Guest posting is seen as an opportunity for bloggers and webmasters to showcase their talent and knowledge in a field of expertise of their choosing.

I myself have written a few articles and submitted them to well known sites within my niche and was pleasantly surprised by the results I received.

But first, here are the benefits which you can expect to receive from guest posting:

1) Increased Exposure –

When you begin a brand new site the hardest part is establishing a readership. You may write quality articles day after day, but if you have no one reading them then it can be quite disheartening But, when you write and submit a guest post.

You can instantly put your article in front of hundreds if not thousands of targeted readers who are all interested in your article.

2) A Quality Backlink –

Getting published on a high pagerank site will often mean that many of its pages will received an individual pagerank of their own.

Many webmasters dofollow links placed on guest posts resulting pagerank juice flowing to your own site. A guest posting backlink from a top notch site is considered much more valuable than a normal article directory backlink (from ezinearticles) for example.

3) Credibility –

By getting featured on a site which has thousands of readers, and a prominent reputation, you are instantly boosting your own credibility within your niche.

The webmaster/blogger is showing their readers that they believe you article to be of a high enough quality that they published it on their site. That’s got to count for something doesn’t it?

4) Additional Stumbles, Tweets, and Diggs –

Just by getting featured on a well known site you are putting your article in a good position to go viral.

Loyal readers of the guest posting site will often retweet any article published on the site immediately exposing your article to more people. Write catchy magnetic headlines like “5 tips to_____” or “10 untapped ______” to immediately draw attention to your guest post.

The higher quality guest post you write the more chance it has to go viral across the internet and receive much more exposure.

5) Relationship Building –

Building relationships with other people online is very important in online business. Writing a guest post for someone can set the foundations for you to develop a deeper relationship with them.

Contact them by email after they have published the guest post, thanking them for allowing you the opportunity to showcase your work on their site. People appreciate small gestures like this.

In my next post I am going to reveal to you my own step by step strategies which I use to uncover potential guest posting opportunities on a number of blogs in different niches. Be sure to keep a look out!

FoxMarketer

In this post I am going to reveal to you 21 Wordpress plugins which I believe deserve attention because of the value they provide to the Wordpress community. I hope you will find at least one Wordpress plugin from this 21 which can be of benefit to you

I have written a description outlining the features of each plugin. Click Here to Preview to see a pop up preview of the wordpress plugin. You can download the plugin at the creators website by clicking on the plugin name.

So grab that cup of coffee, sit back and enjoy.

Affiliate Cloaking Made Easy

1. Pretty Link – This handy Wordpress plugin makes cloaking your affiliate links VERY easy and the best part of all is that the shortlinks are created from your very own domain. Another stand out feature is the detailed report which Pretty Link prepares, outlining how many clicks a link gets, the browser of the person clicking and the operating system they are using. Highly recommended.

Easy 125 x 125 Ad Management For Wordpress

2.WP125 – This exceptional plugin makes managing your 125 x 125 ads on a Wordpress blog a whole lot easier and is a plugin many Wordpress blog owners would enjoy using.
The following are some of the features it has to offer:
-Sets how long you want to run the ad for (X amount of days) and after this amount of time the ad is taken down automatically. A huge time saver!
-Tracks how many times an ad is clicked on
- Has the ability to display a placeholder ad of your choice with a link to your advertisers’ page for more information.

Effective Social Bookmarking Buttons

3.Digg Digg – A plugin that allows you to add a social voting button to your website. This makes it easier for readers to submit your content to social bookmarking websites. Supported sites: Digg, Reddit, DZone, Yahoo, Twitter, Facebook and Polladium.

Stylish Archives

4.Smart Archives Reloaded – In my opinion one of the best archive Wordpress plugins available. This plugin allows you to create a clean, easy to navigate archive page on your site.

A Friendly Welcoming Message

5.Referrer Detector – This plugin identifies where any visitor to your site has come from and displays a greeting message based on this information. You have the ability to customize this greeting message to suit.

6.What Would Seth Godin Do – This plugin displays a small box above each post with the words “If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!” This message can be edited and will disappear once it has been viewed 5 times.

Sitemap Generator For Wordpress

7.Dagon Design Sitemap Generator – Allows you to create a search engine friendly sitemap on your website. This will make it easier for spiders to index new content and for users to quickly browse through previous posts that you have written.

First Time Commenter’s

8.Comment Redirect – Another useful plugin created by Joost de Valk at Yoast.com. This plugin allows you to redirect first time commenter’s to a page of your choosing. On this page you can ask them to subscribe to your RSS feed, thank them for commenting on your blog, or ask for them to sign up for your newsletter. The page you redirect them to is entirely your choice.

