Search engine optimisation (SEO) is a continual battle against your competition. You may be number one today, but tomorrow your competition may implement a new strategy and push you down the ladder. This constant race to the top is one of the least understood factors of SEO. Many clients believe that once they have achieved a strong search engine ranking, they can stop worrying and turn their attentions elsewhere. The reality is that SEO is a race with no finish line. You may be in the lead, but if you stop running, or even slow down, you can quickly be overtaken and left choking on dust.

Since the arrival of search engines, clever webmasters have devised more and more innovative ways of helping their websites appear better within them. Just as an athlete trains muscles and sharpens their spikes before the big race, SEO practitioners hone the code and content of websites to create the most ideal circumstances to get out in front.

But, as in professional athletics, there are always those who find more controversial ways of improving their chances. In response, new rules are created, new guidelines laid down, new penalties implemented. Search engines have continually refined and updated their algorithms and released Webmaster Guidelines to reduce the risk of what they see as unfair behaviour affecting their results. The goal of search engines is to provide the best results for the end-user, the person conducting the search. Therefore, every guideline and penalty is constructed with this person in mind, not the webmaster.

Not everyone agrees with this focus. Some webmasters feel Google should be paying more attention to their personal goals of generating traffic for their online businesses and are prepared to flout the guidelines to redress this perceived imbalance. Those webmasters and SEO practitioners that choose to operate outside of the established guidelines have become known as ‘black-hats’, with those happy to play by Google’s rules characterised as ‘white-hats’.

Winning at Any Cost

As an example, one common black-hat SEO technique is to use ‘cloaking’. Cloaking involves using various techniques to present a different web page to the user than to the search engines. The search engine algorithm assesses and ranks one page, but when the user clicks on the link in the search engine results, they receive different content. Sometimes these differences are minor – an alternative set of links or changes to the content – but sometimes this can mean a completely different page.

When this technique was identified by the search engines, they quickly adjusted their guidelines and algorithms in an attempt to reduce its influence. But the algorithm is not perfect, and many black-hat techniques can only be identified by human monitoring and detailed manual review.

One of the most public examples of cloaking being exposed was the incident with BMW back in 2006. BMW had created special ‘doorway pages’, designed to rank very highly in Google for certain profitable keywords. One of these was ‘used cars’. On clicking on the BMW link, the user wasn’t transferred to a page with high relevance to used cars, but was redirected to a completely different BMW page, with fewer references. This meant that readers were presented with a page less relevant to their search (according to the Google algorithm) than implied by its appearance in the search results.

As a result of this practice, BMW was removed from the Google index until they agreed to remove the offending pages and resubmit the website for evaluation. The potential revenue lost by being removed from Google can be enough motivation for many businesses to avoid any such tricks.

Pushing the Boundaries

Before a technique becomes black-hat, it has to become established as an effective technique and attract a negative response from the search engines. This means that the hugely powerful creative SEO solution of today may become the black-hat offence that carries a penalty tomorrow.

So how do you know whether the fantastic technique you’re using is not going to be penalised or restricted by Google in the future?

Matt Cutts is a Google Spam Engineer at Google and is tasked with identifying and assessing methods of misrepresenting websites – spamming - through the Google algorithm. Recently, he was interviewed at an SEO conference in the States and had this to say. (You can also view the original video.)

“I try not to think what’s right or wrong for Google. I think what’s right or wrong for users and then Google tries to align ourselves with what is right or wrong. The fact that people can already ask themselves what is really good for users and guess what stance Google’s going to take means you don’t really need me to tell them.”

Therefore, when deciding whether your brilliantly effective new trick is going to be supported or criticised by Google, you only need to consider how it affects the end-user experience. This is the point that causes the most controversy, as webmasters argue from their own biased perspectives on what is best for the end-user? When is using cookies to present different information to a potential customer providing a responsive service and when is it deceptive? With no clear arbiter of right and wrong on the web, with even Google’s guidelines arguably a biased and flawed viewpoint, there is enough grey in the middle of this to fuel arguments on all sides.

