Advice Archives - Page 191 of 210

Vegas Lagged

Advice

Elliot Silver

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September 22, 2008

Since I was only in Las Vegas for 3 days, I don’t think I am suffering from jet lag right now, so I will attribute this foggy state to Vegas-lag. I am very Vegaslagged for sure. I took my laptop figuring I would check in, but I opted to keep it in the bag since it was a short trip. This is why comment’s haven’t been approved for a few days. If you haven’t been to Vegas, you are missing out. There seems to be something for everyone.
Anyway, a few random thoughts and answers to emails I received while away:
– I most definitely will be at TRAFFIC in New York this week. It’s an easy 20 minute subway ride to the first stop in Brooklyn for me. I keep a fluid schedule and plan to stay at the venue most of the day each day.
– I was able to get in touch with someone at NameJet and Network Solutions regarding my post last week, although they couldn’t help my family friend get her domain back. Incidentally, my friend told me not to bid on it on their behalf as it wasn’t worth the $75. Yes, it was the .com domain of the exact 2 word name of their company and they didn’t want to pay $75 for it (there were only 2 other bidders). Surprising, I know – but it saved me from having to monitor the auction on Friday afternoon. I was on my way out to Vegas when they told me, so I didn’t have the time to explain why they need it.
– ALWAYS take a hit on 16 when the dealer has a ten showing. This is especially true when it’s late and you are gambling $20/hand while everyone else at the table has at least $100+ out there. Of course the dealer pulled the guy’s 4 after flipping a 16 himself, costing us a lot of money. Take one for the team!
– NEVER play on a blackjack table where idiots are standing on 16 against the dealer’s 10. Pick up your chips as fast as you can. There is some luck involved, but you have to play the odds, and it’s most likely the dealer has a 10 under his exposed 10, and you’re gonna lose anyway, so at least take the hit for the rest of the players.
– Thank you for the birthday wishes 🙂
– Maybe it’s my living in New York City and I don’t see a ton of billboards here, but it seemed that there were an incredible amount of generic domain names used in advertising in Vegas. There were product names related to types of shoes, clothes and autos (not brands), category names related to lawyers and doctors, and even several long tail product/category names.
– I think TRAFFIC New York is going to be great. I’ve been to a few domain conferences before, and they are all great in their own way. The reason people go to conferences is to network and meet with business associates. Most people don’t go to medical conferences in Las Vegas so they can listen to the panels. They want to go meet with their pharmaceutical reps, learn strategies to manage a business, see free shows, gamble, and meet with other doctors in a non-office setting. I’m not going to TRAFFIC to listen to the panels. I am going to talk with the people I know and meet the people I haven’t met before.

Domain Theory: Searches to Results Ratio

Elliot Silver

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September 15, 2008

10

When people are selling domain names, I frequently see them quoting the Wordtracker daily searches for the domain’s keyword phrase as well as the number of pages there are in Google that have that keyword or keyword phrase. It’s often thought that the higher the number of daily searches and the higher number of Google results, the more valuable that keyword domain name is. This is just theory here, but I think the ratio of daily searches to # of Google results is a better indicator of value for someone that wants to develop the domain name.
The more daily searches a keyword phrase (“painting contractor” for example), the more value a name like PaintingContractor.com is. If people are searching for that term, not only are some of them probably typing PaintingContractor.com into their browser bar, but the greater chance this domain name will be relevant to more people. A generic domain name is valuable because there are people who want to find that generic term. Some will type the term into their browser (with a .com) while many others will search Google for that term, and hopefully your site will come up in the top 5 or 10 results to attract the attention of the searcher.
I would argue that the old way of thinking – the more Google results for the phrase the better – is actually not really that great for the value of the domain name. Sure, the more results there are usually means that more people are interested in that topic – and that more people are writing about it and covering it on their websites. With more interest in the topic, the value should be higher. However, to a developer, the more interest in the topic usually also means the more difficult it will be to rank in Google. The lower a website ranks, the less traffic it will receive, making it more difficult to generate revenue.
That said, I believe the ratio of daily searches to Google results is important to consider. “Painting Contractor” has a WordTracker count of 367, and there are 896,000 Google results for “painting contractor,” which would be strong compared to “Flooring Contractor” which boasts a WordTracker count of 19 and has 309,000 Google results. The more searches with less results in Google means a website will likely have an easier time ranking at the top of the results, meaning more traffic.
I don’t think this will become a commonly quoted ratio due to the actual size of the result (.000405), but I do think people should at least consider this when researching a domain name. It’s great that people are searching for a particular keyword or keyword phrase, but if the SE competition will relegate your developed domain name to the second page of Google or lower, it’s probably worth less than a similar domain name in a less competitive category (assuming PPC values are similar).
This post will be reevaluated once the weekend haze wears off. I spent the weekend at a friend’s wedding, which is where I thought about this 🙂 More time needs to be spent analyzing this theory, but I think I am onto something.

