Hello Iam back...

After along time iam not writing, now iam back with more creative idea in online business.
Dont go away... stay tune in the same channel and with the same site http://onlinedollar.blogspot.com

Your Opinions Are Needed NOW

How to Sit Back, Relax, and Get Paid for Your Opinions!

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LEARN HOW TO MAKE MONEY ONLINE

Learn how one woman, with no previous business experience, earns $435,000 per year online selling other people's stuff

This opportunity is available to anyone, anywhere in the world, and there are countless opportunities all over the Internet. You can be selling just about anything you can think of, either brand name or lesser known products and services.

All you do is direct people through links (which you are provided with) to other companies products and/or promotional web pages. Any resulting sales are then attributed directly to you. Simple, easy and straight forward, right? Well yes, but you need to learn what does and doesn't work.

With the right information you really can start to make a good living without having to worry about hardly anything. It's a great and easy way to make money and the perfect home based business. Your potential profits are unlimited.

More people make a living online from "affiliate programs" than just about any other means. But your first move should be to learn how it's done, and for that you need Rosalind Gardner. She earns well over $400,000 a year through affiliate programs so she knows what she's talking about

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Source : websmart-marketing.com

Pay-Per-Click Tips for Attracting Traffic

Learn how to flood your site with qualified buyers using the newest pay-per-click search engine strategies and tools
By Cory Rudl


Pay-per-click (PPC) search engines can be a powerful, instant source of qualified traffic for your website—provided you do your homework and invest a bit of time in managing your campaign. In fact, many website owners who've mastered keyword targeting and know the "insider" bidding strategies tell me that more than 90 percent of their traffic comes straight from the PPC search engines!

So I'm going to show you the strategies and tools these folks are using—so you can duplicate their success. I'm going to explain hot new targeting options and bid-management tools being offered by the PPC search engines that you can use to increase your traffic while keeping bidding costs low.

A lot of people think the only way to develop a successful pay-per-click campaign is to get the highest ranking with a popular keyword in the top two PPC search engines, Overture and Google AdWords.

Now it's true that a top-ranked ad with either of these two industry giants will guarantee your site a lot of exposure—as long as you're bidding on keywords that a substantial number of people are searching for. The problem is, you often have to pay more for these No. 1 spots. And in the case of the more competitive keywords, this can means bids of $1.50 to $5.00 (or more!) per click.

If you want to be successful with the PPC search engines, you need to bid on keywords that attract clicks from "qualified" buyers (as opposed to "tire kickers" who'll drive your costs up) while keeping your bids as low as possible.

Here are seven tips that will help you accomplish that:

1. Figure out what you can afford to bid. This might sound obvious, but it needs to be said: Don't bid more than you can afford! A lot of businesses make this mistake.

Before you pay for advertising of any sort, calculate the value of a single visitor to your site. Once you know what one visitor is worth, you'll know the maximum amount you can afford to pay per click.

2. Being "No. 1" isn't always best. You don't always need to be ranked No. 1 for certain keywords to attract visitors. Sure, it helps if your ad appears in the top 10 results. But people click on listings featured on the second and even third page of results for competitive keywords.

So run some tests. Vary your bids so that your listing appears higher and lower on the page and see what effect the ranking has on your profits. You may actually find that for more costly keywords, a slightly lower ranking is more profitable.

3. Bid on low-cost variations and common misspellings of particular keywords. Frequently, you'll see businesses bidding as much as $5.00 per click for popular keywords—while nobody is bidding on common misspellings and similar keywords that cost just pennies per click. Use Wordtracker to locate keywords that relate to your business and are frequently searched by your market, but that none of your competitors are bidding on.

