Dear Friend,

We are in the process of incorporating our business. Our new name will be McCord Web Services LLC. We are not using our new name yet, but we'll keep you posted when we make the big change. We are excited that our business has grown over 40% last year alone and look forward to serving you with additional new services in the near future.

Best Regards,

Nancy McCord

Domain Name Expirations | Best Email Salutations | New Blog Services

Domain Name Expiration - Don't Let Your Domain Be Held Hostage By Your Registrar

We've had a great response to our article last month on protecting your domain name and why you should not let your webmaster own it on your behalf. This month's article is about domain name expirations and what you should know to keep your domain name safe.

It is very important that you keep your domain active. When you get a renewal notice from your domain registrar, you must take it seriously. Check immediately in your domain name control panel that your credit card information is accurate and up-to-date. Don't assume that your registrar will auto-renew your domain. We've just had a client experience a problem on that issue. He was set up to auto-renew, but his credit card had expired. The registrar turned off his domain breaking his access to email and "taking down" his website. Fortunately, our blogger found out his site was down when she went in to post, and the client was able to work with his web host and domain registrar to get back up online the same day, but others have not been so lucky.

Make sure that you keep your contact information current in the accounts you have for your domain name and for your web hosting. Supply two email addresses whenever possible so you will make sure to receive these very important renewal notices to prevent problems.

If you don't respond to the emails to renew or update your credit card information, after the expiration date of your domain name, and there an expiration date for every domain name, your registrar will allow you for a time to quickly repair the situation, pay up, and get back online. Wait too long, and the registrar will hold your domain. We've had a situation such as this and the fee to return the domain to the chastised owner was over $300. Sometimes the fees are so high that it is best to abandon the domain and select a new one. The registrar is not violating any laws or rules by charging a return fee.

Don't think that to keep from paying this "hostage fee" and that you can rebuy the domain in a few days or weeks on the open market. Registrars know this, and some will actually hold your domain for several months under their own name hoping to charge a big "return fee" to you the original domain owner. If you have gotten to this juncture, at some point the domain may return to the open market, but only if someone has not placed a hold on your domain name to buy it when it becomes available. The reserve applicant will have the first opportunity to buy your domain name. Then and only if no one else wants it and sometimes after months have passed, your domain may actually appear back on the open market allowing you to rebuy it for $7 or so. But just think, you've been out of business throughout the whole process.

Don't think this disaster could happen to you? Well, I have actually helped several clients in this situation and it is really a mess when it gets this far. My recommendation is start domain name renewal 30 days out. I recommend this as sometimes you have forgotten the login information to your renewal control panel, or possibly you don't even own your domain name and you didn't know it and need time to remediate that issue first. Don't wait until the last minute to renew and risk being shut down and having to go into a "crisis repair".

My next recommendation is that when you do renew your domain name, renew for a minimum of five years on your company's main website domain and two years on peripheral domains. The reason is that Google actually evaluates the length that you have held your domain name and the length of your renewal as just one of the over 150 different and important factors they use to determine your organic placement on the search results page also known as the organic rankings.

So in conclusion, own your domain name outright, make sure you keep your email and billing information up-to-date, and renew 30 days out.

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Bright Idea Tip: What Are The Most Commonly Used Email Salutations?

Have you ever wondered if you were using proper email etiquette? Do you want to make sure you are following the best practice for email? I've done some research on the proper salutations for email and wanted to share my findings with you.

First, there is no "set in stone" salutation for email as there is in typical printed business correspondence. In print correspondence, in nearly all cases, you will start your letter with something like"Dear Mr. Jones,". But, in email correspondence "Dear" sounds funny and in most cases is simply too formal. Email is a more conversational and casual medium, but it still has some accepted and widely used "rules".

It is perfectly okay to use Hi Mr. Jones or Hello Mr. Jones, as your email salutation. If you are corresponding with customers and prospects outside of the United States, it may be better still to use the old tried and true print medium salutation of "Dear" until they use otherwise in their response note back to you. We Americans have a problem of being perceived as "too casual" by Europeans so it's better to error on the side of formality in your first email note to a non-American.

Some people like to parse the Hi/Hello even farther and use Hi as their email salutation if they personally know the recipient, and Hello if they do not. Whichever you decide to use know that either are okay and commonly used by the majority of people in email correspondence.

Some people like to start their emails with a type of "time stamp salutation" such as Good Morning Alex or Good Afternoon Dr. Jones. This type of salutation is frequently used as well in emails. Some people will even go a step further and put no salutation on their correspondence as they feel it is superfluous and that the reader will know who they are by their signature block. Personally, I would only recommend the "zero salutation" approach only in rapid-fire email exchanges where you have properly greeted your recipient once already.

When I send emails I typically use Hi, Hello, and the "time stamp salutation" depending on my mood. Typically for clients I use Hi and for prospects Hello or Good Morning. Before researching this article I had worried that Hi was not an accepted format for an email salutation, but, after research, I have found that this is the norm for email salutations and widely used by others around the world. So use Hi, Hello, or Good Morning with confidence, you'll be in good company using proper email etiquette.

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Opal and Sapphire - Two New Blog Service Levels

WordPress has become our top blog platform and because of that, we have introduced two new blog writing service levels specifically for WordPress users. We have taken our Jade Level service and added a twist creating the Opal Level. Here. we've added a few more words to our word count (200 to 300 versus Jade's 175 to 225 words) and saved a bit of time for our writers to add the Meta tags for search engines when you have the WordPress Meta tag plug-in installed. Opal Level posts run $20 each and are available with a three to five day a week frequency.

From our most popular level Ruby, we have spun off the Sapphire Level. Sapphire is much like Ruby but has a longer word count (300 to 475 words versus Ruby's 250 to 450 words). Additionally it includes added time to complete the Meta Tags for WordPress and to create a keyword dense post title. Sapphire Level posts run $30 each and are available in multiple frequency levels as well.

Are you looking for a great blog writer? Our blog writers are well-trained, all are college educated Americans with English as their primary language. Several of our bloggers even have higher level academic degrees, but all provide top-notch content with a creative flair that is hard to find elsewhere. If you are looking for quality blog content, we invite you to review our online content examples and review our various pricing levels.