Speed up Wordpress

9.Wordpress Super Cache – This plugin drastically reduces the time it takes for webpages to load on your Wordpress blog. With its super fast caching, your visitors will be able to load pages faster than ever. It also helps protect against massive traffic spikes from sites such as Digg.

Down for Maintenance

10.Maintenance Mode Plugin – Creates a splash page to inform visitors that your blog is currently down for maintenance. Administrators will still be able to edit the blog as usual.

Give Your Posts A Rating

11.GD Star Rating Plugin – Allows users to rate comments, posts and pages on your blog. This plugin increases user interaction with your content and helps you recognize which posts your readers like or dislike on your blog.

Discourage Copy Cats

12.WP-PreventCopyBlogs – Many bloggers may have to deal with content theft at some point in time. This helps stop content theft through a number of ingenious methods such as disabling both the right click option and text selection. A very good plugin to deter content thieves.

Spread the Comment Luv

13.Comment Luv – Encourage comments on your Wordpress blog with this plugin. Comment Luv fetches the feed found at the commenter’s site URL and adds their latest post as a link below their comment.

Create a Magnificent Photo Blog

14.Yet Another Photoblog – Create a full featured photo blog in no time at all with this plugin. A perfect plugin if you have a collection of photos that you wish to share with the world.

Make your Blog Mobile Friendly

15.WPtouch – Automatically turn your Wordpress blog into a fully compatible mobile blog that is viewable on the iphone, ipod touch, and Android touch. With the growing popularity of mobile devices used to access the internet, this is definitely a worthwhile plugin to use on your site.

16.MobilePress – Turn your Wordpress blog into a mobile friendly blog viewable on a wide variety of mobile devices. You can show ads, customize the themes, and track visitors through analytics. Best of all, MobilePress is search engine friendly resulting in search engine spiders indexing the mobile pages of your Wordpress blog.

301 Redirects

17.Simple 301 Redirects – Another useful plugin made by Scott Nelle. Simply set up a 301 redirect for any of your pages. For example, you can easily redirect example.com/page3/?q=ek to example.com/page3/. An ideal plugin to use if you have recently changed your permalink structure.

Controlled Wordpress Pinging

18.MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer – Another exceptional plugin which is very useful for all wordpress blogs. This plugin allows you to limit how many times your blog send a “ping” within a short space of time. This will help you avoid being banned from ping services due to excessive pinging.

Elegant Slideshow of Featured Posts

19.Smooth Slider – This plugin allows you to create a dynamic slideshow of featured posts on your Wordpress blog. Smooth Slider is text and JavaScript based, enabling the text to be indexed by search engines spiders resulting in maximum SEO benefit for your blog.

Add Sub Headings to Your Posts and Pages

20.Subheading – This useful plugin allows you to add a subheading below the title on your posts and pages. Once installed, an option to add a subheading on the post page is made available. These sub headings are also viewable on RSS feeds.

Make your Images Appealing

21.Flexible Lightbox – This plugin allows you to give a larger preview of an image that you have on your site. This plugin has provided the pop up images which are viewable on this page. The best part of all is that it adds the HTML automatically to all inserted images. Click on the preview button to see what I mean.

That concludes my top list of 20 exceptional wordpress plugins. If you think I’ve missed one, or have any suggestions of your own then I would be delighted to hear about them in the comment section below!

Being a Blogger can be very time consuming and because my time is precious I am constantly on the lookout for tools which can make the simple every day tasks of blogging easier – one of those time saving tools I have recently discovered is Tweet Adder.

This review explains why Tweet Adder is a top twitter marketing tool, and how it can make using twitter a breeze.

Before I cover the finer points of Tweet Adder I want to first of all say that it is my policy never to promote low quality products on this blog. I ONLY promote products and tools that I believe will be of use to my readers. I regard Tweet Adder as one of these tools.

Now that I have got that out of the way let me explain to your in more detail what exactly Tweet Adder does.

You may already be aware that there are many twitter tools available that are designed to make using twitter easier, but Tweet Adder combines all these features into one multipurpose tool. That’s what makes Tweet Adder exceptional and unlike any other tool I have encountered.

Interested in a FREE trial of Tweet Adder? Click Here for the trial

Here are just some of the many features Tweet Adder provides:

• Auto Follow – Follow as many users as you want with a click of a button.
• Auto Unfollow – Unfollow those users who aren’t following you back with a click of a button.
• Instant Direct Messaging – sends a personalized direct message instantly to every new follower that you receive.
• Scheduled tweets – this feature can schedule tweets for months ahead. You can even set how many times a day you want to tweet.

