Own the perfect domain name? Protect it!

Step One:
Secure misspellings, plural/singular versions and alternate domain extensions of your domain name. If you own CarTopper.com make sure to purchase CarToppers.com, CarToper.com, CarTopers.com and so forth. For the alternate domain extensions, this is not as important as long as you own the .com. If the major extensions (.net, .org, .tv, .me) are available then grab them.

Step Two:
Secure the toll free number. TollFreeNumbers.com allows you to search for the available numbers by typing in letters. This will be difficult as a lot of toll free numbers are taken, but this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try.

Step Three:
Secure social media outlets. The three major outlets you should secure are Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. I call this the social media triangle. It makes up well over 95% of the social media market.

Steps one and two will require an investment, so I don’t suggest this for every domain name you own, just the ones you strongly believe in.

By completing these three, somewhat simple steps, you are protecting the brand for your future domain buyer and increasing the value of your domain name.

This is #1 of the DOMAININATOR series of comic strips. I’ll be back

Click on the comic strip to enlarge.

Here is a link to last week’s comic strip in case you missed it. It was “Domainer Glasses”.

Have an idea for my next comic strip? I’d love to hear it. Please post a comment or send me a message through the contact page.

Last week I wrote about buying my first .us domain name. After losing a Bido auction for SuicideHelp.org which sold for $207 I hand registered the .us version. As promised I would create a mini-site to help those that may be suicidal.

My future plans are to do some SEO work and continue adding articles maybe once or twice per month. I may also solicit people to submit their real world suicide stories via text or video. At this point I have no plans of monetizing the site in any way.

So what do you think? I know the header is a shocker. That’s the goal, want to get the point across.

I did it. I bought my first .us domain name today and have to admit it feels pretty good. I purchased SuicideHelp.us.

A lot of factors played a role in today’s purchase. One of the domain names in auction today at Bido was SuicideHelp.org. I know I always preach to NOT fall in love with your domain names, but for some reason I instantly fell in love with the name, not because I believed I can make money from it, but because I believed I could do some good with it. As soon as the auction started I placed several bids and kept bidding throughout. Seven out of the nineteen total bids were mine. At a certain point I told myself I have to stop, even then I continued. Finally, I stopped submitting bids at $205 which was $2 shy of the $207 winning bid. Without giving up and still believing I can do good with a similar domain I searched GoDaddy to see if any of the other extensions were taken. To my surprise .tv, . me, .us and .biz were still available.

So why did I go with the .us version?

• I like .us as it is my country’s domain extension.
• The other day I read Morgan Linton’s blog about which TLD’s are best for SEO. It outlined which TLD’s have done the best for him with mini-sites and the top had a .us domain extension.
• I’ve been reading and seeing a lot about the domain extension lately. In fact, one of the top sales of the week is a .us domain extension at $35,532.
• The icing on the cake…GoDaddy is currently running a special on .us domain names for only $4.99.

My plans for this domain are simple. I want to create a kick ass mini-site within the next 7 days that will hopefully provide some inspiring content to convince potentially suicidal people to stay with us. Once I get done with the mini-site I’ll post it for everyone to see.

UPDATE – I am open to any offers over mid $xxx.

This is my first blog entry attempting to sell a domain name.

Towards the very end of December I had a mini-site created for SuedeCouches.com which is included with the sale. The mini-site was setup only with Google Adsense. To date I have made $56.80 with June being the greatest month bringing in $23.67. I also want to add the site receives on average 26 visits per day.

Google search term “Suede Couches” results are 4,810 hits with SuedeCouches.com holding the #1 spot.

Here is a list of furniture related sales:

LeatherSofa.com $17,100
LeatherCouch.com $12,500
SofaSets.com $2,300
Sofa.com $200,000
OutdoorChairCoushions.com $4,400
SteelFurniture.com $11,099

Factoring in the somewhat comparable sales, mini-site and income generated I am asking $2,500. As a bonus I will include 10 unique furniture related articles to the site. First person to contact me for purchase will get this domain name.