How Fair is the Race?

Some industries are far more competitive than others and are therefore more prone to black-hat tricks. For example, a Google search for ‘loans’ presents a number of websites that are suspected of using some questionable methods. For a website dealing in loans, it may be wiser to choose some less competitive keyword phrases with a higher chance of success. There are many black-hat websites that are entirely comfortable with the short term gains of their techniques, making money and merely closing down and starting up elsewhere, should the trick be blown. The best choice is probably finding the races where black-hats are less prevalent – the less competitive keywords or different approaches to garnering traffic through blogs and social media, for example.

The Risks – to You and the Industry

Seth Godin, a major and highly respected authority on marketing in all forms, recently discussed the topic of gaming the system in his blog. Optimising results within the rules may be less effective than exploiting loopholes, but loopholes get closed. Short term success may result in long term pain.

What may be a great idea today may cause great damage to your online business tomorrow. The trick used to catapult your website to the top of Google can shoot you straight back to the bottom if the algorithm changes. If your website relies on tricks and loopholes, you may find your website struggles to survive without them and the price of reclaiming your previous ranking may be costly and time-consuming.

Despite the risks, there are many that choose a black-hat path, often out of a belief that the internet should not be bound by rules and guidelines. They argue that Google’s Webmaster Guidelines are no more than a large corporation playing god with the livelihoods of small business.

Google’s success came about because everyone chose to run in their race. There are other races in town, other ways of attracting traffic, but Google was quickly established as the Olympic event in search. If a website doesn’t want to run in the Google race, then they needn’t worry about the Webmaster Guidelines and shouldn’t complain when they disappear from Google. But if the intention is to win the Google race, the rules are clear.

An athlete cannot insist on running at the Olympics only to shout that the Olympic committee is unfair to use their huge status to restrict drug use. Yet black-hats do argue with Google every day on the application of guidelines designed to protect the quality of its service.

Planet Domain offers SEO services completely within the Google Webmaster Guidelines. Entrusted with the livelihoods of hundreds of small businesses, we understand the importance of approaching SEO ethically and with the minimum of risk. You can read more about our search engine optimisation services on our website.

Mobile Marketing

In April ActiveMedia launched ActiveFRONT, a mobile marketing program designed to integrate SMS and WAP (Wireless Application Protocol). The initiative was designed to give marketers better access to people who use online communities, which in this day in age means practically everyone.

However this type of media doesn’t apply to the majority of mobile net users. The Blackberry and now the iPhone are becoming tremendously popular and can support nearly as much content as a computer; but most people don’t own these high end devices.

Mobile Internet Today

The regular mobile user has a handset which can’t support CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) presentation. CSS is designed to help web crawlers read document presentation in terms of font, colour and layout. Therefore if you are a mobile marketer aiming at the average mobile net user your advertising content needs to be outlined in clean semantic mark-up.

In other words marketers should write their material in plain old HTML to create simple text-only advertisements. Eliminate any unnecessary frames and decorative images that would slow the loading process for a screen measuring between 100 and 640 pixels. Tabulated data is also a big no. The standard mobile mostly supports only one column of information.

Further guidelines to consider revolve around the physical size of a phone. Condense the entire presentation to fit within a smaller viewing space. The font size for all text needs to be reduced. As does the information contained in the brief because without a mouse or keyboard the user won’t feel like clicking through a large amount of material. The average screen will allow for 20 to 40 characters in 12 to 15 lines.

URL addresses also need to be as short as possible where applicable.

Looking Forward to .mobi

Mobile phones are no longer being used for marketing in terms of just smsing. With the expansion of mobile net use, campaigns can now be better targeted to reach the ideal audience.

.mobi is a domain extension that was approved by ICANN in 2005 and is specifically aimed at increasing mobile net use. To purchase your .mobi today visit Planet Domain.

