Someone shared a newsletter from Hunter Douglas, a company with one of the best reputations in the window fashions business. The email newsletter was to inform vendors / dealers that they need to purchase their own domain name for websites showcasing their HD products.

I want to share their interesting recommendations with you:

What Makes a Good URL?
DO
If needed, use domains with city names or relevant keywords
Example: blindsomaha.com
DON’T
Purposely misspell words
Use other ‘endings’ such as .biz, .org or .net
Purchase more than one domain
Use the name Hunter Douglas or HD (Per Corporate Advertising Guild lines)

One other interesting thing was that Hunter Douglas recommended that dealers use Dynadot for their domain names. I am not sure if it’s any type of affiliate program, but it’s a great opportunity for Dynadot. I am sure many of these businesses don’t know a whole lot about domain names, and having a recommendation like this is golden.

I would like to thank everybody who submitted their ideas to the Crowdsourcing a Website Idea contest that I guest posted on Elliot’s Blog a few weeks ago.   There were many good ideas, and, as expected, quite a few opinions J.        I would also like to publicly thank Elliot for his willingness to try something different on his blog.     This is one of the reasons why I approached him with this idea, and it is one of the many reasons why I have been regularly reading his blog since 2007.

After reviewing all of the submissions and considering all of the potential models for building IdeasOnDemand.com into a revenue generating website, I have decided to go with the “contest” model.   I believe this model offers a viable solution to a problem encountered by many business, particularly small businesses and startups.

Congratulations to

Every so often, I think of a domain tool that I would like to have, and I ask around to see if someone offers what I want. More often than not, I learn that an industry company already offers that tool, and I can decide whether it’s worth signing up (and possibly paying) to get access to it.

Once in a while, I think of something that doesn’t exist yet, and I can either ask a company to create it or I can hire a developer to build something for me. The advantage of the first is the cost and time savings since I don’t have to do anything other than wait, and the advantage of the second is that I can have exclusive access to something beneficial to my business.

If you have a tool in mind that you think might benefit you, and you want to see if it exists or you’d like someone else to create it, I invite you to share something that you would find beneficial. There are several