4. Bid on highly targeted phrases with less traffic. Rather than bid on a handful of "general" keywords, which tend to be more expensive because they get the highest number of searches, bid on dozens—or even hundreds—of highly "targeted" keywords, which tend to be cheap. For example, instead of bidding on "pet supplies," you might bid on "red dog leash," "oversize dog kennel," and "cat toys with bells." You're sure to see better sales conversions on the more targeted keywords because they attract more qualified buyers. And since no one is bidding on these keywords, your advertising costs associated with this traffic are extremely low.

Another benefit of this strategy is that you can direct these qualified visitors to a page that gives them exactly what they're looking for. In the above example, your listing for the keyword, "oversize dog kennel" could link directly to your dog kennel catalog page, rather than to just the home page of your pet supply store.

5. Bid on keywords in the lesser-known PPC search engines. Overture and Google are the PPC industry leaders, but some of the smaller PPC search engines are worth checking out as well. The most popular ones are:


Findwhat
Kanoodle
Enhance Interactive
LookSmart
Espotting (for the UK & Europe)

These engines won't get you the same exposure you might get with Overture and Google AdWords, but you can still generate a respectable amount of traffic with them. And best of all, they're much cheaper.

6. Create separate ads for each product or service you sell. This is an extremely effective strategy, but very few businesses are using it: Write ads specific to each keyword and phrase you bid on. For example, instead of writing an ad for "sporting goods," write one for "quality leather soccer balls," another for "discount ladies' tennis shoes," and so on.

These customized ads will attract more attention (and clicks!) from qualified buyers. And of course, you'll be able to convert more of these visitors to buyers if you direct them to a page on your site with the exact product or service they're searching for.

7. Get listed in relevant specialty PPC search engines. Did you know that there are specialty PPC search engines that target different markets such as brides, pet owners, antique collectors, car owners and so on?

Check out PayPerClickSearchEngines.com to see if there are any relevant to your business that might be worth getting listed in.


Targeting Your Campaigns
PPC search engines are constantly looking for new ways to improve their services—and your results. After all, they want you to keep purchasing advertising from them and not their competitors.

Here's an overview of some great tools they're offering to help you better target your ads and keep your campaign costs down:

1. Keyword Matching Options (offered by Overture and Google AdWords). Both of these search engines offer options that allow you to fine-tune the way your keyword is matched to the phrases people type into their engines. Their options differ slightly, but here's a rough breakdown:


Exact match. A listing is triggered by the exact keyword phrase and nothing else. Example: "fishing rods" will match "fishing rods" but not "fancy fishing rods."
Phrase match. A listing is triggered by the keyword phrase as it's written, though it might be included with other terms as well. Example: "fishing rods" will match "antique fishing rods and reels" but not "rods fishing."
Broad match. A listing is triggered by the keyword phrase or slight variations of it, even if the words are out of order or separated by other words. Example: "fishing rods" will match "Rod's Alaskan Fishing Adventure" and possibly even "Rod's Fish & Chips." Warning: The broad match option can work well for highly specific queries, such as brand names or serial numbers, but can result in a lot of poorly targeted click-throughs for general terms, especially terms that have more than one meaning, such as "dolly," "tackle" or "nails."
Negative match. When words identified as "negatives" are typed into the search engine along with the keyword phrase, the listing will not appear. Example: "fishing rods - cheap" will match "fishing rods and tackle" but not "cheap fishing rods."

2. Contextual Targeting (offered by Overture, Google AdWords, Kanoodle and Enhance Interactive). Contextual targeting places your PPC listing on websites where the content somehow relates to your ad. Obviously, this can be a great way to increase the exposure of your ad.

If you decide to try contextual targeting, however, be sure to monitor where your ads are being placed because the effectiveness of contextual targeting can vary widely. Your ads may end up featured on websites that have little to do with your advertisement—and therefore attract unqualified click-throughs.

For example, a recent USnews.com article about starting a business had a series of "Hermosa Beach Vacation" Google Ads listed beside it—because the first person interviewed in the story happened to live in Hermosa Beach! These wasted clicks can quickly drain your bank account if you aren't careful.

