I have been telling clients for sometime to get the domains that they think about, even if it is just the .net version. This goes to show how a somewhat meaningless investment can turn in to.

Chris Clark, the man who had the inspiration to register Pizza.com domain more than twenty years ago, accepted to sell it for $2.6 million.

According to Baltimore Sun, Chris Clark bought the name back in 1994, hoping that the domain would help him score a contract with a pizza company. But six years later he sold his Internet consulting company, but he kept paying the $20 monthly fee for the domain.

But when he heard that in 2006 a Russian company paid $3 million for Vodka.com, he decided to put its domain on auction. Clark turned to Sedo.com to help him sell the domain. The auction has started with $100, but in just two days the bidding hit 2 million.

“Really generic description domains are hot commodities these days, especially the ones that encapsulate an entire industry,” said Jeremiah Johnston, Sedo’s chief operating officer, quoted by Baltimore Sun. Sedo.com refused to disclose the identity of the new owner of Pizza.com.

Chris Clark, who now owns Minestream Software Corp., a company that sells Internet protection products, said he has not idea what he will do with the money.

Of course, he has only one regret. “In ‘94, you could have just registered everything and anything,” Clark said. “I think about that now, yeah”.

Read the Article Online Here

Many studies have been done regarding submission forms. It’s been proven that 3 data collection fields are ok, however when you go to the 4th field, the ratio of completed forms drops by over 50%. This is a key determining factor in how many fields your form should be.

In almost every case, you are going to be calling your prospect anyway, so why should you make it more difficult for them to get information or get you to call. Just get their name, phone number and email. That is sufficient. Then follow up with them as you normally would. I would rather call many people and find out more information, with the prospect that I will get the business, than call less than half of those people because I lost the opportunity to contact others due to a lengthy estimate request form.

Remember that people are busy and they really don’t want to fill out lengthly forms on websites. They also have some anxiety over having to fill out the form a second time if it doesn’t work right the first time.

Building links from other websites is a key to getting traffic. Google sees links that point to your site as an indicator that your site is important. It is also important to note the text used to point to your site. Be sure to use the same text, when possible, to point to your site.

The question I always get is who do I approach to get a link to my site. Instead of approaching other sites, simply do a search for "free directory" and you will find many different online directories similar to the yellow pages. Use these to gain inbound links to your site. Many of these directories permit free listing with no link back, which is ideal.

Focus on adding at least one of these free links per week. The more the better. If you are asked to link back, that is ok, add it to a links page. However, if you are asked to pay, skip that site and move to the next one. Paid links are not worth it, there are far too many free options out there. Once you add your listing, many of the sites will offer upgrades for additional money, this is up to you to upgrade or not. Generally speaking, take the free link and move on to the next directory.

Here are a couple directories that we own that you can post your link for free (you may already be there so be sure to check first), www.worcestercountybusinesses.com, and www.northeastbusinessdirectory.com. Finding directories is not too difficult, it just takes some time.

As some of you know, I have been published in the Worcester Business Journal a number of times and they just published another one of my articles regarding online newsrooms. Take a minute and read the article to see if there is any information that you might find valuable to your business.

Click Here to read the article online.

Working on your site is not an incredibly difficult thing to do, however getting the time to do it always is difficult. Rarely do you have extra time in your business day to do this type of work, therefore let me recommend the best way to do this. Schedule 1 hour per week.

If you schedule the time to work on your site, then you will do something each week. If you miss an appointment with yourself during one of those weeks, at least you have worked on your site for 3 hours that month. The key to growing your site and making it more effective is to work on it.

If you schedule the time, then you will be more likely to do something that is beneficial for your website. If you don’t have the time, or are thoroughly bored by such tasks, then you can consult a web development company to assist you in your maintenance. If you hold a meeting with the company to go over your goals for the quarter, you will be able to set an agenda for the work that you want to get done.

Working on your site each month is a true way to grow your site, it’s the number one key to growing your site. In addition, if you do the work yourself you can save some money and over the long run your site will become a good size with really good content and will be attracting the right customers that you are looking for.

Stay Tuned for Tip #9. We are counting down each week to cover the top 10.