Double Dose of Development Tips: Develop Complementary Sites & Use a Coming Soon Page

Elliot Silver
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I want to offer you two separate development tips today, although they aren’t exactly related to each other. I have had very good luck with DogWalker.com, a site which now boasts somewhere around 80 paid/paying customers. As more and more companies signed up, I began to seek ways to scale this model.   $10-20k/annually is great revenue for a website like this, but it’s not exactly enough for someone to do full time – even if it grows at a 15% clip.

I thought about different ways to scale, and one idea I had was to acquire another domain name in a similar vertical. I wouldn’t want to cannibalize my listings by marketing a product that was too similar, yet I would want to offer something that was different, enabling me to have a cross-marketing opportunity. I sought out quite a number of names, and most owners were asking for more than I would be willing to pay – even knowing that the model would work. I finally came across CatSitter.com, and made the acquisition.

CatSitter.com will be a great complementary website, and it is going to make money. Not only does it get traffic (had 19 visits yesterday), but many companies that offer dog walking also offer cat sitting services and/or cat boarding. I also paid much less for CatSitter.com, and I can use the same platform as DogWalker.com, lowering my development costs. I can then pass the savings along to customers, in the form of a cross-marketing discount.

One of the smartest things I did after launching DogWalker.com was contact several large organizations and franchises to seek their assistance marketing to members/franchisees, and the largest pet care company agreed to do so. The result of this was that I have about 18 listings from one company’s franchisees throughout the US, and more franchisees sign up each day.   Many of these franchisees offer cat sitting services, and I already have commitments from paying customers on DogWalker.com who are waiting to pay for a CatSitter.com listing when the site goes live.

The second development tip I have today is somewhat unrelated, but it’s important. Despite the fact that CatSitter.com is making a bit of money at Parked, I have taken the parked page down and put a search engine optimized coming soon page up. I anticipate launching the site very soon, but I want the visitors to know there is something better coming. I stupidly forgot to do this several days ago, but it will be going up shortly.

Not only will this be used for lead generation in the meantime, it will also be used to show Google/Bing that something is coming after being parked for 8 years. When I did this with DogWalker.com for 3 weeks, I had 3 inquiries (plus 3 or 4 sale inquiries), and the site launched as a PR1.   Although there will be less time in between the coming soon page and the site for CatSitter.com than there was for DogWalker.com, it’s still something I am going to do and would advise you to do.

Well, that’s it for me for today. Hope these tips were helpful!

Is it HopStop.com or StopHop.com? Confusion with Rhyming Domains

Elliot Silver
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HopStop.comI am headed down to Park Slope, Brooklyn today to meet with the buyer of ParkSlope.com. He suggested a sushi restaurant, and I have no idea how to get there, but fortunately there’s a handy website that will map my voyage using New York City’s public transportation.

HopStop.com is a great tool for people who use the subway system in New York City, and it looks like the website is expanding to other metropolitan areas. There’s only one problem – I can never remember if the website is called HopStop.com or StopHop.com. Judging by the traffic the typo parked page receives (Compete says over 1,000 visitors/month), I am not alone with this problem.

There are a lot of factors to consider when buying a domain name on which you plan to build a brand. Consumer confusion is one of those things. Buying spelling typo domain names may not be enough. Think about all of the ways people may butcher your domain name, and buy those potential typos as well.

1,000 lost visitors a month might not be much when your site receives close to half a million visits, but I am sure the 12,000 visitors a year are well worth the $8.00 annual renewal fee.

Dunkin Beat Starbucks…

Elliot Silver
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But will Starbucks get the last laugh? Dunkin’ Donuts has a new campaign running on television and online touting the results of a national blind taste test in which Dunkin Donuts coffee apparently beat Starbucks coffee.

The most interesting part of this to me is that Dunkin’ Donuts chose to use the url DunkinBeatStarbucks.com, which is probably something that Starbucks won’t particularly like. I don’t recall another time where a huge company chose to use a direct competitors’ trademark in its domain name.

French Art of Loving: Sexy Lingerie and a Domain Name

Elliot Silver
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Aubade, a French lingerie designer came up with a captivating and eye-catching marketing campaign that has created a buzz, far beyond the Parisian street where it started. For ten days, a lingerie model danced and pranced in front of a lit up curtain just above street level to attract the attention of the curious who passed by the Paris street below.

On the tenth day, the lovely lady revealed herself and pulled across a second curtain, with the visible domain name, FrenchArtofLoving.com. It seems that people *voyeurs* stood on the street with cameras and video cameras to record this fantasy turned reality.

The French Art of Loving website is almost equally captivating. There is an interactive boudoir, and people can click on the dresser drawers to reveal what is in each. IMO, this is a great campaign, and you should see the video and check out their website.

Prayer Cross Direct Marketers Smartly Using Generic Domain Name

Elliot Silver
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PrayerCross.comOne of the reasons I first got into domain names was because of the connection between my master’s degree in Direct & Interactive Marketing and generic domain names. Owning a generic domain name makes the job of a direct marketer much easier, especially when the marketing campaign is done via television or radio. With an easy to remember domain name, consumers have less difficulty processing the message, and it’s easier to send them in the right direction.

Even though I am not in the market for a cross or any type of religious jewelry, one direct response commercial from the holiday season I remember is pitching a prayer cross, a cross necklace that contains the Lord’s Prayer in its “secret center stone.” The prayer cross is being sold by IdeaVillage, a direct response marketing company, and its a part of “Montebello Collections.”

Smartly, the company uses the easy to remember generic domain name, PrayerCross.com for its efforts. They could have just as easily decided that they would brand it using MontebelloCollections.com to offer other products from the same collection. However, these marketers are smart and they know consumers are more likely to remember and correctly spell PrayerCross.com than MontebelloCollections.com.

As the holiday season winds down, I see they are still buying remnant airtime and I think about the domain name every time I see the commercial. I do think they should have purchased PrayerCrosses.com as protection, but it’s now owned by Oversee  Research  and  Development,  LLC. Incidentally, MontebelloCollections.com is owned by OS  Domain  Holdings  VIII,  LLC, with both companies sharing the same address on Flower Street in Los Angeles.

Nice Marketing by Florida Church

Elliot Silver
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I was driving on 95 in south Florida tonight when I passed a church on the side of the highway. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have noticed the, but it had a huge banner on the side of the building facing 95 with a giant URL: ChurchOn95.com. Palm Beach Lakes Church of Christ might not be an easy church name to remember while cruising at 80 mph, but they make sure you remember how to find them online.

The domain name redirects to the churchs’ website, PBLOC.org. Whoever decided to buy the easy to remember domain name made a smart marketing decision. Instead of fighting their assumed moniker, they embrace it so people can easily visit them online. Kudos to the Church!

BTW – Merry Christmas… I thought this was a neat Christmas coincidence!

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