3. Geotargeting (offered by Overture and Google AdWords). Geotargeting allows you to choose which countries or geographic regions your ads appear in. This feature is best suited for businesses that offer local services or products that are useful only in specific regions.

For example, if you're a landscaper who lives in Washington state, you probably don't want to pay for click-throughs from out-of-area visitors. After all, Texas-area residents aren't likely to request your services.

4. Day Parting (offered by Kanoodle). Right now, Kanoodle is the only search engine we know that offers this option. "Day parting" allows you to choose the time of day your ads will appear in different regions, so they're only available during "prime viewing times."

For example, if your market testing shows that most people click on your ads to make a purchase in the early evening, you can make sure your ads appear only at that time in the different regions where your potential customers live.

5. Keyword Research Tools (offered by Overture, Google AdWords, FindWhat, Kanoodle, LookSmart and Enhance Interactive). The most popular keyword phrases are always the most expensive. Keyword research tools help you find common variations and misspellings of the more popular keywords so you can keep costs down while still generating traffic.

More sophisticated keyword research tools let you see how much you need to bid to achieve a particular ranking (for example, the No. 1 spot, the No. 7 spot and so on) prior to finalizing your bid. They may also provide you with traffic estimates for the different keywords and phrases you bid on.

6. Multiple Ads for the Same Keyword (offered by Google AdWords). Google AdWords allows you to "split test" different ads for the same keyword so you can see which ad attracts the most paying customers. This can save you a lot of time, and enables you to make sure your ads will yield the highest possible return on your investment.

7. "Autobid" Software (offered by Overture, Google AdWords, FindWhat, Kanoodle, LookSmart and Enhance Interactive). Autobid software is a bid management program that tracks the bidding activity on your different keywords and automatically adjusts your bidding amount so you can maintain your ranking. The more sophisticated bid management programs allow you to "cap" your bids so you never spend more than you want.

They also eliminate "bid gaps" that occur when the bidder below your listing drops their bid—your bid is automatically reduced so you maintain your position without spending more per click than necessary.


Final Thoughts
If you haven't tried a PPC search engine campaign yet, I'd recommend doing it soon. There are still tons of cheap, targeted keywords waiting for your bids—but they may not be around much longer. More and more online businesses are realizing that—done right—a PPC campaign can be a fabulous source of cheap, instant, highly qualified traffic.

The best advice I can give you is this:


Bid on lots of cheap, targeted keywords and phrases, including misspellings, and avoid the expensive general words that everyone is bidding on.
Never bid more per click than what a single visitor is worth to your site—it's the best way to make sure your ads remain profitable.
Get listed in the "other" PPC search engines. You may be able to bid on popular terms you can't afford in Overture and Google AdWords.
Whenever possible, get ranked in the top 3 listings in Overture and Google AdWords. These ads appear on an extensive network of sites (including Yahoo!, MSN, AltaVista, Excite and more) and can reach up to 80 percent of all active internet users, so you get more bang for your buck.
Target your ads as much as possible. Write "custom" ads for each keyword and use the various bid management and targeting tools offered by the different PPC search engines to reduce your costs and increase your clicks.
Design your landing pages so they convert qualified visitors to buyers. If your ads promise "cat toys with bells," make sure they actually direct visitors to a page where it's easy for them to buy these items

Find out what the latest research can teach you about creating ads your prospects won't forget

Companies spend billions of marketing dollars each year to design memorable ad campaigns. But what does it really take to make your business's name or message stick in a prospect's mind? These methods will make your next campaign memorable:

Engage prospects. The more time someone spends with your ad, the more likely he or she is to remember it. "Vivid processing leads to better storage of memory," says Elizabeth F. Loftus, University of California, Irvine, distinguished professor of psychology, author of 21 books and an expert on memory malleability. The best ads get the advertiser or brand into the minds of prospects as they consider different possibilities.

