End of the Year Domain & Business Tips

Elliot Silver
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checklistThere are three weeks remaining in 2009, and before you know it we will be ringing in the new year. As the year draws to a close, now is a good time to take care of some housekeeping type of things before the final day of the year. I always uses the last few weeks to do a number of things to close out my books and to prepare for the new year, as many people focus less on work and more on celebrating the holiday season.

Here are a few recommendations that you might find beneficial as you prepare to begin the new year.

Make sure your record books are in order.

Set aside at least a couple of days to go through your records, making sure all of your sales, acquisition, revenues, expenses, donations, and other financial records are in order and recorded. Instead of waiting nearly four months for tax time, if you do it now, you will be thankful. You can also set up your record books for next year, so you can be as organized or better organized in the coming year.

Spend money on things you need.

If you’ve had a good year financially, now might be a good time to buy a computer, desk, or other business-related supplies that you can expense in the current year. Pay for airline tickets in advance and/or conference passes in 2009 so you can take the tax write-off now. The best recommendation I can make is to speak with an accountant who is familiar with business taxes and get your records in order soon.

Calculate and pay estimated taxes.

Although I track my estimated taxes throughout the year, I know some people who don’t and they wait until the last possible minute. Again, this is something you need to speak with an accountant about.

Check your landing pages.

We’ve all heard that parking is down, but have you checked to make sure your biggest producing landing pages are correctly targeted and the theme is related to the domain name? I don’t spend a lot of time checking during the year, but I will spend some time seeing if I have names that aren’t getting the desired click through rates.

Renew your domain names.

Make sure your domain names are set to auto-renew and the names you want to keep all have enough time remaining on their registration. The end of the year is a hectic time, and things can slip through the cracks. Make sure you don’t lose any domain names unintentionally as a result.

Keep your credit cards up to date.

The end of the year is also a good time to update your credit card records on file with your registrar. Since many people have the auto-renew function activated, it’s important that the credit card on file is still valid. Now’s a great time to check to make sure you’re still good to go.

Checklist image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/adesigna/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Things I Would Have Done Differently on My GeoDomain Names

Elliot Silver
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Its been over a year since I developed my geodomain names, including Burbank.com, Lowell.com, and Newburyport.com, and although I’ve shared quite a bit about my development efforts, I’d like to share things I wish I had done that I will try to do on future projects. As the song goes, “I wish that I knew what I know now…”

1.) Used a content management system like WordPress or Joomla. This would have made updates much quicker and easier. I could publish articles immediately or have them post some time in the future. I could easily add new features and functionality using plugins. There are just too many advantages to a CMS to name.

2.) Determined each site’s identity before launch. Newburyport is a small town, but they have 3 newspapers. I should have focused entirely on tourism and skipped the news content. On the other hand, there aren’t enough local news sources in Lowell or Burbank. Based on what you determine your site’s focus will be, that should dictate the layout and design.

3.) Chose who will be writing content and how often. I either write my own news articles (mostly about special events) and publish press releases from local organizations. This takes a lot of my time, although it drives a considerable amount of traffic. Before you start, determine if you will be the writer or if you will hire journalists or copywriters. Even posting press releases is time consuming – especially without a CMS. Weigh the traffic reward vs. the effort and figure out how much its worth to your site to have regular, fresh content. Keep in mind that people want to read interesting things related to the community, so it’s probably not wise to hire a copywriter who doesn’t know the area. Additionally, there are probably legal issues with re-writing a news article from the local paper – especially if it’s a smaller city with one newspaper.

4.) Met with local newspapers in person.   It may have been mutually beneficial to meet with the local newspapers in the cities where my sites are located to see if we could work together to promote each other’s site. With my non-tourism names where I don’t write news articles (or don’t plan to write them) I would want to offer their RSS feed links on my home page (opening in a new window), in exchange for links back to my sites. I don’t know if this effort would work, but meeting in person is usually more beneficial than an email exchange.

5.) Used a calendar system that publishes events on its own pages. I started with a calendar that lists all events on one page and has popups when you hover over a date. This didn’t allow indexing in Google. I should have worked with calendar software that did what I needed out of the box. I am still having some issues, although they are being addressed.

6) Allowed businesses to create listings in Yellow Pages or manage their listings. I opted to hand code the Yellow Pages content (see this example for Lowell Yellow Pages) instead of using a database. I didn’t allow businesses to sign up or edit listings automatically because I didn’t have any experience in this area and didn’t want spam or to have to worry about processing payments. Now that I am more comfortable with this, I am regretting the decision to do it the way I did it.

7.) Been more aggressive about hiring a sales person. I was very passive about hiring a local sales person and didn’t make a great effort to hire someone. I had someone in Lowell, but a few days after he agreed to work on the site, he had a family emergency so things didn’t work out. Needless to say, I am not nearly making as much money as I should be making, although it’s in the 4 figures a year for each site (except Newburyport.com) right now. I have been far too passive about hiring a local advertising representative and/or seeking out advertisers on my own.

8.) Bought domain names in cities in which I am more familiar. Lowell.com and Newburyport.com were good strategic buys. I will probably be moving to the Boston area in a year or two. Burbank.com was a good domain acquisition, but it’s not as easy for me to get out there as often as I should. Lowell and Newburyport are a few hours away from me by car, and about 45 minutes apart from each other.

These are the most important things I can think of when considering what I would do differently. Hope this helps you as you begin or continue to develop – or as you are looking to buy a geodomain name.

