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.

Strong Argument for Ad Sales

Elliot Silver
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4

A comm0n response to an advertising inquiry I’ve made numerous times for my websites is, “we already do our Internet advertising on Google.” Sure, Google can be a very effective source of leads, but it can also be expensive and might not send the most targeted traffic, depending on the Adwords campaign.

One of the best ways to close an advertising deal on a website or blog is to discuss the direct navigation traffic. It’s important to point out to a potential advertiser that direct navigation traffic can’t be purchased like traditional media buys. Visitors to a particular website that directly navigate, generally do so because they know what they want, and they either know they can get it at a particular website or they assume this. Companies who want to reach out to these visitors need to advertise directly on that website. In my brief experience, I have found this to be a compelling argument, and the same can be made by any domain owner whose domain name receives type-in traffic.

I was thrilled when traffic to TropicalBirds.com grew to over 90% search engine-based. It meant that I was doing something right in terms of SEO, and I was happy that people were visiting because of it. However, an advertiser could easily buy some of   this traffic simply by advertising on Google. However, direct navigation can’t be bought because it completely bypasses Google and Yahoo. IMO, this is a great deal closer.

Protect Your Brand

Elliot Silver
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1

A local city website from my hometown began following one of my websites on Twitter the other day. I had never heard of this city site, and they have a unique/brandable URL – which I won’t give away for their privacy, but it was something to the effect of CyaInNewton.com. Since I hadn’t heard of their site nor visited before, I decided I would have a look, and I saw that it was a fully developed city portal.

I wanted to check to see if there was more than one site in their network, and while I wasn’t surprised that there weren’t others, I was surprised that they didn’t buy other domain names to go along with their branding, ie CyaInNewYork.com or even neighboring cities like CyaInNatick.com…etc. These domain names are available for their competitors and/or anyone else who wants to grab them at registration fee. I think this is a big mistake.

This company isn’t a domain investment or speculative company, where they are hoping someone else will like their idea and decide to buy it at a premium. They are growing an actual brand on one domain name, and the logical way to grow once terminal velocity is reached is to extend to different markets. While the domain names are available to register now, they might not be in a few months. Although they might have common law trademark rights, getting the domain names they want could be expensive.

I am going to send them a DM and recommend that they grab their brand domain names in other markets. While they may not plan to grow to those markets, it can’t hurt to protect the brand they are working hard to promote.

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