By Stacey Manson

Many budding entrepreneurs opt to self-design their website, and why not, who better knows their business right?

If you are developing a blueprint for your site there are few things that must be considered. Web pages which are visually appealing and fuelled with sales oomph may actually cause your site to lose visitors.

Say NO to Flash Animation

If you have ever been to a site where the first page is some fancy animation, it is not as appealing as it is annoying. Out of the world’s top sites NONE of them are prefaced by flash animation. What’s more when Google scans the first page of your site for relevant content, it can’t interpret the animation and registers the first page as void of content.

Flash animation can also take a notoriously long time to load. Not everyone has fast internet access so if you make your visitors wait most will leave the site and visit one that downloads quicker.

First Thing’s First; Key Information

Users don’t want to waste time looking for the most important information; make it easy for them by showing your company’s product on the first page. Make this message clear and to the point. Where possible adorn the page headings and titles with the keywords that best describe your site. Google places greater importance on information inside headings. So if you can succeed in getting your message across here your site is more likely to place well in the Google rankings.

Make sure contact details are easily visible. If they aren’t on your first page, make sure they are at least a click away.

Consistency is Key

The design must be simple and effective, which needs to be a carried throughout the entire site. Don’t go overboard with too many different fonts, colours and layouts.

When I Hear Music…

Music on a webpage, like flash animation, takes too long to load and because of this drives visitors from your site rather than draws them in. Unless your business is music related, don’t use music on your site to add extra flavour.

If people want to listen to music while they browse they will open their iTunes, not log on to your site.

Don’t Forget to Update!

Once your site is live, it still needs maintenance! Give it a face lift once the design becomes dated. Analyse the traffic reports, available from your hosting supplier, and customise your sight to better suit those who are visiting it the most. Make sure all of the links on your sight are operational; you will lose customers quickly if error messages on your site are common place.

The best plan of attack is to find a qualified web designer to work through any issues for you. Yet if this is not within your budget try and at least give your site the best chance of success.

By Stacey Manson

‘It’s the useless server again,’ you presume after a frustrating five minutes spent repeatedly clicking Mr Refresh. However researchers at the University of Washington have now discovered that this may not necessarily be the case.

Black Holes on the Net

Graduate student Ethan Katz-Bassett and his advisor Arvind Krishnamurthy have discovered that information is constantly being lost along digital conduits that were previously operational. They have termed these areas where information travels into oblivion as the internet’s ‘black holes’, and apparently they comprise a whopping 10% of the internet.

It appears the internet, which is trusted as a reliable communication network for many vital services, is actually less dependable than phone networks. In fact since the inception of their analysis last September almost a million black holes and reachability problems have been detected.

The Hubble Program

The researchers have designed a system called Hubble, named after the NASA space telescope that first detected intergalactic black holes. It operates via a network of cyber-probes which detect computers that can be reached by some, but not all, of the internet. This data suggest that there is an issue occurring en route and there is the presence of a black hole. The probes monitor up to 90% of the net.

Bassett and Krishnamurthy hope the new technology will drastically improve the functionality of the internet by allowing ISPs to track down the source of problems experienced on their network. Their data is updated every 15 minutes and their website hosts a map illustrating where black holes are occurring at any given minute.

What Triggers a Black Hole?

It is believed the black holes are caused by problems with particular routers. This can vary from issues with new router paths not operating properly to issues with multi-homing.

Multi homing protocol connects a site to the internet from more than one address, which enables it to have several different connectivity links. The technology is meant to make it easier for information packets reach their destination, yet it is also making it easier for those packets to be sent to black holes.

It is hoped that future versions of Hubble will be able to more precisely pinpoint the exact cause of the holes. Maybe the researchers will be able to find a way to permanently reroute SPAM to these holes too!

So next timed the hourglass refuses to disappear from your monitor don’t be so quick to blame your particular server. It is quite possible the information you desire has passed over the event horizon and into cyber oblivion.

