On Saturday evening October 28, 2007 I learned a very important lesson about Internet Marketing.

I returned home from a pumpkin carving party with my two sons and checked my email only to discover an email from one of my joint venture partners Ellen Violette, The eBook Coach. In the email Ellen mentioned that one of my domain name for TheArticleGuy was going someplace very strange.

As I checked it out, I discovered I had forgotten to respond to several reminders from GoDaddy to renew my domain name. Because I had forgotten, it had gone back on the market and, due to all the traffic and back links I had built, it was quickly snatched up by one of the companies that does such things.

I was more than I bit panicked.

Survival Tips

1. Seek and accept the support of those around you – As I was freaking out my 12 year old son made me really proud of him. He walked over, handed me a Bible, and told me “swearing doesn’t help Dad.”

2. Turn to those with more experience and cooler heads – I called my Internet Marketing mentor Tom Antion who was available at 10:30 on a Saturday night! Having been through this before, he guided me through the next steps to take.

3. Take immediate action steps to take care of those affected – Right away I did three important things 1- Got a similar domain name, www.TheInternetArticleGuy.com – actually I already owned it and had forgotten that I did - 2 – Transferred my files to the new domain name – 3 – Let all my members, readers, students and mentees know what had happened and to use the new domain name until further notice.

4. Decide whether to get your domain name back – Because of the traffic rankings and back links I decided it would be worth trying to get my domain name back. I discovered that a company had purchased the domain name that I had been paying $9.20 for a year would gladly sell it back to me for $1500. I negotiated the price down to $1000.

5. Keep you head and attitude right – The problem was due to a divorce the year before and being in the middle of a move to Atlanta from Tallahassee there was just not $1000 laying around to use for this purpose. Once I decided to get my domain name back I created a very special deal on my Article Marketing Mentor Program and offered it to my subscribers. Not only did I get my domain name back, I gained several really great mentees that are out there making a difference with their writing and I made several hundred dollars.

6. Create systems to prevent this from happening again – You can buy your domain name for up to ten years at one time. You can pay attention to the reminders sent to you. You can mark your calendar for when to renew. You can buy the right to be the first informed if your domain name does go back on the market. All these steps keep this from happening again, or better yet, ever happening.

7. Be prepared for pleasant surprise gifts in the middle of the crisis along the way – While dealing with this little crisis, there were several unexpected and wonderful results and blessings along the way. In addition to actually generating  from this mess, I gained several new and great mentees. When I let my members and subscribers know what was going on, I was surprised and very touched by so much support and so many suggestions for new domains names. As one subscriber put it, “Remember Jeff, they took your domain name not your brains.” Though I sometimes think the other way around would have been better. One of my biggest worries was what to do about all the articles on www.EzineArticles.com about article writing and marketing with links back to my domain name now owned by someone else. This would have taken DAYS to change by hand. Before I could really even think about how to accomplish this, Chris Knight of www.EzineArticles.com stepped up and volunteered to put his staff on the changes first thing on Monday morning. Another class act among many to whom I am so very grateful.

You can also subscribe to The Article Writing & Article Marketing Tips Newsletter delivered to your email inbox twice a month from Jeff Herring, The Article Guy.

Dan Tynan and Tom Spring
From the November 2005 issue of PC World magazine
Allison Smith will never forget the week before Memorial Day 2005.
Searching the Internet looking for some free clip art, Smith found a site that looked perfect. But before she could download as much as an icon, her PC was infested with adware. “All of a sudden I was besieged with pop-up ads,” says Smith, a CPA who runs an accounting firm in Conway, Arkansas.many Internet Explorer windows [open] that they completely stalled my computer.”
Many of the ads Smith saw on her desktop bore a calling card from their creator: an adware program called Aurora, made by New York-based Direct Revenue.

Using another computer, Smith googled “Aurora” to learn more. She ineffectively tried using anti-spyware programs to remove it, tried killing the adware using Task Manager, and eventually hired a computer technician, who spent three days (at $50 an hour) trying to fix the problem. Each time he removed the software, she says, it would automatically reinstall itself under a different name.

Yes, you may write FREE articles and submit it to the various ezine website and get traffic via your article resource box but ask yourself these questions:

In the first place, how do you find those ezine website to submit your article?

The majority of ezine writers still rely on the “Search Engine” to find ezine site to submit their articles by searching for keywords such as “article bank”, “article directory” etc. Imagine the kind of time and effort required if you tried to find these ezine site without the “Search Engine”.

How do MOST people find the relevant ezine site for information that they are looking for?

Again, the majority of us still rely on the “Search Engine” to find the relevant information that we need. Without the “Search Engine”, information finders will not be able to find your articles that are listed on the various ezine website. With the help of powerful “Search Engine” like google, your relevant article will appear to the user in seconds.

As you can see from the above, the search engine act as a bridge for all internet website as it will be very difficult for someone to find information without a common ground such as the Search Engine.

Therefore, as an Internet Business Entrepreneur, it is VERY important for you to allocate part of your time to learn and understand the Search Engine. For example, Google has introduced some measured to fight Domain Spamming. If you are not aware of its changes and still register your Internet Business Domain with a short time span of one or two years, then don’t wonder WHY you still did not received any Search Engine traffics even after staying in the Google Sandbox for six to nine months which has become the normal period before any NEW website is release as search results from the Google Search Engine.

Keeping your Internet Website within the Search Engine requirement allows you to receive FREE Search Engine traffics which will lead to increase customers for your Internet Business. Of course, don’t focus too much on your Search Engine Ranking Algorithm as it is something which keep changing and is beyond your control. Instead, seek to understand by creating a Search Engine Friendly website that make it easy for the Search Engine to indexed your web page. For e.g. creating relevant Title, Alt Text for Images, Getting only Highly Targeted Relevant Links, Estimate Numbers of Correct Keyword Density on Each Page etc.

However, do continue with your Article Marketing as it is a Good Marketing Strategy and include Search Engine Marketing as your second source of FREE traffics which at time when you tweak it correctly, your TRAFFICS can really double or triple of what you can get from your Article Marketing method.

Wishing all Internet Business Owner success in getting High Traffics from the “Search Engine”.

http://www.online-internet-home-business-opportunity.com
Helping to groom potential entrepreneurs into the next Business Star. Most Financially Successful individuals Grow Rich by starting their own business. You too can own your dream business.