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5 With… Patrick Carleton, Executive Director, Associated Cities

Elliot Silver
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9

Associated Cities’ annual GeoDomain Expo in New Orleans is coming up at the end of the month, and I asked Patrick Carleton, the organization’s Executive Director, to answer some questions about it.   The   early-bird rate of $995 will expire tomorrow, April 6th, as will the room block at the Roosevelt Hotel, though they will do their best to help latecomers find rooms at close hotels.

Due to extensive travels this summer and a previous engagement during the conference, I will not be able to attend this year’s conference. I do think it’s a great opportunity for anyone who intends to develop geodomain names or would like to learn ways to better monetize their geodomain names.

ES: What will make this conference different than years past, and are there specific themes that will be covered?

PC:   The 2010 Geodomain Expo in New Orleans this April 28-30 will include sessions ranging from beginning startup development to some of the hottest topics of today including maximizing geo brand traffic revenue, social media, business directories, mobile apps and the mobile web.   We continue to bring in cutting edge speakers and sponsoring companies to partner with you to take your company and sites to the next level.

EJS: Who should consider attending the conference, and how does it differ from other general domain conferences?

PC: The Geodomain Expo was the first domain conference to spotlight development, and continues to focus on development topics to stay on top of the pulse of the ever changing geo space.   Anyone vested in Geodomains, Geodomain development, or even those interested in learning to develop any of their domains should attend the Expo to form relationships with and learn from the brightest and most successful minds in the local domain development space.

EJS: My favorite part of the GeoDomain Expo is the networking. Can you talk about the great networking opportunities that are happening in New Orleans – and are there special events happen because of Jazz Fest?

PC: Year after year attendees tell me that the networking at the Geodomain Expo is second to none – there is next to no competition amongst any of The attendees, so the sharing of best practices in the development of Geodomains is widespread. The networking alone at the Geodomain Expo is worth the price of admission. Learning from the best of the best like the Castello Brothers, Dan Pulcrano, Josh Metnick, etc. is what this conference is all about.

The welcome cocktail reception will be held in the world famous Blue Room of the historic Roosevelt hotel, a venue where musical greats like Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, and Tony Bennett were all regulars.   This cocktail reception and the Thursday night party will each have a New Orleans Jazzfest flare and feel.   Breakfasts, lunches, breaks and receptions will provide ample opportunity to form long-lasting relationships with fellow developers which will pay dividends on the growth of your businesses.

The New Orleans Roosevelt Hotel is one of the most beautiful hotels I have ever seen.   Elvis Presley stayed there while he was filming King Creole

EJS: How has Associated Cities changed over the years, and what are the future plans for the organization?

PC: Associated Cities has just become a 501(C)6 non-profit association. With this new structure, every Associated Cities member will now have a larger voice in the growth of the association and its impact on the industry.

EJS: What are the 5 most important reasons someone should attend the conference?

PC:

  1. No other event this year will bring together the owners of the most successfully developed Internet properties and brands in the world.
  2. Local media experts, recognizing the opportunity in the GeoDomain space, are coming to this event to learn directly from GeoDomain pioneers and practitioners.
  3. Two full days of presentations, panels, networking and learning opportunities.
  4. Great after-conference-hours events for fun and invaluable networking.
  5. Jazzfest!   This event draws as many people as Mardi Gras. And did I mention Pearl Jam is playing the day after the conference ends?

GeoDomain Development Idea

Elliot Silver
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17

I know a lot of people who own city keyword .com domain names, and I own several of them as well. I want to share a development idea I have, as I have found most of the longer tail geodomain names I own (most are attorney or lawyer names) don’t get much type in traffic and make very little revenue as a result. I haven’t put this idea into practice yet but want to share it with those who might wish to do so.

