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Long Tail Keyword Phrase Search Volume Increases

Elliot Silver
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18

I don’t have a lot of long tail keyword domain names, but I do have some, and I really like them. Mike mentioned a statistic today that I think shows why long tail keyword strings .com domain names are valuable and will continue to grow in value – especially with a mini site built on it:

According to a Hitwise survey, “searches of five to more than eight words in length increased 7% from last year.”

This doesn’t necessarily mean that people are typing the full keyword into their browser, where many browsers like Safari automatically add a .com to the end. However, it does mean that when people type a long tail keyword phrase, there will generally be less competition for search results.I don’t advocate buying super long – long-tail keywords 5+, but if that segment is growing, I would bet 3-5 word searches are growing as well.

As I explained to someone who asked about the difference between long and short tail keyword phrases, if you look up the short tail phrase “Counseling Jobs” in Google, you will get 456,000 results. Now, if you look up the longer tail phrase, “Drug Counseling Jobs,” you only get 770 results.

Although a longer tail keyword is searched less times than the short keyword phrase, there is much less SERP competition. If you develop a mini site on your long tail keyword domain name, chances are very good that it will be in the top of the SERP (depending on the actual keywords of course), and if this happens, you are likely to increase your traffic.

Personally, I like the 3 word long-tail keywords best, but this Hitwise survey does seem to indicate that people do actually search for longer tail keyword strings.

Great Search Engine Resource

Elliot Silver
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1

One of the better search engine resources I’ve found is the YouTube channel of Matt Cutts, a Google employee who shares a ton of great knowledge about the way Google ranks websites. Matt gives in depth answers to a number of user submitted questions – many of which I have personally had over the past couple of years.

In addition to this, you should also be familiar with Google’s SEO Guidelines as well. This free pdf has a ton of information about SEO, which is perfect for someone who is beginning to develop websites.

There are a lot of great SEO resources out there, but you should at least come to the table with basic knowledge which can be gotten via these two free resources.

Don’t Slack on Introductions

Elliot Silver
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7

When I was at my friend’s wedding last weekend, I had the chance to meet some new people, including friends of my friend’s wife. I had met some of them before, but this was the first time we had a chance to chat, since there is a lot of down time for the bridal party while photos are being taken.

When friends or friends of friends ask what I do, I generally say “Internet stuff” or “Internet investments” because I learned long ago that my friends don’t really care about my business (nor do they want me to talk about it) much like they don’t discuss their work. It probably stemmed from the fact that I love what I do because it was a hobby turned job, and many of them work in corporate America and don’t necessarily love their jobs.

While waiting around for the wedding to begin (actually in line for the processional), one of the bridesmaids asked what I do, and I responded with the generic “Internet stuff” because there wasn’t exactly enough time to answer questions that typically follow the “Domain investor” response. She responded, “what kind of Internet stuff?   I work for Yahoo.” As I removed the leather from my mouth, a friend of mine told her what I do, and she knew exactly what I did.

We didn’t have a chance to chat much about the business, but it’s important to never slack on introductions. You never know who does what, and an opportunity could have been wasted.

I didn’t waste the opportunity to tell her my thoughts on Jerry Yang and his failure to close the Microsoft deal though!

Working Hard – or Hardly Working

Elliot Silver
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14

There is a stereotype about domain investors that they don’t work hard, but they do party hard while hardly working. This might be true for a lucky few, but this is false for most.

These days, I spend most of my time developing my websites, making phone calls with local organizations and businesses, writing on my blog, domain consulting, and sending emails to acquire domain names. I am probably working more hours now than I was while I was working at AIG and moonlighting for myself! The purpose of this (of course) is that I want to keep my overhead low. It’s the same reason why I work from home instead of renting (or buying) an office.

The best things about it are that I love what I do, I can work from wherever I want, and I can make my own hours.

The worst thing about it are that I always am driven to work more and to get more done, although that is something on which I am working – as my wife told me when we were out for dinner with friends last night, my work life balance is improving (certainly good news that she notices!).

For anyone with the desire to get involved in this industry on a full time basis, you should know that just about everyone I know is working long hours again. Many had stopped after they had acquired great names in the late 90s and early to mid 00s. Long hours are back once again, but we are building stronger businesses. For some of my friends, long hours means 4 hours a day, but that’s longer than 30 seconds a day 🙂

Two Dangers of Twitter

Elliot Silver
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6

One of the dangers of Twitter, which I suppose is a danger of all technology, but is more public with Twitter, is that if your account is hacked, other people may think you are posting things that you aren’t. All of your followers will see the post, and if there’s a link, others may visit that site, not knowing that it’s not legitimate. Depending on the nature of the post, it could hurt your relationship with anyone who follows you – especially because they may not really know you.

Yesterday evening, I was looking at my Twitter feed, and I noticed a friend’s Twitter account had links to adult material. Since his   website is a mainstream site, I knew it wasn’t legit, so I let my friend know about it. After looking into it a bit more, I found a second danger of Twitter – more like a danger of a Twitter set up.

My friend’s account hadn’t actually been hacked. What happened was that he set up a feed on his website’s forum that posted the title of topics and a link to the topic in his Twitter feed. Since this set-up automatically posts all topics from the forum to his Twitter account, it posted the spam from the forum. People need to be wary of this type of set up, as it can give the website a bad reputation.

Twitter allows people anf companies to have a “personal” relationship with other companies, celebrities, and   people with whom they do not know. By opening a brand to Twitter, a company can put its reputation at risk if they do not closely monitor its Twitter account.

Important Factor When Selling to Domainers

Elliot Silver
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2

When you are selling a domain name to other domain investors, I believe the most important thing to consider is the price. I frequently see good names come up for sale, but price expectations are far too high for the audience. Perhaps a domain name would sell for that price to a company who plans to rebrand and use it for their company, but realistically, end user prices will not fly with other domain investors.

Most domain investors want to buy domain names that will either generate revenue that can bring them a quick ROI, or they want to be able to re-sell the domain name at a profit sometime in the future. If the domain name isn’t generating revenue from parking or an affiliate deal, and the price is higher than the potential buyers think they can sell it for, they won’t want to take the risk, and the name will stay on the market.

Of course there is a risk that you will price the name too low, but this shouldn’t really be a consideration when a domain owner wants to raise capital by selling to another domain investor. Sure, you could be leaving some money on the table when you price a name lower than you might ideally like, but you should price it based on what you paid. I would personally rather have a quick sale at a slimmer profit margin than a sale that takes a long time to make at a heftier margin. Oftentimes when a domain name doesn’t sell quickly, other domain investors will avoid it, knowing a price ceiling has essentially been set.

If you want to sell a domain name, and your target is the domain investor audience, you should price your domain name accordingly.

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