SmilingPartners

If you have registered a domain name, you’ve probably heard from Domain Registry of America. Read the letter if you want, but then throw it away.

The first one I got was confusing to me. I was an absolute newbie – I’d registered my domain name and made a few posts to my blog, but I was busy pursuing my wealth on eBay, so there hadn’t been any focus on building web sites and registering domain names beyond that.

So, the first missive came from these people, I did a little investigation with Domain Cheapsters, where I’d registered my domain, and figured out this helpful reminder to renew my registration was actually going to charge several times more than Domain Cheapsters was asking.

Hello? Are they really getting away with this? Apparently so.

The letter comes looking all official with an American Flag as part of their logo on the envelope and the letter. It has a heading that says “Domain Name Expiration Notice,”  and then explains that this is a “courtesy to domain name holders.”

Hah! Some courtesy! Their kindness is offered at a $30 renewal rate – 20-some dollars more than Domain Cheapsters charges. Even better, they’ll register the .info for me for 2 years for only $50 ($3.98 at my registrar) and the .org for the same $50, $15.98 for that same two years with mine. Such a deal!

I guess they’re doing smoke and mirrors, but apparently it isn’t an out-and-out illegal scam or con. But this is definitely a “buyer beware” situation.

Bottom line is, don’t fall for it. Go to reputable on-line domain registrars for both your initial registration as well as your renewals.

I’ve been spending a part of my morning unsubscribing from a number of internet marketing lists. For a long time I subscribed to the marketing doctrine that I really should stay on a lot of lists to see what new products and methods were being offered.

However, now I’m finding that I don’t get that information; I get emails telling me the marketer has a free something for me. Great! Then I open, follow the link, and find that my “free” report or ebook or whatever is being offered in exchange for my email address. Hey, wait a minute! If you want me to give you something in return for your goodie, it ain’t free to me.

Free doesn’t mean only that money doesn’t change hands. Please don’t get confused about that.

I don’t mind if a marketer tells me there’s a report waiting for me in exchange for my email address, and that the marketer thinks this is a good exchange. That’s honest, and it won’t generate an unsubscribe action from me.

I understand there are a lot of new – and young – people coming online with an expectation they’re going to make a bunch of money online. And a constant with internet marketing has been that “the money is in the list.” Most of the gurus tell you the only way to make real money is to get a lot of subscribers. I get that. Just don’t do this “free business.”

Another part of the equation is that I’m being asked to give up my email address to someone for a report on how I can make money on the web apparently written by someone I haven’t heard of. Now, I certainly don’t know every single successful marketer in the IM world. But I’ve been online for a few years now, and I’m pretty sure I know most. So being offered an ebook about making money online from someone who has yet to make money online? Well, no thanks.

I know you’ve got to start somewhere. But it seems to me the best way to start your career is to start it honestly.

I wanted to be sure to tell you about MicroNiche Finder, a most amazing tool for anyone looking to find profitable niches.

I’ve owned this tool for a few years and have seen a number of changes (all upgrades are included in your original purchase. The latest version includes some pretty awesome stuff. To my chagrin, I do on occasion find myself spending way too much time with this fascinating tool.

The tool installs on your own computer, and it’s very user friendly. I’ve looked at other keyword tools, but if I have to spend an entire day trying to figure it out, I give it back. There’s plenty of stuff you have to learn, so cutting corners on my learning time is preferable. With MNF, you simply plug in the keyword you want to know about, and it starts its magic work.

You generally get a return of 200 words, all with local search count, global search count, a bar graph of the past year’s trending, and google’s ad cost. With a click of your mouse you can also get the exact search count, a representation of the online commercial intention, measure of backlinks, and a computation of the strength of competition (conveniently shown in greed, yellow, and red), so you know whether the term is worth pursuing. And, it will check to see if there are domain names (.com, .net, and .org) available.

So, if that wasn’t enough, you can set parameters to narrow the list to your criteria. For example, you can exclude any term that doesn’t have at least 1,000 local searches or that has an ad cost smaller than $1.00. Or get rid of keyword phrases that are less than 3 words – or any criteria you want to set. All of this can be done more quickly than it took me to write about it.

Oh, another thing. Each of the words generated from your main list can be dug into even deeper. Some options are to dig deeper into a particular term, get more suggestions from google and dig into LSI searches. And that’s only a tiny bit.

I’ve been setting up sites in groups, built around the same basic market. I can quickly see if a market is viable, then narrow things down to only those terms that fit my criteria and have domains available.

I guess you can tell that I like MicroNiche Finder a lot!

This really only touches a little bit of what this great tool can do. The developer, James Jones, has added so many features, it would take the rest of the evening to tell you about them. And even with all this great stuff, it’s set up for the user. There isn’t a bunch of geek stuff to go through. Click a term and you’ll see – in plain English – everything else you can find out.

Enough already. Go to this page and let James show you his videos. You’ll be amazed!

PS: These are affiliate links. The FTC says I need to tell you that if you buy MicroNiche Finder through my link, I’ll make a little money. It doesn’t change how much it costs you.