How to Create an E-commerce Business Website
The purpose of this post is to walk through the process of how to create an e-commerce business website. The thought of creating your own e-commerce site may seem daunting, but this article will give you a step-by-step guide on getting your store up and running. After you finish reading the article, check out our domain tools to pick out a domain for your e-commerce site!
Step 1: Choose a Domain
One of the most important steps of creating your e-commerce site is choosing a great domain name. Your domain name says a lot about your e-commerce business and is important in attracting customers and building your brand. To find keyword domains for your particular niche, try our type-in-traffic finder or bulk keyword checker tools. If you have some domain ideas and want to see if they’re available, then go over to our instant domain finder and see what domains are available. We offer some great tutorials on choosing domain names as well as finding registars so be sure to check those out.
Step 2: Select Your E-commerce Platform
Fortunately for new entrants into the e-commerce market, there is no shortage of e-commerce platforms available to help you get your site up and running fast. These different platforms fall under several different categories:
1. Completely Hosted E-Commerce Website Platforms
The simplest and quickest way to get an e-commerce website up and running is to use a hosted e-commerce platform. This type of e-commerce website is hosted by a company that provides customer e-commerce software from there servers. All the end-user has to do is sign up, select a pre-made template, and add his or her products (a great example of this type of site is Shopify.com). The trade-off with this type of platform is control and price. E-commerce business websites that run on these platforms can expect a monthly fee and more limited control over what they can do to their site. However, usually a store can be configured with absolutely no HTML or programming knowledge.
2. Semi-hosted E-Commerce Website Platforms
This type of platform is a compromise between completely hosting an e-commerce business website yourself and using a complete e-commerce hosting platform. Generally this type of platform allows the user to put up his own site and content, and then transfer over to a third-part website to actually handle the processing of orders. A couple great examples of this kind of solution are 1ShoppingCart and Google Checkout. This solution gives e-commerce business owners more flexibility in the presentation of their products, without having to worry about handling credit card processing on their own site. Some of these providers are free (but take a percentage of sales), and some have a monthly fee.
3. Standalone E-Commerce Website Software
The most flexible, but also the most complex method of creating an e-commerce business website it to use e-commerce website software and to install it on your web host (check out our article on how to find a good host). With this type of platform, the e-commerce business website owner would download the software and install it on his servers. The software would provide an administrative section for managing products, but it would be up to the site owner to apply his own templates, code or install different plugins, as well as set up payment gateways and merchant accounts for accepting credit cards. A couple of the most popular e-commerce website applications are ZenCart and OSCommerce.
Step 3: Set up Products
No matter which way you go with choosing a e-commerce platform, you will be provided with some kind of administrative interface to manage your inventory. Once you have your site configured, you should add all of your products and assign them categories as you like. Each platform will have its own instructions on how to do this.
Step 4: Make Some Money!
Once your website and store is setup, it’s time to start the real work! Check out our how-to guide for tips on monetizing your domain names and our domain development video tutorial series (available to premium members) for more info on starting your e-commerce empire.
Now that your ready to start your e-commerce business website, sign up for our premium membership trial for only $3 to find the perfect domain name for your online store.
How to install Google Analytics
One of the most important tools in the domainer’s toolbox is web analytic software. This type of software will allow you to track visitors coming to your site, giving you valuable information that can help you tweak content and better monetize your domain. In this tutorial, we will describe how to install Google Analytics, one of the most popular and useful web analytic services. Of course, before you can install Google Analytics, you need to find a great domain to install it on. Check out our tools to find your domain today.
Step 1: Create a Google Analytics account
To use Google Analytics, you need to have a free Google Analytics account. To create one, head over to http://www.google.com/analytics/, and sign up for an account.
Step 2: Add your site to your Google Analytics account
Once you have created your account, you can log into Google Analytics and set-up your site. On your Analytics user page, click on the “Add Website Profile” link and follow the instructions to tell Google about your domain. Google Analytics will give you a script that you can add to the bottom of your site. Once you’ve added your site and installed the script, your data will be tracked!
One important thing to note for this step, is that the script needs to be installed for each page that you wish to track. Using a CMS like Wordpress, makes this much easier because you can just add the script to the footer template file.
Once you’ve done this step, you can track many important metrics, including the following:
- Traffic sources (where your visitors come from).
