dating tips, and I was wondering what domain name I’d use. Along that time, I was watching ‘Meet Dave’ and I saw Eddie Murphy quip about the book ‘Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus’. At that time, I knew that I had to name my site something regarding Men, Mars, Women and Venus. I first thought about MarsVenus, but someone told it seems like a shopping mall name. I then thought about some breaking down of words, and while taking a stroll, I came across MaVen.

Now, I had heard about this term somewhere but wasn’t so sure about its’ meaning. A quick research told me that it meant ‘expert’ – the rest was easy. All I had to do is to look for a word that would match the Maven, and out came Mushmaven. The golden rule is to keep the name within eight to ten characters. Twelve is still worth it and you have lost the battle after fifteen.

A dash by any other name…

Call it a hyphen, or a dash or anything that you would like to, but in my opinion the dash dashes many hopes of making your website name look good. Think about it, if I had dashes in Mush Maven, or Friday Freak, how would I pronounce it.

M-U-S-H –DASH-M-A-V-E-N, no, you do not have to put the DASH, it’s the dash… the hypen, then do the same to F-R-I-D-AY-D-A-S-H-F-R-E-A-K and you will get the picture. And then, there is no reason for creative guys like us not to be able to think beyond the hyphen. I agree that some names would work better than others for some niches, and many would put a hyphen to get a particular name, but remember, nowhere is it written that you need to use only that particular word as a domain name. Lighten up and choose – it is your site after all.

This is the first of the multi part series on How to Get Traffic to Your Blog. If you liked this post and would like to know more, please bookmark this page.

Much has been spoken and written about the Internet being a great way of making money. Some of the top ways to make money have been listed as:

• Offering your Services to someone.
• Setting you a website where you offer information about subjects that you an expert in
• Selling online.

The simplest, most efficient and probably the fastest way out of these is to offer your services to other business online. The services may be anything, copywriting, content writing, web designing or even being a virtual assistant – but the modus is the same – you work for a particular timeframe to deliver a certain product, if the client likes it, they pay for it.

However, once we do get into the online business most of us service providers think of the other two ways to make money online. While some of us set up websites to be more independent, yet others set up sites because it is quite lucrative, while yet others set them up as learning processes, but make no mistake about it, many of us make them to make some money, and that is not going to happen unless you get some traffic to your blog or site. If you have been thinking how to get traffic to your blog or site, here are the three basic rules that should help you out. Remember, these tips would make sense for you only if you wish to run a professional site or a blog. The traffic to your personal blog simply depends on how popular you are on a personal level.

Decide to Dedicate Resources

Blogs and websites are not something that you spring up yesterday and bring you pots of money tomorrow. Like any business, even online businesses need care, nurturing and dedication. Before you decide to get into the business, you should make a thorough confirmation to yourself that you will dedicate some time of the day to your blog. How much and when is entirely at your leisure.

The only aspect that you should keep in mind that this is not a forced time or time that you have taken out where you have a thousand things in mind. Invest time and a clear mind on your blog and that could be one of your best investments in a while.

If you do not have time for your blog or site, look into how much it would cost you to outsource the activities that you would require to carry out to get traffic to your blog. What are those activities? – In due course of time.

Invest in a Domain Name

The Internet is a vast, deep sea of information and your site or blog is just a drop – precious to you but cookie cutter to everyone else. So, unless you are the Stephen King or Steven Spielberg in your business, or unless you are offering some rare, specific product or service that is not available anywhere in the world, your blog is going to lie in the underbelly of the Internet for years. That cuts out about ninety nine percent of all services or products that hundred percent of online entrepreneurs and online professionals offer.

So, do the right thing and invest in a domain name. If you thought the business plan was worth it, you would not think twice before you spend some money backing it up. Fortunately domain names are not that expensive today and so is web hosting. My host is HostGator, and there are thousands of others that are available. You just need to search for them. The costs of the domain names vary from host to host, and which plans you choose for, etcetera, so you would need to carry out some research about which domain seller and hosting company fits your needs and deeds. You may balk at some charges like ‘setup fees’ and other collateral charges that riff raff the Internet, but with the right research, you will get the right host for you.

Invest in Hosting:

Some of the Internet mavens would know about how to have your domain name redirect to your blog almost automagically. I tried it when I had the blog thefreelanceresource.blogspot.com and had decided to buy the domain name thefreelanceresource.com. After a few sputters and starts, I found out that it was not worth the hassle. As far as I was concerned, it was like a string that was used to connect an Audi to a BMW at 110 mph. – it could snap anytime.

Again, there are several web hosting companies available and you need to do your research to find out which is the best suited for your needs and deeds. Some would charge you a setup fee (I have no idea what that is), while yet others would not offer a monthly hosting plan. A monthly hosting plan runs up quite a neat bill, but it is one of the best ways to invest in a business that you are sure about theoretically, but you would still wait a while to see it in action. For those who have some amount in hand and would like to go the whole way, there are half yearly and yearly hosting plans available.

Yet others would debate about whether you should invest in a domain name when there are so many free hosts available. Take my word for it, if you are planning to monetize a web space majorly, you should buy the domain name – pronto. All free hosts come with some tiers, like Blogspot comes with a .blogspot attached to it, while WordPress.com does not allow JavaScript and iFrame, while free hosters like webs follow the Blogspot route. A domain name like roydsilva.blogspot.com would work only in the rarest of rare cases, and we all know very few of us are that rare.

So, the three basic steps to get traffic to your blog are:

• Decide to Dedicate Resources
• Invest in Hosting
• Invest in a Domain Name

This is the first of the multi part series on How to Get Traffic to Your Blog. If you liked this post and would like to know more, please bookmark this page.