By Stacey Manson

In theory this approach does seem practical. Type in .shop and a website related to shopping appears. Type in .mp3 and you can download the latest music. Catching up on the weekend sports scores; type in .sport. There are infinite possibilities, prompting the question of why ICANN hasn’t used a relationship between web content and domain names before.

Why Creating Content Driven TLDs Can’t Work

The idea is simple and appears effective. Yet in practice, category based TLDs would almost certainly be pointless and unsuccessful.

One of ICANN’s prime functions is to ensure the prolonged stability of the Internet. This stability relies on the relative simplicity of the current Domain Name System (DNS). By creating TLDs that effectively create a myriad of group filters, the complexity of the system is increased and thus, with the greater chance of error, becomes more unstable.

What’s more is the direct challenge category specific TLDs would be to the diverse nature of the web. The Internet is ultimately successful due to its decentralised make-up. Currently it allows for open freedom to information. However a strict correlation between content and domain names would allow barriers to be created, severely hampering that freedom.

Internet Growth and TLDs

Categories would also change over different times and places. It would be extremely hard to create global labels that appease all communities of people. For example the notion of .mp3 was completely foreign fifty years ago and still is to certain areas of the world. In another fifty years the concept will have evolved again meaning even more categories will be needed to compensate for the evolution. The whole process of trying to keep up with changing technologies and attitudes with the endless creation of filters would cause the net to become progressively less and less universal.

Even if ICANN was to allow the development of these TLDs, it is hard to see domain registrants all over the world moving to purchase new domain names appropriate to their sites’ particular category.

Not only would this be cost deficient for businesses needing to purchase multiple domain names, it would create a disparity between those using the old system and those with the new.

The current IP addresses have successfully created fair competition between domains because each site is read and located irrespective of what the site visually displays.

Category Based TLDs and the Market Today

Category specific TLDs are already being tested by a small percentage of web users and the results have been far from smooth sailing. Unless the computer and the ISP have specially downloaded software, the processor will be unable to resolve the domain.

Although the dotcom bubble of the late-nineties is a distant memory, .com is still by far the most popular and recognised TLD on the market. There are no conditions of use, it is cheap to acquire and the danger of content driven domains has had little tangible impact on its success.

When considering registering a domain, be extremely wary of the new .shop, .sport, .whatever fad because the results will not be as favourable as they appear.

By Stacey Manson

For six years, Australia has been unique amongst our international peers in restricting the .au 2LD from transfer. Anyone needing to transfer a .au domain name, for whatever reason, found it virtually impossible to do so.

Evolution of Internet Policy

The restrictions are a hangover from original attempts to shield the then fledgling internet from market pressures. Championing the belief that the internet should be open to all, auDA enshrined a policy designed to prevent the commercialisation of domain names and shut out speculators from the market.

Domain name speculation has become big business in the US and Europe, with some domains changing hands for six figure sums. There is no doubt that, despite the original non-commercial aspirations of the internet, domain names have become highly prized commodities with a large amount of power attached to them. But with many becoming frustrated at the inability to capitalise on the power of their own domain, the pressure has been on auDA for a long time to adjust this policy.

Commercial necessity required change, not merely from a financial viewpoint, but also a practical one. If a business can be sold on, the relevant domain should also be sold on and transferred with it. If a domain is an exclusive commodity for the purposes of registration and ownership, it should also be a commodity available to trade, when necessary or desirable to do so.

A Huge Step in the Right Direction

From June 1, 2008, the process of transferring a .au 2LD to another party, for whatever reason, becomes a whole lot easier. This is a major development and dramatically changes the domain landscape in this country, for the better.

Yet people should be aware of certain restrictions before going out and registering every variation of the most popular phrases and whacking them up on eBay.

Quoted from the auDA website.