- Unique visitors per day, week, month, or year.
- Google search terms that people use to come to your site.
This list is just scratching the surface of the metrics that you can track.
Step 3: Set up goals
In addition to basic metrics, you can set up goals to see how often people follow paths to your site and how often you are converting. To configure goals, go to the profile settings page for your domain from the Google Analytics dashboard, then click on the Edit link next to one of the Goals in the goal table. From this page you can specify what pages you want visitors to end up on, and even how you want visitors to get to a particular page. This is very useful if you have a page that users go to after signing up for your site, because you can see how many people are signing up for your service.
This tutorial has covered the basics of installing Google Analytics on your website. All that is left is to start making some money! Sign up for a premium membership and start using some of the best tools available for finding money making domains.
How to use Wordpress as a CMS
Wordpress is often thought of as a blogging platform. While it is indeed great for blogging, it can also be used as a full blown Content Management System. In a previous article we went over how to choose a CMS for your domain. In this article, we will offer a step-by-step guide on using Wordpress as a CMS.
Before you can use Wordpress as a CMS, you need a domain to host it on. Try out our tools to find a monetizable domain then follow the steps below to have a easily configurable Wordpress powered site.
Step 1: Install Wordpress
To use Wordpress as a CMS you obviously have to install it. Wordpress is known for being extremely easy to setup, but in most cases, your host (Wordpress.org, download the latest version, and follow the instructions to install your own copy of Wordpress.
Step 2: Choose a Theme
To use Wordpress as a CMS, you should download a theme for it that doesn’t look like a blog. There are tons of great resources on the web for downloading these “magazine style” themes, but a few of the best can be found at WooThemes or Studio Press. Themes like these are set up to resemble an actual website, as opposed to the default Wordpress blog-styled theme. If desired, you can customize the themes you download or purchase to look exactly as you like. Domain Superstar offers programming and design services if you are looking for something like this.
Step 3: Set up pages
Wordpress allows users to create and edit two different types of content. The first is “posts.” These are typically blog posts that can be commented on and will show up on whatever URL you designate for your blog. The second type of content is called a “page” and is exactly that…a web-page for your site. Pages can be given categories to allow them to show up in the menus that your site provides. Pages are a great way to post content to your site. In fact, this article is a Wordpress page!
Just following these simple steps will get started with your new site using Wordpress as a CMS. If you have questions on how to get a domain or a web-host, check out our articles on those topics (How to register a domain name and How to choose the best hosting plan) Then, sign up for a Domain Superstar trial membership for only $3 and use our premium tools to find the domain that is right for you!
How to Build Websites at Home
Building websites is an exciting, fun, and often profitable activity, but to many people, is also a daunting task. This article will show you how to build websites at home and will show you that doing so is much easier than you imagined! The number one step in building a website is having a domain. Whether your goal is to have a personal site or to make money, try out our tools now to find a great domain.
Once you have a domain, you are ready to start building websites!
Step 1: Find a Hosting Plan
You need to have a web host to build websites. You can find many types of plans – from cheap plans that allow you to run one domain, to dedicated servers that can potentially run hundreds of sites. A couple of good web hosts are HostGator and GoDaddy
Step 2: Configure your Nameservers
Once you’ve your bought your domain and selected a host, you need to configure your nameservers to point to your domain. A nameserver is a server on the internet that maps your domain name to your web host IP address, allowing browsers to get to the right site when they type in your domain. Generally, your domain registrar will have a control panel where you can specify the name server you want to use for your domain. For detailed instructions on setting up your nameserver, check out our how-to guide on configuring your nameservers.
Step 3: Pick a CMS
Once you’ve configured your nameservers, you need to choose a CMS for your domain. A CMS will allow you to easily choose a theme for your site, and to easily add new content. To see a list of criteria when choosing a CMS, check out our article on choosing a CMS for your domain.
Step 4: Add Content
Once your CMS is configured, you need to add relevant content do you domain. Write some articles and author some blog posts to get your site fleshed out. If you want some community with your site, then download some plugins for your CMS to configure it exactly how you want.
There you have it. Building a website isn’t as hard as it sounds. Sign up for our premium membership to find your domain and begin building your website.
