Best Mozilla FireFox Plugins for SEO, Domaining, and Web Development

One of the reasons that FireFox is my favorite browser is the wealth of different plugins, extensions, addons, and themes that are available to use free of charge from the Mozilla community of developers. Here is a list of my personal favorite Mozilla FireFox plugins/addons/extensions for SEO, Domaining, web development, Internet marketing, etc:

1. Search Status – The Search Status FireFox plugin is primarily an SEO plugin and it lets you look up WhoIs information, backlinks, indexed pages, perform keyword analysis, highlight nofollow links, and much more for whatever domain you are currently visiting all with just one click.
2. Firebug – The Firebug FireFox plugin is a plugin designed for web developers that is an extreme timesaver for me. The plugin works by letting you see HTML, CSS, scripting, DOM information and much more in a little console box at the bottom of your browser with just one click. The feature that really sets Firebug apart though is that it will let you edit any websites style sheet on the fly and then in real time allow you to see the effect of those changes in your browser. Of course, you still have to change the style sheet on your site and then FTP it to your site to make the changes permanent but Firebug is a great way for both novice and experienced web developers to play around with the code and see how their changes affect the display of the site.
3. Colorzilla – The Colorzilla FireFox plugin is awesome because it lets you mouse over anything in your browser and it will tell you exactly what color it is both in RGB and in web safe HTML color code. Very easy to use and very useful.
4. Google Toolbar for FireFox – This one doesn’t need much explanation I would hope. BONUS: Use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+K to do a Google search in FireFox (doesn’t require the Google toolbar).
5. InFormEnter – This data entry FireFox plugin makes any field on a website a clickable drop down field where you can select information that you specify ahead of time to fill into the field with no typing required.
6. SearchKeys – This FireFox search engine enhancement plugin allows you to simply type in the number of a search result in a Google or Yahoo results page and it will take you there automatically without any mouse movement or clicking. This is pretty sweet when you combine it with the keyboard shortcut mentioned earlier. If you want to do a Google search you just hit Ctrl+K, type in your search term, hit enter, and then press the number of the result that you want to go to (i.e. press “1″ on your number pad for result #1)

Those are some of my favorites although I am sure that I am missing some that I have used in the past since I recently reinstalled FireFox on my new home office computer set up. What are your favorite FireFox addons and plugins? Also, would it be useful to you if we made any of our tools into widgets/FireFox plugins or addons?

3 Month Plan for Building Traffic to a New Website

Here is my down and dirty 3 month plan for building traffic to a new website. Of course, these are just general things as every niche will be different and you will want to devote more time to certain websites than to others but generally speaking here is a great action plan for building traffic to a new website.

Day 1

Register a great domain name using tools like our type in traffic finder, dictionary domain name finder, geo domain name finder, etc. etc. (Shameless plug yes – unimportant definitely not. Understanding how to choose a good domain name is a crucial first step to success).

Day 2

After the nameservers resolve and you have set up your hosting account then your goal is to put up some nice meaty, on topic, original content on the home page and on 3-5 additional pages of your site.

I like to use the Google Adwords Keyword Tool to do my research. Typically I will try and map out the site architecture from the very beginning and maybe even plot out a publishing schedule. Break the site up like this: long article focused on the main site keyword for the home page and then build the main navigation menu using related keywords from the Google tool and place a fairly long article on each of these menu sub theme pages.

Pay particular attention to making sure that these 5 or so pages of content (excluding your privacy page, site map, XML site map pages, etc, of course) are very high quality well written articles that you would have no problem showing a “real person” and asking them to link to.

Day 3-15

The goal for the first 2 weeks is to try and participate in the community that your site is in.

This means leaving well thought out comments (making sure to include your site URL) on blogs in your niche, posting on forums in your niche, and contacting webmasters to try to establish a presence in the community and introduce yourself and your site.

Set up Google Alerts for your site’s main keywords so that you can participate in blogs that are related to your site’s main keywords.

Work though a list of “DoFollow” forums and use the site Comment Hunt to find good sources for links that do not have the rel=”nofollow” attribute.

The main priority is to start to slowly build up lower quality backlinks (you do not want to make the mistake of creating an unnatural linkbuilding profile by acquiring too many high PR links right away as that may appear manufactured in the eyes of the search engines) and perhaps more importantly start building some traffic from referring links on other sites.

Day 16-30

In addition to your continued participation in the community you now want to start to add more content to your site. Aim for one new article every other day at a minimum for these 2 weeks. Be sure and structure your internal linking structure to achieve maximum benefit by using anchor text wisely.

Day 31-60

In addition to all of the above it is now time to start writing unique content and publishing it not only to your site but also to other sites. Start off publishing articles to article directories like ezinearticles.com and then begin to use some of your newly acquired webmaster contacts that you hopefully gained by participating in the community of your site’s niche to offer to write guest articles and guest posts for that include a link back to your site.

