November
30, 2005
In This Issue:
1. Master of your domain?
2. In the News - Google click-to-call, Google
in Wired
3. More News Headlines
4. This Week's Q&A - Domain name listed in
Google
5. Wrapping It Up
_________________
Master of your domain?
It's the first step in doing business online,
and it should be such a simple step -- find an
available domain name and register it. But for
a variety of reasons, it's often not so simple
and can cause a business owner all kinds of headaches
down the road.
I added an article to OWTweb.com this week about
domain registration. It was inspired by a recent
phone call from a local business owner who had
an actual domain name emergency. (Serious.) The
domain name he thought was his actually wasn't,
and due to a dispute with his web developer he'll
probably never get it back. When you've spent
hundreds or thousands of dollars of advertising
(yellow pages, newspaper, business cards, stationery,
etc.) that promotes your domain name, and then
you lose it ... ouch.
Whether you're just starting out and don't have
a domain name, or if you've been in business for
years with an established web site, I think the
article has some helpful advice to make sure you
don't run into similar problems. As always, feedback
is welcome!
Domain
Registration
_________________
In The News
Google testing click-to-call
Google's AdWords program is expanding. They're
testing a new element that gives advertisers without
a web site a reason to sponsor listings on Google.
Rather than clicking an ad to visit the advertiser's
web site, the user clicks the ad and Google connects
you by phone to the advertiser. Google is not
the first to do this; others have been doing it
for months. If it's successful, it could open
up Google's advertising door to a lot of small,
local businesses (think plumbers, electricians,
handyman services, etc.) that don't have web sites
but could get new customers from sponsoring search
phrases like "kennewick plumber" on
Google's SERPs.
Who's afraid of Google?
Wired Magazine have a good feature in their December
issue detailing all the pots Google has its hands
in, and who might be affected. Good stuff if you're
a Google watcher. Not so much if you're only concerned
about rankings and SERPs.
Wired: Who's
afraid of Google? Everyone.
_________________
More News Headlines
Here are a few news headlines worth your time
to read. These are just some of the headlines
we've posted to OWTweb.com in recent days.
Coming
to grips with Google analytics
November 29, 2005 - ClickZ.com
It's Google and it's free. But is Google Analytics
the right choice for your business?
AdWords
vs. adCenter: The Personalization Factor
November 28, 2005 - ClickZ.com
In Shanghai, Mike finds what may be Google's Achilles
heel.
Are
keywords destroying the flow of your SEO copy?
November 28, 2005 - Search Engine Guide
More headlines: http://www.owtweb.com/news/
_________________
This Week's Q&A
Matt,
What does it mean in Google when our domain name
is listed, but it doesn't show our page title
or anything else from our web site? It just shows
the domain name and nothing else.
Karen
Hi Karen,
This happens when Google has added the domain
to its index, but hasn't fully crawled the content
of your page(s). If your site is new, this is
nothing to worry about. If your site is old, and
you used to have a lot of pages being crawled
and included in Google's index, this might be
a problem. Check to see if you've made any recent
changes to your web site that Google may frown
upon, things that might lead them to remove your
pages from the index. It may just be a hiccup
on their end causing it, or it may be something
more serious.
(Have a question? Email questions@owtweb.com)
_________________
Wrapping it Up
Thanks for reading, and here's hoping your online
business is doing well.
Thanks for reading,
Matt McGee
The OWT Newsletter is a weekly service
offered free to anyone interested in learning
more about web development, search engine optimization/marketing,
and just about anything else related to running
a business web site. You don't need to be an OWT
client to subscribe to our newsletter!
Subscribing and unsubscribing can
be done online at OWTweb.com. You may share this
newsletter with others as long as the newsletter
is shared in its entirety.
Private replies to emails will
be written if we have time, but we don't provide
web site critiques or consulting services for
free. You can learn more about our web development
and search engine marketing services online at
www.owtweb.com. |
