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VisitPuertoRico.com: Great Trafficz Lander

Elliot Silver
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I was watching the World Baseball Classic yesterday and saw the Dominican Republic vs. Panama game in Puerto Rico.   Behind home plate, there was a url being advertised: GoPuertoRico.com.   Personally, I am not a huge fan of most call to action domain names, but I really don’t like this one, because the keyword phrase “Go Puerto Rico” doesn’t exactly make sense.

I decided to take a look at some similar sites, including PuertoRico.com and VisitPuertoRico.com. Both sites look professionally done, and I was intrigued by the “inquire about this domain name” link found on the second site.   The link took me to Most Wanted Domains, so I knew it was one of Mike‘s great domain names. If you don’t know already, Mike has one of the nicest privately owned domain portfolios assembled.

After a bit more searching around the site, I saw that it is a custom-built Trafficz site.   I really like what they did for Mike, and it goes to show that if you have a great domain name that gets traffic, you might want to ask your parking provider to build a custom site.   Not only can you build something that’s more likely to be listed in search engines, you will also create a nice looking site that is compelling to click through for more information.

Thumbs up to Trafficz and to Mike on this one.

Disclaimers, Disclosures & Conflicts of Interest

Elliot Silver
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Let’s face it.   As domain investors, we are a part of a small community, where nearly all of us are connected in some way. Some companies have partnerships, many people are close friends with others, and some people have known others via forums, chat board and industry functions for years.

No matter what someone writes nor where they write it, there will always be some sort of conflict of interest due to friendships, partnerships and other relationships. With that said, it’s important as shrewd business people and entrepreneurs to see where conflicts of interest exist and to note them in the back of our minds.

Just about all of us have created our own path to get to this little known industry.   Using the same gut instinct that brought us here, we should also use it to determine if someone’s blog post, news article or other public statement is self serving or if its going to be genuinely in the interest of the industry. I have found that while some posts may appear to be self serving at first glance, the content of the post is actually helpful and informative.

For the most part, most of the public domainers (those who keep a public profile) do so to help and encourage others.   While some might have conflicts of interest, people shouldn’t be so quick to publicly knock that person down simply because of a known overlapping business entity or relationship.

It’s difficult or impossible to not have any conflicts in certain posts that I make (especially those where I interview friends or discuss products/services I use), and it would be ridiculous if I had to put a disclaimer in every post.   We need to use more common sense before being so critical and judgmental.

Advertising Age Weighs in on gTLD

Elliot Silver
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0

Advertising industry publication Advertising Age weighed in on the impact of the proposed gTLDs today. Although I would have thought an article about the creative possibilities of new gTLDs would have been more appropriate for Ad Age to cover, they focused on the costs associated with gTLDs – both in terms of applying for a gTLD and the cost of brand protection.

While their advice about research is smart, surmising that an up and coming energy drink company would could use a new gTLD (.powerdrink is their example) is pretty far fetched.   I can’t imagine a new brand spending $150k+ to apply for a gTLD such as this – not including costs of managing their registry.

I think there are still a lot of questions to be answered before gTLDs are approved, and Ad Age is correct in advising that their readers look into the implications of new gTLDs.   For readers of my blog, I will be posting an interview with Antony Van Couvering in the next few days, which should provide some good insight into new gTLDs.

Tracking Your Financials

Elliot Silver
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7

What software or system does your company use to track domain investments, sales, expenses and other financial information?   I’ve got a pretty good system set up using Excel, but I am sure there are better accounting programs to use.

I think my Excel system is a bit confusing for my accountant (before I explain things to him) but he doesn’t complain.   Can anyone recommend an easy to use, inexpensive software solution that doesn’t take up too much hard drive space?

Tax time is fun for domain investors!

Newsletter Ideas and Thoughts

Elliot Silver
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1

My first newsletter will be coming out tomorrow (sign up if interested) and I started to put it together.   While doing so, I was thinking about features that would be of interest to me if I were to sign up, and I would like to hear back from you, too. Here are some things I plan to add into the newsletter, and I am open to more suggestions.

Domain registration coupons – I will reach out to some of the registrars to see if anyone is willing to provide special coupon codes for discounts to newsletter readers. If any registrars are reading this and are interested, drop me a note and I will be in touch.

News & notes – With so much information out there, I don’t always have time to read everything, and there are times when I do read something that I think is very important.   I will list my 3 most read/commented articles from the week, and I will also send one or two outside reads that I believe are important.

Tips and tricks – I’ve given lots of tips in a variety of posts on my blog, but I will add a tip about domaining or development each week.   Some might be obvious and some might be things I’ve learned along the way, but I am not a rocket scientist inventing a new patentable product, so I am happy to share.

Dropping domains – I like searching for good dropping names, some of which are available to buy right away, some are going to auction, and some are on auction.   If I had a larger staff, endless money, and/or more time to develop, I wouldn’t give these away, but I can’t buy them all.   I actually don’t buy very many at all, but enjoy the search, so I might as well share what I find.

Domains for sale – This is the biggest conflict I have.   I don’t want to open up and accept domain listings from others, and I don’t want this to be a self serving newsletter.   From time to time I might show a domain name I have for sale or I might provide a link to a good domain name I saw for sale.   I will try to limit this because I think there are enough sales outlets available.

Upcoming events – There’s a ton of conferences, auctions, get togethers…etc that it’s hard to keep up.   If I hear about an event, I will post a link to more information.

So… after reading the above features, what else would you like to see that’s not already included on my blog?

As I said before, I am not going to allow sponsors yet because I want to see how things go for a few weeks.   I appreciate the inqueries, but at this time, I am going to keep it private label without a sponsor.

Foreign Companies Using .US Extension

Elliot Silver
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16

I noticed something interesting during my travels and don’t know if it’s isolated or more widespread. In several advertisements, I’ve seen foreign companies who do business in the US using the .US extension for their primary American website or in addition to their primary .com site.

Although I haven’t really seen many American-based companies using the .US extension as a primary website, I know that country code extensions are very popular in places throughout the world – especially in some European countries.

IcelandAir uses IcelandAir.us, BMW sometimes uses BMW.us,  ClubMed has used ClubMed.us, Volvo uses VolvoCars.us (forwards to .com) and there are many other examples. It seems to be more of a European way of thinking as many EU people and businesses use their country codes far more regularly than we use the .US extension here in the States.

It’s just interesting to notice, as I have seen the above examples used to target US customers, and all of these companies own their respective .com – they just choose not to use them.

So what is it?   Foreign companies’ marketing departments not thinking like American consumers? A domain extension test?   Something else?   What do you think?

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