Day 61-90

In addition to all of the above it is now time to think about some creative ways that you can start to attract some high quality links. Widgets, tools, high quality reports, controversial content, and other similar types of interesting and valuable content are all things that can attract both quality and quantity of links if done properly.

Get Started!

There you have it. This is of course an overly simplistic view of just very basic things that one can do to build traffic for a new website but I think this rough outline is certainly helpful because if you are like me then it helps to have some sort of goal to shoot for. What are some things that you would add to the 3 month plan?

Afraid of Getting Outranked by Big Corporate Sites? Here’s How to “Stick it to the Man”

One of the biggest fears of many domain name owners and SEO’s is working hard to choose a profitable niche, layout a strategy, buy a domain name, build a website, and then market the website only to see their success dwindle when a big company comes along and uses their considerable resources to outrank them.

Whether you are a beginning SEO working out of your dorm room or whether you are the head of a big time search marketing agency – come on, you know that you have had that thought before haven’t you? Here is one thing that you can do to alleviate some of those fears and give yourself a better night’s sleep: choose the right domain name.

“Choose the right domain name?” you say. “That is all of the advice that you have for me!?” Bear with me. Here is why.

Every Domain Name is Unique

Every single domain name is unique. No one else on the planet can have the same domain name as you.

If you build 100,000 backlinks then your Fortune 500 competitor can certainly use their vast resources to build 101,000 backlinks. If you hire a professional writing service to churn out 100 articles a day of high quality content to publish to your website then your Fortune 500 competitor could BUY a professional writing service (or a newspaper for that matter – and pretty cheap these days) and have them publish 1,000 high quality articles a day to their site.

Almost anything you do to market your site a competitor with more money and resources than you can duplicate and take to the extreme to outrank you. It sounds a little bit depressing but remember there is no free lunch in SEO just as in life. You have to work at it. SEO is best thought of as competitive webmastering because that is exactly what it is. Of course in a competition the biggest and the best (those with the most resources) usually win. Not always but usually.

Notice that I said almost in the first sentence of the above paragraph. The one thing that a Fortune 500 company with billions of dollars CANNOT duplicate is your domain name.

How the “Small Guy” Can Get A Leg Up

Imagine this scenario. Let’s say that you are a part-time SEO working for yourself out of your bedroom on a couple of vitamin websites that you own. Your biggest competitors for your target keyword of “vitamins” are huge corporate sites like GNC.com, VitaminShoppe.com, VitaminWorld.com, etc. All of these companies have vastly more resources than you. However, (drum roll please) you own Vitamins.com.

Guess what. As the owner of an exact match keyword only domain (definition) you have a sustainable advantage that any of these big competitors absolutely cannot copy (unless you sell them your domain name and of course you get to decide whether you want to sell the domain name or not).

With the weight that Google and other search engines place on a domain name that is an exact match keyword only domain to the searcher’s keyword or keyword phrase then even with limited resources working out of your bedroom you can very well outrank many of your bigger competitors based in large part on the strength of your domain name (of course, there are other factors involved and yes, you actually have to work hard at it to provide solid content and build links – remember, it’s competitive webmastering – but having the domain name that matches your target keyword exactly is half of the SEO battle).

“Stick it to the Man” by Choosing the Right Domain Name and Dominating that Niche

So what does this all mean? Am I telling you to go out and try to buy Vitamins.com or Cars.com or Loans.com? No, of course not (unless you can afford it ). What I am telling you to do is to concentrate on finding a great domain name that is an exact match keyword only domain name to maybe a longer tail keyword in your target market and then own that keyword.

For example, I wrote a post about how to use data from the Google Adwords Keyword Tool to find domain names that match exactly keywords returned from the Adwords tool (Watch Me Hand Register Keyword .com Domain Names Worth More than $100). While it may not be in your budget to be able to buy Vitamins.com you can most certainly afford to pay the regular registration fee of under $10 at the registrar of your choice to buy a domain name like DailyVitaminC.com, BuyVitaminC.com, or CheapVitaminC.com each with 3,600, 1,000 and 110 average monthly Google broad match keyword searches according to the Google Adwords Keyword tool and all available for anyone to hand register as shown by entering in “Vitamin C” into our Type-In Traffic Finder Tool as of 2/25/09 at 3:05 PM EST.

You can stick it to the man. You can maintain a competitive advantage over the big corporate sites that cannot be duplicated. You can do that with the right domain name.

What do you think?

Domain Superstar Launch: 25 Best Domaining, SEO, and Internet Marketing Websites, Forum and Blogs

To kick off the launch of DomainSuperstar.com I thought that it would be fun to show people a little bit about who we are and what we want to accomplish by yes, talking a little bit about us but also making a list of our favorite blogs and websites in the SEO, domaining, and internet marketing niches.

In a nutshell, we are all about trying to help you find great domain names – over and over again. Whether you are a full time domainer that wants to be able to weed through a lot of the junk available in auction domain names and find the gems (you can do so using our All-in-One Domain Auction Tool or our personalized Domain Alerts), or maybe you are an SEO that wants to grab a great exact match keyword only domain name (like those you can find using our Type-In Traffic Finder or Keyword Domain Repository) to help you rank for a specific keyword phrase, or maybe you just want to find a great domain name for your business (you can find it quickly using our Instant Domain Search Tool) – we can help.

