Here you will see some viral marketing examples that are considered effective by Business Week and other experts.The several techniques used are unique and they were effective for many different reasons.Some inspired curiosity.

In 2001, Business Week cited advertising for the Blair Witch Project as a striking example of viral marketing.  The advertising campaign insinuated that the footage was “real”, filmed by a group of college students that had disappeared, presumably leaving only their video camera behind.

Teasers were first seen on TV and then posted on the internet.Viewers were highly encouraged to share the footage with all their friends.The film grossed over $248 million and cost only $35,000 for the production.Who wouldn’t want to see sky high profits like that?

So you want to start up a website?  Have you thought about your long term plans for your website?  Doing so will be a great advantage in determining the best possible domain name.  Just as important as choosing the name for your business, a domain name, the name of your soon-to-be website, is one of the most important factors in your online success. Good search engine optimization, or SEO, begins with domain name selection.  Not to mention your positioning and branding with your customer.

What if someone already owns the domain name you covet?  Can you still get it?  Possibly.  It’s possible, but there are some things to consider.  However, with a little luck and enginuity you can get the domain name you want even if it is already spoken for.  There are other ways to get the domain name you want:

Hyphenated Names One strategy to consider if the domain name you want is already taken would be to hyphenate it, as in turning ricksantiqueshop.com into ricks-antique-shop.com.  Is it always the best strategy?  Yes and no.  If you want a domain name that is already taken by someone else and is already a well known, well traveled website, this might be a bad move, because users already familiar with the original domain name will just type the original, non-hyphenated version into their web browser, and end up not at your site but at your competitor’s site.  Not what you were after!  Word to the wise: keep the domain name as short as possible.  The longer the name, especially with dashes in between words, the more likely that potential visitors to your site will enter it incorrectly into their browsers, thus foiling the chances of them visiting your website and costing you customers!  So, the shorter the better.  Hyphenating a domain name might be a good strategy for you in the following scenario: Let’s say the domain name you want is taken, and the current owner is not willing to give it up.  After researching it you find that there is no website published under the domain name, or perhaps there is but it is poorly designed and gets very little traffic.  In a case like that hyphenating the domain name might make sense and in fact could be a wise strategy.

Longer or Shorter?  Domain names can be up to 67 characters long.  You could purchase a domain name like thelongestdomainnameintheworldandthensome
andthensomemoreandmore.com which is 63 characters long, but why would you want to do that?  Who would want to type it into a browser?  My website is www.StartMyWebsiteToday.com  and has a domain name that tells what kind of website you will be surfing to.  Good name selection can be helpful also with search engine ranking.  In as few characters as possible the name of the site, the purpose of the site, and the keywords of the site have all been neatly put together in a domain name.  Shorter is better here.

Brand Name or Generic  The answer here is it depends.  Definitely if your business is known by a fairly well known brand name, then you would want to try and secure that as your domain name.  For instance, Nike.com is a well known brand name site, although there is nothing in the domain name to suggest that it is a site about shoes.  Still, Nike is such a well known brand name to the public that people automatically know what they will be shopping for when they get there.  If your brand name is well known, definitely try to obtain your brand name as a domain name.  But if your company is Nike or Coca Cola or Budweiser don’t discount the idea of buying the domain name shoes.com or soda.com or beer.com if they are available as well.  People often search the web using generic terms, more so even than brand names.  A person is more likely to search the internet with generic terms like shoes or footwear or sneakers than to search by a single brand name, even one as big as Nike.  So if possible cover all the bases.  You can have as many domain names as you want pointing to a single website, so the more generic terms you can acquire that directly describe your business, the better.   A generic name if your business is new or not yet well known can get great results, if you can find a good one.  To start your search for your own unique domain name, here is a link to a domain name search engine.

The preliminary step to building a website is the registration of a domain name.  Whether you are a doctor, lawyer, plumber, aluminum siding salesman, or if you want to start up a website to feature your family dog Spot, the entire enterprise begins with the choice of your domain name.

Then again you might ask- “What makes a good choice of domain name?”.  Well, what type of website are you planning on publishing?  The domain name chosen for a family and friends website won’t be as crucial as with other types of sites.  Why?  Because in a case like that you probably don’t really care about gaining a lot of traffic to your website, you’re really only targeting friends and family, to keep them up to date.  You could pick something really obscure, something unique to you and your family, from the sublime to the ridiculous, and it won’t matter because you are not necessarily looking for great amounts of traffic to your site.   

So you can name a website anything as long as it is only meant for a select few.  It’s only if traffic is a factor and you want to attract customers, and as many as possible, that the domain name you choose to register really matters.  So……

What if the website is for business?  What if you want it to attract attention?

It really pays to have a domain name that drives traffic to your company name and website.  Put some thought into how people search.  For example, if your company sells insurance or doughnuts or bowling pins or toilet bowls, find a way to incorporate WHAT YOU DO in the website domain name.  The best strategy is to find a domain name that directly relates to your business, whether it is the business name itself or related to the category of business.  For example, an antiques website should have a domain name like antiques.com or bobsantiques.com, something that immediately associates the domain name with the theme of the site.  It’s all about branding, and making a lasting impression on the target audience or customers.

The WhoIs database contains all domain names registered, and when you are searching it will show whether or not your desired name is already registered.  I have conveniently placed a domain name search engine on StartMyWebsiteToday.com for this very purpose.  After searching for the domain name, you will instantly know whether or not the domain name is available, and if so, give you the option to immediately register it.  If it’s not available, several alternative domain names will be proposed, to help you fine tune your search, or possibly giving you an acceptable alternative domain name to register instead.

In order to market your internet marketing business, like any other business you’ll need leads primarily from squeeze pages. A squeeze page, or landing page, or optin page, is a single page that contains some kind of free offer that encourages the reader to take action. We want to keep you around, so please leave your name and email address. An offer might be a free ebook or video that is informative and something that the reader may have been looking for. We all like free stuff. Simply human nature at work. This offer uses words, images and the positioning of them to make this “an offer they can’t refuse”. Once readers accept the offer and give their contact information in exchange for the free gift, then the true marketing begins. The reader is now an optin, who willingly gave his contact information in exchange for the free gift offered. Then the marketing begins; the optin is sent a series of scheduled prewritten autoresponder messages that give information and offers to buy products and services. The optin who gave their contact information is sent an email series from an autoresponder. This is not intended to fool or hoodwink people. People are in internet marketing to market products and services to prospective buyers with the clear intention of getting them to buy. They’ll use various marketing methods, tactics and techniques, yet that is the final intention, or goal. It has been proven that the best way to get people to become customers is to build a steady and growing relationship with them. People are inclined to buy from those they know, like and trust. This has been proven by the most successful internet marketers, who use this method to make more and more sales yearly. To begin your marketing efforts, you’ll first need a squeeze page. This is a limited time off-no, not really, but you’ll definitely benefit from it. Just leave your info and you’ll get this free gift.