Valuate.com Adds Trademark Checker

Elliot Silver
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1

Valuate.com has launched a trademark checker engine in conjunction with their domain evaluation system powered by Estibot. When you enter domain names that appear to have trademark issues – be it a Fortune 1000 company or brand, there will be an error message notification letting you know the system has detected a trademark.

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When I am searching for a domain name and think there could potentially be a trademark issue, I search the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s TESS, which is a database of live and dead US trademarks. It’s important to note that not every system is accurate, and you should seek professional legal advice if you have questions.

Obviously TheGoogle.com would be a TM issue, but the system didn’t target Windows.com as a potential trademark. Of course, a glass company could legitimately use Windows.com, but a computer company other than Microsoft would probably have issues if it was used.

One reason I like the offering is that many people who are new to the industry don’t know much about trademark issues – or don’t think of them as a potential problem. I’ve been upfront about stupidly hand registering some names with trademarks back in 2003. I didn’t really know any better at the time. With this offering, people who want to check on a new registration like GoogleBusinessServices.com or something like that will get the warning that the name could be risky to own.

Development Tip: Check Different Browsers

Elliot Silver
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1

BrowserShots.orgWhen I am working with my designer on a development product, I constantly check the new website in Safari and Firefox since I use a Macbook. My designer also uses a Mac, so he has the same browsers that I have. It’s critical to also check your site in other browsers (like Internet Explorer) since so many users use other browsers regularly.

Before learning about BrowserShots.org, I would email friends and family to ask them to check the site’s appearance in Internet Explorer. Needless to say, it can be difficult to get exact feedback when they’re interpreting what they see, and some aren’t familiar with taking and sending screenshots.

BrowserShots.org allows you to see how your website looks in various browsers, and it also lets you see them in different versions of the browsers. While most people are using Internet Explorer 7 or 8, there are still a small percentage using IE6, and your site should reflect this so everyone has an identical experience. BrowserShots.org gives you screenshots of different browsers, allowing you to see how your site looks in different browser windows.

Don’t wait until your site has already launched – use BrowserShots.org along the way.   You can also use W3Schools.com to see the percentage of users for the most popular web browsers.

Find a Business Model That Works and Then Scale It

Elliot Silver
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My group at AIG did quite a bit of sponsored marketing in the bank channel. We co-marketed our accident insurance products to customers of the largest banks. We tested quite a bit of opportunities, and the variables in each of those opportunities, and we invested a lot of money in channels and demographics that worked.

During my second year at AIG, a former boss of mine from a college internship turned his family’s mortgage business into a full bank. Not only did I help him acquire the generic domain name he wanted/needed, I also helped him with other domain related things. Since his company was founded in 1947, he had a large customer base, but it wasn’t comparable to any of our bank partners. Despite my efforts to do a marketing test with this bank, my then boss didn’t allow it. Even if the test was wildly successful, it wouldn’t be possible to scale, so it was a waste of time.

As you may have noticed, I have been doing a lot of testing. I’ve been developing geodomain names, directory websites, automated mini sites, self-created mini sites, and everything in between. My goal is to find successful development models that are scalable. When I find something that works, I want to be able to do it over and over again with the same success. Whether a project earns $5/day or $500/day, it doesn’t really matter if you can scale it at a reasonable cost and time expense.

As you continue to develop and test models, I hope you keep this in mind. If you build on successful website, but it takes all of your time and effort, yet you aren’t earning enough to make a living, it’s not going to work. Even if you hire someone at half the cost of your time value and earn a profit, it’s likely that person won’t be as proficient as you.

I think it’s better to have many smaller successful sites that require less time and effort than one large one that doesn’t earn enough to make you a living and can’t be scaled.

Robot Hamsters: Hot Holiday Toy of Christmas 2010 and Black Friday

Elliot Silver
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Black Friday

You know we must be in a recession when the “hot” holiday toy of the 2010 Christmas shopping season are Zhu Zhu robot hamsters. These rodent toys retail for under $10/each (plus accessories) and I don’t really know much about what they do. I guess they do things like hamsters, without the smell, waste, or obligation to feed them.

People waited in long lines to get these hamsters, and many were unsuccessful – a classic case of demand exceeding supply. I am sure that people are hawking them on sites like Ebay right now, similar to what was done when things like XBox and Wii game consoles were the hottest toys that couldn’t be found in stores.

Unfortunately for the company, they didn’t buy RobotHamsters.com, and someone else was able to buy it a few weeks ago. I’m sure most kids know the brand name, but it’s the parents that are searching around to buy them, and I am sure most are calling them “robot hamsters.” I guess one company’s loss is another company’s opportunity.

This is similar to the Myachi hand sacks that have also been popular. I went to Toys R Us with my friend Lonnie and his family a few months ago, and one of the founders of Myachi was in a prime spot playing with his toy. The kids were mesmerized, and Lonnie’s son mentioned that he had one as did his friends. Lonnie and I asked the guy a bunch of questions, and I couldn’t remember the brand name for the life of me until I just Googled it.

Unfortunately for Myachi, which was founded by two college students over 10 years ago and had their domain name registered 1998, another company was able to buy the generic domain name HandSacks.com in 2007, and they’re now a competitor. While all the kids may remember a brand name, it’s the parents who hear about these toys second-hand and need to buy them. If the companies just owned the generic domain name, which were available to register even after the brands were successful, they would probably see increased online sales.

Anyway, happy Black Friday.

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