You can view a description of how all of our tools work by selecting a tool from the drop down menu at the top of the page, you can compare the features that free vs. premium members will have access to on our pricing page, and you can access all of our tools directly to try them out right now for free by navigating to our dashboard.

Without further ado, here is our list of the very best domaining, SEO, and internet marketing websites and blogs that we love to visit and read.

Best Domaining Websites, Forums, and Blogs

1. Domaining.com – Domaining.com is of course the owner of the absolute best domain name possible in the domaining niche and the content of the site matches the premium domain name. Francois (the owner) has been adding some very cool new features that serve the domaining community as of late including a domain name marketplace, customizable domaining news feeds, and more.

2. Chef Patrick – Chef Patrick is a key example of a person who has chosen to go the route of using and marketing a very brandable domain name (this requires more work than using a generic keyword domain name but he appears to be pulling it off quite nicely). Chef Patrick offers a great mix of content that has recently included videos of weekly domaining news.

3. Rick Schwartz – Rick’s blog is the home of the “Domain King”. Rick could very well be considered one of the Godfathers of domaining. He is a founder of the ICA (Internet Commerce Association), and he is CEO, President and Co-Founder of eRealestate.com and T.R.A.F.F.I.C.

4. DN Forum – Great domaining related forum.

5. Name Pros – Another great forum for discussing domain names and everything related to the buying and selling of domain names.

6. Domain State – Top domain name forum with a LOT of posts to read through and learn from.

7. DotSauce – Mark Fulton is the Founder and Editor of the DotSauce Domaining Magazine and has really done nice job.

8. Elliot’s Blog – Elliot Silver’s blog about all things related to domain name investing and domain news. Elliot has some very nice in depth posts on a wide range of domaining related topics.

9. Predictive Domaining – Predictive Domaining is a blog that is run by Barry Goggin who is a full time scientist and a member of the NY Academy of Sciences but a domainer on the side who manages to keep his blog updated quite frequently with some pretty good stuff.

10. DotWeekly – DotWeekly is a weekly domain name blog run by Jamie Zoch. DotWeekly has a number of great domaining resources.

11. Domain Habit – A domain name forum with not quite as many posts as some of the others but has some quality content and discussion nonetheless.

Best SEO Websites, Forums, and Blogs

12. SEO Book – SEOBook.com is run by Aaron Wall and the blog is constantly updated with very high quality SEO and internet marketing nuggets.

13. SEO Moz – The SEO Moz team headed up by Rand Fishkin is continually on the cutting edge of Search Engine Optimization. A great source for both beginner and advanced SEO learning.

14. Search Engine Land – Chock full of SEO information and information related to all things search.

15. Stomper Blog – The Stomper Blog is a good source of SEO information.

16. JenSense – Ok, ok the JenSense blog isn’t truly about SEO as Jennifer Slegg focuses on all things related to contextual advertising (both with Google AdSense & the Yahoo Publisher Network) but still worth a read to broaden your knowledge of how the search engines “think” (it’s pretty much all about money).

17. High Rankings – Known more for their SEO newsletter, the Jill Whalen High Rankings Newsletter is a very popular newsletter for search marketers.

18. SEO Roundtable – Solid SEO information and SEO news.

19. Search Engine Journal – Loren Baker’s Search Engine Journal is a tried and true place for great SEO news and information.

20. Matt Cutts – Of course you knew that the blog of everyone’s favorite Google engineer would be in the list didn’t you?

Best Internet Marketing Websites, Forums, and Blogs

21. Digital Point Forum – THE forum for learning about everything related to internet marketing, search engine marketing, coding, graphic design, copywriting, and more. Really this forum could be in any of the above sections as it is quite literally the most active webmaster related forum currently on the Internet.

22. MichaelFortin.com – Michael Fortin’s blog focuses primarily on copywriting and marketing tips as well it should as he is the “Internet’s number one copywriter”… and actually very well could be.

23. Shoe Money – Shoe Money’s blog (run by Jeremy Schoemaker) is quite possibly the most entertaining of all of the blogs on this list and one of my personal favorites. Jam packed full of very practical tips and advice for succeeding in internet marketing.

24. Copy Blogger – Copy Blogger probably takes the award for most consistently offering extremely high quality material. This stuff is so good that it really almost shouldn’t be free.

25. Perry Marshall – Perry Marshall is an AdWords guru who isn’t afraid to tell it like it is. Perry has a great way of just plain telling the truth in a way that if applied will tend to make some people a lot of money.

Submit Your Favorites

I know that I am bound to have forgotten some of the best. Submit some of your favorite domaining, SEO, and internet marketing related websites, blogs, and forums via the comment form below and then check out our tools for finding some great domain names today!