A few years ago I wanted to have a separate phone number for a startup company, but since we are only a few members, and in different locations, it needed to on a system we could all make calls from it and redirect for availability. After trying a couple I've found RingCentral.com to be the best and most affordable. Here are some of the key features for a small company that can make you look like a big well run operation. First you choose a number for your business, then with their phone app, you to make and receive calls from your cell phone with the other number. When some calls your business you can route them by extensions you set up to other employees cell phones and everyone can make make and receive calls from that number. It's one of many great features, plus you have logging to see what calls have been made. This feature is really helpful to make sure you don't miss or followed up on a call. There's even a feature for direct digital recording your calls. Take a test drive on RingCentral.com.
There's a revolution in technology going on and for as many businesses that get it, many intelligent organizations still just do not. I get a few offers, most of them low, on different domain names every month and one of the questions I was asked by a potential purchaser was, how do I arrive at a price?
It's a fair question and to put an answer to it, here's the rationale behind the numbers. First, like real estate domain names are virtual property, but with several valuable added dimensions. Domains are the way customers find your business, remember your location and spread the news about your products. It's your business address for all practical purposes. Ninety percent of the people you do business with will never visit your business at it's physical location, but they'll all check your website, which is by way of your domain name.
Names that have more traffic or are capable of generating more traffic with short memorable names are worth more and their market demand is more. Like having a shop on main street vs. opening up a business on a rural road. A good memorable name that suits your business or product lines brings customers and helps them find their way back to you. Most company names are picked without the customer in mind or without any marketing considerations, just a name that means something to the organization on a somewhat emotional level. You can spend millions branding a odd name or bring the brand to your door with a descriptive name. And with domain names, you can have several or hundreds of names to drive traffic to your business.
The method, internet media. Consider the pro's and cons of different advertising media. There's print, TV, radio and internet. Print, I throw it out. It's garbage that comes with my printed mail. I haven't bought a newspaper in over 10 years at least and the last time I think I looked at a magazine, I was either in a doctors office or on a plane. Forget print, it's over. The postal service is nostalgic and I'd be willing to bet 100 percent privatized within 10 years. TV, I watch movies for the most part or change the channel during the commercials. Watching the Atlanta Falcons beat the Aint's in the season opener, I saw a couple of ads, but couldn't tell you what they were today. I'm moving in the direction of subscription TV like Netflix and Hulu. I'm not alone. Radio, okay you get ads in front of me while driving more often then I care to say. Occasionally, I am too lazy to load a playlist from my phone or all the stations that I have programmed in are in sync with their commercial's timed together. Traffic reports get me to tune in, but the rest of the noise I could do without. I get about half of percent of anything useful from radio news. The tone and rate of speech only ramps up tension. I'm working on weaseling out listening to main stream radio all together. Half the time I enjoy just listening to silence.
The internet has main access to get in-front of my eyes. I am on the net at home, at work, even while visiting a store in the mall I might be checking prices of a competitor on my phone. I have discretionary income and I move quickly. Like a lot of your customers, I have much to manage and like in the real world, I have to be street smart online and as nimble as a forest creature to find the best deals. I validate a business I am going to use based on the domain they have, how their website looks, works and if they have a phone number on their contact page. Usually I like a second opinion, options or it's just the way to complete due diligence by checking a few other sites. How I find that second, third or fourth site through search or by their domain name directly is potentially a company I'll be working with. CEO's of those companies are the CEO's that are likely to make their 17 percent growth targets and are the ones that get their bonuses. They're the one that get it. I price domain names comparable to other media even when that media is less effective.
30 seconds on Atlanta TV during prime time will cost you 30k and your money is gone just that fast. Most industry magazine ads will cost you upwards of 1200 per month for a four color, 1/2 to full page ad and you don't even know if anyone is reading it. Your domain name is yours perpetually. The internet is even more revolutionary as the phone system was when it came into being some 120 years ago and as fast as technology grows, the internet is not going to be replaced anytime soon. With a great domain name you look like the authority in your industry. Most clients will never see your office, I can't stress enough how important your online presence is. Technology is the only industry that has had double digit growth since the 70's and looks to be booming for the rest of man's existence. The slope of the curve is about to go vertical.
The short, memorable, brand-able, desirable names, and what other similar domains have sold for, makes for the price range listed. We encourage you to make offers on our domains and other available names. The cost, effectiveness and value is continually rising.
The only people I hear spouting about new domain name extensions (gTLD's) are the one's who have a stake in their success as a registry or those looking to recoup their investment. Truth is with the scarcity of good dot com extensions dwindling at less than insane prices, good .com domain names are going up in value. The time to buy is now while traffic is slower over the summer months and before the market starts to pick up again in the fall. If you're unaware of all the other extensions and when they came about, there is an info graphic here at Key-Systems.net from a few years ago.
