Tools for choosing a domain name

// July 6th, 2007 // 2 Comments » // work

In my manual about starting your own blog I already wrote some tips for choosing a domain name. To help the people that still need that perfect name for their company, application or weblog I have some nice links:

• MyDomain When you search for a domain and it’s no longer available you can click on the “suggested domains” link. You will automatically get a list of domains that are still available and match your keywords.
• DomainNameSoup Here you can find all kind of tools that help you to pick a nice domain. A nice feature is the special page where you can look up a random selection of previous searches which at the time showed up as available.
• Sedo If you have no more inspiration you can always look at what other people are trying to sell. Maybe this will give you some new thoughts about a good name.
• Nameboy You can give in keywords and the site will generate domain names that you can register or back-order.

How does an SEO expert knows it’s time for holiday?

// July 3rd, 2007 // 1 Comment » // fun

From my colleague Mitchel Geerts I received this list in an email today. He definitely needs a holiday break because he was laughing every time. I admit that I laughed about some of them, but come on… pronouncing Krasilovsky is almost impossible. Test it yourself! As an SEO expert you need a holiday when….

1. You wish the people who do movie credits would start spelling stunt dubl the right way.
2. When helping a client find the right domain, you suggest she add “moz” to the legal business name.
3. The S, E, and O keys on your keyboard are broken.
4. When your son tells you he wants to go play in the sandbox, you tell him it doesn’t exist. Or…
5. When your son tells you he wants to go play in the sandbox, you fear you won’t see him again for eight months.
6. You think the idea of spending four days in Chicago in December sounds fun.
7. You can pronounce Krasilovsky.
8. You giggle like a little girl every time you tell the butcher you’d like some pork Cuttlets.
9. Latent Semantic Indexing makes sense to you.
10. When your child asks you to explain the myth of Sisyphus, you tell her about the DMOZ submission process.
11. You lay awake at night wondering who would win a foot race: a marketing pilgrim or a marketing sherpa.
12. You feel uncomfortable and out of place at a minor league baseball game because you don’t see a Text Link Ads advertisement on the outfield wall.
13. At the same ball game, you wonder why the souvenir stand is only selling gray hats.
14. On a visit to the zoo, you realize that the graywolf, web guerilla, and randfish exhibits must be closed. You’re pissed about that.
15. You know the URLs for Search Engine Guide, Search Engine Herald, Search Engine Journal, Search Engine Lowdown, Search Engine Roundtable, and Search Engine Watch, and can explain the nuances which make each unique, not to mention rattle off the list of writers for each one, including those who write for more than one of them.
16. Following in the footsteps of Cartoon Barry, your brilliant idea for 2007 is to create an alter-ego for yourself called “SEO Shaft.” Your blog’s tagline will be “Can ya Digg it?”
17. You wish every search engine had a duplicate content filter as good as TiVo’s.
18. When your daughter brings home a new boyfriend to meet you, your first thought is to check his backlinks.
19. Your second thought is to warn them about the dangers of reciprocal linking.
20. You just wrote an article titled “50 Amazing Things For Sale in My Garage This Weekend.” You think the local paper will publish it. Or at least link to it.
21. You laughed at anything on this list!

I am 82% addicted to blogging

// July 3rd, 2007 // 3 Comments » // fun

Mark de Kock posted a funny test from Mingle2 which concluded that I am 82% addicted to blogging:
82%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

Try it yourself by clicking on the image.

Selling 4 letter pronounceable domain: jibr.com

// July 1st, 2007 // No Comments » // work

I bought this domain some time ago planning a web 2.0 startup. The only problem is that I still don’t have any idea what it will be. For months now I’m thinking about something nice and easy to develop. A simple startup (no big company) but something that makes the web a little bit better. I have a lot of ideas and I’m still working on some of them. At this moment I’m facing some difficulties because I can’t develop or build myself a web application.

This is what I want to do: Sell the domain and use the money to fund the project. I think this will be a good decision because I will no longer be focused on the name, but on the project. To me it sounds more logic to name the project when you know what it will be.

The domain is listed on sedo.com where I also bought it.  I did an analyze on dnscoop.com and it gives the domain an estimated value of  $5.234 (without content, links, PR or anything). I don’t think I will match these magic numbers but any serious offer is welcome.

How to make your own blog; the theme

// July 1st, 2007 // No Comments » // wordpress

I am writing a manual on how to start your own blog because of the requests I got in the last few months. The first step was to get a domain and hosting, the second to install wordpress. After this we are going to choose a nice theme for the blog.

One of the nicest things about WordPress is the big community developing this software. There are a lot of themes available you can easily put on your blog. I’m currently using a customized version of Peaceful Rush made by Small Potato. My previous blog was using the Hemingway theme.

To install a theme you need to download it, unzip the file and put it in your wp-content/themes folder. When you go to your WordPress dashboard you can select the theme under “presentation”. It’s amazingly easy to tweak your blog in a few minutes.

The best place to look for a theme is the WordPress theme viewer website. You can sort the themes by selecting some of the options like color, number of columns, sidebar or width. When you find a nice theme you can look at a live demo to see if you like it. There are a lot of other websites where you can find themes like the wpdesigner website. Or you can simply use google.

If you run into a website that is using WordPress but you can’t find the name of the theme try to look in the stylesheet. Most of the times you can find the authors information here.