Using a modified classifieds theme or a directory package, create empty directories that cost anywhere from $9 – 99/year to sign up. The advertiser will receive a full page within the website to promote his business, and the company will be listed on the primary page. It will be very similar to Frank Schilling’s MontrealRestaurants.com. Payment will need to be made via Paypal and should be an annual subscription for easy re-billing.

The idea is that once you create and customize your platform for a few hundred dollars (unless you are able to do the work on your own), you can then version it out to your other similar domain names to lower your development cost per domain name. Contrary to what some people might say, I do happen to think a site like this should look good so potential advertisers are more interested in advertising. I received many more comments about DogWalker.com’s look and style rather than its searchability and functionality.

By doing this, it will help generate revenue, once you’ve done enough SEO work to get it ranked in Google. As a comparison, DogWalker.com ranked #1 in Google for the term “dog walker” within 2 months of launching it, and it had been a Godaddy landing page for a while, so the SEO aspect isn’t as difficult as it might seem.

Like I said before, I haven’t done this yet so I can’t give any feedback about the likelihood for success. I tried to sell HattiesburgAttorney.com, LynnAttorney.com, BozemanAttorney.com, and a few others similar names without much luck, so I will probably try this model out on these names before the end of the year. If it fails to yield any signups, I imagine getting these names ranking in Google for their keywords will at the very least increase their saleability and value.

Feel free to share your experiences with this.

It’s a Busy Saturday

Elliot Silver
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3

As my friends and family know, I can be a workaholic. I love what I do, and if I am not working on my laptop, I am generally on my Blackberry pretty much non-stop, especially during the week. I try to lay off on the weekends, but when I have a big project, I can usually be found working. This weekend is a working weekend, as you will see below in my Saturday updates:

  • I’ve been reading about the domain theft and hijacking situation on Domain Name Wire and Patrick’s Blog. As a friendly reminder, there are a few companies that offer extensive protection against domain theft like Name.com featuring a security key fob. I wrote an article about domain security last July, and you may want to check it out to see what some companies offer.
  • After a couple of months worth of work, Lowell.com has been re-vamped and re-launched with the help of Mike McAlister of Six One Five Design. Businesses will now be able to sign up, create listings, and pay on their own, much like I have successfully implemented on a couple of other websites. There are still a number of links that aren’t working and things that need to be fixed, but it’s almost there. If you have a few minutes and check out the site, please let me know if you see any bugs (I know the site is running slowly right now).
  • I want to send a BIG THANK YOU to Tony Kanakaris of eCyberMedia.com and SocialDomainers.com for making a $500 contribution to the Ronald McDonald House for our 5 Boro Bike Tour. Not only is this the largest contribution to date, it also put us over our $2,500 goal. The Ronald McDonald House does some great things for children with cancer and their families, and they can use all of the funding people can contribute. I think Karen and I may raise our goal since some friends and family haven’t contributed what they pledged in private.
  • If you are celebrating, I want to wish you and your family a happy Easter. I hope you are able to enjoy the holiday with family and friends.

Send a Card to Mattie and Make Her Day Special

Elliot Silver
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0

After I posted my article about raising funds for the Ronald McDonald House, I received a message on Facebook from a high school friend with whom I haven’t spoken in quite some time. Sarah thanked my wife and me for what we are doing because her Sister and Brother in Law used the resources of the Ronald McDonald House with their four year old daughter Mattie. I wanted to share Mattie’s story with you if you have a moment.

When Mattie was 2 and 1/2, she was diagnosed with Meduloblastoma (malignant brain cancer) the size of a golf ball. She had it removed the day before Thankgiving and was transferred to St. Jude’s, where she remained for almost a year, and she was discharged without success.

Mattie’s mom and dad then enrolled her in an experimental study at Sloan-Kettering in NYC where she lived at the Ronald McDonald House. She was discharged with no cancer. Mattie then traveled back to St. Jude’s twice for body scans/MRIs/spinal taps where she remained clean until her 2nd round of scans. She was then transferred back to St. Jude’s where she was taken as a candidate in a special experimental study.

