Facebook RSS Twitter
Home Blog Page 1377

No More Easy Money

Elliot Silver
-
10

One problem I think many of us have is that we sometimes view our domain investments as a means to make a lot of money quickly. I know a number of people who got started in the industry after reading articles about people like Rick Schwartz making a lot of money with virtual assets, and they want to follow suit because it looks like a great lifestyle filled with “easy money.”

I must admit that the domain investor “lifestyle” I live is great, but it’s not exactly the stereotypical one that people probably think about. I work 12-16 hour days developing, researching, and negotiating, and I work every day. I enjoy what I do, and I set my own hours, so it’s worked out well. If I want to take a day off, I have the ability to do that. There are very few people in the industry who sit back and relax all day while drinking cocktails on the beach at night, although that stereotype does sound relaxing.

All of this said, I want to give a bit of a warning to people who may be new to the industry. Just because you see a specific type of name selling for a lot of money (and growing in value), it doesn’t mean that all similar names are worth the same amount of money. Simply because some people are investing isn’t a good enough reason for you to buy as well unless you know why the name is increasing in value and believe the rationale is correct.

Over the past year, prices in a number of verticals within our industry have dropped considerably, while premium domain names have kept their value. The reason is that many verticals (like 3 and 4 letter domain names) were perceived as being much more valuable than other domain names, and domain investors who were doing most of the buying couldn’t sustain the growth. Eventually, there were many more sellers than buyers, and the prices dropped, tremendously in some cases.

I am not going to preach and tell you what types of names are best to buy and what types of names aren’t. It really isn’t as easy as that. I will say that you should do your due diligence when you buy, and if you are looking to make fast money, you are in the industry at the wrong time. Just about everyone I know is working hard, and there is no such thing as easy money.

Who Should Attend TRAFFIC Amsterdam & Why

Elliot Silver
-
11

I will begin this post with a disclaimer so you aren’t jaded when you read this. Neither Rick Latona nor anyone else asked me to post this or anything about the TRAFFIC Amsterdam show.

Ever since I heard that a TRAFFIC conference was going to be held in Amsterdam, I’ve been thinking about who I think should attend the show, and more importantly, whether I think I should attend the show. Most of the thinking was in an effort to justify the expense in going, because it will be more expensive for me than the New York conference in October.

If you own ccTLD domain names, if you plan to invest in ccTLD domain names in the near future, if you are thinking about investing in ccTLD domain names, or if you live in Europe and you’ve wanted to attend a TRAFFIC conference but just haven’t had the chance to fly to the US or Australia, you should strongly consider attending the show. I fall into the third category, as I have been thinking about investing but haven’t made a commitment yet.

From what I can see on the conference agenda, this show will be hands down the best opportunity to learn all about ccTLD domain names. There are many great forums (like INForum.in and ccTLDs.com) where you can learn, but there’s nothing like face to face interactions and expert panels. As much as online degrees are great, nothing can beat attending college, in my opinion. Likewise, you can’t get a better education than attending a conference where you will be able to be in the audience listening to panels, asking questions, and meeting with other investors.

During one of the recent TRAFFIC shows, Kevin Ham opened the morning with an unexpected hour long speech that captivated the audience. I wasn’t in attendance at the show, but I heard quite a bit about Kevin’s speech. Last week, Rick Latona announced that Kevin will be the keynote speaker at the Amsterdam show. For some, this opportunity might be worth a good portion of the admission fee on its own.

The most important reason to attend the show is to learn about ccTLDs from the most knowledgeable experts in the namespace. Over the last year or so, I have been learning what I can about ccTLDs, although they aren’t a primary focus of mine – nor do I even own one… yet. When I was on my honeymoon in Europe last August, I saw how prevalent they are outside of the US, and like many Americans, I think I tend to be US-centric, which isn’t good because there are hundreds of millions of people outside of the US using the Internet.

