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Using WhyPark to Create Mini Portals to Sell or Generate Revenue

Elliot Silver
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15

For SaleI have about 30 CityRealEstateAgent.com and CityRealEstateAgents.com domain names in my portfolio for cities from throughout the United States (such as JacksonRealEstateAgent.com). I listed them for sale in a couple of places, but they didn’t sell to domain investors. They also don’t get a lot of type-in traffic, so the revenue is light. Because they’re very targeted for long tail terms that get searches, the only way I will get traffic is via search, which won’t happen with parked domain names.

This week, I will be working with Craig Rowe of WhyPark to rapidly build sites on these domain names. I plan to use several widgets on the sites, including some provided by Zillow. In addition, I will use the automated content provided by WhyPark, and supplement this with some unique content about each city (I will be working with a copywriter for this). The goal is to get listed in search engines for each search term, which will drive some traffic to the site.

While I don’t anticipate these domain names will make a lot of PPC revenue, I do have an ulterior motive for this project. I plan to email 10-15 real estate agents from each city, offering their related domain name for sale. I will use a version of my end user sales email.

In addition, I will have a link on each page for agents to learn about advertising information. I will offer banners and/or text links, which will be fairly inexpensive for advertisers, but it will be a revenue stream from where there once was none. The only downside is that if I get an advertiser, I can’t sell the name without a problem, so it will have to be enough of a revenue stream to make it worth while.

Assuming the domain names rank well in the search engines because of the unique content, they will have more value to real estate agents. Instead of discussing the theoretical ranking increase for a keyword domain name, I will be able to prove it by saying, “JacksonRealEstateAgent.com ranks higher for the search, ‘Jackson real estate agent’ than your website, despite the fact that you’re a real estate agent from Jackson.”

As with everything I do, I will let you know how the sites perform. I will be looking for the following things:

  • Search engine ranking in Google and Bing
  • Advertising inquiries/advertising revenue
  • Domain Sales
  • PPC revenue

WhyPark makes it pretty easy to add widgets and content, but I am going to ask Craig to provide a tutorial later on in the week for dummies like myself who probably wouldn’t be able to figure it out on the first effort.

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/penguincakes/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

End of the Year Domain & Business Tips

Elliot Silver
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0

checklistThere are three weeks remaining in 2009, and before you know it we will be ringing in the new year. As the year draws to a close, now is a good time to take care of some housekeeping type of things before the final day of the year. I always uses the last few weeks to do a number of things to close out my books and to prepare for the new year, as many people focus less on work and more on celebrating the holiday season.

Here are a few recommendations that you might find beneficial as you prepare to begin the new year.

Make sure your record books are in order.

Set aside at least a couple of days to go through your records, making sure all of your sales, acquisition, revenues, expenses, donations, and other financial records are in order and recorded. Instead of waiting nearly four months for tax time, if you do it now, you will be thankful. You can also set up your record books for next year, so you can be as organized or better organized in the coming year.

Spend money on things you need.

If you’ve had a good year financially, now might be a good time to buy a computer, desk, or other business-related supplies that you can expense in the current year. Pay for airline tickets in advance and/or conference passes in 2009 so you can take the tax write-off now. The best recommendation I can make is to speak with an accountant who is familiar with business taxes and get your records in order soon.

Calculate and pay estimated taxes.

Although I track my estimated taxes throughout the year, I know some people who don’t and they wait until the last possible minute. Again, this is something you need to speak with an accountant about.

Check your landing pages.

We’ve all heard that parking is down, but have you checked to make sure your biggest producing landing pages are correctly targeted and the theme is related to the domain name? I don’t spend a lot of time checking during the year, but I will spend some time seeing if I have names that aren’t getting the desired click through rates.

Renew your domain names.

Make sure your domain names are set to auto-renew and the names you want to keep all have enough time remaining on their registration. The end of the year is a hectic time, and things can slip through the cracks. Make sure you don’t lose any domain names unintentionally as a result.

