Discovering Cities in California Series - Barstow

Welcome to Barstow, California.
The city is located in region 2.
The County is San Bernardino, California.
The city has just over 21,000 residents living in 33.59 square miles of area.
The city was incorporated in September 1947.
The city is located in Southern California.

Some Interesting facts about Barstow, California.
Barstow is located on old and very famous Route 66 as well it is located closest to Fort Irwin Military Reservation as to get to Las Vegas coming from anywhere in Southern California heading to the famous city you will be passing through Barstow because the Interstate 15 Freeway is what brings motorists into Las Vegas, Nevada. Barstow is one of the 10 poorest cities in California and has one of the highest unemployment rates in California but do not let these statistics cause fear in you because there are some really great things to visit in Barstow and we will share them below.

Things to do in and around Barstow, California.
If you like trains like this writer does you will love to visit the Western America Rail Museum and this museum still functions as an Amtrak Station for Barstow known as the Casa Del Desierto built in 1911 as a hotel and train station. This old structure is home to the Mojave River Valley Museum and the Route 66 Museum so you can see a lot of diverse history in this great little city and junction town. The area of desert lands around the city make a great place for off-road adventures like riding ATV’s (All Terrain Vehicles) and you are near the Calico Ghost Town here California Ghost Town where you can get a great education for the whole family because you will be stepping right back into the old wild wild west. There is an ecological rock formation and wild plant habitat just 8 miles north out of Barstow off Irwin Road then onto Fossil Bed Road if you would like to see nature in its natural state this is a true location to carefully wonder around explore and enjoy new discoveries.

Official City of Barstow, California web sites
City of Barstow City of Barstow, California

Barstow Chamber of Commerce Barstow, California Chamber of Commerce

WeatherBarstow.com

Domain Names Keywords can you brand them?

Building a brand name with a domain name
It really does matter early in starting a company which domain name type you use because the choice to select a domain name that is a company name instead of a keyword as a company name is very important to the long-term outcome of the company in our opinion. we are talking about a name like PizzaHut.com versus Pizza.com.

When anyone sets out to build a company it is very important to think-out the domain name along with all aspects of starting any business because you and your company are going to be remembered by your name for the most part.

What we are writing in this article today is about how a small company like Viper Logic brands itself to existing and new clients and how we have been doing this for the last 15 years so we are going to share our strategy in selecting a domain name for the company and then for each product allowing us to still retain our basic name which we are known by our clients as Viper today. Our mascots name is Logic and our viewers have began to recognize Logic as the corporate mascot (avatar) for Viper Logic.

In our case for right or for wrong that is what we are to our clients, friends and family and when we did this we were pretty much going to stay with it because the re-branding of any company is especially hard no matter what size the company is so when you are very small like Viper Logic is it is nearly impossible.

Here is how we have managed to hold all of what we are doing together under a single company with a few types of products and services is that we put each product we build and its branding logo with a brief description onto our web site Viper Solutions here Software Developers and Engineering and within this site there are products and services from beach weather to email marketing all the way into domain name educational tools.

This web site Viper Solutions is where visitors that are just out looking around can see what we have built as well as what we are building so the site when you arrive at it offers four pages being the usual “Contact Us”, About Us, “Products” and “Projects” as well as a link to each of these products and projects including our main company site Viper Logic here Software engineering firms

Keyword versus a Branding Domain Name
Within our portfolio web site Viper Solutions one offering is a web site hosting company and it provides from self serve web site hosting and domain name sells to managed web site hosting and for this company product we offer two names for the site. One is the hosting branded name Viper Gate and the keyword domain name applied to this site as a second name using the technical term 301 redirect meaning which ever domain name you type into your favorite search engine you will find us as Viper Gate here Managed Web Site Hosting and under Manged Web Site Hosting here Managed Hosting by Viper Gate.

Building a brand around a a keyword domain name
This is where we really get into a difficult situation because how do you promote to people that if we were not Viper Gate but rather we were Managed Web Site Hosting a company. A good example is answering the telephone as “Good Morning and Thank You for Calling Managed Web Site Hosting because yes we would be named exactly what we offer as our service name which is Managed Web Site Hosting however the human is better to understand the name of a company and not the service you are offering.

Here is a great example and the purpose for this article today as we dive into the actual value of a single word domain name and the word is Pizza and Pizza.com and we are Pizza Hut (a registered name trademark under Pizza hut, Inc. and Viper Logic is in no way affiliated with this brand or its related trademark) a name and brand that spends millions of dollars on each year promoting the Pizza Hut name so do they really want to be advertising Pizza.com where a person looking for pizza goes onto their favorite search engine and types in the search box pizza?

We most certainly would think not they are Pizza Hut and they are known as PizzaHut.com and even when a person goes to the search box on the search engine instead of the address bar of their browser the very branded name Pizza Hut will get them the result they want, which is at the top of the (SERP) Search Engine Results Page and by the way the search engines currently do take a search for Pizza Hut to the SERP for Pizza Hut as well as the SERP for Pizza also return Pizza Hut as the number one spot as well.

So what is the value of a single generic keyword domain name in this case it is “0” dollars and “0” cents because for Pizza Hut to own Pizza.com makes no sense. LOL.

