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Steps to a Quick and Easy Geodomain Geosite

Elliot Silver
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17

Subscribe to Elliot's BlogFull-scale development like PalmSprings.com or PigeonForge.com can be very rewarding, but it is also time consuming. These are full businesses, and they should be treated like full businesses with developers, marketing specialists, sales staff and office staff – either on the payroll or in a freelance position depending on the website and management company. These sites are difficult to develop and grow, but they are certainly rewarding once the strong foundation is built.
Some people don’t want to have those responsibilities even though they have good domain names, and there are opportunities for geodomain development on a smaller scale. If you have a strong geodomain name (.com, .net, .info…etc) but an actual city name, I would like to recommend a few steps to launching a scaled down version of a geowebsite that will have less upfront costs, and it will be similar to what I did for Secaucus.com – which I continue to build out every day.
1) Do keyword research to see what people are looking for in the city (directions, weather, hotels, restaurants, homes…etc)
2) Contact a domain development service, find a nice free template, or create your own design template
3) Find photos of the city using a royalty-free stock photo site or Creative Commons site like Wikipedia
4) Write several articles targeting the keywords you found for your research
5) Place your articles in your template and add meta description, keywords, and titles to target those keywords and keyword variations
6) Add Adsense or other monetization option if desired
7) Add Google webmaster tools tag to your site and make sure it’s included in Google, Yahoo, MSN…etc.
8) Contact related websites asking for link exchanges
9) Contact local businesses offering inexpensive advertising placement
I’ve found that one of the biggest drivers to my geowebsites is mentioning local businesses. For example, if you add free listings for lawyers in the area, some people will find your site when searching for that lawyer. As I’ve been told, however, it’s much more difficult to get an advertiser to pay for a listing once they’ve received it for free. If you plan to build your site into a larger site down the road, this might not be a good option.
While I believe a fully developed site is of much more value, some smaller towns or non-touristy towns may not bring a huge return if they are fully developed. Building a mini-site can be a better option to build traffic to the site and bring a nice return – especially if you have a non-.com that wasn’t as expensive as the crown jewel .com. By adding pages daily, you are increasing the reach of your site at a convenient pace. Sometimes building a huge website can sound daunting, but if you do it slowly, it may be more rewarding.

Domain Theory: Searches to Results Ratio

Elliot Silver
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10

Subscribe to Elliot's BlogWhen people are selling domain names, I frequently see them quoting the Wordtracker daily searches for the domain’s keyword phrase as well as the number of pages there are in Google that have that keyword or keyword phrase. It’s often thought that the higher the number of daily searches and the higher number of Google results, the more valuable that keyword domain name is. This is just theory here, but I think the ratio of daily searches to # of Google results is a better indicator of value for someone that wants to develop the domain name.
The more daily searches a keyword phrase (“painting contractor” for example), the more value a name like PaintingContractor.com is.   If people are searching for that term, not only are some of them probably typing   PaintingContractor.com into their browser bar, but the greater chance this domain name will be relevant to more people.   A generic domain name is valuable because there are people who want to find that generic term. Some will type the term into their browser (with a .com) while many others will search Google for that term, and hopefully your site will come up in the top 5 or 10 results to attract the attention of the searcher.
I would argue that the old way of thinking – the more Google results for the phrase the better – is actually not really that great for the value of the domain name. Sure, the more results there are usually means that more people are interested in that topic – and that more people are writing about it and covering it on their websites. With more interest in the topic, the value should be higher.   However, to a developer, the more interest in the topic usually also means the more difficult it will be to rank in Google. The lower a website ranks, the less traffic it will receive, making it more difficult to generate revenue.
That said, I believe the ratio of daily searches to Google results is important to consider.   “Painting Contractor” has a WordTracker count of 367, and there are 896,000 Google results for “painting contractor,” which would be strong compared to “Flooring Contractor” which boasts a WordTracker count of 19 and has 309,000 Google results. The more searches with less results in Google means a website will likely have an easier time ranking at the top of the results, meaning more traffic.
I don’t think this will become a commonly quoted ratio due to the actual size of the result (.000405), but I do think people should at least consider this when researching a domain name. It’s great that people are searching for a particular keyword or keyword phrase, but if the SE competition will relegate your developed domain name to the second page of Google or lower, it’s probably worth less than a similar domain name in a less competitive category (assuming PPC values are similar).
This post will be reevaluated once the weekend haze wears off.   I spent the weekend at a friend’s wedding, which is where I thought about this 🙂   More time needs to be spent analyzing this theory, but I think I am onto something.