Keep your credit cards up to date.

The end of the year is also a good time to update your credit card records on file with your registrar. Since many people have the auto-renew function activated, it’s important that the credit card on file is still valid. Now’s a great time to check to make sure you’re still good to go.

Checklist image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/adesigna/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Things I Would Have Done Differently on My GeoDomain Names

Elliot Silver
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20

Its been over a year since I developed my geodomain names, including Burbank.com, Lowell.com, and Newburyport.com, and although I’ve shared quite a bit about my development efforts, I’d like to share things I wish I had done that I will try to do on future projects. As the song goes, “I wish that I knew what I know now…”

1.) Used a content management system like WordPress or Joomla. This would have made updates much quicker and easier. I could publish articles immediately or have them post some time in the future. I could easily add new features and functionality using plugins. There are just too many advantages to a CMS to name.

2.) Determined each site’s identity before launch. Newburyport is a small town, but they have 3 newspapers. I should have focused entirely on tourism and skipped the news content. On the other hand, there aren’t enough local news sources in Lowell or Burbank. Based on what you determine your site’s focus will be, that should dictate the layout and design.

3.) Chose who will be writing content and how often. I either write my own news articles (mostly about special events) and publish press releases from local organizations. This takes a lot of my time, although it drives a considerable amount of traffic. Before you start, determine if you will be the writer or if you will hire journalists or copywriters. Even posting press releases is time consuming – especially without a CMS. Weigh the traffic reward vs. the effort and figure out how much its worth to your site to have regular, fresh content. Keep in mind that people want to read interesting things related to the community, so it’s probably not wise to hire a copywriter who doesn’t know the area. Additionally, there are probably legal issues with re-writing a news article from the local paper – especially if it’s a smaller city with one newspaper.

4.) Met with local newspapers in person.   It may have been mutually beneficial to meet with the local newspapers in the cities where my sites are located to see if we could work together to promote each other’s site. With my non-tourism names where I don’t write news articles (or don’t plan to write them) I would want to offer their RSS feed links on my home page (opening in a new window), in exchange for links back to my sites. I don’t know if this effort would work, but meeting in person is usually more beneficial than an email exchange.

5.) Used a calendar system that publishes events on its own pages. I started with a calendar that lists all events on one page and has popups when you hover over a date. This didn’t allow indexing in Google. I should have worked with calendar software that did what I needed out of the box. I am still having some issues, although they are being addressed.

6) Allowed businesses to create listings in Yellow Pages or manage their listings. I opted to hand code the Yellow Pages content (see this example for Lowell Yellow Pages) instead of using a database. I didn’t allow businesses to sign up or edit listings automatically because I didn’t have any experience in this area and didn’t want spam or to have to worry about processing payments. Now that I am more comfortable with this, I am regretting the decision to do it the way I did it.

7.) Been more aggressive about hiring a sales person. I was very passive about hiring a local sales person and didn’t make a great effort to hire someone. I had someone in Lowell, but a few days after he agreed to work on the site, he had a family emergency so things didn’t work out. Needless to say, I am not nearly making as much money as I should be making, although it’s in the 4 figures a year for each site (except Newburyport.com) right now. I have been far too passive about hiring a local advertising representative and/or seeking out advertisers on my own.

8.) Bought domain names in cities in which I am more familiar. Lowell.com and Newburyport.com were good strategic buys. I will probably be moving to the Boston area in a year or two. Burbank.com was a good domain acquisition, but it’s not as easy for me to get out there as often as I should. Lowell and Newburyport are a few hours away from me by car, and about 45 minutes apart from each other.

These are the most important things I can think of when considering what I would do differently. Hope this helps you as you begin or continue to develop – or as you are looking to buy a geodomain name.

