Chasing Domains

I have a lovely .com domain that I am about to develop. The idea has been with me for almost a year now and is fairly well developed.

The site will be a paid advertising site and I am really excited by the prosects for it.

But, as I am based in the UK, I really wanted the .co.uk extension of the same name, especially as the UK has a very big market for this niche.

I knew that the domain wasn't being used and was amazed when I saw that it was due to drop after it wasn't renewed this year, so I had my domain software keep track of it and of course, I booked the name via a couple of drop catching services.

Sadly, the drop catchers I chose missed it entirely and someone else snapped up the name.

The good news is that they immediately offered it for sale.

So this week I became the proud new owner of a great .co.uk name that I really wanted (and needed), for the sum of £400 including VAT.

£400 is nothing if you're going to build a business around a name.

Some people seem to think that they can acquire names for next to nothing and, to a certain extent, with a non-educated seller, you probably can.

Personally, I don't like selling names from my portfolio, but occasionally, I do. It's rarely for less than £1000 a time, as I view each of my names on their protential for earning revenue as a business, NOT as a pay per click revenue generator.

If you are selling your names based on PPC revenue or traffic volume, you are selling yourself short.

If you are buying, try and find someone who doesn't know the value - there are some great bargains out there.

Just Say "No" - To Clients

I was sat talking to a guy who owns an electrical contracting firm this week.

He has a web site that contains information about his company's services, just like tens of thousands of other companies.

I asked him about how much business his web site generates and, (I suspect this is common with many service businesses), he hadn't a clue.

In fact, he was of the opinion that his web site was just a waste of money - something that you had to have in business, but he wasn't quite sure why.

His domain name is the same name of his business and he has it printed on his business card of course.

What did surprise me was that his email address was listed on his card as a Hotmail address.

Somebody who makes that mistake needs help in my opinion.

An email address can drive visitors to your web site.

If I receive an email from a nice domain, I will usually visit the web site just out of curiosity, as long as it's not a Spam email of course.

Anyway, we got talking and he asked how I managed to get visitors and business off the Internet.

I showed him several different web sites of mine that advertise a service for one company.

Each of these sites have a domain name that reflects just one of the services that the company offers.

Each site is devoted to that niche service area and links back to the main company web site.

So, we have say 15 web sites covering niche services within an overall service group.

The main web site lists all services offered of course, but then points the visitor to more specialised information from the satellite sites.

What that does for the main site, is shoot it up the search engines because the sites that link back to it are extremely relvant and contain very specialised information and content.

So, we sat and did a few Google searches and the electrican was very impressed with our 50+ top 5 placements on Google for various niche services.

He then asked what good that did and so I showed him some of our recent enquiries - some for a few hundred pounds worth of services and a few that will become major accounts worth several hundred thousand pounds.

The next question was, "How do I get to the top of Google then?"

Was that the right question?

It's the reason I don't have clients - only "partners".

I am telling this story today because I am often asked how I go about getting clients.

As I mentioned before, I don't want clients.

Clients are demanding, expect the earth and usually place little value on what a supplier has to offer.

So, what I do is simply get chatting to people like the electrical contractor, because he owns a business and would like more clients of his own.

If the penny drops, he will ask me to do what I did for my other partners.

He will have no involvement in building, running or promoting a web site - he has his own business to run.

He won't be buying domain names, writing content and building an online network, he'll want to leave that to somebody else.

What can you charge for a service like that, that delivers new corporate clients?

Answer: Anything you like!

My preference is a percentage of the sale - ideally leading to a percentage of the business.

That's why I ike the word, "partner".

Can anyone do this?

YES! But, you need the following tools in order to get started:

• Undertsanding of domain names and why they are important
• A good grasp of copywriting - write to sell, not to tell
• Knowledge of search engines - how they work, how to manipulate them
• Low cost paid search knowledge for early, fast track results
• A web hosting account with many unique IP addressess
• Thorough understanding of your "partner's" business - I like to work in the business for a week or two to obtain this- it's fun and it's easy.
• Outsourced web design skills

Opportunity is all around us - right now, on the doorstep.

It's there for me and it's there for you - you just have to learn to recognise it when it comes knocking.

You also have to have to learn to say "NO" to clients - it's so empowering!!