How can you get prospects to spend more time with your ads? According to Philip W. Sawyer, director of Starch Communications, a Harrison, New York, testing firm specializing in readership studies, the most memorable print ads have messages that grab the reader. Those ads include headlines that contain a benefit and a strong visual focal point, such as a close-up of a model looking directly at you. One large photo works best in magazines, while in newspapers, you can use multiproduct visuals. A Starch Communications study on behalf of the Newspaper Association of America showed that when three-quarters of ad space was devoted to illustrations, recognition rates improved by 50 percent.


Add color and contrast. For magazine readers, high-contrast images also boost recognition. When Starch Communications tested two identical ads for Stolichnaya vodka—one with a white background and another with a black background—twice as many people remembered seeing the version with the black background, even though everything else in the ad was the same.

Testing also shows that, on average, larger ads in print media are more memorable. However, a creative ad in a small space can be more memorable than a so-so one that takes up a full page.

Some colors enhance memorability in print media-including sky blue, golden yellow and shades of blue-green. Red is a good spot color in newspapers, where Sawyer says color increases recognition by 20 percent. But there's new information about four-color ads in magazines: A few years ago, color ads earned 24 percent higher recognition scores than black-and-white ads. Now, full-page black-and-white campaigns are breaking through the clutter, and four-color ads have lost their advantage.


Communicate frequently. Repetition is important to memorability. At the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, psychologist Mark E. Wheeler conducted a study of memory in which a word was paired with a picture or sound many times over several days to test subjects' recognition rates. He says exposure to information in different contexts helps you remember it. So when you see a message in different formats, such as a print ad, a billboard and a TV commercial, he says, "You associate the different impressions, and that helps you retrieve the information when you need it."


Use memorable benefits. Ads that grab and hold a prospect's attention are those that immediately communicate a benefit that answers the question, What's in it for me? The bottom line, says Sawyer, is that features aren't memorable-benefits are. "If you have a headline that states a benefit, people will read it, remember it and clip it out of the magazine or newspaper and hold onto it. And that's the trump card for everything."


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Contact Marketing Expert Kim T. Gordon, author of Bringing Home the Business, at www.smallbusinessnow.com.

E-Commerce Essentials: Setting Up Your Online Store

It's possible to sell an endless variety of products and services over the Internet. No matter what you sell, however, an e-commerce site must provide the same basic services your customers would expect if they were doing business with you in person.

Help Customers Find What They Need

Would you shop at a store where the items were organized at random, with no signs or guides? Of course not. Yet a surprising number of online stores make it nearly impossible for customers to find what they need.

Before you launch your store, think carefully about how to organize your products and give customers more than one way to find what they're looking for. For example, you can provide intuitive links to different product categories, a search function where customers can enter a product name or "breadcrumb trails" that allow customers to retrace their steps on your Web site.

The same rule applies to providing your company's return and exchange policies, contact information, shipping charges and other information customers want before they complete purchases.

Don't Keep Customers Waiting

When a customer hits the Buy button, they don't expect to spend several minutes waiting for a response — or even worse, get an error message. In fact, nothing frustrates customers more than a Web site that keeps them guessing about their orders.

There's a simple solution to this problem: Make sure your software and servers are capable of handling whatever your customers throw at them. If you're using a third-party service, this means ensuring they use first-rate technology. If you're building your own site from scratch, it means investing in the best possible software and hardware.

Make It Easy for Customers to Pay

Online stores can accept a variety of payment types: credit cards, electronic cash, purchase orders, or cash and checks sent via mail. Different types of businesses will need to accept different payment types; make sure your e-commerce provider can handle the ones your customers are likely to use. For offline payments, such as cash and checks sent via mail or credit card numbers sent via fax, publish your mailing address and fax and phone numbers in an obvious place on your site.

Online payments present another special challenge: security. Although sending a credit card number over the Internet is extremely safe, customers still worry. Most online payment systems send credit card numbers and other sensitive information via encrypted connections. If your system does this, make sure customers know their information is absolutely secure.