How to choose a CMS for a domain
If there is one tool that is essential for the domainer, it is got to be a Content Management System (CMS). A CMS is a framework that allows you to publish pages, articles, and blog posts to a website through a convenient user interface (as opposed to going through html code by hand). The purpose of this article is to help you learn how to choose a CMS for a domain. Before installing a CMS, you need, of course, a good domain to install the CMS on. Check out our tools today to find a great domain for your site.
There are several considerations to take into account when choosing a CMS.
Features
The number one consideration when choosing a CMS is it’s feature set. Does it do what you need it to do? Some users need to have tight access control. Some users need to scale their website to thousands of users. Make a list of the features you need in your CMS and make sure that the system you choose has those features.
Flexibility
Flexibility is another very important consideration when choosing a CMS for your domain. It is very important to be able to tweak a CMS to your liking as you develop your site. A couple of specific things to research are the plugin system for the CMS (can you add user developed plugins to improve the functionality of the CMS?) and whether or not the CMS is open source. If it is open source, then you can obviously change anything you want with the right time and effort.
Support
Many users want to know that if they have problems that they can get help. Check the user communities for the CMS you are looking at. If it is a CMS that is not free, then check to make sure the support is available 24/7 and that you can access it as often as you need to.
Ease of Use
Ease of use is another consideration. If multiple people are going to use the CMS, then you need to be able to easily and intuitively make the necessary changes to the site.
Performance
An often overlooked criteria for choosing a CMS is performance. A CMS adds a lot of extraneous code to a website to make editing it much easier, but this can have a performance cost. Spec out the CMS you are looking at to ensure that it’s performance meets your needs.
Some popular CMS systems
There are literally hundreds or thousands of CMSs on the market today, but here are just a few of the most popular and well known.
- Joomla – Joomla is a well known full-featured CMS that offers extensive community support, plugins, and themes. It has a somewhat steep learning curve, but can cover almost any use imagineable.
- Drupal – Drupal is another well-known open-source CMS that is full-featured and has good community support.
- Wordpress – Wordpress is often thought of as blogging software but can be easily used as a full-blown CMS. Here at domainsuperstar.com we love Wordpress (and used it for our site). Check out our wordpress tutorial video to see how to configure Wordpress and use it as a CMS.
We hope this article has given you some idea of what to look for when choosing a CMS for your domain. Give our premium membership a try to help you find a great domain now!
How to Find Money Making Domain Names
Here are 7 tips for finding money making domain names:
- Search Auctions – Many people are under the impression that the only way to acquire a domain name is to hand register a domain name that no one else has already registered. While tools like our instant domain name search make it easy to find valuable domain names like this to hand register the fact is that many good domain names can be bought for cheap at a domain name auction. Use our domain auction tools to search and compare key statistics for domain names available for sale at auctions like GoDaddy and SEDO.
- Set Alerts – Our domain name alerts allow you to set up personalized domain name alerts that will send you an email when domain names meeting criteria that you specify are found with our tools.
- Search Dropped Domains – Many times the owner of a very good domain name will let the registration lapse or just plain forget to renew the registration and those who are paying attention can snap up a great domain name as soon as it is available to register again. Use our dropped domain name tool, set dropped domain name alerts, and read this guide on how to catch a dropped domain to find some valuable dropped domain names.
- Search Domain Names About to Drop – Use our domains dropping soon tool and set domains dropping soon alerts to find domain names that are scheduled to become available to register so that you can snap up any potential money makers as soon as the domains become available to register.
- Look for Domains with Type in Traffic – Type in traffic is when a domain receives traffic from someone navigating directly to the domain name by simply typing the domain name into the URL bar in their browser without necessarily knowing the site they are about to visit. Use our type in traffic finder tool to find domain names that have type in traffic.
- Look for Keyword Domain Names – Keyword domain names can be extremely valuable for their SEO benefit, potential type in traffic, and perceived authority by users. Search through our database of keyword domain names to find some money making exact match keyword domain names.
- Look for Dictionary Domain Names – One word domain names that are found in the dictionary can be very valuable especially if they are commercial in nature. Try out our database of dictionary domain names to find some for yourself!
Get started finding some money making domain names – sign up to become a Domain Superstar premium member now!
How to Find Short Domain Names
Do you want to learn how to find short domain names? If so, here is a quick how to guide with some practical tips for finding short domains. Once you have read through this guide then be sure and head on over to our dashboard to find short domain names and all other kinds of valuable domain names!
