The first features Dotster small business customer Sweetpea Bikes based out of Portland, OR. Owner Natalie Ramsland was a blast to work with to produce this visually stunning 30 second spot.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The second commercial is fairly light-hearted and shows a contrast between two auto mechanic businesses. The point is simple: If your business can’t be found online, you don’t exist.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The application fee to register a domain during Landrush is very affordable – just $10. If you are the sole applicant for the domain you register, you will be charged $325 plus $34.99 for additional years of domain registration beyond the first (the standard yearly price for registering a .CO domain on Dotster). If others put in an application for the same domain, the registration will be awarded based upon an auction between you and the other applicants. Those applicants that don’t win the auction will not be charged for any fee except the original $10 application fee.

While Landrush may not be for everyone, if you have a valuable .CO domain name you don’t want to miss out on, Landrush is definitely your best bet at securing that domain. If you prefer to save some money but still want to make sure you get a jump on the competition for registering your .CO domain, Dotster is offering pre-registration for the general availability phase where everyone can register a .CO for $34.99 per year. Pre-registration means we’ll submit your registration to the registry as soon as general availability opens on July 20th. Pre-register today so you won’t forget to register your .CO domain when it’s available – we’ll do it for you!

Choose either Landrush or Pre-registration for general availability – It’s up to you! Either way, secure your .CO domain today!

Take your accumulated knowledge, your interests and passions, and your various other skills and combine them to start a business. Becoming an entrepreneur is easier now than ever. To promote and find an audience for your idea, you can start with as little as a website. Online social networking allows you to make the connections and initial contact your business idea needs to get off the ground.

If you’re not ready to jump in head-first with a business idea, it’s easy to start a side-project. Register a domain name and set yourself up with web hosting. From there, you can build a basic website using WordPress, our SiteBuilder, or any other website building program. There are hundreds if not thousands of website builders available to choose from. Once you create a website for your business idea, you’ll have an easy place to refer people to for more information.

Starting a business is anything but easy. However, it’s surprisingly simple to get momentum behind your idea with a good website and some online and offline networking. Starting your new business as a side-project is a viable way to explore a business idea without sinking all of your time and resources into it.

If you’re a graduate with a great business idea (or for that matter anyone with a great business idea), get your idea off the ground today with a website! If you are job hunting, you can stay motivated and focused by having a side-project that you enjoy working on. Plus, it will allow you to build your resume, learn new skills, and even if you choose not to pursue the idea to completion, it might just give you the edge you need to land your next job.

For a limited time only, save 15% on your entire order at Dotster.com with no minimum purchase* by using coupon GRAD15 at checkout.

*LIMITED TIME OFFER. GRAD15 coupon and offer expires June 6, 2010 at 11:59 p.m. Pacific. GRAD15 coupon is good for 15% off new products and services. No minimum purchase required. All renewals on products and services after the initial discounted period will be charged at the current standard list price for the selected period. Coupon is not valid with certain TLDs, renewals, transfers, custom website design, .CO pre-registrations, Sunrise registrations, Landrush registrations, other coupons, or special pricing.

Use coupon EARTHDAY during checkout.

Save on Domain Names, Web Hosting with SiteBuilder, and more!

*LIMITED TIME OFFER. EARTHDAY coupon and offer expires April 25, 2010 at 11:59 p.m. Pacific. EARTHDAY coupon is good for 15% off new products and services. No minimum purchase required. All renewals on products and services after the initial discounted period will be charged at the current standard list price for the selected period. Coupon is not valid with renewals, transfers, custom website design, .CO pre-registrations, Sunrise registrations, Landrush registrations, other coupons, or special pricing.

At Dotster, we haven’t sold .CN domain names for a while now as well. However, we continue to offer all of our other domain extensions to Chinese customers. Here’s why:

Recently, China changed the requirements for .CN domains and now requires that registrars provide more information and additional paperwork to the Chinese government for each domain registration. Regardless of how we feel about providing sensitive information to the Chinese government on customers who register .CN domains, we don’t make enough money on a .CN per-domain basis to cover the additional time and expenses required to meet China’s new registration requirements. As such, we have discontinued selling .CN domains in recent months and have no plans to resume selling them with the current registration process as it is.

This is the situation that most registrars are in, and most will likely stop selling .CN domains if they have not already. Chinese citizens can still register any other TLD without the restrictions or extra requirements for .CN, so we’re happy to continue providing domain registration services to China outside of selling .CN domains. How about a .ASIA instead?

WordPress.com

WordPress.com allows you to create a blog for free that is hosted by wordpress. There are free templates and basic customizations available to make your blog more personalized. However, the blog address is a subdomain of wordpress.com (i.e. yourblogname.wordpress.com) rather than your own domain (yourblogname.com).