After thinking about attending for the last few months, I decided to search for flights, and I was surprised at how much the prices have dropped since I initially began my search. Round trip flights from NY to Amsterdam are under $800 each (down from $1,300ish), and of course they can be expensed as part of a business trip. The hotel price and ticket price can both be expensed, and food and drinks are included with the conference tickets. The more I’ve been thinking about it, the more I am realizing that I really want to be at the conference to meet some of my European colleagues and learn more about ccTLD domain names.

So… after months of internal debate, I just booked my flight to Amsterdam and hotel room, and I reserved my ticket (and wife’s ticket) to the conference. I have a wedding the Sunday night before the conference, so I am going to miss Monday, but we land at 6am on Tuesday and will head over to the hotel.   I encourage others who are interested in attending but haven’t committed to think about it and make a decision soon. Airfare is much better than it was before, and this is going to be a great opportunity to learn all about ccTLD domain names. The $4,000 you might spend on attending (if you live in the US) will be worth it if it helps you decide that you want to invest – or even if you can then decide that they aren’t for you.

If you are attending the show and want to meet up for a drink or to say hello, please drop me a note so I can be sure to find you. I haven’t been to Amsterdam before, but I am Dam excited to be going!

Seeking Prime .US Domain Names

Elliot Silver
-
26

I am looking to get my feet wet in the ccTLD marketplace. I have very limited knowledge about the space, but I am learning as much as I can. That said, I am interested in possibly acquiring some great .US domain names. I am not looking for long tail keywords but would like pricing and information about one and two word keyword .US domain names such as:

Hotels.us
CheapHotels.us
Doctors.us
Lawyers.us
Airfare.us
Baseball.us
HomeLoans.us

If you have names like these, please email me or post a comment with the names and prices. Again, I am only looking for prime .US domain names.

Long Tail Keyword Phrase Search Volume Increases

Elliot Silver
-
18

I don’t have a lot of long tail keyword domain names, but I do have some, and I really like them. Mike mentioned a statistic today that I think shows why long tail keyword strings .com domain names are valuable and will continue to grow in value – especially with a mini site built on it:

According to a Hitwise survey, “searches of five to more than eight words in length increased 7% from last year.”

This doesn’t necessarily mean that people are typing the full keyword into their browser, where many browsers like Safari automatically add a .com to the end. However, it does mean that when people type a long tail keyword phrase, there will generally be less competition for search results.I don’t advocate buying super long – long-tail keywords 5+, but if that segment is growing, I would bet 3-5 word searches are growing as well.

As I explained to someone who asked about the difference between long and short tail keyword phrases, if you look up the short tail phrase “Counseling Jobs” in Google, you will get 456,000 results. Now, if you look up the longer tail phrase, “Drug Counseling Jobs,” you only get 770 results.

Although a longer tail keyword is searched less times than the short keyword phrase, there is much less SERP competition. If you develop a mini site on your long tail keyword domain name, chances are very good that it will be in the top of the SERP (depending on the actual keywords of course), and if this happens, you are likely to increase your traffic.

Personally, I like the 3 word long-tail keywords best, but this Hitwise survey does seem to indicate that people do actually search for longer tail keyword strings.

Work in Verticals You Know

Elliot Silver
-
5

Rick Schwartz and Chef Patrick recently posted about dropping crappy domain names. I completely agree with this, but I think the bigger problem is that many people can’t distinguish whether a domain name is decent or crappy. The great ones are obvious to most, but some people have problems where they believe a domain name is good and has value, when in fact, nearly everyone else would say it sucks.

In my opinion, there’s no way you can beat a generic term or phrase with a brandable name. Of course, you can sell a brandable .com name to a willing company for a lot of money, but chances are good that those who have done it own thousands of brandable names and need that big sale to break even or possibly make a bit of profit. Always look at the big picture, and when you do, I think you will see that generic keywords will make you a lot more money in the long run.

