The Article Writer

This week is “Mailbag Week” where I answer some of the questions recently asked by my beloved readers, customers, and colleagues.

Q. I am writing a series of articles for a client who wants me to use Wikipedia as a source, referencing specific material on this wiki. I have heard that Wikipedia has some credibility issues; what should I do?

A. Yes, Wikipedia has not been without controversy since launching in 2001. Its sheer size brings the site plenty of attention with some comparing Wikipedia to the Encyclopedia Britannica, another popular reference source.

For the past month, I have been a contributing editor on Wikipedia so I know first hand what sometimes takes place when an article is posted, edited, changed, etc. Volunteer human editors, most of whom work anonymously, are the people driving Wikipedia. Naturally, this opens the site up to abuse as anyone with an agenda can get on and make changes or tamper with the material. On the other hand, I have seen where a problem article was pulled or updated quickly when it came to the attention of the community. FYI: avoid articles with no citations or with a posted note disputing its neutrality.

As far as quoting Wikipedia, I am not sure why anyone would want to do that. Sometimes I use Wikipedia as a launching point when I start a writing project: I’ll read what has been written on a topic and then I’ll check out the links to see what references have been cited. It is with these links where I am much more apt to find accurate and relevant sources, but not always. From there, I’ll delve deeper and look around the internet for more information — the higher the quality of the writing project, the more time I’ll spend on scoping out sources, talking to people, and doing what needs to be done to make sure that my article is as accurate and complete as possible.

Oh, by the way, a 2005 study comparing Wikipedia to the Encyclopedia Britannica had an interesting conclusion — the study determined that the two reference sources had the same level of accuracy. Go figure.

This week is “Mailbag Week” where I answer some of the questions recently asked by my beloved readers, customers, and colleagues.

Q. Our business has been considering developing a blog as one way of reaching our customers. What is the best course of action for us to take?

A. Congratulations on your decision to incorporate a blog with your website! A weblog can offer many advantages to most any business including:

• Blogging promotes brand awareness and brand building. By blogging, you can interact directly with your customers or if you do not want to monitor comments you can still use your blog for sharing company news, product information, offer advice, and more.

• Blogging can also help your site excel with the search engines. Most articles posted (try to make them 300 words or longer) will be picked up and indexed by Google giving your business wider exposure and deeper search engine penetration. Using a platform such as WordPress with the appropriate SEO plug-ins activated can help your blog maximize its effectiveness.

• Blogging can also enhance your internal team building effort. By carefully selecting a team of writers, you can have different members of your company share their knowledge and expertise. Appoint a lead blogger to oversee the process to make sure that a variety of articles are developed and that each blogger stays on message. A side benefit of team blogging is that we now know Google favors blogs with multiple bloggers (authors) for possible inclusion on their Google News site. Therefore, if you manage a well written and professional blog you could find Google is your chief ally.

Feel free to drop me a note to discuss your personal needs. Although your webmaster should be able to upload the blog for you, he/she may need assistance with the theme, plug-ins, categories, and more.

It is one of those stories that causes even the greenest internet user to drool with envy: Business.com, a domain name that was purchased by Jack Winebaum and Sky Dayton eight years ago for $7.5 million has been sold for the princely sum of $345 million. Yes, the holders of this domain name stand to make a fortune off of the sale, simply because they took a gamble just before the internet bubble burst to buy and develop a domain for what some had said at that time was an exorbitant price to pay.

The Internet: An Expensive Slice Of Real Estate!

When the internet bubble burst circa 2000, many short-sighted pundits decried that this medium had peaked and would no longer produce the big profits that it once had. Truthfully, quite a few companies were extremely over-valued, losing millions of dollars while their stock prices continued to climb. Talk about over speculation! When the dust finally settled and companies such as Flooz.com, Kozmo.com, and Webvan.com were no longer part of the web scene, others who hung on eventually regrouped and surged to the top. Amazon, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and eBay all managed to stick around and eventually began to pick up steam.

Under the radar were thousands of smaller companies and individuals including those whose business was built on a simple domain name. Clearly, some were not worth more than the domain name they possessed, but careful investors — with an eye to the future — held on in expectation that these names would one day make their initial investment worthwhile.