The Search for Short Domain Names
Why do a short domain name search? Well, the easy answer is that short domain names can be worth quite a bit of money. There are of course many different factors that go into making a domain name valuable (read these 25 rules for learning how to choose a domain name to get an idea of what some of those factors are).
Everything else being equal a short domain name has quite a lot of built in value. All domain names have intrinsic value because every single domain name is unique. Short domain names are desirable because they are generally easy to remember, easy to type in, and if the right domain name is used can just flat out look great!
For example, if you were partner in the law firm Jones, Smith, Rogers, and Williams would you rather have the domain name JonesSmithRogersWilliams.com or JSRW.com? Of course, JSRW.com would be the better choice. Many domain name investors looking to buy and sell domain names for profit capitalize on this inherent value found in short domain names and buy up many different LLL.com’s, LLLL.com’s, and LLLLL.com’s just hoping to be able to see a big payoff some day when a business wanting to use that particular acronym as a domain name comes knocking.
Finding and Using Short Domain Names
Before you start to use a short domain name you have to find a short domain name! Obvious yes but finding short domain names are not always as easy as you may think, especially a short .com domain name.
Use our domain name tools like our domain auction tool, dropped domain tool, domains dropping soon tool, our keyword domain repository, and more to find short domain names because all of those tools have advanced search capability that will let you search and find short domain names quite easily.
In any of those tools simply type in the number of characters that you want to find in a domain and the tool will search laser fast through hundreds of thousands of different potential domain name options. Get started finding some money making domain names – sign up to become a Domain Superstar premium member now!
How to Make Money as a Domain Investor
Do you want to learn how to make money as a domain investor? Read this guide to domain name investing and then get started finding some domain names with long term value by using our domain name tools on our dashboard.
What is a Domain Name Investor?
A domain name investor is much like a real estate investor or an investor in the stock market. Of course, the underlying assets are different but some of the investing principles are very much the same. Just like a real estate investor looks for real estate to either fix up and flip or to buy and hold for cash flow from rental income the same is true of many domain investors. A domain name investor will look for domain names to buy with an end goal typically being to flip the domain name or to monetize the domain name so that it kicks off cash flow in the form of advertising, affiliate sales, ecommerce, etc. The process of investing in domain names is typically called domaining and the domain name investors are referred to as domainers.
Why Invest in Domain Names?
There are many good reasons to invest in domain names. It is important to understand that each and every domain name is unique and therefore has inherent value. There is only one hotels.com. Only one insurance.com. Only one cars.com. And on and on. That is not to say that every domain is valuable because some domains are pretty close to worthless (i.e. efy56u7ett90-i-09-m.info). Read this guide on how to choose a domain name for more details about what makes a good domain name.
Domain Name Investing Strategies
Just like there are many different strategies for investing in stocks (i.e. “buy and hold”, “daytrading”, “dollar cost averaging”, etc.) there are also many different domain name investing strategies. Here is a listing of some of the ways that you can make money as a domain name investor:
- Buy and Hold – This domain investing strategy is just like its stock market counterpart. Choose domain names that you predict will increase in value and be worth much more than you paid for them years and years from now. This strategy typically works best for generic keyword domains and does not work as well with trend domain names.
- Quick Flip – The quick flip of a domain name for profit is akin to a real estate flipper buying a house, remodeling it, and then selling it for a quick profit. This strategy works very well if you have some web development skills (or can afford to hire someone that has some web development skills), you know the domain niche market quite well, and it especially works well if you have end user (an end user being almost anyone other than a fellow domain investor) contacts to sell the domain name with website too.
- Optimal Monetization – The domain name strategy of acquiring a domain name to monetize is done when the purchaser knows that the domain name is worth much more to them then it is in the hands of the current owner. Maybe its a big company with vast resources or even a lone individual with a highly specialized skill set that knows how to monetize domain names of a certain type and get them to making the most money possible. This strategy is best attempted by those who are ultra familiar with the niche that the domain name is in or by someone who just recognizes that even though they may not have super specialized skills that they do have a better understanding of how to monetize the domain name than the current owner.
Powerful Domain Name Investing Tools
Our domain name tools are used by anyone from small business owners that are looking to bring their businesses online to beginners looking to learn how to make money with domain names to highly successful domainers who invest in domain names for a living.