“Key features of the new policy are as follows:

• it will not be allowable to register a domain name for the sole purpose of resale or transfer to a third party
• registrants will not be able to transfer their domain name for the first 6 months after the initial registration (this does not apply to domain names that have been renewed or previously transferred)
• after 6 months, registrants will be able to offer their domain name for sale/transfer by any means (eg. by listing the domain name for sale on a domain brokerage website, advertising the domain name for sale in a newspaper, or contacting a prospective buyer directly)
• the new registrant must comply with normal eligibility and allocation rules
  registrant transfers will be processed by the registrar of record using a standard transfer form, and the registrar may charge a transfer fee
• parties to a transfer will be asked to disclose the sale method and price, on a voluntary and confidential basis, so that auDA may collect aggregated statistical data to improve access to market information for buyers and sellers.”

Reading the Fine Print

It is yet to be established how these restrictions are to be implemented. It would be virtually impossible to police whether people were registering domains purely for the purpose of resale. Without direct complaints that can be supported by suspicious trading behaviour, it is hard to see how auDA intends to enforce this line.

Also, the 6 month non-transfer period after registration seems arbitrary. It may be designed to prevent opportunistic registrations – although rare, a phenomenon reported in the US. This practice involves domain providers snapping up any unregistered domain names entered into their search interface, holding them at a higher price should the customer later try to register.

In Australia, such behaviour is clearly against the code of conduct and would result in major penalties. Australian domain providers cannot register domains that are not for immediate use (ie; to pass onto a customer) so the six month restriction seems designed to prevent behaviour that already has sufficient safeguards.

A six month non-transfer period may inconvenience many who negotiate deals or need to make changes with legitimate reason in the first few months. The same reasons that would necessitate a transfer after 6 months are still valid before, so there may still be frustrated domain owners out there.

It is great to see changes bringing Australia into line with similar international territories. But it is certain that the domain name landscape will continue to evolve in Australia as the needs of business and the traditions of auDA find compromise.

But customers are far more than ‘clicks’ or ‘conversions’.

You may not have any direct involvement in each individual sale, with your website taking care of most of the heavy lifting, but customer satisfaction is as much an issue online as it is in a high street shop.

What Does the Customer Want?

A common mistake is to design a website based around what you want rather than what the customer wants, placing the business interests above those of the target audience. If the website is designed for your convenience over the customer, they may find the experience unsettling. A customer won’t buy because it helps you. They are there to serve their own needs.

When designing your site, view it through a visitor’s eyes. Set up the shopping cart to make transactions as easy as possible for the customer, provide confirmation emails and listen to feedback.

It is also not uncommon for businesses to attempt to ‘trick’ online shoppers. Using underhand techniques to bring traffic to a website, sourcing information to inundate unsuspecting people with partner offers and of course – spam.

Spam is the most obvious example of online businesses caring less about the customers and more about the law of percentages. Working on the principle that thousands of emails can generate a handful of responses, spam is purely a numbers game, where the individual doesn’t matter.

But many legitimate online businesses view customers in the same way. If enough traffic sees a poor product, chances are that some will take the bait and buy. The inadequacies of a business offer can sometimes be overcome merely by throwing more and more traffic at it.

Then again, there are some business offers that will never find a customer, no matter how many people see it.

Focusing on the Sale, Not the Result

The disconnected nature of online shopping allows for a greater risk of inadequate services and products, or in extreme cases, fraud. After all, when you receive your item in the post, often it is too much hassle to return it if it doesn’t quite meet your expectations.

But viewing online customers in this way can be very damaging in the long term.

Customers are not commodities, but it is easy to view them as such. As your only experience of them is as numbers on a report or clicks on a purchase button, the human face behind each of these actions is forgotten.

But the customer doesn’t forget. Repeat business is essential, yet customers won’t return if they feel exploited, disappointed or confused by your transaction.

Adding Personality to Online Business

This impersonal new form of customer service is testing some businesses to come up with new ways of interacting with their audience. Some of the more interesting websites I have seen use copy as a conversation, with every step of the transaction prompting friendly and conversational style of dialogue, more in tune with in a face to face situation.