Here A Little, There A Lot

Seizing opportunity, small investors have been snapping up domain names for some time now and flipping them for big profits. Much like real estate investors who see an undervalued home or a domain with much potential, some savvy internet folks [Rick Schwartz, to name one] have become millionaires not necessarily because they had one pricey domain to flip, instead they controlled thousands upon thousands of them. Maybe for some investors their profits are only averaging 10-20% per flip after expenses, but if you were to take thousands of $10 domain names and sell them for $12, $15, or $20 on up, the profits would be quickly realized. Flip the low profit domains and hold on to the handful of names with the potential for a big pay out.

That Was Then, This Is Now

Who hasn’t felt that they have been missing out on the domain name speculation market? “If only I had been online back in 1995,” is the thought of some. Others wonder if their current domain holdings will ever be of value beyond some of the silly guesstimates various internet tools make. Most definitely, if you think you have a domain of value, using a freebie tool will cost you. Better to find someone who understands domain pricing to help you determine an accurate marketplace figure.

But It Is Too Late…

There are tens of thousands of people who search the internet every day for that under priced domain name to purchase. Many people head to the various sites where webmasters are selling domain names or complete websites (or to aftermarket auctions), not caring all that much about the content or PageRank, rather in the name itself. Just about any one word dot-com domain has some value to it beyond its GoDaddy $8.95 price, the trick of course is finding one and deciding whether to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for a name available to the highest bidder.

Is it too late to get in on the action?

Yes, many of the best domain names are long gone or, if available, will cost you dearly to purchase. Maybe getting a group of friends together to purchase a sought after domain name is the way to go or, if you have the funds to invest, take your chances by self funding a name and holding onto it as part of your investment portfolio. Perhaps like a favored stock, this prized domain name will eventually produce a clear benefit to you 3, 5, or 10 years or more down the road.

Several Ways You Can Still Profit

There are many different ways for you to make money in the domain name market, including:

Lurk, seek, and offer. A website started by an internet novice in 1997 or 1998 may still be in operation today, but not going particularly strong. Whether being actively marketed for sale or not, you could contact the webmaster and make an offer for the site, but be careful: your enthusiasm could send off a signal to the domain holder that their site is worth far more than what they had previously imagined. Most definitely, even the smallest site that has been up and running for ten years or more could be worth quite a bit of money. There is something about an aged domain that curries the favor of search engines and speculators alike.

Pick up strong two or three word domain names. A popular key phrase could be of tremendous value simply because it is used over and over again. One example would be: makemoneyonline.com. The holder of this domain name has a clear winner, one that should reap a nice profit when it is sold [Michael Santiago of New Jersey registered this domain in May 1998; no site has been developed].

Consider foreign words. While a French word may be difficult to obtain or not particularly popular outside of French speaking countries, a catchy African word not currently familiar to English speakers may have strong appeal. With African-Americans getting in touch with their native heritage, Swahili is “in” and so should be some of that language’s easier to pronounce words. I have heard that Ubuntu is a Bantu term and it is a word familiar to Linux fans. My thinking is that some easy to pronounce anglicized Chinese words will become popular especially when communism exits China.

Consider dot-org or dot-net variations. While many people dismiss domain names that do not have the dot-com extension, you may hit upon a one word domain that is still available under either dot-org or dot-net. Quite by accident the domain name may not have been renewed by the holder of the dot-com address or they may never had done so in the first place. How many of you have failed to register the dot-org and dot-net versions of your prized domain name? I have all three registered for this site.

More Than Just The Domain

Although the sale price paid for Business.com is unusually high, there are plenty of undervalued domain names out there worth taking. For the record, a lot more was involved in the sale of the Business.com name — Work.com went with it as did a fully developed and highly profitable business.

You may not have millions of dollars available for investment purposes, but you could have a few hundred dollars available in order to secure a lesser known name. The internet is rapidly changing so finding the right name can be difficult. Then again, you may already possess a name of immense value and are simply waiting for the right moment to sell.