Just set it and forget it by preparing the settings and it will run in the background adding and unfollowing twitter users daily while you carry on with your everyday activities.

One of my favorite Tweet Adder features is the search feature. This works by typing in a related keyword to your niche so you can quickly locate targeted twitter users who are interested in your niche. You can locate these users through their “tweets”, profile bio, or even their location.

This is a very powerful feature as it allows you to create a list of targeted users to follow who are all interested in your niche and what you have to offer.

By using this tool you can completely automate your daily activities on twitter. With just a click of a button you can follow hundreds of users instantly while you are preparing your morning cup of coffee.

Oh and did I mention you also get unlimited updates all for FREE?

Tweet Adder is the only automated tool that you will need to take advantage of twitter and will help you to generate a massive following in no time at all. I think you will be pleasantly surprised at the features it has to offer.

Click Here to Visit the Site

FoxMarketer
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Thanks to Mfilej for the twitter logo.

One of the things that make Firefox such a popular browser is the number of useful addons available for its users. These addons not only make your browsing experience much more enjoyable, but they can also make your life a lot easier. In this article I will summarise for you 5 addons in particular which are definite time savers.

1. Colorful Tabs

This simple, yet effective addon is a must have for marketers in my opinion. When you click to open a new tab it opens directly beside the tab in a unique color. This can be very useful because it allows for related tabs to be grouped together so they are easily accessible. You will find this a very handy addon to have because it will make browsing so much easier and certainly colorful.

Download Here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1368

2. Lastpass Password Manager
Are you sick and tired of remembering every password for your social bookmarking sites, wordpress logins and forums? Then Lastpass is the ideal addon for you. Lastpass can best be described as a free online password manager which allows you to save any passwords inside its vault. To access the vault all that is required for you to remember is one master password.
The advantage is that whenever you enter a website you have already signed up for, it automatically enters in your username and password. This is another very good addon that can save you a great deal of time and effort recording your passwords. Recommended.

Download Here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/8542

3. SEOQuake SEO Extension
SEOQuake is one of my personal favorite addons for firefox because it makes niche marketing so much easier. Why SEOQUAKE is so effective is because allows you to analyze each listing on the search engine results page – taking into consideration pagerank, backlinks, age and much more. By using this addon you can judge the strength of your competitors to decide whether or not you can rank your site on the first page of Google. SEOQuake is a very worthwhile addon to access in your browser.

Download Here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3036

4. Morning Coffee
Often when you turn on your computer in the morning you will go through your normal routine. For example you may open up your affiliate accounts, check your statistics, your email and so on. Going through this routine all takes time and when you’re half asleep it sometimes can be difficult to remember which sites to open. That’s where the Morning Coffee addon can be very useful because you can save a list of sites that you frequently visit by clicking on “Add to my morning coffee”.

Now when you wake up, all you need to do is to click “load my morning coffee” and hey presto – all the sites you requested to be saved open in tabs and begin loading. A really ingenious and handy addon.

See Here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2677

5. Fire FTP
If you have web hosting and are managing a number of sites then you need a FTP client to upload your files to an FTP server. Fire FTP does this job perfectly because it allows you to easily upload files to your web host. A good addon and what’s more it’s free.

Download Here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/684

Conclusions:

The 5 free addons I have outlined in this article are only some of what are available to internet marketers. However, if you are pressed for time (like I often am) and have a list of things to do you will find them ideal in saving you valuable time. If you are not using any of these addons then I recommend you give them a try. Like me, I’m sure you will be pleasantly surprised how effective they can be in making life a lot easier for you.

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Thanks to Andy Z for the firefox image.

This is the fourth article in my series and covers the hidden traps and dangers of buying expired domain names.

The 3 main traps you should be aware of when purchasing expired domain names are:

1. Expired Domains that are banned from showing Google Adsense
2. Expired Domains that are banned from Google’s Index
3. Expired Domains that have a fake pagerank.

With regard to item 3; I have already covered the solution for expired domains which have fake pagerank in part 2. You can read part 2 here.

So in this post I will only discuss item 1: Expired Domains that are banned from showing Google Adsense and item 2: Expired Domains that are banned from Google’s Index.

First of all, let share with you my own experiences with expired domain names:

Using my own method that I outlined in Part 2: Identifying Quality Expired Domain Names, I discovered what I thought was a SEO domain which had a great deal of potential to be developed into a small site with search engine optimization resources.