Other businesses are injecting a bit of personality into their websites with blogs, video and images to add a human touch.

But appearances are one thing. Delivering on the service is another.

Don’t fall into the trap of treating your online customers as any less than the customers in front of you in your shop. After all, online customers have the whole internet to complain to.

Mobile Phones are everywhere. From Zurich to Zanzibar the world has embraced mobile devices with great enthusiasm, and in particular the net-savvy Gen-Yers and business executives. Whether it’s the Chic fashion accessory that sits in your handbag which you can pull out to impress your friends at Friday night drinks or the feature rich phone that lets you do most of your work from that tropical island escape; the phone that doubles as a music player with the abrupt ring tones that annoys everyone in the office or the trendy Apple Iphone, these days everyone is connected.

Telephone companies in Australia are replacing traditional CDMA Networks with High-speed 3G networks for improved voice and data services. In 2008, the sale of mobile phones globally is outperforming computers by 4-to-1, with over 70% of mobile phones already enabled for Internet access, it is evident that Internet usage on mobile phones is on the brink of something huge.

One can already see evidence of this emerging phenomenon when commuting to work by train with executives checking their email, stocks and news on their blackberry or PDA-phone, whilst high-school students chat with friends on Instant Messenger, update their Facebook profiles or watching videos on YouTube.

.MOBI Domains

Dot MOBI is the Domain Extension exclusive for Mobile Phones. Websites operating on a .MOBI domain name are required to present their website in a format that is compatible and friendly with Mobile Phone handsets, so that the layout of the site fits, and easy on the eye when viewed on a smaller screen.

.MOBI launched in late 2005, and has proved to be a massive success with over 500,000 domains registered within the first year, and the popularity of some domains seeing domains such flowers.mobi fetch $200,000 at auction.

PlanetDomain is one of only three Registrars in Australia currently accredited for .MOBI domains, and our development team are working on the implementation of .MOBI Top Level Domain in our system, which we expect to come online in Early May 2008.

With more feature-rich handsets flying off store-shelves daily, and our need to stay constantly connected, mobile phones will play a major role in our browsing habits and access to information in the years to come. .MOBI is a major part of that growth in Mobile Internet Usage - will you be ready for that growth?

Register domains today with PlanetDomain.

I’m quite capable of choosing items myself or asking for help should I need it. I don’t need someone who doesn’t know anything about me telling me what I should be trying on, driving or listening to. But sales assistants still try to influence my sale, encouraging me to try the more expensive shoes, the larger car, the bigger stereo to provide them with better commission.

So I leave the shop without buying anything.

Yet this behaviour isn’t exclusive to shoe shops and certain menswear emporiums.

Me, Me, Me!

If I were to ask you what your website is about, what would you answer?

If you would say your website is about your business and the products you sell, then you may have a problem.

If you would say your website is about providing a means for your customers to achieve their needs, let me shake your hand.

You may argue your business and your products are about the customer so it amounts to the same thing. But from a customer point of view, that relationship is not so obvious.

Every day, I see websites that attempt to bludgeon the reader over the head with their sales pitch with a complete disregard for the factors that motivate a sale. So many websites talk about how wonderful their company is or how fantastic a particular product may be without once mentioning how these things benefit the reader.

You may be the number one business in your industry, but unless you can articulate why that is important to the average customer, the only person who cares is you. Try to avoid centering your sales pitch on concepts that talk about your success and your business growth. A customer isn’t motivated to buy from you to help put your kids through college or win you another award.

Having pride in your company is important, and showing that pride on your website is great, but avoid using that pride to sell. These things are background details that can indicate reliability and trustworthiness but they are not the core of any successful sales pitch.

“How May I Help You?”

The most effective sales copy completely reverses this concept around. Instead, it refers to the customer, their situation and their needs.

