BankAds.com Launches “Managed Solution for Banking and Credit Card Domains”

Elliot Silver
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26

I received an email from Sean Sullivan, announcing his company’s launch of BankAds.com, a managed solution for banking and credit card domain names. According to Sullivan, while the industry standard offering is a 70/30 or 60/40 revenue split, BankAds.com revenue share is “well above it.”

I want to share the details of this with you because it looks like it could benefit owners of these types of domain names (I don’t have any, and I have not had the opportunity to personally test it out).

From the looks of it, domain owners don’t have to do much to get their sites launched aside from changing the DNS, which is the same as parking. The gist of these landing pages is to compare credit cards or banking solutions and allow visitors to easily apply for the card/bank account.

The company has two dozen designs, and I am told they do a considerable amount of split testing to keep and tweak the designs with the highest CTR and RPM. In my opinion, the designs are pretty sleek.  There are also widgets available for already developed websites.

From my perspective, one thing to keep in mind is that it’s important for these domain names to receive type-in traffic to be effective (or plan on doing marketing to drive traffic). Since it doesn’t appear that these websites have unique, one-of-a-kind content, they presumably won’t rank well in search engines, especially for competitive credit card and banking terms. Without the search traffic, you’re left with type-in traffic or traffic that is acquired by other means.

Sullivan mentioned something that appears to be unique to this program:

“One other feature is that is exclusive to our solution is that should any domain that is monetized with BankAds get hit with a C&D or UDRP notice our in house counsel will defend the domain owner free of charge. Our attorney has successfully defended a number of major domain owners. We honestly don’t anticipate UDRP being an issue at all, as we’re not going to take on TM domains within our solution.  But we all well know, there are companies and individuals out there who will try to take domains unjustly.  So having a great attorney ready to defend a domain when necessary is something that I’m sure will give peace of mind to some of our clients. “

You can have a look at some of the websites that are currently using BankAds.com for monetization:

  • BestCreditCardForMiles.com
  • GasCreditCards.co
  • BestCreditCardForBadCredit.com
  • GoldCard.com

Again, I have not tried out BankAds.com and was not paid or compensated in any way to post this. If you try it out, please think about posting your results here to let others know about your experience.

Use Google Alerts to Monitor Content

Elliot Silver
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0

Content theft is annoying if not harmful. I am sure Google can tell what website posted an article first, but when someone steals content and uses it on their own website, it’s frustrating. As a website owner, why should someone be able to take something I created in order to line their own pockets?

Because I use WordPress for this blog and several other websites I operate, I receive pingbacks when other blogs take my content and provide a link back to the source. Unfortunately, there are plenty of other times that websites steal articles and content without a link back, and it’s much more difficult to detect.

One thing you can do to find out about content theft is to set up Google Alerts for sentences on your static pages and your high traffic driving posts. As soon as Google notices the same sentence in another article that is posted online, you’ll get an alert email to let you know about it and let you know where it is posted. With this information, you can file a DMCA takedown notice with the thief’s hosting company, or in the case of an accidental post, you can request a link back to your website.

This can’t really help prevent content theft from happening, but it can help remediate it when you do find that someone lifted an article or something important from your website.

Driving Traffic with Facebook Places

Elliot Silver
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10

I want to share a little “trick” if you own a directory website that lists public destinations or places, and it may be able to help drive targeted traffic to your website.

In a fashion similar to Google, Facebook has something called “Places,” which includes the address, a map, phone number, website, and fields for other information that can help people learn about the place.  These public and sometimes private places are locations that Facebook users can visit and/or tag/check-in. In most cases, there aren’t owners of these places pages, so there’s no real moderation.

I’ve found that many dog parks are listed as places. When I search Google, DogPark.com listings are often in the top ten results, as are competing websites, and a Facebook Places listing. In most cases, the Facebook places listing has a field for “Add Website.” I’ve been adding the dog park url on DogPark.com to these dog park places listings, and it should help drive traffic to the website.

I think this could potentially be a good traffic opportunity for people who have directory websites that list public places and locations. It benefits the place and also benefits my website as well.