Heartbreakingly, Mattie became overcome with pain in her leg and she was found to have cancer consuming her leg and in her chest cavity, and at that point, further treatment was not possible.   She is currently on hospice at home, in a wheelchair, because her leg is due to break at any moment. Mattie has a blog where you can learn more about her and read her story. You can also read more on Cincinnati, Ohio’s News 9 website.

Since Mattie LOVES receiving mail (like any child her age), Sarah and her family organized a “card shower” for Mattie for Christmas, and she received over 2,200 cards from around the world. Mattie’s fifth birthday is coming up on April 4, and we would like to make it more special for her. In the next few days, if you happen to visit a card store or supermarket and can send Mattie a birthday card, she would be absolutely thrilled. You don’t need to send anything other than a birthday card and a little note, since she has everything else she needs.

Mattie’s address is:

Miss Mattie Powell
16725-TU
Fayette Ohio 43521

The Ronald McDonald House is a great organization that helps children and their families, and I am even more glad Karen and I are supporting it with your help.

A special thank you goes out to the following domain industry friends and colleagues who have contributed to help us achieve our fundraising goal:

You’re A Fool!

Elliot Silver
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6

Yes… another April Fools’ Day post, but this one has a twist. The “You’re” to whom I am referring in the title is actually me, and the things below are some of the foolish things I’ve done recently (that I can remember). This isn’t the typical attempt at humor post that most others are trying, although Rick’s new venture is hularious (.com).

  • I bought a targeted keyword geodomain name on Snapnames over a year ago and never changed the DNS. I just realized this last week.
  • I kept complaining about how TropicalBirds.com was not making much money, but then I worked with Craig at WhyPark, and it’s now making 1.5-2x what it made per day on Adsense. We’re not talking big money at all, but it’s bigger money. More on this to come, but after around one month of the same site with different monetization strategy/feed, I am realizing that I left a couple of nights in New York City on the table in earnings every month for the last year plus.
  • I stopped invoicing   my hotel advertiser on Lowell.com in January because I was hoping the new site would launch in mid February or early March at the latest, and I was concerned that they would be upset paying for a banner on a newly launched website that wasn’t the exact same as the current/old site. Well, as all development projects go, my design requests grew, and we’re now in April, and the old site is still up, so I lost out on two months of payment… again, not a whole lot of money, but a couple of nice dinners.
  • I spent a lot of time building my own mini sites, and when all is said and done, I shouldn’t have been so cheap and left the work to the professionals. Even if the results were equal to mine, it wouldn’t have been a waste of my time.

I am sure I’ve done more foolish things than those listed above, but I can’t really think of others off the top of my head right now.

What foolish things have you done that you’d like to share?

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Please help me raise funds for the Ronald McDonald House

Quick Tip to Buying Good, Saleable Domain Names in the Aftermarket

Elliot Silver
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8

One thing I look for when buying a domain name is to see how many companies use that exact term as a part of their domain name. If companies are using more specific domain names for their websites, the generic term will usually be highly valuable to at least one company that wants to be THE exact match .com. With this exact match name, you can usually command top dollar.

For example, there are a lot of law firms that use the term “DefenseLawyer.com” in their domain name. You have everything from descriptive names like CriminalDefenseLawyer.com to geographical like NewYorkDefenseLawyer.com and everything else in between. Owning the primary generic term would presumably be of interest to many of those companies. This is generally the case with most exact match .com domain names.

By doing a Google search for the exact match .com name, you will see all of those developed websites that use that term in their domain name. There is your first round list of end user prospects when you look to sell the domain name. You can also search for that exact term without the domain name, such as “defense lawyer” in my example, and then you can see what I did to sell one of my domain names to an end user company.

Obviously the term needs to be generic, so something like VolvoDealer.com wouldn’t pass that test, even though there are a number of dealerships that use the term “VolvoDealer.com” in their domain names.

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