So I eagerly purchased the domain thinking it was a good buy. I went ahead and installed Wordpress, wrote a few articles and obtained some good solid backlinks. I was pleased to find after all my hard work that my site ranked well on Google.

I added Google adsense for the site but found for some reason the google ads would not show on the site. Disastrously for me (and this is a trap for the unwary) what I had not realized (and this is not a topic not widely mentioned or discussed on forums) – is the subject of sites that are banned from showing Google Adsense.

Now I’m not sure what the site had been doing wrong in the past, but it must have done something which upset the big G, as it would not allow this domain to show Adsense ads no matter what.

However, don’t let this put you off buying expired domain names, as there are a number of methods you can use to help make sure the expired domain you are buying is safe to show Google Adsense.

1st Method – The Domain’s History: As a general rule I always carry out a background check using wayback records to make sure the site hasn’t been doing anything suspicious in the past.

If the site looks suspicious in any way then I stay away from it. It’s not worth the risk spending lots of money on an expired domain name only to find it has been banned by Google.

You can check a domains history here: http://archive.org

2) Check to see if the domain is banned from Google’s index: If an expired domain is banned from showing in Google’s index then there is also a strong chance that the domain is banned from showing Google Adsense as well.

For more information on domains being banned from Google, then read this article: Banned Domain Names

So a friendly word of caution for those of you buying expired domains, if you plan on placing adsense as a form of monetization on your site ALWAYS make sure you check that the domain has not been banned by Google for showing in the search results and also for showing adsense.

However, if you do purchase an expired domain that is banned from adsense then don’t give up hope. You can always try sending an email to Google telling them that the domain has now changed hands and ask whether or not they will allow adsense back onto the domain. It is possible that Google may allow Adsense back onto the domain.

What are your thoughts on this subject? Would you still buy expired domains now that you know this information?

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Note:
This is the final Part of my series on buying Expired domains. I hope you have enjoyed what I have posted. If you would like to receive my informative posts on a wide range of internet marketing subjects that I provide EXCLUSIVELY for my subscribers then click here to learn the benefits of being a subscriber

After reading Part 2: Uncovering Hidden Expired Domain Gems, you should hopefully now have an understanding on how to recognize a quality expired domain name. Now that you have uncovered your hidden gem, the next step is to purchase the expired domain name.

Buying Expired Domain Names

Once you have chosen the expired domain name that you want to buy, click on the green “Buy” button beside the domain name. This should take you to TDNAM listing for the expired domain name.

The listing should look similar to the screenshot below:

Before going any further, to purchase an expired domain you must first have a Godaddy account with TDNAM membership enabled. Membership is relatively cheap at $4.99 for a year.

You can sign up for TDNAM membership here.

Also, make sure you take note of the exact time and date that the auction closes. I tend to bookmark the page so I can easily access it before the auction closes. Write down the date and time on a notepad and put it somewhere so you won’t forget.

The last thing you want to do is miss bidding on the auction because believe me it does happen!

Advice for Bidding on TDNAM Auctions

Before you place a bid on your target expired domain name I want to give you the following advice.

Don’t Bid on an Expired Domain Name until only a few minutes are remaining

It’s very important that you remember this advice. If you place a bid on an expired domain name then you are sending out a message to all the expired domain hunters by saying “Hey come and check me out I’m a good expired domain!” This can therefore result in you having to bid against a number of other people for the targeted domain – causing the price to rise!

Take my advice, it is always best to save your bids to the last minute and then strike.

Don’t get emotionally attached to an expired domain

If you have ever been a member on ebay or any other auction trading site, then you will know the feeling of being in a bidding war against someone else. You both keep bidding against each other until one of you throws in the towel resulting in the other person winning the auction. You will find exactly the same situation also happens with expired domains at TDNAM.

I therefore advise for you not to get too emotionally attached to the expired domain you are bidding on. I know it can be difficult to let the expired domain go if the bidding gets too high.

Set yourself a limit as you will only end up paying more than what you would have liked for the domain.

Remember, there are thousands of new expiring domains that become available each day, so if you don’t win the auction for the expired domain name you are after, the chances are there will be another opportunity waiting around the corner.

Conclusion

That concludes my article Part 3: Buying Expired Domain Names. To recap, in the previous parts of this series I have explained and outlined ‘how to find daily expiring domain lists’, ‘how to properly research and identify expired domains’ and ‘where to buy expired domain names’.