What is a single nondescriptive domain name worth
Hype might be at hand here in almost every case of utilizing a domain name to build on a brand because even with cars.com we think here at Viper Logic about these single word as keyword domain names and about when I want to look for example at a car I generally know that the car I want to look at, and would never type this word cars into a search engine because it is to vague and nondescriptive. I would type in Dodge Viper of course. LOL

When a single word domain name makes sense to Logic
We are Viper Logic and we operate a couple of Viper named web sites that do really well for us and these are Viper Gate as ViperGate.com, Viper Names as ViperNames.com and Viper Mailer as ViperMailer.com these are branded domain names for our products but we would love to own the domain name Viper.com however it is owned by a company not far from our operations Center in the heart of Palm Springs, California and that is the Viper Automotive Alarm Company and even though we wish we had the name, it is part convenience and part proud parent ego and not requirement because we believe and our technical research shows it would have little to no effect on our future sales volume.

We do own a few thousand domain names in our portfolio which are descriptive, locational, product or service orientated and you are welcome to see what we think are good targeted domain names here Domain Name Portfolio by Viper Names.

Email Message image blocking work around

How to get your email messages through image blocking
This is an email service provider or email marketing provider tip to help you send out a message to a group of contacts for your business or organization and assure that the message gets first, recognized and second opened.

Image Blocking Defined
Image blocking is utilized by a lot of email programs like Microsoft Outlook and it can be configured to eliminates the images from appearing in the email software viewing pain area located in your email Inbox usually in the bottom third to half of the window below all of your Inbox emails.

Providing familiar text with your messages
These tips are for getting around the Image Blocking because as you might know any good email message that is going to receive results is going to need to be colorful which is fine with image blocking but this tip is also to be sure your recipients know who you are if they are using image blocking.

The From in your message and Subject Line are both very good places to start because they appear in the recipients Inbox and you stand a great chance of getting your message opened when the recipient scans through their new messages, so lets start with being sure your “From” is not your name but your company name unless you are known better then the company name is for example you are an insurance agent for a major name and your contacts know your name better then the company name then you should use your personal name.

Next the “Subject Line” is equally important because this is your chance to have your important message title read and sharply increase the open rate odds for your message. You should really try to say who you are and what you are offering in 35 to 50 characters.

To learn more about the “From” and “Subject Line” you can visit the Viper Mailer Education Center here Email Marketing Success and select number 14 for the “From” and Number 13 for the “Subject Line”.

How to place images in your messages
Now even though some recipients will have their image blocker operating in their email Inbox you are still going to want to include images in your message because research and experience show us at Viper Mailer that companies and organizations see higher open message rates and greater sales when images are used but we should caution the images need to be used sparingly and need to be about the subject of your offering to work best for your email campaign.

Never use and image that is large at the top of your message because if there is nothing to appear in the Inbox preview pain the recipient will only see an outlined box with a red X in the corner of it so, the best thing to do is to be sure your image is small enough to allow text to be seen and there should be text above, below or to the side with an explanation about who and what you are offering so your message can be opened and the images can then be viewed.

When you are utilizing a web based email marketing service provider like Viper Mailer there is an option when you upload an image into your message that allows you to add ALT Text and ALT Text is a piece of HTML code that you do not need to know how to program in HTML to do because email service providers offer this feature. All you would need to do is just type in what the image would be showing and it will appear in the blank box when the recipient has their Image Blocker on and receives your message providing a little extra help in getting them to open your message.

Email Marketing Sign Up
If you are not utilizing an email marketing company today you can open a full function FREE email marketing trial account here Email Marketing

Discovering Cities in California Series - Banning

Welcome to Banning, California
The city is located in Region 2.
The County is Riverside, California.
The city has a little over 23,000 residents living in 23.1 miles of area.
The city was incorporated in February 1913.
The city is located in Southern California.

Some Interesting facts about Banning, California.
Banning is located in the Desert region of California in the San Gorgonio Pass and the weather is extreme like when the wind blows through the pass it really blows as well as the rain and periodic hell storms during the winter time are rougher because of the city being located in the pass.
The pass and the view from this city is of the two tallest mountains in Southern California being the San Gorgonio Mountains and the San Jacinto Mountains and the pass also includes the San Bernardino Mountains.

Things to do in and around Banning, California.
Near Banning you might visit the Malki Museum features European and Asian art and wonderful gardens to wonder through and right in Banning is a unique to early California travel through the deserts they offer the Gilman Historic Ranch and Wagon Museum and transportation carts from the Cahuilla Indians to the exploration.

Now as far as staying in Banning and venturing out you have the desert areas largest outlets outdoor mall to your south here Desert Hills Premium Outlets Mall and a great snacks of the desert at Hadley’s here Desert area snacks as well as the Casino Morongo and Resort Hotel here Casinos in the California Desert.

About a 30 minute ride down the the same freeway that passes Banning is the 10 Freeway that will take you into the Coachella Valley where Palm Springs is located and to see more of what Palm Springs is offering please visit Logic’s city here Palm Springs Information.

Official City of Banning, California web sites.
City if Banning City of Banning, California

Banning Chamber of Commerce Banning, California Chamber of Commerce

BanningWeather.com