Be careful when selecting domain names because…your domain name may mean something that you’re not aware of.
While surfing through the PepperJam affiliate network‘s list of merchants, I came across an interesting banner:
Because all the letters in the domain name are in lowercase, you’re open to interpret it in a different way.
One way could be “Blind Sex Press”. Leaving one to wonder…what is that?
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Using a series of uppercase characters can help visitors instantly recognize the domain and can help pre-qualify the traffic.
In this case the merchant, Blinds Express, could consider changing their creatives to read BlindsExpress.com, instead of blindsexpress.com.
Affiliates can benefit too, because it will increase the return on their marketing spend.
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Check out my previous post about the launch of the Pepperjam Network (PJN).
I like to manage my risks by spreading my domains across multiple registrars.
My favorite domain registrar remains Namecheap. (see latest Namecheap discount code)
Although I have a couple over at GoDaddy. The latest discount code for domain renewals (working as of 2nd May 2008) is “ZINE3“. (Cuts 1 year renewal fee from $9.95 to $6.95, before taxes).
What I don’t quite like about GoDaddy is that the admin panel is somewhat clunky, it takes a while to refresh it’s settings.
Having said that, having all your domains at one registrar is probably a worse outcome – and I’d say that NameCheap and GoDaddy would be my picks among the hundreds of domain registrars and sub-registrars out there.
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On the Web Hosting front, I’d suggest newer webmasters take up a shared webhosting account (This blog ran on a shared webhost for about 2 years) – and you can expect up to 500 websites to share a single server.
My preferred choice remains BlueHost.
I’ll have a future post on higher grade webhosting accounts like: premium shared webhosting, VPS/VDS (virtual private/virtual dedicated servers) and dedicated servers.
