Here’s an overview of some of the most popular topics (with links to topics in green)

• -100 Top Topics that People in Digital Marketing are Talking about Right Now (article) – Marketing – General
• 30 Top Marketing Videos from the Most Influential Thinkers in The Industry (article) - Marketing Leaders
• 25 Top Articles on Creativity in Marketing, Design & Business (article) Marketing and Creativity
• Should advertising be more about being useful than entertaining? (article / discussion) Advertising
• What Makes A Great Website Name? (article / discussion) Marketing / branding
• How important will mobile marketing be in 2010? (discussion) Mobile Marketing
• Do you think blogging has had its day or do you think it is still a useful marketing tool? (discussion) Blogging
• Has Twitter Helped You? (article / discussion) Twitter
• Has Facebook helped you in marketing? How? (discussion) Facebook
• What are the most important areas of SEO to focus on in 2010? (discussion) SEO
• What are the most common mistakes people make in designing a website? (discussion) Web Design
• 40 Great Stop-Motion Animation Clips (Shorts, Music Videos, Films, TV Ads) (article) Stop Gap Animation
• 20 Classic TV Ads from the Noughties? (article / discussion) TV Ads
• 20 Top Ted Videos for Marketers, Designers & Entrepreneurs (article) Marketing – General
• How Many Hats Do You Think With? (article / discussion) Creative thinking
• 50 Really Useful Ways for Marketers to Save Time Online (article) Marketing – General

There are 3 main forums   1. Marketing – General 2. Social Media 3. SEO / Design.
Each forum contains subforums for niche subjects.

Any questions, let us know.
Please feel free to join in the discussions ..

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WEBSITE NAMES WITH KEYWORDS / SEO

When the internet first took off, algorithmic search and SEO were particularly important. Not so much anymore. If your digital strategy is heavily dependent on SEO and being found in search engines then yes, website names with keywords is still a viable option. Perhaps, this works best with a purely functional site, i.e. where the audience doesn’t care at all about the look or feel of the website, they are just looking for specific information or already know exactly what they want to buy (cheap product perhaps i.e. no frills detergent).
– Hyphenated names. Domain names with hyphenated words can help search engines distinguish key words. But the value of this has been reduced fairly drastically. In the vast majority of cases, avoid hyphenated domain names!
– Deleted domains. Deleted domains can give an extra bit of search-engine ranking juice. You can find deleted domains on DeletedDomains.com. But, again, don’t forget that SEO, in general, isn’t as important as it once was (and think how many of the good names have gone, anyway). So the disadvantages of going down this route have increased considerably..

BRANDING / BUSINESS CONSIDERATIONS

So algorimic search and SEO aren’t as important as they once were. Search engines are much better now at sorting websites and website pages based on quality of content and relevancy of search. Also, social media has had a major impact on the way websites are found. Now it’s much more important to have a website name that is part of the overall branding/business strategy of the business, as opposed to a more narrow search engine / SEO focus.
Is your business always going to be niche (perhaps you’ve already decided to make a name for yourself as an expert in a niche business category). Or do you intend to expand your business into different types of products / services? If the latter, then you want to choose a name that is vague in meaning/connoation (i.e. Google).  Even in a niche business, you don’t have to choose a business name that is too obvious. “Flickr“, for example, is fairly niche (photo sharing). But it doesn’t contain the word “photo” or “sharing” in it. In fact the name only has the merest hint (at least for me, and I’m being subjective here) that it is related to “photo sharing” at all. Actually, “Flickr” allows for a fairly niche service such as “photo sharing” but at same time, with this name, the company could, in theory, do lots of other things as well, i.e. video sharing and production, media production and so on.