In Part:4 the final part of my expiring domain names series, I will reveal the dangers and some frequently looked over pitfalls of buying expiring domain names and how you can avoid falling into these traps. I have learned from these mistakes and will share these experiences with you so make sure you keep a look out for this very interesting article I will be posting shortly.

Fox Marketer

This is part 2 of my 4 part expiring domain series. If you haven’t read the first part, then I strongly suggest you read Part 1: Introducing Expired Domains.

I must admit this post is a quite longer than my usual posts, but it is packed full of relevant information and advice for uncovering expired domain names – so it’s well worth reading it!

Before you begin reading part 2, I would just like to say any stumbles, diggs, bookmarking or mentioning of this post to friends is MUCH appreciated. It took me a few hours to come up with this post, so a small gesture would be like a token of thanks for my work.

Happy Reading,

Fox Marketer
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Introducing FreshDrop

Freshdrop is a very useful domaining service with both “free” and “members” options.

Basically, FreshDrop drastically helps with your expired domain research by helping you sort the good domains from the bad ones.

They include a wide range of statistics about expiring domain names including the price, page rank, traffic, indexed pages, Alexa rank and MUCH MORE!

FreshDrop definitely is the place to be if you’re looking for expired domain names.

NOTE: Freshdrop has both FREE and PRO memberships available. Unfortunately the FREE membership limits you to only a few data feeds. To get access to TDNAM data feeds (which is discussed in this post), you need to sign up for the PRO membership. Luckily, freshdrop has a 10 day free trial which I highly suggest you take advantage of.

You can sign up for the free 10 day PRO membership here.

How to search for expired domains:

Click on the “Expired Domains” tab
You now have a list of TDNAM domain names expiring within the next week or so.
Go to the filter section on the RIGHT HAND side of the page. Change the settings to find expired domains that suit your criteria.
You can then further sort the domains that meet your criteria by clicking on the heading i.e. clicking on the PR heading sort’s domains in order of its Page Rank.

That’s the initial step that I conduct to filter out the good and bad domain names.

The next step I follow is to look at them individually and take note of any domains that particularly stand out.

What I like to look for are domains that have development potential. This means I believe they can be developed further into a site that generates money from adsense or affiliate products.

After following the steps I have outlined, I apply the following 4 methods for each domain to determine if it is a hidden gem or not.

4 Methods To Judge A Good Expired Domain

1. What are the Pre Existing Backlinks?

More often than not, you will find that expired domains have been featuring on the internet for some time – ranging from 1 year up to 12 years and have built up a number of backlinks over this period of time.

These backlinks age over time and the older they get the more respected the links are in the eyes of Google.

While researching expired domains, I have found a number of expired domains with links from the quality DMOZ directory as well the Yahoo Directory. I have found these types of links not only help increase the domains PageRank, but also help the site rank better in the search engines.

Remember, just because an expired domain has thousands of links pointing at it does not necessarily mean that it is better than a domain with less links.

It is quality of links, not quantity.

By quality, I mean the calibre of the links – the PageRank and the reputation of the linking site.

There are 2 main tools that I use when researching the links of an expired domain:

http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com
http:///www.backlinkwatch.com

For the yahoo site explorer I use another trusty internet marketing tool – SEO Quake along side it, which automatically tells me the PageRank of the linking sites.

In my opinion SEO Quake is a very handy tool that every internet marketer should have.

It definitely helps with expired domain hunting, by helping you analyze the strength of the links pointing to the expired domain.

It is a firefox addon which can be downloaded for free here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3036

You can read my own personal review of the firefox plugin here: SEO Quake Firefox Plugin Review

2. Pre Existing Page Rank

Page rank is another main reason these expired domains appeal to internet marketers and domainers.

As I mentioned above, some of these sites have a number of links pointing to them. These links have resulted in these domains building up an existing PageRank due to the number of quality links pointing at the domain name.

This existing page rank can immediately give you a head start in Google and help increase your traffic and rankings.

Usually the domains with higher page rank are hot property. For example a Page ranked 5+ usually sell from anywhere between a few hundred dollars and a few thousands depending on the caliber of links pointing to the domain.

However, don’t be discouraged if you’re not willing to spend that much on an expired domain name. You can often pick up a PR 1, 2, 3 and even 4 for under $50 in a lot of cases.

I realise that $50 may seem like a lot of money to spend on an expired domain name (compared to $8 for a brand new domain name) but you will find that over time the return on investment is much more.

Note: I have found with some of the expired domains I have purchased, some of the domains retain their page rank for months after, while others lose their existing page rank quite quickly. Why this happens, I can’t say for certain, although I would say a contributing factor would be sites that remove their link to you once they have found the domain has changed hands.

