Beware of this when choosing a website or blog name and more

One of the first things a work at home business owner will deliberate is their domain name or blog url. There is a lot of advice online and even in books about what to consider, what to avoid, whether you choose your own name or a keyword rich one. The list goes on when it comes to rules of picking of a domain name. Ultimately, people will go with what they like and feels works for their niche and site.

I have several blogs, and thus I've had to play the domain name game several times. But for one blog, I made a grave mistake that hurt my business badly.

Despite all the advice, no one mentioned this one particular one: research to find out if your new domain name is similar to a banned site or once belonged to one.

I did what most people do--I chose a name, checked to see if it was available, and then set up my blog with it. At first it seemed fine. My blog was getting good traffic, my ad revenue was up and things were well with my work at home business. At one point, to do some market research, I checked to see if there were urls similar to mine and there was. It belonged to a porn site. I was a little worried, but my site seemed to be doing ok. When I did more research, I learned the site was banned from google and felt relieved. I had no idea that my site was going to punished as well.

It didn't happen right away. At first, I noticed my site's new visitor demographic had changed. My blog catered to fashionable christian girls between 18-30. So when I noticed older men were now coming to my site I was a little puzzled. Next, I noticed that my bounce increased. Finally, I saw that the referral links were coming from spammy sites and sites completely unrelated to mine.

Worried, I then did some investigation. In doing this, I found out that google had dropped my site's pages from it's search engine. I was shocked! I knew my page rank had gone down but to learn I wasn't even on the search engine after all the work I put into creating a good blog.

I found my way to a blogging forum and saw other people complaining about similar issues of having their site dropped. I connected to one woman whose story seemed similar to mine, her site url was similar to one that was shaddy.

Shouldn't the content matter? Google does take into consideration the content of a site so why were we being punished simply for our domain name. Mine wasn't even shaddy by any means.

One man explained that people set up similar sites with tweaked urls if their site is shut down. Thus, my girly sweet site's url was a little too similar to the site that was promoting underage pornography.

Google may not have deleted my blog, but they kept it from being accessed and that really hurt my online business.

When deciding on a domain, try to find out if there are similar urls that google has either banned or have low ranking. You don't want to be grouped among them as it could hurt your business significantly.

1. People under the age of 25. Teens and young adults can do better in their online business because they're better at bringing in the social interaction required to draw people onto the blog, channel, or webstore. When it comes to social media and blogging, many teens do it better than even professional content creators, because they know how to engage their audience.

I took some insight from popular blogs and channels run by people under 21 and learned that their communication style is often better at driving sales.

Teens and young adults also tend to focus on building one blog or channel, unlike some adults who have far too many sites and accounts. Their focussed mentality of building up one business your passionate about is what allows many youths to create businesses with longevity.

2. Shy people. If you think you have to be naturally out going to successfully network, think again. Shy people often create personas online that help to drive sales.

There's a misconception that you have to be your absolute true self online. Sometimes having an alter ego can come in handy. I noticed that many work at home gurus were quite shy and introverted, but had the ability to engage their customers via a persona that seemed opposite.

Most people don't know how to interact with their audience purely as themselves and this makes it difficult to establish a connection that can  increases response. But having a persona often makes people more confident and more successful.

3. Artists. Most people think you have to have a business background to be successful working from home. But people who have no interest in business can often excel in their online business.

Artists often delegate responsibilities. They'd rather focus on doing the things they are good at and leave the other tasks to a professional. This gives them the opportunity to build a business that is successful without over working themselves. They know where their talents lie and can often spot the talents of others, which lets them make use of other people's skills.

When I tell people I work from home, I get a response similar to a group of gals gossiping..."Oooo tell me more." The conversation is often more on how lucky I am (which I am),  how fun it would be to work from home and all the other benefits of working from home.

Now, I'm glad there is a lot of enthusiasm for my work, but the issue is...working from home is not my work. That is it's not what I do it's just where I do it. Like my office counter parts, I have to complete set tasks in order to get any kind of income. I also have to do these tasks to the best of my ability the same way I would if I was working anywhere.

It also concerns me when I notice people down play my work with the automatic assumption that they can do it too. As if reading blogs, or even having a personal blog that you update once a month qualifies you to earn an income to become a high paid blogger.

The statement anyone can work from home is a myth. But this myth lives on because people put more emphasis on where they are working rather than what they're doing. Would you say "I work in a brown building on 4th street" when someone asked what you do for a living? Probably not. Even mentioning "I work in an office" or saying "I work at (name of company) is silly in my opinion, because it says nothing about what you actually do.

When people ask me what I do for a living I'll give them some job title. They might then ask what that entails and then if the topic comes around to it I say, "I work from home." It's the last thing on the list, not the first because it's the least important feature.

Your talents and skills are what make your job, not where you employ them. I'm glad I get to work from home. It suits me. It wouldn't suit everyone, but for me, it's become essential. I get to do certain tasks from home. But the point is I have to do something. I don't sit on the couch all day watching T.V. expecting money to pour in.

You may also have a similar problem of people forgetting that working from home entails working and this neglect can make one feel less appreciated in the work force. But keep in mind that in order to be successful you have to dedicate a heap of hours, especially at the beginning to your business/career. Simply shrug of the condescending remarks and play up your job and what you do rather than where you do it from.

In an online Q&A session, Google's Matt Cutts answered the questions of webmasters who want to get higher rankings on Google for their websites. This article summarizes the most important SEO relevant statements of this session.


The effect of +1 clicks on your organic rankings and ads

Google is still testing the effect of +1 clicks on the search results. It seems that only clicks from trustworthy people will influence the position of a web page. In other words, it won't help to buy +1 clicks.

In addition, the +1 clicks on ads will show others who have +1′d it but that is all at this time.

You cannot exclude keywords from your website

It's not possible to ensure that your website does not appear in the search results for a particular keyword. The reason for that is because that could be a way you could silence critics or not show up for negative reviews.

The age of a website is important but only one of many factors

The age of link anchors and domains can influence the position of a website in the search results. However, Matt Cutts says that you still need fresh information because old information can get stale.

Google decides per keyword if the search results show websites with newer or older content. Old websites often tend to have more links and that the links are often the reason why older domains have higher rankings.

Google will rewrite your meta description tag

Google will only use the meta description of a web page if they find it appropriate to the searched keyword. Google will also write its own description to show the searcher why the page was ranked for the query.

What to do if other websites steal your content

You should do a DMCA complain and a spam report, especially if the other website is a spammer who is scraping content completely.

Double 301 redirects are okay

A web page shouldn't redirect to more than 4 URLs. Chained 301 redirects should be only 301 redirects and they should not be mixed with 302 redirects.

Google also detects JavaScript redirects. Matt Cutts says that Russian spammers tried to fool Google with JavaScript redirects but Google could detect it.

Google uses many different factors to determine the position of a web page in the search results. Analyze your web pages with IBP's Top 10 Optimizer to find out how to adjust your web pages so that they get listed on Google's first result page for your keywords.

Article courtesy of Axandra.com

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