BE CREATIVE

A lot of the good names have now gone – both keyword/generic names such as cars.com or creative/emotive names such as wave.com or dream.com.
But there are still lots of good names out there if you are creative. For example:

- Drop letters (or switch letters around / add an extra letter / double up letters etc ..) . I guess that when Flickr were thinking of a name they thought of Flicker, but Flicker was gone (?) So they just removed the “e”. In fact, Flickr (without the “e”) makes you focus on the name even more. Perhaps you wouldn’t think so much about it like this if the website wasn’t successful. But it is. And “Flickr” without the “e” doesn’t, I don’t think, lose out in anyway because it is a letter short. If anything, you could argue, it gains (plus think how much money and time they would have saved from having to try and buy “Flicker”).
- Join words together. You can join different words together to make a name, for example, “Four” and “Square” for Foursquare, Youtube and so on.
- Rolls off tongue / sounds good. Some domain names work well because of the way they roll off the tongue / sound good, TechCrunch, for example.
- Make up a word. Make up a word such as Aqka (leading, international digital agency – short name and sounds quite good).
- Make logo out of the name. You can also make a logo out of the name. I don’t think “lijit” is a great sounding name (that’s my subjective view, anyway). It’s OK. It’s not terrible. What’s good about it is that it is short. It’s quite easy to remember. But what they’ve done is make a kind of logo out of the name (it’s not a great logo – but it’s good enough to make the name look a bit more interesting, at least). The name is far from perfect. But the important thing is that it works – it is good enough (the really important thing is that you have a great business model – the name doesn’t have to be as good as the business model ..).

In order to help you come up with good names, try some brainstorming. The key to brainstorming is to come up with as many names as possible. Don’t be critical of them until you have a lot written down. Once you have a lot down, you can then check which ones have been taken. And the ones that haven’t been taken you can then think about them more, and see if you can come up with similar names.
You can use a Thesarus to help come up with names. Or a website such as Nameboy. Read a lot (anything) before and during the naming of the website. This will help get your brain focused on linguistics. Read some nonsense poetry (both for improving linguistics as well as creative-thinking). And so on.
Of course, how creative you are in your name-selection, all depends on the type of business you run. If your business is focused on media, arts, entertainment, social media for example, then it’s more important to find a name with some kind of human connection (whether it be slightly emotive / funny / enigmatic and so on). But if your business is focused on, for example, engineering or finance, then your approach may be a bit different.

DOMAIN NAMES and TRADEMARKS

Need to be careful about choosing a domain name that is similar to a trademark (or similar to an existing, competitor’s domain name that hasn’t been trademarked). Also, you consider, perhaps, selecting a domain name that you could go on to get trademarked. Obviously, a trademarked domain is great. But you might have to sacrifice a good name for an inferior one if going for a name you want to get trademarked. This is a subjective topic. Whether you choose to go for a trademark or not, you’ll have to weigh up the pros and cons, carefully. For more information regarding the legality of trademarks and trademarks in general, you can visit, for example, the US Patent and Trademark Office or the UK Intellectual Property Office (or do a search for the patent and trademark office for your country if your business is located in a different part of the world). For independent advice, there are internet lawyers focused on this topic.

DOMAIN NAMES – MISCELLANEOUS

- Short or long names. This is a common question when it comes to naming a website. The important thing to consider is: does it roll of the tongue nicely and is it easy to remember (as well as, of course, fitting, nicely, your brand and business goals). Whatever works. But it seems that it’s often more effective to use a shorter name.
- Buying a domain name at auction. You can buy a domain name at auction, for example, GoDaddy.
- Register similar names. Don’t forget to register names that are very similar to yours, in order to prevent competitors using those names. Also, don’t forget to register domain name suffixes (even if you’re not going to use them) for the domain you’re going to use. It’s up to you how many, but the most popular ones that people register for this purpose are: info, net, org, co.uk (and there are others).
- Buy the domain name for a few years (as opposed to just one year) – this can have an effect on SEO.
- .com or a country domain suffix (i.e. co.uk). Country domain suffixes can have an effect on SEO. Also, a country domain suffix helps customers identify straight away that your business is country-related/specifc. If your business is country-specific, and you don’t intend to expand to other countries, then this is an option (but .com is still a perfectly viable option in this case as well – not forgetting that some people are just more impressed by .com). But if you’re unsure / you want to attract some foriegn traffic as well / thinking of expanding abroad then .com may be the more viable option.

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• What Makes a Great Website Name?

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Pierre Omidyar – eBay founder/chairman

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Eric Schmidt – Google Chairman / CEO

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Jerry Yang –  co-founder of Yahoo!

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Todd Wagner - Broadcast.com co-founder

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