A Note about page rank:

In FreshDrop they have a handy feature which lets you know whether or not the page rank is “fake” or not.

Basically a fake page rank is a SEO trick used by some people to give their domain, or site a higher page rank that it actually is.

If you want to read more into it, then I suggest you read this post: What is Fake PageRank and how do I avoid being fooled.

If you want to double check the PageRank, and make sure that it is not fake then I highly recommend using this website: Page Rank Checker

That site not only tells you whether or not the page rank is fake or not but also gives a wide range of information about the domain in general – for example whether it is listed in DMOZ, or the yahoo directory, how many links are pointing to the domain and how old the domain is.

It is a MUST if you’re looking at expired domains.

3. Existing Traffic to the Expired Domain

In the past expired domains had sites/blogs on them. These sites and blogs would have received traffic from numerous sources – search engines, links and other places.

By purchasing the domain name and putting a website on it you will receive all the traffic that the domain is currently getting. This could range from a few visitors daily to a few thousand.

The hard part is trying to estimate the ACTUAL number of visitors a site is getting daily.

I must admit that when I started out and first began looking at expired domain names, I used Alexa’s traffic ranking as a basis for how much traffic a site was getting.

However, I soon realized that it is terribly inaccurate.

This is because Alexa can easily be manipulated using a number of methods.

More information is here: How to Game Alexa

As a result I now take Alexa’s ranking with a grain of salt.

Instead I take a different approach when looking at expired domains…

These day’s, I now like to look for domains which have a keyword in the domain. This is because they may already be ranking on Google for that specific keyword and receiving traffic as a result.

Once I bought an expired domain with a keyword in it in a very specific niche. It looked good because it was ranking on page 2 on Google for a high traffic term.

I decided to take a risk and bought it. I quickly put up a site with a few article on the domain and with a bit of back linking I soon got it to page 1 on Google and to this very day it receives a nice flow of traffic to the site.

With this domain I looked at the future traffic potential – from search engines.

Like I said above, this is the hard part – estimating the traffic. It’s hard to know for certain until you have bought the domain.

Sometimes you just have to take a punt and hope that it pays off. It could be a costly mistake, or a very good choice. It depends on your ability to analyze the potential of the expired domain name.

4. Age – How old is the domain?

Also included in FreshDrops statistics is the domain “age”. I have found that older domain names tend to have been in Google’s index for a much longer period of time than younger domains.

Domains that are 2+ years old are a good catch. This is because they are unlikely to get penalized by the Google sandbox effect which is applied to brand new domains – which is definitely an advantage of an expired domain.

I have had brand new domains penalized for any time up to 6 months, while some expired domains I have purchased ranked very well straight away. This factor alone is a huge draw card for most people when they are thinking of purchasing a domain name.

By using these 4 methods, you can quickly and easily separate the very best domain names from the low quality domains. If you have any tools that may assist with research which I have mentioned, then by all means use them! The more research you can conduct on an expired domains the better!

In part 3 I am going to discuss how you should go about purchasing these expired domains from TDNAM.

Hope you enjoyed this post. I would love to hear your comments + feedback!

Fox Marketer

This is the first of a series of posts that I am going to write about on uncovering the hidden gems of expired domain names.

I have found over the past few years that there is very little information on the internet regarding expired domains and how to properly utilize their potential.

I must admit I had seriously considered putting this material into a report and selling it, but after some thought I’ve decided to post it on my blog so it can be of benefit to everyone who reads it.

Here is what you can expect in the next upcoming posts:
Part 1: Introducing Expired Domain Names
Part 2: Uncovering Hidden Gems – My Personal Method
Part 3: How to Purchase Expired Domain Names
Part 4: Warning! Don’t Get Scammed By Expired Domain Names

Today we are going to look at Part 1: Introducing Expiring Domain Names

Introduction:

For those of you who know me, before I got into internet marketing I was involved in the domain industry – principally I was buying and selling domain names for a profit.

One area in domaining that particularly interested me was expired domains.

What I quickly discovered was that thousands of expired domains become available every day and in most cases it is because the registered owners have failed to renew them for any number of reasons.

Some reasons could be:

• The owner has simply forgotten to re-register the domain
• The owner does not want the domain any longer and has let it expire.
• The domain once belonged to a business that has recently closed down and let the domain expire.
• The owner of the domain name has died.

So what happens to the expired domain?
Everyday lists of expiring domains are posted on various sites. Domainers will scour these lists looking for potential domains which they can either develop, or resell for a profit.