Valuate.com Adds Trademark Checker

Elliot Silver
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1

Valuate.com has launched a trademark checker engine in conjunction with their domain evaluation system powered by Estibot. When you enter domain names that appear to have trademark issues – be it a Fortune 1000 company or brand, there will be an error message notification letting you know the system has detected a trademark.

Picture 1

When I am searching for a domain name and think there could potentially be a trademark issue, I search the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s TESS, which is a database of live and dead US trademarks. It’s important to note that not every system is accurate, and you should seek professional legal advice if you have questions.

Obviously TheGoogle.com would be a TM issue, but the system didn’t target Windows.com as a potential trademark. Of course, a glass company could legitimately use Windows.com, but a computer company other than Microsoft would probably have issues if it was used.

One reason I like the offering is that many people who are new to the industry don’t know much about trademark issues – or don’t think of them as a potential problem. I’ve been upfront about stupidly hand registering some names with trademarks back in 2003. I didn’t really know any better at the time. With this offering, people who want to check on a new registration like GoogleBusinessServices.com or something like that will get the warning that the name could be risky to own.

General Electric Parks Names at Sedo

Elliot Silver
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5

geDuring Thanksgiving weekend, while my wife talked with her sister about her baby registry, I checked to see who happens to own BabyRegistry.com. The domain name was owned by iVillage back in 2005, but iVillage was bought out by NBC Universal, which is owned by General Electric, the company that now owns the domain name. It wasn’t a surprise that a company like GE owned a great name like this. It was a surprise that they are parking it with Sedo instead of having a website on it.

For a number of years, the domain name resided on Yahoo nameservers, but in early April of 2009, the DNS changed to UltraDNS, and later in April, they were moved again to SedoParking DNS. Despite the fact that GE is one of the largest companies in the world, they aren’t doing much with this great domain name. They could either partner with a company that offers a baby registry, or forward it to one of their product websites, as they do with other generic names they own.

A quick Google search also shows that other solid GE domain assets are also parked with Sedo. Some of those names include Women.net, ParkinsonsControl.com, UnderstandingADHD.com, LeukemiaInnovations.com (which happens to be listed for sale), and HealthyFamily.com.

It does appear that General Electric also sells domain names. Fingernails.com was owned by GE dating back to 2007 (another acquisition in the iVillage deal). As of November 19, 2009, the domain name changed hands, and is now registered to another company. The owner must have gotten a great deal, because the name is currently listed for sale at BuyDomains for $20,000.

Twitter Founder Jack Dorsey Launches Company Named Square on SquareUp.com

Elliot Silver
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16

square logoTechCrunch reported today that Jack Dorsey, founder of Twitter, has launched a mobile payment service called Square. While the actual product/service looks pretty cool, I am surprised that someone with the capital resources such as Dorsey would launch a new brand on a domain name that is different from the actual brand.

The big problem for Square is that they are using the domain name SquareUp.com for their website. This really defies logic to me for a couple of big reasons.

First and most obviously because it’s a mobile payment platform, and people will want to visit the website to learn about the company that will have access to credit card and payment info, and the web address is not intuitive. Many people will visit Square.com to learn about Square, Inc., and they won’t find the information they desire.

Secondly, Square.com is owned by a Japanese company, and the domain name doesn’t resolve. It’s one thing if it resolves to another company’s website, where the visitor can figure out that he needs to look elsewhere. It’s another thing if the domain doesn’t resolve and looks like the company has technical problems. There is nothing on Square.com that would tell a visitor anything but the website isn’t working.

The standalone name “Square” really has no meaning as a mobile payment service. It’s not like the brand actually means something to the product/service, where by sacrificing the brand name, part of the company’s identity would be lost. For example, the Paypal brand has everything to do with a payment service – they’re the “pay pal.”   Square does not have this identity. “Square Up” could be a better brand identity, since people use the term “square up” or “square away” when they need to settle a tab.

This doesn’t seem like a smart branding move for a mobile company – especially one with a $40,000,000 valuation.

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