Top Notch Domains, LLC Acquires FrenchRiviera.com

Elliot Silver
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Subscribe to Elliot's BlogFrenchRiviera.com and Secaucus.com Join Lowell.com and Burbank.com as Top Notch Destinations on the Web
Top Notch Domains, LLC adds world famous French Riviera resort domain name to its diverse portfolio and launches Secaucus, New Jersey website.
Nashua, NH (PRWEB) September 12, 2008 — Top Notch Domains, LLC is pleased to announce the acquisition of FrenchRiviera.com. The company will soon launch a vacation and tourist guide targeting visitors to the French Riviera, one of the most famous resort areas in the world. The company is not disclosing the amount of the transaction.
In addition to this news, the company also announces the launch of Secaucus.com, a guide to the city of Secaucus, New Jersey. Both of these announcements are aligned with the company’s strategy of developing informational websites on high value domain names.
“The French Riviera is one of the most glamorous destinations in the world, and I am excited to have the opportunity to develop FrenchRiviera.com into a world class travel website,” said Top Notch Domains, LLC President Elliot Silver. “FrenchRiviera.com is the first international geodomain the company has acquired, and I look forward to developing it. If you are visiting St. Tropez, Monte Carlo, South of France, or anywhere else on the French Riviera, FrenchRiviera.com will help you plan your trip – from hotels, to beaches, to night clubs and more.”
In addition to Secaucus.com and FrenchRiviera.com, the company also owns and operates Burbank.com, a guide to Burbank, California, Lowell.com, a guide to Lowell, Massachusetts, and TropicalBirds.com, a website with information and resources on tropical birds found throughout the world.
The company expects a full launch of FrenchRiviera.com in Q4 2008.
About Top Notch Domains, LLC
Top Notch Domains, LLC is a privately held domain investment company specializing in the acquisition of high value domain names. The company’s President, Elliot Silver, is the founder of ElliotsBlog.com, an award winning domain investment and strategy blog.

Buy Domains Enhances Website

Elliot Silver
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3

Subscribe to Elliot's BlogI just noticed that it appears that BuyDomains.com has enhanced it’s website, greatly improving the search functionality. I am now able to do searches much, much faster than before. It looks like there are also better searching tools as well which is helpful.
One bug I noticed is when I did an advanced search using a specific keyword. On the results page, I tried to change it from 25 records per page to 55 records per page, and when the new page refreshed, my search was gone and it started with the name “AaaAaaAaaAaaAaaAaaA.com.” I think this must be a bug, but it’s one of those things that happens with an upgrade.
I really like the featured results section at the top as well, although the results weren’t in line with my search terms – or even related.
At first glance, it looks like this was a great upgrade, and I look forward to digging deeper and hopefully finding some nice names.

Crispin Porter & Bogusky "Gets It" for Volkswagen

Elliot Silver
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Subscribe to Elliot's BlogUsually when I see a newly-created, branded domain name in a commercial using a non-.com extension, I find that the .com was purchased after the commercial went live, frequently by domain speculators hoping to cash in on user errors. Although the lost traffic is arguably light, it’s still enough to warrent purchasing the .com of the domain name for around $7 and forwarding any traffic to the intended website.
I saw a commercial tonight for Volkswagen, and it encouraged viewers to visit the website, RoutanBoom.org. I was curious to see if they purchased the .com as well, since this was obviously a uniquely created domain name specifically for this campaign.   The good news for Volkswagen is that their advertising agency, Crispin Porter & Bogusky, seem to “get it” when it comes to domain names, and they purchased the .com and .net on behalf of VW.
Thumbs up to CP+B on this smart domain purchase, and also for the new VW campaign, which is receiving positive reviews.

Social Networking to Sell Domain Names

Elliot Silver
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4

Subscribe to Elliot's BlogOn the treadmill last night, I was thinking about how to get around administrative assistants and other obstacles in the way of directly communicating with a decision maker. Most of the time at mid to large companies, the decision maker has an admin who reviews all emails and phone calls before passing them through. If something appears to be spammy, there’s a good chance the message will be deleted before the decision maker sees it.
In the day of Linkedin and Facebook, more and more people (including decision makers) are signing up for accounts on these networks. Since it isn’t always business that is discussed on these networks, I would assume that many connect their personal email addresses to the account. With the help of a mutual friend – or maybe even a cold call, you can get in touch directly with the decision maker. Although it will still be difficult to get in touch with a decision maker at a large company, it’s possible to do this to those at small to medium size companies.
The difficult thing is determining who the decision maker is. Social networking sites actually play a role in determining who to contact, as most allow the decision maker to list his credentials right on the site. If you get in touch with the wrong person, there’s also a good chance that this person will tell you who the right person is.
Instead of sending a blind email, social networking communications could help you get in touch with the decision makers you need to reach. The caveat is that I just thought of this and haven’t tried it yet.

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