Finally, keep in mind that you'll need a merchant account to accept credit card transactions. If you already have an account for your existing business, you might be able to use the same account to accept credit cards online. In other cases, your Web developer or hosting service can help you establish a merchant account with an online transaction-processing service.

Converting Clicks to Cash: Closing Online Sales

Your site is finished and your online store is up and running, but your work is just beginning. Your next task is to optimize your site to maximize sales and focus on customer conversion.
Here are a few suggestions on converting click-throughs to purchases.

Design

Clean design and easy-to-understand navigation is key to a successful e-business site. Your customers need to be able to find your merchandise quickly and get around your site easily. If customers don't find what they are looking for quickly, they may leave your store before making a purchase.

Site copy

Compelling copy can also help you optimize your sales. Spend some time fine-tuning your site’s content to make sure that it is appealing and helps sell your products. Good copy is informative, short, and to the point, listing all of the key details of your products in an easy-to-read format.

Once your copy is written, analyze it to make sure it is optimized for search engines. The best way to ensure you get your fair share of traffic from search engines is by placing appropriate keywords throughout your pages.

When search engines index sites, they go through pages looking for keywords and rank Web pages accordingly. If you have popular keywords throughout your copy, search engines will include your Web site in search results for those terms.

Special offers

Now that the mechanics are out of the way, you can focus on increasing the appeal of your products by offering free gifts or running specials. The best way to entice a new customer to purchase from your company instead of your competition is by offering them something that they can't get anywhere else. Here are a few examples.


Sales. The old standby, the sale, works just as well online as offline. If your business is seasonal, offer a discount during a traditional slow period. Alternately, if you have too much inventory of a particular type, you can mark it down dramatically in an attempt to move it. Advertisement

Free shipping.

Instead of offering a discount on your products, you can discount your shipping for a limited time, or offer free shipping for purchases over a certain amount. Offering free shipping on orders over $100, for example, may encourage a customer to add to his or her order to get free shipping.

Coupons.

Coupons are a proven way to increase return customer sales, which can keep a business going for a long time. If you can keep your existing customers happy, they can provide a large percentage of your sales.

E-books or newsletters.

Free information related to the products you sell can be a cost-effective way to keep customers coming back. For example, if you sell home furnishings in your store, you could offer a free e-book about interior design principles.
If you don't have time to write an e-book, you may be able to find existing copy to redistribute to your customers. Try researching topics for items that you sell and see if you can find anything that ties in well with your store.

Updating your site regularly is critical to keeping your customers coming back. Employing the techniques above will force you to keep your site fresh, as you rotate your offers throughout your business cycle. New content lets your customers know that your online business is thriving, and will let them know you are in it for the long haul.

5 Key Mistakes Online Stores Make

We all make mistakes in business -- and hopefully we learn from them. But here are five key mistakes that can quickly spell the end of your online store.

1. Not advertising. Many e-tailers expect customers to find them by accident. But with millions of Web sites competing for a finite number of customers, this gets less and less likely with each passing day. If you don't advertise your store, your chances of attracting new customers are slim.

The good news is that you don't have to spend a lot of money to advertise your store effectively. Targeted e-newsletter and keyword ads are cost-effective ways of reaching customers who are already interested in your products.

2. A sloppy Web site. If your store looks like it was thrown together and is difficult to navigate, customers will look elsewhere. Your Web site is your link to customers; as such, it should look as professional as you can make it. It will inspire confidence in your users and let them know you take your business seriously.

Even if you are not a Web design expert, you can use templates to build a sleek, simple site. Invest the time to make your site the best it can be. The reward will be a professional site that is appealing to consumers.

3. Not optimizing your site for search engines. It's been estimated that as much as 70 percent of all online purchases start with a Web search at one of the major search engines. If your site doesn't appear within the first couple of pages of search results, you can say goodbye to that 70 percent of sales. Make sure your content reflects your product offerings, and is rich in relevant keywords.