But before this happens the person interested in the domain has to purchase it at auction through Godaddy’s TDNAM (The Domain Name After Market).

The Domain Name After market (or TDAM as it is referred to) holds auctions of thousands of expiring domain names every day.
To be able to bid for a domain name at auction you need to be a TDNAM member, this membership will only cost you a few dollars and is well worth the money in my opinion.

Research:

It is important to remember before you get into buying expired domain names to conduct thorough research beforehand. My advice would be to have a close look at the backlinks, page rank and existing site traffic which can help you make an informed decision.

Thankfully, there is a handy free tool which displays all this information right beside each expired domain name.

Let me introduce you to FreshDrop – a place you will become very familiar with if you are looking for expired domains because Freshdrop contains a wealth of information, and is one of my main places where I conduct research into expired domain names.

You can either sign up for a free account, OR get access to a free 10 days membership of the pro version of Freshdrop. I recommend you sign up for a 10 day FREE pro membership as you are very limited to the data feeds you receive if you are just on the FREE membership.

In my next post (Part: 2) I will reveal my step by step strategies on how I use Freshdrop, along with a combination of other free tools to uncover profitable expired domain names. It will be a large and informative post packed full of information – so keep a look out!

Fox Marketer

If you are like me, you’ll like to leave comments on other people’s blogs.

You may do this for a number of different reasons. For example, you may want to thank the blogger for producing a stunning blog post, you may want to add your own personal opinion to the blog post OR maybe you want to impress readers of the blog post with a stunning comment that will help drive them to your own website.

Whatever the reason, the tool I’m going to introduce in this post will greatly help you monitor your favorite websites and allow you to be one of the first commentators on any blog.

Interested? Then I suggest you keep reading.

Being one of the first commentators has numerous advantages. For starters if you are one of the first commentators on your favorite blog, then from my own experience I can say that you WILL get noticed.

Not only will you get the attention of the blog author, but you will attract the attention of their readers. The chances are if you write a stunning comment then you will get a stream of traffic to your website.

Ok, now I think it’s about time you are introduced to one of my favorite tools which I use on a daily basis.

Introducing Comment Sniper

So what does Comment Sniper do?

Well in simple terms Comment Sniper allows you to ‘snipe’ blog posts (no, you don’t kill it – just in case you were worried) so you can be one of the first commentators on the blog.

All you need to do is take the RSS feed and URL of the blog and enter it into Comment Sniper.

Comment Sniper monitors the blog, and as soon as any of the blogs you are monitoring publishes a new post, you’re immediately notified with a small pop up on your desktop.

When you click on the pop up you are taken to the latest blog post which you can read and then leave an insightful comment.

This is very powerful, and if done properly you can expect the following benefits:

Targeted Traffic.
If you are the first person to post a comment in reply to a blog post, YOUR comment will be the first comment that everyone sees.

I recommend you write a really insightful comment about the post so that it gains the maximum attention possible.

The secret here is to have your post noticed because people will then take notice of you… and possibly click to visit your own personal blog.

If you choose to comment on a well known blog specific to your niche then you will get the best visitors possible – targeted visitors.

These are the best type of visitor you can get because they are interested in the information that you have on your own blog.

Backlinks
Being the first person to post a comment also has advantages because you will find that spiders will be crawling all over that blog post after it’s published.

If you make a comment on the blog within the first few minutes, then you can be certain the search engines will pick up on your comment and index the link pointing to your blog.

From my own experiences with posting comments on new posts, I have seen new backlinks coming to my site in a matter of hours by using this technique.

By following this method it can result in more backlinks to your site and most importantly a higher search engine ranking.

Building a Relationship with the Blog Author
You may find that by being one of the first to leave a comment on the blog can result in your comment being noticed by the blog author.

Better still in some cases, the owner may even follow the link you have posted and pay a visit to your very own site.

All blog owners appreciate frequent commentators as it shows them that you are taking an active interest in the content they are writing.

This can in some cases lead to new relationships being formed between you and the blogger.

Better still, the blog author may like your site so much that he/she could decide to link to it or mention your blog in a future post leading to more new visitors and traffic to your site.

I have found that relationship building with other bloggers in internet marketing is crucial if you want to further develop your business online – and blog commenting is definitely one way to get noticed in your niche.

Whatever the reason you are using Comment Sniper for, I am sure it will be an invaluable tool for further developing your online business.

Click Here to Download Comment Sniper

Fox Marketer

P.S I wonder who will be the first few commentators on this new post?

