End of Year Checklist: Optimize Parked Domain Names

Lately, have you checked to make sure all of your parked domain names are optimized for the proper keywords and images? While the year is winding down and things are slowing down, now might be a great time to make sure that all of your domain names are resolving the way you want them to resolve, and that the PPC links (if applicable) are targeted to your domain name. A domain name receiving targeted traffic is great, but converting that traffic is what’s important, and you can’t convert the traffic unless you are displaying relevant advertising links.

I spent a bit of time doing this yesterday, and I was surprised at the results. In March, I registered the domain name MountedHeads.com after watching a show related to hunting. Don’t ask me why I was watching it because I have no idea. Nevertheless, this name receives minimal traffic, but it has made much more than the registration fee over the past 9 months. Because of that, I figured it was already optimized.

Well, it wasn’t exactly optimized. When I tested it, there were a couple of relevant links, but four of the six were somewhat unrelated. I researched the stats from the past 8 months, and almost all of the clicks were related to hunting and mounting animal heads (taxidermy). I changed the keyword term to “mounted animal heads,” and now the links are almost all targeted. I also changed the images, as only one of the three were related to hunting.

My recommendation is for you to spend a couple of hours over each of the next few days looking through your names that receive traffic to test the keyword optimization. Even if they are making money, you might be leaving some money on the table by not fully optimizing your domain names. Intuitive programs that automatically optimize your names can be good and save time, but sometimes the human touch is needed, too.