African Domain Names:Domaining from Scratch, Mastering the first rule

Mastering the First Rule
Domaining is a very exciting world and you need all your wits together to balance the raw enthusiasm, the high adrenaline with cold and good business sense. That's why, three days after pumping Ksh.8000($100) into my Visa Card, I have still not made a purchase in spite of mouth watering offers from GoDaddy. GoDaddy is not number one for nothing; GoDaddy can sell sand to the Arabs, these people have a great and personalized marketing sense and if you are not careful, you might find yourself buying 60 domain names before you even start thinking. So forget the Greenpeace brouhaha about the shooting of elephants, I am sure Greenpeace members across the world are wrapping some green domains, and guess where?On GoDaddy.

So for the last three days, I have been adding some African domain names, mostly geonames, to the basket only to remove them hours later; I almost came close to closing the deal on a few purchases but backed off at the last minute. I remembered the advise Morgan Linton gave in his domaining guidebook: Never go on a domain buying spree before you have understood the basics. Remember, you need a good name, a good business plan and a good marketing plan.

The Good Name

"A good name will shine forever."

So how do i choose the name that will take me to the promised land of $$$$? You need to know about keyword search using Adwords. Enter keyword phrases and look for what people search in a certain niche. Analyze the search traffic and the CPC, this the cost per click. Also check how competitive the keyword phrase is? High competition might confine you to page 2 or 3 and as you know, in SEO,page 2 sucks!
 
Here is a screen shot of my search for "travel to kenya"

Once you get the results, put your brain into top gear. Remember, you need three things:High search volume, high CPC and low/medium competition. As my rule of thumb, the keyword phrase I will choose must have a search volume of at least 1000 and at least CPC of $1.50 and medium competition. Always remember, page 2 sucks!
Click the "Download" drop down and choose all. Then save the keywords in "CSV for Excel" Format. Now the next step is choosing the RIGHT domain names for your domaining businesses. Names that are easy to monetize and that you are likely to resell if need be. So copy all the keyword phrases in Excel and use Moniker's batch domain suggestion tool. Scroll through the domain name suggestions and choose the best domain names based on search volume and CPC.

Now you have the good name,remember, a  good name will shine forever. Now spend the next three days thinking on whether you REALLY want to be a domainer. Currently I am on day 2 and I think I will say YES by tomorrow.

Suggestions and tips are very welcome, remember, am not a domaining expert but a newbie who will share his experience with you every step of the way, until I start earning $5000 per month.Then, I will quit blogging. In the next post, I will show how to take advantage of best offers, where to buy cool domains. Then I will reveal what domain names I have purchased and why I arrived at that decision.
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