Blogging & Emails Make A Difference

Business Week changed their editorial on the fave.com article after complaints from domainers and the publishing on blogs (like this one) about the unfairness of labeling (and possibly libelling) genuine domain name investors as cyber squatters.

Here is the link to the amended article at Business Week.

http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/aug2007/sb20070813_986517.htm?campaign_id=rss_smlbz

The domain industry is bigger and better represented than many people think.

Cybersquatting - A Dirty Word

One of the worst things you can call a domainer is a "Cybersquatter".

This dirty word first came about in the 1990's after unscrupulous people decided that they would register a multitude of trademarked and popular trading names.

They would then point these well known brand names to hardcore porn sites, hoping that a big name company would come along and offer big money for the domain name.

In some cases, it actually worked. But that was the old days, before trademark lawyers got involved.

There are still a few rogues about, just as there in any industry, but in the main, the vast majority of domainers I know would never dream of registering a trademarked name.

Put simply, there is no need for anyone to do this. There is enough money to be made in the domain name game by playing straight, so why make life difficult for yourself with big money corporate lawyers chasing after you?

It's interesting then, to see an article appear in Business Week about cybersquatting.

Yet again, some rookie journalist trying to make a name for herself, incorrectly labels an innocent party of being a cybersquatter, just because they registered a generic domain name before somebody else got the chance.

This is a link to full the cybersquatter article.

The "journalist" concerned even cites the ages old "business.com" deal that never really was in her article - so that proves how naive she is!

She then goes on to discuss a start up business as follows:

"Jon and Jeff Seymour found that Persona, their
first-choice name for their localized Web browser, was already trademarked.
Their second choice, Fave, wasn't—but Fave.com was held by a cybersquatter.
After the owner turned down their multiple five-figure offers, the Seymours
decided to register GetFave.com instead."

Let's examine the facts.

Jon and Jeff couldn't register the name "persona.com" - of course they couldn't!

It's a common, generic word - it was snapped up years ago. What the heck did they expect?

In fact, persona.com is a dating site. Interestingly, the "journalist" didn't refer to them as cybersquatters!

They then went for the "second choice".

Er... let's see. A five letter word called "fave". A common abbreviation for favourite.

The owner of fave.com parks his name under the banner, "cyberfinder.com".

Many domain owners park their names. They do this because it would be virtually impossible to develop a large portfolio.

Domain parking allows a portfolio owner to earn money from an unused domain, rather than letting it sit dormant and actually being a cost to his business.

Think of this analogy.

You own a piece of land in a city centre. (A good domain name is like having a prime piece of land). It is just a piece of land. It has buildings all around it, but in order to build something on it, you need to speculate and spend a lot of money. You know the potential for the land, because you can see what others have done in the same area.

However, because of the financial risk and the fact that you have to pay rates on the empty land, you decide to allow commuters to park on the land and pay an hourly or daily fee.

Nobody will criticise you for that. In fact, a prime location car park, even if it is only a scrap of land, would be quite a desirable thing to own.

I think I would like to own a city centre car park.

However, I can't afford to buy one.

I CAN afford a domain portfolio. Most of my names get developed into something at some stage, but there simply aren't enough hours in the day to keep building web sites and keeping them fresh with content.

So what does a domainer do?

He (or she) puts up a car park. It's called "domain parking". When visitors stumble onto the site, they are presented with a number of links.

If they see something relevant to what they were looking for, they will click the link and get paid by the parking company.

Typically companies like Google and other major search engines are behind the pay per click model, because they understand the value of a good domain - quite simply, it represents premium traffic.

Sadly, Kerry Miller of Business Week doesn't get it.

Instead she slanders the good name of business people who had the foresight to register a name several years before somebody decided that they wanted to start a business.

Enough to make you weep isn't it?

Domain Sales Lift Off & Soar Into Orbit

The current issue of DNJournal makes interesting reading for anyone involved in domain names this month, as Editor / Publisher, Ron Jackson has printed a timely article on all of the issues that affect this lucrative market.

With the global stock exchanges going into a temporary meldown, the domain industry just gets stronger and stronger.

For those of us who have been in the indsustry for any length of time, this is great news - we've been the old duffers at parties saying "get into domains, you won't find a better investment" and now at last, it seems that the mainstream media has cottoned on to what was once a very niche investment area.

To learn more, visit DN Journal - it's one of my few "essential reads" and if you're into domains, it should be top of your list too!