When buying a gTLD, ask yourself when was the last time you went to one, and where does the the majority of spam come from? I think you'll find that the answer is a .garbage extension. Registering one of these will drive help traffic to the .com, .net or .org domain names respectively above it. There are 882 domain extensions at last count, but your customers just know of the top three. If you're looking to increase your brand or to expand a product line, while the US economy is beginning to soar again, buy now before prices return to pre 2005 levels. There is a market correction coming that will swing .com names up beyond any levels we've seen them at. Get them before they turn into gold.
There's a insightful article on The Wall Street Journal about the continued closings of retail stores. The Business Insider had an article earlier about the same topic. It's all the more reason to get your business online or tune it up and expand your marketplaces, no matter what type of products you sell. The article focuses on retail outlets declining and how more people are finding the convenience of online shopping. What the article doesn't say is that the shopping habits of retail are being carried over into all business classes. B2B (business to business) decisions are being made the same manor. If your business isn't found or engaging enough, customers are going elsewhere at light speed. To further that statement, the experience they find while using your site, is exactly how they perceive working with your organization to be. It's your corporate image. It's your credibility and it tells how well run your organization is, be it corporate, a government agency or a charitable organization. Not many people will ever see your place of work, but chances are they will visit your website at all hours of the day. Just ask your analytics guy. People follow up in the evening, weekends and at all hours of the day outside of normal business hours. It's how research is done. The more advanced will employ secondary research groups to dig deeper, but generally what they see in the search results or after trying a few URL's (domain names) is it. Two key points for making more money. Get a great domain name for your business and keeping acquiring them while they are inexpensive. Some businesses own hundreds of thousands of names. Disney has about 20k names, some pharmaceutical companies own even more. The internet isn't going anywhere and isn't going to be replaced anytime in the next 30 years. Names you could have bought 10 years ago for a few thousand will never be available for sale again for less. Buy words in English and .com extensions. These will always be the best most memorable search friendly names that bring affluent customers to your door. Build a scalable and dynamic website. Keep adding relevant content and you'll keep driving targeted traffic. If you sell widgets, you want to attract people buying widgets. Your website needs to the best you can present for your market and dynamic. Dynamic is fresh, evolving content and interactive. Interactivity is how you listen to your customer's needs. This is how to communicate, make it easy and make it fun, gamify it. Read more on web development and building your user engagement here.
Several articles came out about US Marshall's using small aircraft to gather data on all US citizens and that's it. There's no follow up, no more that will come of it and the data mining will continue unabated. Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple said years ago that privacy is dead. And, to my surprise it went with out a fight or even the smallest hint of a protest.
The right to privacy is one of the fundamental rights in the Bill of Rights, actually it's number 6 on the list of 10 rights that were so important they were added to the Constitution. Except for a few articles, from the Wall Street Journal to Fox News, it doesn't even make the nightly news. Is it that people just don't care, is it a trade off for keeping law and order among the masses? Or is this incident just one of the many ways that our freedoms are rapidly eroding? What happens when you act outside of your profile? How many alarm bells ring then?
Read the full article on TechNewsWorld.com.
Many online businesses have been thriving throughout the pandemic, some have had an unprecedented 2nd quarter. How? The answer is simple, they have mastered the art of the UX (user experience). Evaluate your sites whole UX and ask these 10 questions about your site from Medium.com. I'd add credibility to that list and that begins with your domain name. The article is from 2018 and is every bit as relevant then as it is today.
For the DNN platform there's an upgrade for the developer's UX too with Vanjaro.com from Mandeeps.com. When you design all day, what you experience matters. The new UX is comparable to Wix, SquareSpace, and Weebly. Featuring a Drag & Drop Live Editor, Responsive Editing, Automatic Revision History, Workflow Management, and in context, user aware, centralized site administration and it's open source. Vanjaro.com is compatible with custom DNN Modules, (including XMod Pro) and hundreds of existing solutions on the DNN Store.
The experience is the journey. Make it better and make more sales.
Text to neighbor: Hi, Fred, this is Richard, next door. I’ve have a confession to make. I’ve been riddled with guilt for a few months and have been trying to get up the courage to tell you face-to-face. At least I’m telling you in this text and I can’t live with myself a minute longer without you knowing about this. The truth is that when you’re not around I’ve been sharing your wife, day and night. In fact, probably much more than you. I haven’t been getting it at home recently and I know that that’s no excuse. The temptation was just too great. I can’t live with the guilt and hope you’ll accept my sincere apology and forgive me. Please suggest a fee for usage and I’ll pay you. Regards, Richard Neighbor’s response: Fred, feeling so angered and betrayed, grabbed his gun and shot Richard, killing him. He went back home and poured himself a stiff drink and sat down on the sofa. Fred then looked at his phone and discovered a second text message from Richard. Second text message: Hi, Fred. Richard here again. Sorry about the typo on my last text. I expect you figured it out and noticed that the damned Auto-Correct had changed “wi-fi” to “wife.” Technology, huh? It’ll be the death of us all. Regards, Rich