4 Tips for Choosing the Best Domain Name

Clients often ask for help choosing a great domain name for their company. After all, the domain name you choose will affect your company for a long time, possibly forever. Here are four simple rules to guide your selection process.

1. Keep it short.

Short domain names are better. Short domains are easier to remember, less likely to be confused, and will support your brand better than a convoluted or less obvious name.

2. Be unique.

Unique domain names are memorable, and a memorable name will certainly help to solidify your brand. But don’t go overboard with gimmicky or cheesy names. Find something that’s brand-appropriate and original. Choosing a unique domain name may also make it easier to find Twitter and Facebook usernames that are available. Choose a domain name interesting and easy to remember, but make it easy to type too.

3. .com is best.

This one is simple. Most people think of .com when they think of the internet. So it’s common for people to assume your website is going to be YourCompanyName.com or something similar. If at all possible, choose .com instead of .net, .tv, .us etc. In addition, many SEO experts believe that .com domains may rank better. You may find it challenging to find the exact name you want in a .com, but keep at it. Be creative and you’ll find a great domain for your company.

4. Include keywords. Maybe

If you do a little searching you’ll find dozens of great articles offering help for domain name selection. However, almost all of them recommend that you include keywords in your name. Traditionally, Google (and the other search engines) have rewarded companies with higher rankings when relevant keywords are included. For example, if you own a car detailing business, the old thinking is to include those keywords in your domain name. Yes, doing so will make the name longer which contradicts the first tip, but there’s a bigger risk to be aware of. Google has recently begun looking closer at the use of keywords in domain names and penalizing websites that appear too specific. Google calls these exact-match domains. For example, you don’t want a domain like SanDiegoAutoDetailing.com; its generic and keyword dense. So include keywords if it makes sense, but don’t go overboard or Google may consider it spammy and reduce your rankings.

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Hi Friends,

So the year 2013 is coming to an end and you’re already thinking about all your New Year’s Resolutions and what you want to achieve in 2014. You want to quit smoking, lose weight or do that online course on Mahror Group about Monte Carlo Methods in Finance. But after the initial motivational high of the first 2-3 weeks in January wears off, you start bailing on yourself and the day-to-day struggle with discipline kicks in. In February, you are back to normal, eating a kebab on the subway, drinking cheap coffee from a vending machine and you “simply don’t have the time” for studying.

If you want your 2014 to be more successful than 2013, read on and share this email with your friends!

See you in 2014!
Your Mahror Group Team

SecondMarket CEO: Wall Street Will Put 'Hundreds of Millions' Into Bitcoin

Wall Street is getting ready to dive into Bitcoin, pouring vast amounts of institutional and investor money into the digital currency that has been labeled a "bubble" by former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan and which not long ago was seen as the sole preserve of crypto-geeks, monetary-theory wonks and anti-government types.

So says Barry Silbert, founder and chief executive of SecondMarket, the online platform that allows its users to trade private company stocks. "We're three to six months away from Wall Street dollars moving into Bitcoin in a big way," he says.

Silbert should know: Earlier this fall, he launched the Bitcoin Investment Trust, the first investment vehicle allowing institutional investors to put money into the Bitcoin market while avoiding the hassle of personally holding the currency. The trust is open only to accredited investors, and the minimum investment is $25,000.

Speaking on Tuesday night at a private dinner for Bitcoin cognoscenti in New York, Silbert said he was astonished by the BIT's performance. "We launched six weeks ago and we're up to $70 million. That blows my mind. We were hoping to get to $10 million by the end of the year."

The value of the BIT derives entirely from the price of Bitcoin; it has benefited in recent weeks as Bitcoin soared north of $1,200. Because of a recent dip, the net assets of the trust now stand at about $63 million, which means it is holding that dollar value in bitcoins.

Related: SecondMarket Establishes New Bitcoin Trust for Accredited Investors

Silbert says he meets frequently with hedge fund workers, traders at large financial institutions and others who want to gain a better understanding of digital currencies and figure out how to capitalize on them. He reckons that Wall Street will enter the Bitcoin market in roughly three waves. The first is already beginning, and it's taking the form of IRA money. Customers with self-directed IRAs at Fidelity, Pensco Trust Company, The Entrust Group and Millenium Trust Company are now able to invest some of their money in Bitcoin via the BIT. Silbert expects most other IRAs to approve the BIT as an investment vehicle before the second quarter of next year, in response to growing interest from their customers.