Social Networking to Sell Domain Names

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September 9, 2008

4

On the treadmill last night, I was thinking about how to get around administrative assistants and other obstacles in the way of directly communicating with a decision maker. Most of the time at mid to large companies, the decision maker has an admin who reviews all emails and phone calls before passing them through. If something appears to be spammy, there’s a good chance the message will be deleted before the decision maker sees it.
In the day of Linkedin and Facebook, more and more people (including decision makers) are signing up for accounts on these networks. Since it isn’t always business that is discussed on these networks, I would assume that many connect their personal email addresses to the account. With the help of a mutual friend – or maybe even a cold call, you can get in touch directly with the decision maker. Although it will still be difficult to get in touch with a decision maker at a large company, it’s possible to do this to those at small to medium size companies.
The difficult thing is determining who the decision maker is. Social networking sites actually play a role in determining who to contact, as most allow the decision maker to list his credentials right on the site. If you get in touch with the wrong person, there’s also a good chance that this person will tell you who the right person is.
Instead of sending a blind email, social networking communications could help you get in touch with the decision makers you need to reach. The caveat is that I just thought of this and haven’t tried it yet.

Grow Your Mini Sites

Elliot Silver

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September 9, 2008

10

I’ve been busy today working on the just launched Secaucus.com, which I had created by Rick and his guys at aeiou.com. Secaucus is a city in New Jersey, located about 4 miles from Manhattan. It was voted the 11th best city to live in New Jersey in 2008 by New Jersey Monthly magazine.
While the mini-site Rick and his team created looks great, I wanted to add more content to the site. IMO, content is what drives traffic to a site, and the more content you create, the more traffic the site will receive. As a result, I expect to earn more Adsense revenue and hopefully get advertisers to want to buy links and advertising space.
Since Secaucus.com is the smallest of my geo websites, I wanted to build a mini site with good information but required little upkeep and maintenance. I just started adding commonly searched for information, such as lawyers in Secaucus, Secaucus gas prices, and Secaucus banks. I will continue to add pages with the hope of building traffic and generating revenue.
My aeiou.com mini site template got me off to a great start, and I am going to take off running with it.

They May Be Watching Everything You Do

Advice

Elliot Silver

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September 6, 2008

10

One of the neatest innovations in the supermarket industry was the introduction of loyalty rewards cards. Supermarket customers sign up for a loyalty card, and the supermarket gives them special discounts that aren’t available to regular customers when the card is swiped at the point of sale. Not only do these loyal customers save money, but they are also privy to special offers from the supermarket. Sounds like a great deal, right?
Well, the reason supermarkets and other businesses are so happy about these rewards programs is because of the fantastic data that comes along with their usage. When you use your rewards card, the supermarket knows how often you buy milk, when you buy beer, what brand of condoms you use (regular or magnums), and a troth of other valuable personal data that you would probably be reticent to share. When you think about it, this is kinda scary.
This same type of thing happens every day in the domain industry, too – although it might not be as obvious. When you do a Whois look-up, that information may be stored by the company where you searched. When you purchase an appraisal or use a free appraisal service, that data may be stored, too. Same goes for your accounts with your parking companies – they know how much traffic your names receive, which niche makes the most money, and which of your names is your biggest earner. Even when you complete a confidential sale using an escrow service, the buyer and seller data may be seen by the escrow company.
I haven’t heard of any cases where this power has been abused, but you should be very mindful of the potential wealth of data you are giving out by performing every day business tasks. You should be especially careful if the companies or principals of the companies can use the data for a competitive advantage. I am all for domain companies hiring people who are familiar with the domain industry and how domain investors think. However, with that comes the potential for privacy issues.

Finding End User Prospects

Elliot Silver

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September 4, 2008

8

Finding end-user prospects for your category defining domain names is just as easy as searching Google for that term. Chances are fairly good that if the category is at least somewhat competitive, there will be several advertisers on the top and side who are paying tens, hundreds, or thousands of dollars a day in pay per click advertising. If someone is paying this much money to ensure their top position in Google, they may understand the argument to spend money on their category defining domain name.
I personally prefer to reach out to the SMBs (small to medium sized businesses) who advertise on Google. Compared to large companies, there is much less red tape involved in decision making with SMBs, and you can have an answer in less time than you would if you went to a large company. Many times, the decision maker is also the person who signs off on the monthly Google ad spend, so this is a good opportunity to speak with the right person.
My note to the Whois contact will explain how I found the company, and how I believe the domain name can help them. Not only can a category defining domain name help save money because of the type-in traffic (if that is true), but the category defining domain name will give them even more credibility. This is much more pertinant to the SMBs who are probably competing with the large brands for positioning in Google.
For some companies, it makes sense to buy a domain name for $25,000 when they are spending $5,000 a month in Google Adwords spends. For others, they prefer to market their brand rather than use a generic domain name. If a company has an issue with branding, I like to recommend they look at Vodka.com, Baby.com, and Loans.com to show brands that have successfully used generic domain names in advertising without watering down their brand.
Companies that spend money on PPC advertising buys are generally more aware of the power of a good domain name. Educating others is important, but I will let Google and Yahoo spend their time and money educating. I’ve found it to be very tough to sell an expensive domain name to someone who doesn’t really get it. There are enough companies out there that do get it.
If you want an example of a company that gets it, have a look at this week’s domain sales report on DNJournal. Rick Schwartz just sold RoomDividers.com to the operators of OrientalFurniture.com, who currently hold the #1 side banner ad spot for the term on Google. This is clearly a company that gets it, and in time, they will probably be able to rely less on PPC and more on organic search traffic. Smart move.