A friend sent me the link to a new landing page currently being tested by BuyDomains, and I thought it was interesting. When you have a chance, take a look at the landing page for RemoteGuardian.com, a domain name owned by BuyDomains. You’ll notice how simple the lander is, with a “This domain is for sale” graphic and not much else.
In addition to the large graphic, there is a call to action phone number and form to submit information for a price request. There is no monetization on the landing page (aside from the sale notice), and there isn’t a price listed either.
My gut says that they are probably testing this on low/no traffic domain names, and excluding PPC links won’t cause a loss on those types of names. Many small business owners and individuals visit a domain name they are interested in owning to see if anyone has anything built on it, likely because many aren’t all that knowledgeable about finding a domain owner using the Whois database. In my opinion, there’s little sense in having PPC links on no traffic names, since that may look like some development to these visitors who may be reluctant to make an offer if they see any type of development.
I reached out to the company to ask for details, and Ted Olson, Director Monetization at Afternic and SmartName, gave me a bit of insight: “As always, we test new ideas and concepts on our own portfolio before rolling it out to our partners. This is the first of many iterations to come, and we are excited to see how well it performs.”
If BuyDomains rolls out with this on a wider range of domain names, perhaps domain owners should take note of the change since they may consider this on their own domain names that get little traffic.
Thanks to NameBio for mentioning this to me.
Hi Elliot:
Great to know they are testing more sales focused landing pages.
I would bet that quite a few sales prospects are lost due to the sales message being minimal. A simple colored band at the top or bottom is not enough of a focal grabber, nor is the call to action strong enough.
Time to test and enhance!
Cheers!
Providing some links, or content to the site provides puts the idea in the end users mind of how they can use the site.
Seeing a big red banner, kills the vision, even sites which get minimal traffic can sometimes get a $2-5 click sometimes, paying for their renewal almost. Mark is right about the different colored single line banner across the top of the page, which I assume they are already doing.
Lots to figure out, least they are changing things up…
PS> I hate blurry captchas, maybe a simple skill testing question would be better.
“Providing some links, or content to the site provides puts the idea in the end users mind of how they can use the site.”
@ Ron
I disagree.
If someone wants to create a shirt shop called “Shirt Dude” and they look to see if ShirtDude.com is available for them, seeing a “for sale” sign is probably exciting for them, although they would probably prefer to see it unregistered.
I can’t imagine someone gets ideas from seeing the parked pages. It’s kind of backwards thinking. Maybe a domain investor, but not someone who already has a business idea and wants the corresponding domain name.
Sedo has a similar landing page templae called SalesLander. Have a look at the landing page for UsedDogs.com
I can’t believe someone actually owns UsedDogs.com…. hahaha 🙂
I started using my personal automatic landing page, coded by me, some months ago.
I received more domain inquires since then.
This is my Landing Page: http://www.PaintedCloud.com
@ Mauro
Nice… Personally I would change the color of “This Domain May be for Sale” to make it stand out a bit more.
Thanks Elliot
I’ll do it 🙂
GoDaddy’s InstantPage can be customized with a Domain for Sale or just a plain white background with text. I think they are Excellent.
An example For Sale one I set up: http://www.metrologysupply.com
Made a change on my image. It’s stronger now.
Elliot, please take a look here: http://www.firecoupon.com
Cool, isn’t it?
@ Mauro
Nice work… keep us apprised on this.
Thanks Elliot 😉
If you want to try it i can provide you the files.
Feel free to contact me.
Elliot,
They have PPC links on the landing page now, as well as search box which also ties in PPC.
Maybe they are testing a few different options.
Mauro
You built a nice page.
Why aren’t you handling the sales directly rather than sending them to SEDO?
Thanks for your words John.
If a potential buyers feels more confortable with Sedo, o leave the option since the beginning.
I believe this also gives the feeling of a legitim sale.
That’s the only reason
Mauro,
that’s a great looking page. I need something like that. Do you have a website or handle small custom projects?
thanks.
That lander is perfect, almost makes me want to list my domains with them. I have been wanting to do something similar, but when you have 1000’s of domains it is a not efficient to set up 1000’s of webpage’s.
I have thought of setting up 1 page and 301 redirecting everything but then I lose the all the SEO benefits that my parked pages have. With parking revenue’s so low per domain, and the feeling that those PPC links and ad’s take away from the main focus, to sell, I much prefer a basic sales lander. The whole idea is not to have exit points on a page like that.
Jason
@Elliot
Elliot, sometimes a buyer will have the mentality since you are not doing anything with the domain, any offer amount should be a bonus. Having the chance to say I am making $xx per month parking, or what not, adds value to your counter offer. Won’t work with every situation, but it is an alternative.
As well an end user coming to a site, and seeing links to maybe other competing companies in their industry, could make them want to secure that domain and stop those leads.
Although sometimes just a clear straight to the point for sale lander works, but holders of large portfolios need some parking income, to offset renewal costs, even if they got 1-3 clicks per year that add up to a few dollars, could help in keeping the domain, until the right buyer is found. Sometimes the difference between profit or loss can be a single click. As we have been seeing many large drops from portfolios from seasoned investors, the secondary speculative market, and newbie buying has kept this recycling program somewhat strong. Every major holder has been trimming the fat though…
Nice for sale Mauro, very clean
I created a custom lander as well and set it up so I can do a 301 redirect for any domain instead of setting up hosting and uploading the files for each site.
http://www.Related.org is an example.
here is mine, still in production, based on a best-of sales pages ideas
http://www.idisplay.com/
@ Jose
Great looking lander. Wonder if it would be helpful to add the highest offer #?
I use custom landing pages as well:
2 different examples:
http://articlehouse.com
http://tifa.com
thanks Elliot.
that could be easily done but it’s that kind of information that seems to have value by itself and so I am reluctant to disclose it.
Sedo inserts random outdated sales on its sales feed, Frank Shilling shows price ranges for reported sales and every marketplace across the board only show domains has sold and no end sale price.
people even seem to be moving away from showing BIN prices and requiring prospective buyers to inquire for a value.
those were the trends that I identified and put into practice on this sales page.
by the way, the sales page is unique to every domain placed on the portfolio for sale, but dynamically shows information specifically to the domain name. i read on several places on the net that this would be difficult to implement or even that could not be done. so my humble advice is that don’t be fooled by freelancers and others wannabes. one hosting account and one website is only what you need (and an unlimited domains support feature on your hosting account)
@Bram C.
i like them and your site
Thanks Jose 🙂
My first landing page focuses to get people to make an offer on the domain name and has some custom JS that displays 4 other random domains out of my portfolio. Ultimately this landing page goes to my domain portfolio website where potential buyers can make an offer on the domain name should they want to.
On the second landing page example potential buyers can also immediately buy the domain (here the buying process goes through Sedo for testing purposes)
To set the landingpages up for a domain takes less than a minute and can be updated from a central location on my host. (if for example I want to change the banner I just need to change it on one spot and all 400 domains with this landing page will show the new banner)
I like your landing page btw. It definitely has some interesting functionalities compared to mine 🙂 Showing the sales inquiries, unique views and age of the domain is brilliant (of course your domain should have a few sales inquiries and should be aged a little to truly benefit from this system 😉 )