Also in this first wave will be clients of the wealth-management arms of Wall Street banks. Silbert says the BIT is in conversations with "several major banks" and he expects the trust to be an approved product on their wealth-management platforms within the first half of 2014.

The second wave will be hedge funds and other institutional investors. "The principals that work at all those firms are starting to invest personally in the BIT," Silbert says. Anecdotally, he adds, it's clear they are investing in the Bitcoin market through other platforms as well. With traders, portfolio managers and executives all gaining interest, it appears to be only a matter of time before their firms follow suit and take a position in the digital currency.

The third wave will be Wall Street banks themselves, motivated purely by profit, says Silbert. "These banks already have large teams trading dollars and euros and yen and gold. Ultimately, Bitcoin is no different than those" as far as forex and commodities traders are concerned, he says. And indeed, currency strategists at Bank of America issued a note to clients last Thursday talking up Bitcoin's potential and analyzing its fair market value.

While most institutional investors are keeping mum on Bitcoin for the time being, the head of one firm has been outspoken about his faith in the cryptocurrency. Michael Novogratz, the co-chief investment officer of macro funds at Fortress, plumped for Bitcoin at a conference held in New York on Oct. 24. Herecommended that investors "put a little money in Bitcoin," saying its value would appreciate significantly over the next few years.

At the time, the price of a single bitcoin was less than $200 on most exchanges. "I have a nice little Bitcoin position," Novogratz said at the conference. "Enough that I'm smiling that it doubled." One can imagine how that smile must have widened in the weeks since.

But it's hard to say where the price will be a month or six months from now. Although right now Silbert is happy to see Bitcoin performing above his expectations, in the near term "the price volatility is only going to get worse," he says. "We haven't seen anything yet."

He added, "Once Wall Street starts putting money into Bitcoin -- we're talking about hundreds of millions, billions of dollars moving in -- it's going to have a pretty dramatic effect on the price."

How to get your website ranked and stand out in a crowd of search engine results

Nobody starts a website with a goal of it not being seen—most people want their website to show up on page one of Google or Yahoo! search engines.  This takes time.  However, we find that a lot of new website owners don’t know how to get started to ensure their website address shows up in search engine results.

You might have heard of the terms SEO (Search Engine Optimization), you might have even seen our blog post on the complete visual guide to SEO. But, do you know of the concrete steps you can do today to get your website to show up higher in search results?

Here are a few things you can start doing now to optimize your site for search engines:

1. Improve Relevancy of Your Content — Information presented on your website should be relevant to the topic around which your website is created. The key to getting higher search ranking is being consistent and relevant in your website copy. The copy you post on your website shoold also include key keywords that are relevant to your business and for which you wish to rank high in search engine resolts. Suppose you are a wedding photographer located in San Diego, California who specializes in outdoor weddings.  You shouldn’t just use a keyword like “photographer”.  You should use relevant keywords like “wedding photographer”, “outdoor wedding photography” or “San Diego wedding photography”. You can also improve your website copy by creating:

1. Keyword Rich Page Titles
2. Including most important keywords in the first paragraph
3. Use keywords in hyperlinks

2. Work on Link-building – Search engines assign value to the number of other websites that are linking to you. Meaning the more relevant website that currently link to your site, the higher your website shows up in search engine results. As a wedding photographer, you might want  to get listed in sites that provide a directory of wedding service providers and trade links with another wedding services provider.  Here are few things you can do to improve your link-building:

1. 5 suggestions to improve your link-building
2. Submit your website to key directories

3. Update File Names — As the popularity of image searches continues to grow, the importance of your file names also start to increase. You might wonder how a picture file you uploaded on your website can impact search results. Think about the following scenario: when people search based on a specific keyword, search engines look at your files names for matches in addition to keywords used to describe images on your website. Thus, instead of using obscure names such image_123456 think about choosing file names that contain keywords relevant to the topic of your website that also describe what is on the image, like “SanDiegoWedding”.