DomainInvesting.com

It seems pretty silly, but a few weeks ago I noticed that I had around 950 posts on my blog dating to its inception.   Since then, in the back of my mind, I’ve been thinking about what to write for my 1,000th post. I know it’s silly, but I wanted to come up with something fun for the occasion of post #1,000. A few days ago while running on the treadmill, I determined what I wanted to post here for this special post.

Several years ago, I was a “struggling domain investor,” buying and selling inexpensive domain names (which I still do on occasion). While I sold primarily on Ebay and on DN Forum, I also sold quite a bit in private to clients of mine. Most of the domain names I owned were “brandable” domain names, and their sales prices ranged from $20 – $200/each with $200 being the anomaly.

One of my better clients when I began was a lady named Tasha Kidd. Aside from buying domain names from me, Tasha and I also chatted via email and instant messenger about marketing strategy and domain names. Tasha was the first person who introduced me to keyword generic domain names, and she emphasized their value over brandable domain names. In terms of domain acquisitions, that has been my focus since then. Tasha also designed the first iteration of my company logo and website a few years ago.

Later on in early 2006, I acquired a past tense domain name, for a booming industry. Tasha mentioned that she was a member of Rick Schwartz’s exclusive domain forum, and she suggested that I meet with one of the best domain brokers in the business who was a member in order to sell this domain name. Tasha introduced me to Kevin Leto and she also recommended me for admission onto Rick’s Board, which was approved. Before posting on Rick’s Board, Tasha taught me the protocol that she learned, some of which is only learned by making mistakes – helping me to avoid many landmines that may have gone off had I done or said something wrong.

I can’t even tell you how many friends I made and colleagues I met after joining Rick’s Board. Kevin also   been instrumental in private deals I’ve made as well as answering countless technical questions about my blog, website security, and other technical questions I can’t answer. I ended up selling that domain name for 5 figures, which was my largest sale at the time. For all of this that came as a result of Tasha’s help and advice, I want to say thank you x 1,000 to Tasha.

I also would like to thank readers of my blog who have offered their opinions, support, commentary, criticism, friendship, and everything in between. Without your continued visits, this blog wouldn’t exist and without your commentary, it wouldn’t have any life or be nearly as interesting. Being a blogger has its ups and downs, but fortunately there are many more ups than downs. Thank you for all of your support!

Andrew posted some commentary on Monday from ABCsearch CEO Daniel Yomtobian on why the company went out and acquired Advertise.com. According to Yomtobian, Advertise.com “is the perfect brand name to attract new customers and make them feel comfortable if they had not heard of us—which translates into a much higher customer acquisition rate.”

TRUST is a huge aspect of a category defining domain name. People might not have heard of a particular company operating on a category defining domain name, but they generally trust that company until the trust is broken simply because of the domain name. As the saying goes, “perception is reality,” and people automatically think that with a category defining domain name, the company must be trustworthy. Yomtobian knows this, and his results should reflect this.

One thing that is not frequently discussed in the purchase of a domain name is a small thing called “goodwill.” According to Finance-Glossary.com, goodwill is defined as “The value of a business to a purchaser over and above its net asset value. It reflects the value of intangible assets such as reputation, brand name, good customer relations, high employee morale and other factors that improve the company’s business.” A category defining domain name has a considerable amount of good will associated with it, and that alone can help catapult a brand like ABCSearch onto the radar screens of their target clients.

People may not have visited a particular website in the past, but because the name rings a bell, they might think they have. Trust and goodwill are not things that can be very accurately quantified, but they have considerable value to a company.