I wanted to share a brief story about a great (small) business that was developed by a domain investor on an exact match domain name. My hope is that it will inspire you in the event you are looking to build a small business on one of your exact match domain names.
Terrell and Penny Miller are owners of Rancho Media, a small domain and development company specializing in the agriculture industry. In addition to their day jobs, they own and operate Cattlesoft, developing cattle software and operating several e-commerce stores serving the livestock industry. They work from their Texas ranch where they also raise Texas Longhorn steers.
In the past when their cattle died, they had them mounted by a local taxidermist. After hanging their second head on the wall, Penny joked to Terrell that his head would be the third if he tried to hang any more! As a result of this ultimatum, Terrell decided he would figure out how to sell them.
Terrell hand registered LonghornMounts.com for a few dollars with the help of a Go Daddy coupon. He and Penny quickly built a website, and in a short period of time, the website was ranking #1 for “longhorn mounts” and receiving around 300 visitors per month. The company has already successfully sold mounts, and with prices starting at a few thousand dollars, it’s clearly a winning business.
One thing I’ve stressed about development is something that Terrell and Penny believe in as well. When you take on a development project, it should be related to a topic of personal interest to you. If you are knowledgable and passionate about a topic, it will help you build a website and hopefully a business. Owning the exact match domain name helped Terrell and Penny rank in Google pretty quickly, and their offering has helped them sustain its ranking.
I’ve met Terrell and Penny at a couple of domain conferences, and it’s great to hear success stories from people like them.
“When you take on a development project, it should be related to a topic of personal interest to you. If you are knowledgable and passionate about a topic, it will help you build a website and hopefully a business.”
YES!
“When you take on a development project, it should be related to a topic of personal interest to you. If you are knowledgable and passionate about a topic”
That how I started my jade plant business:
growingjadeplant.com
I have sold so many jade plants just from my passion, and I have send some of the cuttings to those that wrote to me.
In addition, I became a broker for those who want to sell their plants and also become a consultant.
this is sweet story. I have made more money in developing than i would ever make in parkin g:)
“and I have send some of the cuttings to those that wrote to me.”
Yes he does! I have two beautiful sprouting jade’s right now because of BullS.
Thanks!
Nice example of a non traditional niche carving some nice sales for itself. Doesn’t have to always be about web hosting, cheap plastic products, and flowers. I also talked to someone who now sells handcrafted native masks online, all over the world as they are able to source them from the local artists directly, and they were able to quit their day job, and they work maybe 2-3 hours a day, and have doubled their annual salary. So when someone says $1000 is to much for a niche based keyword domain, is it really?
Hello Elliot,
We are seeing the Parking pendulum swinging and starting to free .COM foundations to the more fertile ground of forming Capital Structure through new business creation. It has been a long time coming ,but Rick Schwartz and others are changing the Parking Paradigm.
We contend that to employ Domain names in a fashion to reach their highest and best use parking is highly unproductive. Domain names are Strategic Marketing tools designed for Online business expansion.
No I am not drinking or smoking, but an analogy just popped into my head. Remember the movie Matrix? Where vast pods of humans are banked so the matrix could live off humans energy? Say you look at Google as the matrix that has vast stores of .COMs in Parking pods that they feed just enough oxygen or money to these dormant .COMs keeping them under control through the parking system, whereby the .COM never gets to break free and develop into a business. Isn’t this a Matrix?
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
Nice story
Jeff, did you take the red pill again !?
That’s nice! I am not having a hope with few of my domains. I am new to domain selling and have registered few. Before selling these domains, I think I need to read all of your blog and some forum so I have a better idea. I may priced my domain lower or higher. Thanks for your post. Will be update on all of your post Sir!