Think of your target audience. Who is most likely to use your product and why? Avoid talking about features and mention how they meet a customer’s specific needs. Don’t use jargon, but write as if you were explaining your product to your mother. After all, I know I need a car, but I wouldn’t know my crank shaft from my carburetor. By describing to me the experience of driving the car, the handling, the tangible benefits or a decent stereo and airconditioning, I understand the benefits far better than I would reading a cold list of engine part specifications and scientific testing data.

By offering a scenario that the customer can relate to, it is possible to demonstrate how your product or service is the solution to their problem – thereby illustrating the benefit. Phrasing copy in these terms encourages the reader to picture the scenario in their minds. Immediately there is a positive association with your product. They are visualising them in your relaxing spa bath. They are enjoying the comfort of your luxury car. They are thrilled by the ease with which your time-saving gadget completes their daily tasks.

But don’t assume this visualisation. Expand on it. Saying your spa provides six jest of bubbles is not as evocative as describing how six jets of powerful bubbles create a more relaxing experience, soothing muscles and calming you after a long day at work.

By putting your mind in the customer’s viewpoint when writing your copy, you will find your sales pitch has far more vibrancy and immediacy. Your website will welcome your readers in, relating to their needs, their fears and their motivations.

Don’t force customers out of your shop. Show that you understand them. Provide answers to their needs. They will do the rest.

The importance of choosing the right domain name can’t be stressed enough. After all, it is the name above your shop, the first words your customers will see. But beyond registering control of the domain so you can point it to your website, what else is there? Why does the same domain cost so much more when registered with one company instead of another?

In Australia, for example, the wholesale cost of registering a domain name is a cheap $19.50 + GST for a .com.au or .net.au. For other forms of domain; such as .org.au, .com, .info, etc, the fees vary and may be cheaper still. These prices are set by the local registries responsible for each region. Some of these domains may come with other restrictions. For example, auDA (The Australian Domain Administrator) restricts the registration of .com.au domains to businesses with a tax ABN number.

But you or I cannot register domain names at the wholesale price. We need to use accredited companies with the authority to register and administer domains on our behalf. The wholesale domain name price forms only part of the fee charged to you by this company. With additional fees for service, these additional costs can blow this $19.50 +GST into very different prices.

So when considering which company to go with to register your domain names, you will need to consider a number of other factors to determine the best deal.

Do you want telephone customer support or can you work with email contact only?

Some budget domain name companies are able to afford to keep their costs so low by keeping staff levels to a minimum. This means no telephone customer support and all customer contact is done by email. May be fine in most circumstances, but when you need help with more complicated issues, an email conversation can be difficult. Also response times are much slower. You may be waiting hours for the email response you need.

Do you want support 24×7?

If you’re like me, you do a lot of personal web projects over the weekend. But if I hit a snag and have to wait until business hours on Monday to reach customer support, it can put my project back a week. If you think you may need support outside of normal business hours, you may need to pay a little more.

Are you hoping to keep all your website transactions in one place?

Granted, some of the budget domain name companies have cheap prices, but are they capable of dealing with all your other website needs? If you have your web hosting, web design, SEO and other services elsewhere, it may be worth paying that little but extra to have the same company look after your domain names too. Having all your website components in one place can make rebilling and administration a lot easier and that can save money in the long run

Do you want an easy but comprehensive online interface to administer your domains?

It is reasonable to assume that the cheaper the domain name, the less money the business has to put into other customer service features. If you will be using your online control panel to administer your domain names, make sure it is one you are comfortable with and capable of achieving what you need. Remember, if you hit a problem with your online control panel with a cheap provider, as mentioned above, you may not be able to get customer service support when you need it.

Once you know what level of service you want with your domain name, you can then decide how much that is worth to you. By comparing companies with the level of service you need, you will soon identify which one is providing the best deal and which one is relying on ignorance to fuel their high prices.

Of course, Planet Domain provides effective and unlimited telephone or email customer support with a proven online interface. Backed up by years of experience, we can honestly say we have one of the best domain name deals on the net.