No matter what your background is there is money to be made investing in domain names. Our tools can help you find potentially very lucrative domain names over and over again.
Get started now and sign up to become a Domain Superstar premium member now!
How to Manage Your Domain Portfolio
If you want to learn how to manage your domain portfolio then here is what you need to know. Read on for a list of solid domain management tips that you can start using today! Once you have read this tutorial then be sure and visit our dashboard to get started finding some valuable domain names today!
Quick Domain Management Tips
- Registrar – Choosing the right registrar is crucial to being able to manage a large domain name portfolio because not all registrars have easy to use domain bulk management features in their interface. Probably the top 2 registrars in terms of easy to use domain bulk management features is GoDaddy and Moniker. Read this guide on how to choose the best domain name registrar for more information.
- Monetization – Whether you decide to monetize your domain names via parking, development, leasing, or any other number of ways to make money with your domain names the key is to find solutions that will allow you to deploy this solution seamlessly across many different domains in your portfolio if need be. Read this article on how to monetize domain names for some additional information.
- Hosting – If you decide to go the route of developing your domain names then you will need to set up a hosting plan. A host like HostGator or HostMonster that offers cPanel/WHM is generally the preferred route when it comes to managing a large domain name portfolio. There are also software package addons like Mass Account Manager that coordinate nicely with cPanel/WHM servers (both dedicated and reseller) to allow you to manage many different packages and accounts at once, upload files via FTP to many different domains/websites all at one time, track statistics from all domains in one convenient location, and more. Read this article on how to choose the best web hosting plan for more detailed information.
Add Money Making Domain Names to Your Portfolio!
Now that you know a few quick tips for better managing a portfolio of domain names why not get started finding some domain names that can make you money? Our tools can help you find exact match keyword domain names, domains with type in traffic, and more! sign up to become a Domain Superstar premium member now!
How to Make Money as a Domainer
If you want to learn how to make money as a domainer then get ready because this guide will show you how but also be forewarned it’s going to take a lot of hard work and a willingness to learn on your part.
Making money domaining can sound like its extremely easy and in fact at times it can even be easy but the fact of the matter is the more you are willing to learn and invest yourself then the more your hard work will really start to pay off with some nice fat checks.
Read through this domaining money making guide and then be sure and use all of our domain name tools to find yourself some valuable domain names to invest in!
What is a Domainer? What is Domaining?
Domaining is the business of domain name investing with the goal being either to buy and then sell a domain name for a profit or to buy a domain name and then monetize the domain name to bring in a nice stable cash flow to the domainer.
Finding Valuable Domain Names
The first step to making money as a domainer is of course finding some domain names to buy that are actually worth some money! Learning how to choose a domain name is absolutely critical for success as a domainer.
Domain names have value because each and every single domain name is unique. There is only one hotels.com and there is only one dfe-56lo-it.info. Now of course it is easy to pick out that hotels.com is much more valuable then the other nonsensical domain name. The trick lies in evaluating the value and potential value of all of the other domain name combinations in between.
Try out tools like our tool for finding type in traffic or our tool for finding keyword domain names or our tool for finding dropped domain names or any of our other domain name tools that make it easy for you to learn how to find great domain names!
Domaining Strategies
The 2 most general domaining strategies are the previously mentioned strategy of buying and then selling a domain name or the strategy of buying a domain name and then monetizing it. Some more specific niche domaining strategies include:
1. Buying geo domain names to target specific geographic niches.
2. Buying short domain names.
3. Buying alternate TLD’s (non .com TLD’s like .net, .org, .info, or specific country code TLD’s [CCTLD] like .de, .au, etc.)
4. Buying generic keyword domain names (especially domains with type in traffic).
5. Buying dictionary domain names (i.e. domain names that match exactly to a word in the dictionary).
Getting Started Making Money Online as a Domainer
Just like someone who works in real estate flipping houses it can also be quite profitable to flip domain names and just like someone receives rental income from a rental property in the real estate market a smart domainer can monetize a domain name to make money on the Internet.
The first step to get started making money domaining is to learn, learn, learn and then put what you have learned to good use. It’s easy to think about making a lot of money domaining but its much more difficult to actually buckle down and do it.
Read through our tons of domain name and domaining information, use our tools for finding money making domain names, and then sign up to become a Domain Superstar premium member now!