Driving Traffic with Timely Articles

Elliot Silver
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1

This may be an obvious piece of advice, but I think it’s valuable enough to share in case you are embarking on your own web development projects on good domain names. With Google’s recent updates, there is a focus on adding new content on a regular basis. Just as important, in my opinion, is that the content is relevant to current events and searches.

When you have a website to update, I think it’s key to post articles related to hot topics in that particular business. If you’re up for it, you should consider posting multiple articles on the topic so your website becomes known as an expert site on that topic, and you’ll likely see greater results and more traffic.

Interview experts who are smarter than you about those topics and include their insight to supplement your own knowledge. Experts tend to be happy to share their knowledge, especially if it will benefit their business. Not only will this give you great, unique content, but it will also likely get others to visit your site when they are searching for insight from that expert. The expert may even use his or her personal and business network to publicize your article.

To give you an idea of some “hot” topics I’ve written about lately on various sites of mine, here are a few links:

Having One Primary Source of Traffic is Not a Good Situation

Elliot Silver
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7

Many people have websites that rely on Google as the primary source of traffic, and consequently, revenue. Some of my own websites fall into that category, with 80%+ of the traffic coming from Google searches. If there’s an issue with Google’s rankings, the traffic and revenue vanish like my morning cup of coffee.

Similarly, there are a number of domain industry blogs and websites that rely on Domaining.com as the primary source of traffic. Domaining.com helps drive hundreds of targeted visitors a day, but when there’s a problem with that website, there is no traffic as a result.

Unfortunately, Francois is dealing with some sort of malicious sql injection at Domaining.com. He is aware that Google Chrome and other web browsers are showing a warning message to people trying to visit Domaining.com, and he is working on fixing the issue.

Luckily for me, traffic is only affected minimally, but I know there are a few sites that are seeing considerably less traffic this morning.

I am sure Francois will have this fixed ASAP, but it’s a good lesson for people who rely on a single source of traffic. Any type of change in algorithm or other type of problem with that traffic source may cause significant problems down the line. Spend time cultivating other traffic sources and become less reliant on a single source, whether that’s Google, Yahoo, or even Domaining.com.

Why Seamless Acquisition of MenuPages is Exciting to Me

Elliot Silver
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7

It was announced yesterday that Seamless, the company that recently changed its name from Seamless Web, acquired MenuPages.com from New York Magazine. This news is exciting to me and I want to share why I think it’s exciting.

If you aren’t aware already, MenuPages is a helpful website that lists menus from restaurants in large cities and tourist hubs around the US and the world. The website started out as a resource for people to find menus from restaurants across New York City, and it grew pretty quickly. I’ve used Menu Pages for several years and probably use it more than any local, non-news website.

The reason I find this news exciting is that it shows that hard work and dedication to an online brand can lead to a big payday. If you create something useful to visitors and have them coming back to your site on a regular basis, there will always be someone that wants to pay a premium price for those eyeballs.

I don’t think MenuPages had a great revenue model, aside from Adsense monetization (if they did I missed it). The company probably didn’t make a ton of money. However, they had a huge audience of people that were ready to order dinner or lunch and visited frequently. That’s where Seamless comes in to the picture. Menu Pages didn’t offer the connectivity for people to order food, but Seamless does. I think Seamless will be able to better monetize the traffic than New York Magazine and the founders.

I’ve been asked about selling DogWalker.com a number of times, but I haven’t even considered selling. I don’t need the liquidity, and I do want the  recurring  revenue stream. However, if a large company that was in the industry would pay a premium because they could monetize it more than I could, then I would certainly consider selling. I would bet that within a few years, I will sell my portfolio of pet websites to a company that can better monetize the traffic. I don’t know who the buyer will be or when, but I bet it will happen.

If you are building a business, the current revenue is not necessarily the most important thing. Building something that people find useful should be the key, and the money will come in later if you’ve done that.

As a domain investor speaking to other domain investors though, I must urge you to have a look at Nat’s post from yesterday. It was well written and is something you need to consider.

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