4. Poor customer service. If you can't keep your existing customers happy, you can forget about attracting new ones. Word travels quickly on the Internet, and it only takes one unhappy customer to start a snowball effect that can ruin your company.

This also applies to stores that don't post their contact information prominently on their site. This can give customers the impression that there's nowhere for them to turn if they have a problem, which can lead to a loss of sales. You don't need to offer round-the-clock phone support -- just post an email address and let your customers know how long it will take you to respond.

5. A stale site. If you have not updated your site in the last six months, you run the risk of looking like a dead company. Even if you only add new updates on your products, more information, or restructure your site a little, it gives the impression that you are still there and interested in your company.

And just like in the offline world, you need to conduct market research and competitive assessment. Find out what your competitors are offering that you are not, or if they are beating your prices.

These five key mistakes can mean the difference between success and utter failure. Just because you have a Web site does not mean your work is done. Selling online requires commitment, just as running a brick-and-mortar store does. If you get complacent, there's no shortage of competitors waiting to siphon off your customers.

21 Ways to Promote Your Site Online and Off

These 21 tips will help you get the word out about your e-business.

Offline Promotions

1. Always put your URL on letterhead, business cards and in e-mail signatures—wherever potential visitors are likely to see it.

2. If your employees wear uniforms, put your URL on them so every one of your customers sees a walking advertisement of your Web site.

3. Include your URL on all promotional items you give away—coffee mugs, T-shirts, keychains and so on. A daily reminder is a good way to get people to visit your site.

4. Be sure to include your Web address in all press releases you send out to members of the media. By having it at their fingertips, they may be more likely to include it in articles they write about your company.

5. Don't forget to put your Web address in your Yellow Pages ad. That's one place people see it every day.

6. Do you own any company vehicles? Be sure to put your URL on the side of any car or truck that's out there delivering your products.

7. In addition to listing your toll-free number, put your Web address on the bottom of every page of your catalog so customers have easy access to your online store.

Online Promotions

8. Hone your search engine submission process so you can get the best exposure possible.

9. If you're still itching for more exposure, you can explore search engine marketing, wherein you pay to have a text ad appear when visitors search for certain keywords.

10. Launch a sweepstakes that offers anyone who registers on your site or subscribes to e-newsletters within a certain time frame the chance to win a free gift.

11. Send out a weekly e-mail newsletter to registered site members that offers tips and news related to your company or industry with links back to your site.

12. Offer free content to other sites. It's a win-win situation: The other site gets free articles to beef up their offerings and you get a link back to your site and the cachet of being an expert.

13. Send a well-planned, customer-focused e-mail promotion to a targeted list of potential visitors and offer a credit toward the purchase of anything from your site. Spend time on your e-mail's look and content: You want to offer value to customers and not have it appear to be spam.

14. Create your own link exchange by asking sites complementary to yours (but that don't compete) to put your link on their pages and you'll do likewise.

15. Hook up with Web affiliates—hundreds of sites that all link their traffic to yours—and get visitors from sites with related content.

16. Get active in online discussion groups and chats and always include your URL in your signature. (Don't do any hard selling, though. Most groups frown on such behavior and will think you're spamming the group.)

17. Any time someone orders a product from your site, include a catalog with their order to get them coming back for more.

18. Inspire your visitors to spread the word for you with viral marketing techniques, from the aforementioned newsgroup participation to including an "e-mail this link" on every page of your site.

19. Not sure what your customers want? Try creating an online survey to get their crucial opinions on how well your site is selling to them.

20. When creating your own ads, make sure you understand who you're targeting, the goal of your campaign, and how to creatively use the ad confines to get viewers to click on your ad, not away from it.

21. Use other selling venues like online classified advertising or online auction sites to increase exposure to your site and products.