One way to make sure you are buying generic .com terms is to focus on verticals you know – at the very least when you are first starting out in the industry. If you are a direct marketer for example, think about all of the types of products you use (business reply envelopes and flash drives), phrases you discuss (return on investment and presentation deck), and services you use (telemarketing reps and call center monitoring). Write a bunch of these down and see if the phrases as .com domain names are registered.

For the names that aren’t taken, put those phrases into keyword tools such as Vurr, Aaron Wall’s Keyword Tool, and Google Adwords keyword tool, and see how many people are searching for those exact phrases (correct spelling and all). Depending on the tool and the phrases, results can vary. For a sanity check, compare your long tail phrase to the short tail to see what the difference is. For example, if you look up “call center monitoring” in one of the tools, cross check it with “call center” so you can compare how many people are searching for the long tail vs the better short tail. If the numbers look good, it might be worth registering.

Another piece of advice is that if English isn’t your first language, you might not want to register English .com domain names. On occasion, things get lost in translation, and even the slightest change can render a name worthless. Instead of focusing on English .com names, perhaps you will have better luck focusing on names in your primary language. ccTLDs are hot, but I am sure people also search with their language + .com, so if you want to stick with .com, that may work, too. Don’t force it though.

It’s important to focus on verticals that you know, because you may end up registering dozens, hundreds, or thousands of dollars worth of domain names that nobody will ever want to buy. A year from that point, you will be stuck deciding whether to renew those names, the fruits of your time spent a year prior, or to let them drop and take the realized loss. IMO, stay lean in these times and only register good names.

Remember, it’s my opinion that you can’t go wrong with .com. Also, remember, it’s generally better to own 1 domain name that is really worth $8,000 than to register 1,000 average domain names at a cost of $8,000. At least if you need liquidity, it will be easier to get cash by selling ONE name than by trying to sell 1,000 domain names.

Great Search Engine Resource

Elliot Silver
-
1

One of the better search engine resources I’ve found is the YouTube channel of Matt Cutts, a Google employee who shares a ton of great knowledge about the way Google ranks websites. Matt gives in depth answers to a number of user submitted questions – many of which I have personally had over the past couple of years.

In addition to this, you should also be familiar with Google’s SEO Guidelines as well. This free pdf has a ton of information about SEO, which is perfect for someone who is beginning to develop websites.

There are a lot of great SEO resources out there, but you should at least come to the table with basic knowledge which can be gotten via these two free resources.

1...1,3761,3771,378...1,542Page 1,377 of 1,542

Recent Posts

Enable Immediate Payment for Inventory Domain Names

Elliot Silver - 1
When I was operating my directory websites, a business friend of mine gave me some good advice that applies directly to domain name sales....

GoDaddy Auctions Masterclass on December 11

Elliot Silver - 1
Ready to dominate GoDaddy Auctions? Join industry vets @JJStyler & Bart Mozyrko for a live masterclass on advanced bid strategies, auction secrets, and pro...

Atom.com Shares Priority Placement for Searches

Elliot Silver - 1
Atom.com recently announced "one of the biggest updates to search and discovery" on the platform. The platform is making its search results less literal...

GoDaddy DBS Broker Tom McCarthy Explains His Role

Elliot Silver - 0
GoDaddy has two distinct brokerage teams that work exclusively on behalf of buyers or sellers. The Afternic team represents sellers who have listings on...

How Much Overlap on AI Domain Name Creation?

Elliot Silver - 1
I sold a two word .com domain name for $4,999 via Afternic last night. The domain name consists of a noun and a verb,...
© Important Notice: Unless explicitly stated, Top Notch Domains, LLC does not endorse any advertiser on this website. Advertisements and links may take visitors to external websites. Top Notch Domains, LLC is not responsible or liable for products, services, or content found on any other website. See the DomainInvesting.com disclaimer for additional details and information as well as this website's Terms of Use. Copyright © 2007-2025 - DomainInvesting.com | Top Notch Domains, LLC