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I am very happy (and relieved) to announce that the Burbank, California city guide has been re-launched. As I mentioned before, I wasn’t happy with the previous site, which was built to meet some time constraints. The information was good, but I didn’t think the site looked great or was as useful as it could be. Needless to say, based on what I have learned over the past few months (and what my developer/designer learned), a new site was created, and I would like to walk you through it.
The look and feel of the homepage was completely revamped. Instead of a welcome page with general information about Burbank, I wrote clips from various sections of the site and added them to the home page to aid navigation.   I listed the most popular categories, added small pictures, and wrote a couple of sentences for each category, allowing people to click through to their desired page.
I added a functional calendar to the site. I want to give visitors a reason to return – other than when they need a phone number, and a calendar gives added value. Visitors and local businesses can submit events, and I will also add events – both for the public and private sectors. I hope this will be useful to people who live in Burbank or are visiting.
I added a news section to almost every informational page, and the most recent news stories are on the home page. This is to keep the website updated frequently and fresh with news. It will also be a good resource for people looking for information and should drive traffic to the site.
I added links to the best hotel deals in Burbank that might strike the interest of visitors. With the hotel affiliate I am using, they guarantee the lowest online rates, so I am taking advantage of this positioning. It already seems to be working as I closed a hotel reservation last night at Hotel Amarano – the luxury hotel in Burbank. Hopefully I will continue to generate hotel reservations.
A Yellow Pages business directory section was added. This is essentially the meat of the website and where I believe I will generate the most revenue.   I hand “coded” each of the directory pages, and the hope is that advertisers will want to upgrade their listings for a premium. If a visitor is looking for a lawyer in Burbank, I think it would behoove a law firm to upgrade and be seen first. I will also allow companies to retain their position in the directory but add a link to their website at a lower rate.
All Adsense links have been completely removed from the site. With a fully-developed website, there is no reason to have visitors click on the links to be taken elsewhere. Visitors are valuable, and I don’t want to lose visitors to make a few cents. I would rather them patronize advertisers who work directly with me rather than getting paid to send them somewhere else.
I added a number of informational pages about various activities, parks and theatres in the area that weren’t included in the first site. I want Burbank.com to be the most comprehensive website in Burbank, and I need to add as much important information as possible. As mentioned before, each of these pages has a news heading at the bottom, allowing me to add new information. I better update my Google Alerts account – and sign up for various email newsletters.
An activities widget was added to the Burbank activities and studio tour pages. Because of date issues, I couldn’t connect individual activities to activity pages like I could with the hotels. In light of this, I added a helpful widget. This will allow people to choose other activities in the surrounding area. I can test conversions over time, and if it appears that traffic is great but conversions are low, I can consider going directly to the advertisers and sell tickets or sell advertising space.
Nearly every page has a picture. Ironically, the person who helped write many of the articles and pages actually lives in Burbank. She was happily willing to go out and take pictures for the site. I think they make the site look great and really add to it. I also added captions to each photo for search engine purposes. Where pictures weren’t available or weren’t possible, I used stock photos.
I really think the site turned out well, and my developer/designer did an amazing job. At the moment, there are many minor things that need to be fixed. I am facing some calendar issues, the captchas aren’t showing up, missing a few pages, and a few other technical problems. If you notice any issues or have any comments, please let me know. I am in Florida right now but am on something like a working vacation. Next up is Lowell.com!

If your domain names are generating revenue from PPC, it’s important to check your keywords and landing pages somewhat frequently to make sure they are optimized, showing relavant advertisements and the images are related to the subject. This might be cumbersome for some portfolio domain owners, but you can’t expect people to click on the links if they are completely unrelated.
While Google doesn’t usually index parked domain names, some do have better luck getting indexed (a few of my small niche names I have parked with Fabulous are indexed well). If the domain is indexed in Google but the keywords aren’t optimized, the page title and meta keywords will be impacted. This could cause a lower SE ranking, less traffic, and less revenue as a consequence.
It’s also important to make sure domain names aren’t showing links that could be infrining on a company’s mark. For example, I have a great nnn.com domain name.   I know there are several casinos who use numbers as their brand name, so I make sure the domain isn’t showing casino or gambling related advertising. While it is usually easy for a company to manipulate parked names to show what looks like infringing ads using the search function, domain owners should be able to prove this manipulation.
Although PPC revenue has been generally declining across all sectors, it is wise to check in with your parking company to make sure your domains are optimized as best as they can be optimized. Frequently aut-optimize programs work well, but there are times they miss the mark. Doing this yourself will ensure that you are going to make the most revenue with the least chance of infringing on someone’s trademark.
It might also behoove you to sign up for the new Reinvent Index, a fixed list of 200 domains, divided into 20 verticals, owned and operated by Reinvent. This will allow you to track how Reinvent’s mini portfolios are doing so you can compare them to your own portfolio.   If their revenue is jumping in a particular industry but yours is tanking, perhaps your keywords need to be better optimized.   The Reinvent Index will allow you to see seasonal trends, industry performance or general market swings, and you can compare this to your portfolio.

