You have recently retired, or will retire in the next few years, but you are still heavily invested in the stock markets because that is where the growth has come from for the past 10 or so years.
Maybe you took a beating in 2008, or maybe you didn't start saving/investing until late in your career, and you feel you need a bit more!
Maybe it's time you considered "solidifying" the investments you still have.
Paper profits are great, until a sudden reversal in stock prices occurs. If that happens this year,(and this writer believes it will), then you may be left trying to decide to "stay in" to try and recoup your losses, or cash out with 20-50% less profit. If such an event occurs, it maybe a decade before you recoup those losses.
To this date the Nasdaq has returned, year to date, over 19% "THAT" my friends is a great return on investment! The SP500 has returned almost as much YTD! I sincerely do not believe that retirees or those nearing retirement, "will ever see" returns like this again!!!
If you are over 50 or need the money in your portfolio for retirement, if you cannot afford a downturn in stock prices (or bond prices for that matter see: Bonds) then maybe you should consider the wise advice of the foremost investor in modern history, Mr. Warren Buffett, who famously said:
Remember, "Cash" is also a Position and, at this juncture, it may be the best position!
Selecting the right domain name (Web Address) for your business
or enterprise can be a daunting task. Why? Because your online identity will last for a long time, so it is very important to do some research before you chose Domains.
Whether you are a start-up business or an enterprise with a history and you want to change direction by claiming a new online address, there are a number of factors to address.
I found an excellent post at Moz.com which lays out some fundamentals when choosing a new Domain(s).
How to Choose a Domain Name
1. Make it brandable
Brandable, Hyphens and numbers are a real problem because they don't
sound like a brand. They sound generic, or strange.
For example, if we wanted to create a pasta website that has
pasta recipes and sells some pasta related e-commerce products on it;
Pasta-shop.com would be hard to brand, say, or remember.
PastaAficionado.com sounds brandable, is unique, but quite challenging to say.
PastaLabs.com would be good because it has a scientific
connotation to it, is very brandable, unique, memorable, and stands out.
2. Make it pronounceable
You might be
thinking, why is it so important that it's pronounceable? Most
people are going to be typing it or clicking a link.".
It matters because of "processing fluency". A cognitive bias that
human beings have where we remember (and have more positive
associations with) things that we can easily say and think about. That
includes pronounceability in our own minds.
This is going to vary on the language and region that you're targeting
If you can't easily say the name, you're going to lose processing
fluency, memorability, and the benefits of brandability that you've
created.
3. Make it short
Length matters because of the processing fluency that we talk about above.
The fewer characters a domain name has, the easier it is to type,
say, share, and the less it gets shortened on social media sharing
platforms and search results.
Shorter is better.
4. Bias towards .com
I know, it's 2017. Why
are we still talking about .com? The internet's been around 20-plus
years. Why does .com matter so much when there are so many TLD extension
options? The answer is, .com is the most recognized and most accessible
TLD.
Cognitive fluency dictates that we should go with something easy,
that people have an association with, and .com is still the primary
TLD. If you want to build up a very brandable domain that can do well,
you want a .com. Probably, eventually, if you are very successful,
you're going to have to try and go capture it anyway, and so I would
bias you to get it if you can
If it's unavailable, my suggestion would be to go with the .net,
.co, or a known ccTLD. Those are your best bets. A known ccTLD might be
something like .ca in Canada or .it in Italy.
5. Avoid trademark infringement
You have to be careful
because it's not whether you think your domain name could be confused.
It's whether you think a judge in a jurisdiction, where a company might
take legal action against you, would consider your domain name
confusable.
This can also create brand confusion, which is hard for your brandability.
You should talk to an attorney or a legal professional if you have real concerns.
Trademark owners can attempt to sue a domain name owner, who's
owning the domain legitimately and using it for business purposes, and
that sucks.
6. Make it intuitive
A good domain name gives people a
strong idea of what a website will be about. Being able to look at a
domain name and say, "Oh, they probably do this. This is probably what
that company is up to." is a big win.
RetireFund.com for example is pretty obvious, intuitively about retirement savings or investing, and anyone could figure that out.The two words used are both extremely popular in search, not to mention Retire.com sold for over $2 Million and Fund.com sold for $10 million.
7. Use broad keywords
Keywords in a domain name can help
with the cognitive fluency biases, but also from an SEO perspective.
Google has been biasing away from these exact match and partial match
domains, but the anchor text you get from people linking to your domain
can help.
If you can get a keyword mention in your domain name that helps
make it obvious what you're website is about, go for it. But if you're
trying to secure a keyword rich or a keyword targeted domain, I would
stay away from those in 2017. They don't carry the weight that they used
to, and have negative associations (with users and search engines) that
you should avoid.
For example, I would not purchase a domain name like;
RecipesForPasta.com or BuyPastaOnline.com. I would instead, go for
something very broad like Gusto.com.
Think about Amazon.com or Google.com, which clearly has no
association with what it is. These are very well-branded, but don't have
keyword richness to them.
It's more of a creative association, just like "gusto" means
"taste" in Italian. So I might be tempted to go in that direction
instead.
8. It's okay to append or modify it
If your domain name
is not available, it's okay to go out and add a suffix or a prefix. It
is okay to use an alternate TLD extension, like we talked about
previously, and it's okay to be a little bit creative with your online
brand.
For example, your trying to brand a travel site. Utilizing an alternate extension like .netand adding a suffix ie: ForTravel.net or ForHotels.net would be not only acceptable, but very effective.