Finding and Securing a Domain Name

The first step in choosing a name is obviously to try to register the name of your business with a .com at the end. Unfortunately, this isn't as cut-and-dried as it sounds because all the good names are most likely taken-including allthegoodnamesaretaken.com. By the time you read this, the name you want will most likely have been snatched up by someone else.

Now it's time to wheedle and whine to the holder of your desired domain until he coughs it up. Becca Williams, owner of Wallnutz, a Portland, Oregon-based homebased business that offers paint-by-number mural kits for kids' rooms, got Wallnutz.com from the original registrant by dishing up that world-class motivator: money.

If the .com version of your name is gone and you can't buy it off the owner, try .net or .org. New domain names like .biz, .info and .us are also available but not used as widely. If even those are taken, you can register your name in one of the more than 100 non-U.S. top level domains (TLDs) like .cc and .nu. The drawback is that these don't have the recognition of .com-and your prospects will automatically slap on a .com if your domain name hasn't imprinted itself on their noggins. The results can be hilarious: Let me just say whitehouse.com does not lead to the Web site of our president's new digs. If you're older than 18, check it out and imagine a customer stumbling upon that site instead of yours.

If you're still stuck without a domain at this point, it's time to get creative. Many business owners can get a reasonable facsimile of their name by adding prefixes and suffixes like "e," "i," "cyber," "online," and "the" or using hyphens. When Shannon Rubio of Spring, Texas, found that SmileBox.com was already registered, she registered TheSmileBox.com for her goodie-filled gift box company.

To check what's available and what's not, visit Network Solutions. Other businesses now offer domain registration, but this place was the first, and it has the technology down pat.

The drill is simple: You try a name, and Network Solutions tells you if it's available. When you strike out--that is, the names you want are taken--Network Solutions will provide alternative suggestions. You can also use their brainstorming tools on their Domain Name page: Enter keywords and you'll get possibilities that are available for registration. Find a name that suits you, and the charge is currently $25 a year when you register the name for three two years.

Trademarking Your Domain

Because your domain is such a big part of your e-commerce business, you'll want to be sure to protect it. The best way to do that is through trademark law. A trademark is a word or symbol used to identify the source of goods or services to consumers.

You may apply for registration of a trademark or service mark, word, phrase or image after you use the mark to identify a product sold or service performed "in commerce," which means that you've used it for advertising and/or sale to customers. Your online business name can be a service (for trademark purposes) if it provides any kind of service to consumers: information access, ticket booking, online dating and so on. If your site sells the goods you manufacture, then your product names would be goods for trademark purposes. Trademark rights arise upon use in commerce--with or without national registration--of the name of the good or service. However, national registration expands and protects your trademark rights, giving your company a presumption of first use of the mark in association with particular goods or services.

The trademark office will not register a domain name that does not also meet the requirements of being a trademark; a domain name by itself is considered merely an address. Having trademark rights allows you to protect your domain name against others who might allege that it infringes on their trademark and try to have it legally taken from you, and also allows you to enforce your trademark rights against others who use domain names similar to yours to try to divert your customers.

Trademarks are complex, so make sure you read more about them or consult an attorney for your particular situation. You can learn more at www.uspto.gov.

Activating Your Domain

No matter what hosting solution you select, the process of activating your TLD is the same. The host will assign your domain name an IP (Internet Protocol) address, which consists of four numbers separated by full stops, log the IP number onto the host's primary and secondary DNS (domain name services) servers and broadcast to the Internet. The DNS servers will have hostnames and their own IP addresses. This information is required to modify your domain name profile kept by your registrar. Your profile can be modified by either you or your host. The name servers specified in your domain name profile will be the primary destination routers on the Internet used to resolve requests for your domain name or unique IP address.

Once you have a host, most of this maintenance will be done for you. You can provide permission for your host to update your domain name profile, and their technicians will take care of updating the DNS servers so your domain name can be resolved through its unique IP address