This is a subject and area that I spent many hours researching, because during my early days as an internet marketer I learned very quickly that in order to make money online you had to target the right keywords.

It is essential that you understand not all keywords are successful. Some keywords may have a high conversion rate (meaning that visitors coming to your site through these keywords often convert into buyers) while others have low conversion rates (meaning it takes hundreds of visitors just to make one sale).

Obviously, keywords that have a high conversion rate are the keywords you want to target as they are the keywords that will generate sales on your site.

You may be wondering is it hard to identify these keywords? I have found the short answer is no. In fact, there are many affiliate marketers who understand the buying cycle and take advantage of these keywords so that it puts them in the best possible position to make a sale.

Understanding The Buying Cycle

If you’re an affiliate marketer then it’s absolutely essential you know the buying cycle and when people are looking to buy. By knowing this simple strategy you will be able to maximise your site to boost your income stream.

It’s generally accepted that when someone visits your site they are looking for information. This information could be for any number of reasons such as reviews on a particular product, or advice on a particular brand. It is your job as an affiliate marketer to provide this advice to the searcher and then point them in the right direction – to an online store where they can make a purchase.

Take the following keyword as an example:

Searcher types in keyword: Dishwashers

“Dishwashers” is a very broad keyword and it is therefore difficult to know for certain what the searcher is looking for. For example are they looking for reviews on dishwashers? Do they want their dishwasher repaired? Or maybe there is a specific brand of dishwasher they are looking for? Often broad keywords like this one have a low conversion rate as it is difficult for an affiliate marketer to provide information on dishwashers when they are unsure what information the searcher is looking for.

My recommendation is to stay clear of these keywords as you are unlikely to make many sales with them. Instead my advice would be to focus your efforts on targeting more specific keywords like the following.

Searcher Types In Keyword: Miele Dishwasher

As you can see this keyword is more refined than the search “dishwashers” which means you are clearly able to identify the user is searching for a specific brand of dishwashers – Miele dishwashers.
You can also tell from this keyword that the searcher is looking for specific information regarding Miele Dishwashers.
So, as an affiliate marketer you would need to set up a page outlining the different models of Miele Dishwashers available for purchase, along with reviews of each of the different models. It would also help if you could try and recommend one dishwasher in particular that really stands out compared to what else is available. It always helps to try and point the searcher in the right direction and to provide your visitors with value on your website.

Most searchers will be looking for guidance and recommendations of the best Miele Dishwasher. If you are able to indicate to the searcher you have the knowledge and a reasonable amount of information about dishwashers then you will gain their trust and assume you’re an expert on the subject. By gaining the confidence of your searchers they are more likely to take your advice on board and perhaps buy what you are marketing on your site.

Searcher Type In Keyword: Miele Dishwasher g2470

These types of keywords are gems. This is because in most cases the searcher is in the second stage of the buying cycle and has identified not only a brand of dishwashers, but also a model number. As you can see this keyword is more refined than the previous, as we now know exactly what model the searcher is after. This allows the affiliate marketer to provide a page dedicated to this dishwasher in particular – Miele Dishwasher g2470. These are always the types of keywords marketers take a keen interest in because they have high conversion rates.

As an affiliate marketer you would create a page or website, dedicated entirely to this brand and model of dishwasher. This will cause your conversion rate to drastically increase basically because your website is dedicated around this one search.

Searcher types in keyword: Buy Miele Dishwasher g2470

This is the absolute ideal keyword you want to target. This is the final stage of the buying cycle. The searcher has identified the brand they are interested in, the model number and with the keyword “buy” we can conclude the searcher is looking for the best place to buy this brand and model of dishwasher – can it get any better than this?

The other thing about these keywords I want to mention is they are ‘long tail’ keywords meaning you can in most instances rank in search engines fairly easily.

However, you must remember that these longer keywords often get searched for much less than the broader keywords like “dishwashers” or “Miele Dishwashers”. Nevertheless. they are very high converting keywords which make them a potential goldmine for affiliate marketers.

Conclusion

You will find keywords like ‘Miele Dishwasher g2470” and “Buy Miele Dishwasher g2470” are excellent keywords to target because they have the potential to bring in sales.

As mentioned above, these keywords are also long tail which makes it much easier for them to rank on search engines compared to broader keywords like “dishwashers” which would be much more competitive. Generally, these keywords may not be searched for very often, but when they are searched for you will find them to be very high converting.

Therefore, it is well worth remembering that by targeting keywords where the searcher is at the later end of the buying cycle, you are putting your site in a much better position to make a sale.

Fox Marketer