A quick note for those new to the craft:  Keywords can be defined as the specific terms used by person to search for something on the net. For example, to find this page, you may have searched for “domain names” or “best domain names”.

A good domain name will contain one or two keywords related to the niche you have chosen. The shorter the keyword the better but is become increasingly hard to find good two word names and a one word name is nearly impossible. You can however increase your odds by adding your name (or something you make up to the keywords. For example,the keyword combination “guitar lessons” gets a lot of searches, 28,000 per  month at the time of this righting. This domain name is taken but by making it dougsguitarlessons.com you will still get a boost in the search engine rankings from the keywords “guitar lessons”

Another method that I actually prefer is to reasearch the keywords related to my niche and find and exact match to use as my domain name. It sometimes has as many as 4 words in the name but is guaranteed to bring organic search and higher page rankings.  Again using “guitar lessons” as an example, take a look below.

As you can see above “guitarlessons.com” is fifth on the the search page with some very heavy hitters as competition. The domain name by itself will never bring you a lot of traffic (visitors). There is much more work to be done if you want the kind of traffic that the sites above recieve.

Anyway, this is how I choose my domain names. It first starts with keyword research and while there are many keyword tools on the market that you can buy one of the best is actually free. It is the “Google Search-Based Keyword Tool”. When you enter “guitar lessons” in the “word or phrase box” and click on “Find Keywords” the result is show below.

Once I have done this I will click on the export button and export the results to an excell spreadsheet. I then copy the the first column of the spreadsheet, which are the keywords and paist them to notepad. Once in notepad I take out all the spaces between the words and delete any phrases that don’t fit my niche and you will get the result below.

I will then go to “PlugSocket”, it’s free, where they have a multiple domain name search tool that allows you to try ten domain names at a time and it will tell you if they are available or not. You may have to go through as many as 100 domain names before you find one that is available and you like.

Once you have one you are satisfied with go to your web host and register the domain name and you are ready to build your site. Remember though, the domain name isn’t everything. There are many factors to building a website and your domain name is just one of them. In fact some of the sites with the best traffic have the craziest names but they do other things really well.

Make a list of the topics you have a real interest in and you think you would enjoy writing about. Your goal when creating a blog is to become an authority on the topic chosen. You want people to believe that you know what you are talking about. This is much easier if it is a subject you are familiar with.

Sound too easy? Where’s the catch? The catch is that the blog you so carefully created may not generate much if any income. I could go into how to choose a money making niche here but I won’t because I believe it is more important to learn all that is involved in creating an authority site. Once you have that mastered you can create a blog a month (if your not working a day job) that will provide varying levels of income.

You see, the problem is no one can put everything you need to know into one of these books you see advertised. And the sad truth is almost any system or method you find will work if you stick to it but very few actually stick with it.

Take me for example, I started my online ventures 3 years ago and have probably spent $2000 dollars on various programs. Not all wasted money as I learned a little bit from each of them. I also had more than 20 domains up and running. If your really thinking about trying your hand at internet marketing here are a few of the lessons I learned.

1. WordPress is the easiest platform to get started with. Even so, after 3 years I am still learning how to modify it to fit my needs but the great part about it is you can get started without having to modify a thing and there are thousands of free themes to choose from. You can improve on my learning curve if you purchase a wordpress guide. One of the best I have seen is WordPress for Internet Marketers.
2. Don’t try to do too much at first. As I said before, I had more than twenty sites going at one time. I work a full time day job and there was just no way I could keep up with that many. When I decided to focus on three related sites I began to understand what it takes to be successful. I am now getting more than 6000 visitors a month to my primary website and have 10 keywords showing up on the first page of google, one is number one for that keyword and two other keywords are number 2
3. Start with something you like. You may not make any money at it but you will learn much of what you will need to know to be successful later on and believe me it is much easier creating content about something you already know.

I hope I haven’t confused you but as I said before, internet marketing is a lot of work with a lot to learn. If you are looking for a get rich quick scheme or a lazy mans ways to riches you are wasting your time and money.