WordPress.org

WordPress.org is a much more robust blogging solution with huge advantages over a standard wordpres.com blog. WordPress.org allows you to download the actual WordPress application – the same one that powers all the WordPress.com blogs. You can then easily install it (using their famous 5 minute installation) on your own hosting with your own domain to make the blog fully personal.

Outside of the affordable cost of hosting and a domain name, everything else you need is free! The WordPress application is free, and there are thousands of themes, plugins, and extensions available to make the blog fully customized for your needs. If you’re knowledgeable enough, you can create your own theme or edit a theme that someone else created. The functionality of WordPress is greatly extended with the addition of plugins (which wordpress.com blogs cannot use). Plugins do everything from speeding up your blog to optimizing it for search engines or even creating polls for use in blog posts.

With all the added benefits of wordpress.org and a self-hosted WordPress blog, there’s little reason to settle for a wordpress.com blog. If you go with a free blog on wordpress.com, you’ll likely find yourself outgrowing it’s functionality in short order. As a basic blogging platform it’s a good start, but it’s worth it to install your own WordPress. If you currently have a wordpress.com blog and want to move to self-hosting your blog, you’re in luck – wordpress.com has an easy export feature that allows you to create a file to import into your own blog for quick transfer of posts, pages, comments, and more.

Check out Dotster’s blog hosting plan and get started with a WordPress blog on your own domain today!

In Apple’s case, this certainly isn’t the end of the world as they have ample funding to buy all those domain names from their current owners for however many hundreds of thousands or even million dollars they might cost. However, for your average new company, small company with a new product launch, or individual with a great idea, paying large sums of money for a domain name is out of the question. This is why it can be critically important to include domain name availability searches as a part of any product or business name brainstorming.

When naming, try to find a .com that’s available, though for more common names you may have to think about settling for a .net or other alternative if you’re set on that particular name. When you include domain searching as a part of the early-brainstorming for a name, you can include that in your decision-making to come up with a great name that also has a domain available to register. If you wait until later to check the domain name, you may find yourself torn between a name you’ve become attached to and finding out the domain is unavailable.

Once you’ve got the perfect name in mind, make sure you register the domain before someone else has the chance. Dotster makes it affordable at only $15.95 per year for a .com and $8.99 for a .net!

Find out more about Dotster and how we can help improve your search presence with Domains, Web Hosting, and more.

The American Red Cross

Hope for Haiti

Text “Haiti” to 90999 to donate $10 to Haiti relief funds through the US State Department and mGive and have it added automatically to your wireless bill

World Vision

Mercy Corps

So you already have a website up at your domain, but now you want to add a blog. Where should it go? You’ve got a number of options:

1) Replace your current website with a multi-functional blog that includes pages

2) Create the blog on a new domain

3) Put the blog on a subdomain (http://blog.yourdomain.com)

4) Put the blog in a directory (http://www.yourdomain.com/blog/)

There are benefits and downsides to each of these options, so read on to find the best solution for your needs.

Replace Your Current Website with a Multi-functional Blog

If your website is outdated, in need of a revamping, or simply not that useful to you at this point, consider replacing it with a blog or content management system. Popular content management and blogging solutions such as WordPress are a great solution.  This allows you to include a standard blog plus static pages that you can use to replace the content currently on your website.

Using a blog as your primary website  is a good solution for a smaller website and for people who want an easily customizable look and feel without the need for creating a site from scratch.  However, if you have an online business, company page, or other website that you don’t want to replace, this probably isn’t the option for you.

Create a New Domain for Your Blog

If you want to start a blog but keep it separate from your current website, creating a new domain is probably the best way to go.  Many web hosting plans (our Deluxe and Ultra Plans included) allow you to host multiple domains with only one hosting account, so the only additional cost is adding a domain name.

If you don’t want to replace your website with a blog or start out on a new domain, you’re left with two very basic options:

Put Your Blog on a Subdomain

This is the go-to choice for those who want to keep a blog separate from their primary website while still hosting it on the same domain.  Putting a blog at blog.yourdomain.com is fairly easy as long as your web hosting supports subdomains, and is a good way to categorize and brand your website. However, if you want your blog to be an integral part of your website, putting it on a separate subdomain may not be the best option.  You probably won’t receive the boost to page rank and search engine rankings that you might if you:

Put Your Blog in a Directory

This has become the most popular and generally most successful option for many people who want a blog as part of their website.  Google and other popular search engines give more weight to content that is in directories rather than on different subdomains, so consider using yourdomain.com/blog/ and a similar yourdomain.com/category/ structure for other sections on your website if you’re concerned about improving your rankings in search engines.  This structure is also very simple to put into place.  In most cases, all it takes is creating a new folder on your web server.

It’s tough to come to a conclusion about which option is superior to the others – it completely depends on your plans for the blog.  However, putting a blog in a directory is generally the safest bet if none of the other options stand out as a better choice.

Thoughts?  Please feel free to leave a comment.