I read an interesting blog post written by Tim Berry on Entrepreneur Blog Network. Tim discusses a brief email conversation he had with the owner of SWOT.com who had cold-called him regarding the sale of the domain name. It’s interesting to see Tim’s (and his reader’s) perspectives of domain values vs. my own perspectives.   I was going to comment in his post, but it was fairly long and I decided to respond below.
Just wanted to clear up a couple of misconceptions about domain names.   Just because there isn’t a website, doesn’t mean there isn’t traffic as your reply to the domain owner would indicate – “However, you have no traffic. [Ed. note: He doesn’t. The domain is owned, but there’s no site.]” Direct navigation traffic, where people type their keyword and .com, is one of the most powerful forms of traffic.   Before CNN paid $750,000 (yes, $750,000!) for iReport.com, there was no website, but some people probably typed-in the domain name.   The name sold for such a high amount because CNN needed it and the previous owner didn’t need the money enough to sell it for less.
Domain names are virtual real estate.   I live in Manhattan, and behind my old building on 34th and 6th (Herald Square), there was a parking garage.   If a developer wanted to buy that space to put up a building for condos, he couldn’t tell the garage owner he would pay him based on a parking revenue multiple if the owner didn’t have a desire to sell.   The developer would have to do a ROI calculation to determine how much he could afford to buy the space for depending on his business plan.   The price he could afford and the price the garage owner would sell it for could be vastly different, but if the developer really wanted or needed that space, he would have to spend the money.
A real world real estate example is that of Donald Trump trying to buy Vera Coking’s home in Atlantic City.   Was her home worth what she was asking?   Probably not, but her reluctance to sell caused Donald Trump to alter his development plans.
Even in the tough economy, domain names continue to sell for record amounts of money. While virtually all other types of investments have seen pretty large decreases, domain values have continued to increase.   An unknown lawyer in Iowa owning a name like TrademarkLawyer.com would get him much more business than simply using HisName.com.
I am not in the travel or real estate business, but owning Lowell.com and Burbank.com gives me a considerable leg up.   Even before I developed them, they had significant traffic, and it has grown since developing.   Yes, some names like TropicalBirds.com wouldn’t get much direct navigation traffic on their own.   However, after owning and developing it, I’ve seen a considerable increase in traffic and return visits.   It’s much easier to remember than a cutesy web 2.0 domain name like CoolTropicalBirds.com or something like that – and I think Google prefers keyword rich domain names.
In any event, domain names are worth what someone will pay.   Knowing the market (and having a MS in Direct & Interactive Marketing), I would pay $5,000 for SWOT.com right now, so that’s the price floor.   I don’t really have a plan for the name right now, but I think it would make a great site for companies to learn how to perform a SWOT analysis. In this day and age, many brick and mortar companies face a huge weakness in that a competitor’s domain name is the industry defining domain name and it’s difficult to overcome.

I was watching the Fox Sports channel with my brother, and I saw an ad for Xoom.com, a global money transfer service. While their demographic targeting was smart (we were watching a soccer match), the domain name doesn’t pass the tv or radio test. Apparently, “xoom” is pronounced, “zoom,” so the announcer sounds like he is saying “goto zoom.com” when in fact, he wants people to visit xoom.com.
This is a major reason why those brandable web 2.0 domain names del.icio.us, flickr.com, and now xoom.com don’t really make sense and could cause major confusion.

I am not an active bidder on Namejet at all.   In fact, I’ve probably backordered less than 15 domain names there it total – with about 10 in the last few weeks alone. One day a couple of weeks ago, I decided to use “Lowell” as a keyword to see if there were any pending drops happening that might help bolster my Lowell.com network.
Lo and behold, I saw LowellRealEstateAgents.com dropping. I had previously picked up the .net for registration fee, but Domain Active (a subsidiary of Dark Blue Sea, parent of Fabulous) was selling the .com for more than I was willing to pay.   Since the difference in their price and my expectation was so far apart, I didn’t even inquire about it.   Surprisingly, I placed a backorder and was able to acquire it for just $69 as the only bidder.
A couple of days ago, I was doing some Namejet searching and I came across CheapEntertaining.com. While it’s not a cream of the crop name, I think it is fairly strong – especially in light of the tough economic times. I was the only person who backordered the name, and I was able to acquire it for $69. I did a bit of research, and I found that this too looks like it was owned by Domain Active.
Clearly the name wasn’t making much money as a parked domain name, otherwise they wouldn’t have dropped it.   However, I think this is a pretty good name for just $69. Now is a great time to keep your eyes on the dropped lists. Some scanning programs may not pick up on the good names that don’t look like they’d have strong revenue stats.   IMO, it sometimes takes a gut instinct to see a good domain name.

The domain industry is made up of a diverse group of people with vastly different backgrounds. I’ve always found it interesting hearing about how domain investors became familiar with domain names and ultimately decided to invest some (or all) of their money in these virtual assets. Today we learn about how Andrew Allemann, editor of Domain Name Wire, became interested in the domain industry.
“I started registering domain names in 1997 when I was in college.   At first it had nothing to do with domains: domains were just a means to an end to create web sites.   But as I created my first web site I realized their was a lot of value in the domains themselves.   I got addicted when I sold my first domain name on eBay.   I would track expired domain lists and look for good domains to register (back then you could get good expired domains even days after the domains expired).   The only problem was that domains were $70 to register, and that’s a lot of beer money.   I didn’t register nearly as many domains as I should have.
I still remember getting all of those paper registration notices in the mail from Network Solutions for each domain I registered.   My roommates thought I was crazy.   I also remember when registration became deregulated.   Dotster was offering domains for something like $15, and I went crazy.   I was one of their first dozen customers — I think my order number was 19 or something like that.”