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Grow Your Mini Sites

Elliot Silver
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10

Subscribe to Elliot's BlogI’ve been busy today working on the just launched Secaucus.com, which I had created by Rick and his guys at aeiou.com.   Secaucus is a city in New Jersey, located about 4 miles from Manhattan.   It was voted the 11th best city to live in New Jersey in 2008 by New Jersey Monthly magazine.
While the mini-site Rick and his team created looks great, I wanted to add more content to the site.   IMO, content is what drives traffic to a site, and the more content you create, the more traffic the site will receive. As a result, I expect to earn more Adsense revenue and hopefully get advertisers to want to buy links and advertising space.
Since Secaucus.com is the smallest of my geo websites, I wanted to build a mini site with good information but required little upkeep and maintenance.   I just started adding commonly searched for information, such as lawyers in Secaucus, Secaucus gas prices, and Secaucus banks.   I will continue to add pages with the hope of building traffic and generating revenue.
My aeiou.com mini site template got me off to a great start, and I am going to take off running with it.

Moniker Live Auction List is Fantastic

Elliot Silver
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Subscribe to Elliot's BlogMike Berkens just posted the tentative Moniker Live Auction list for the TRAFFIC show in New York on his blog, and the list has some incredible domain names. I don’t remember seeing a better live auction list before, and if the reserve prices are reasonable, this could set a new record. Hopefully Moniker is busy emailing potential end users about the domain names in auction, and let’s hope some of these prospects bid!

Uneducated Comments from Amateurs

Elliot Silver
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32

Subscribe to Elliot's BlogThese past couple weeks, I’ve been irritated by people making uneducated comments about end-user sales being too high. On various public domain forums, some people seem to think that end users are paying too much for domain names that define their nice or define a major category in their niche. I think these comments are uneducated and somewhat baffling.
If your family owned a diamond or jewelry business on the 4th floor of a building in New York’s famous diamond district, how much would it be worth to be able to buy out the lease of the shop right on the corner of 47th and 5th, which is passed by tens of thousands of people a day?   This location is far more lucrative to a diamond dealer than it would be to someone else – say a ski shop.   I wouldn’t expect the owner of a ski shop to criticize a diamond dealer for paying millions of dollars to secure the best slot in the diamond district, so why are some domain investors critical of domain sales to end users – the people that know their business?
Some of the threads where comments were being made seem to be more of a personal nature directed at Rick Schwartz and his recent sale of RoomDividers.com.   There are people who are actually alluding to a conspiracy theory or some other dumb bullshit (like Rick is going to stake his rep on a $75k deal).   For fuck’s sake – leave Rick alone.   It’s easy taking potshots at one of the domain industry leaders, but it makes you look like a clown.   By no means do you have to agree with everyone, but there is a way to disagree without being disagreeable.
Think what you want about whoever you want, but when you air your views out in the public, people may be less inclined to do business with you, and it’s your reputation that will take a hit.

Smart Domain Acquisition Strategy & Global Branding

Elliot Silver
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When you see this logo, do you think soccer.tv, football.tv, futbol.tv, calcio.tv?   Perhaps this sport goes by another name in your country, and you would use an IDN to find the site. Regardless of what you call the sport depicted in the logo, Michael Schneider has it covered because of his smart domain strategy. Michael acquired nearly every single worldwide language variation of the word. The branding is unique, and he doesn’t have to worry about losing visitors due to language differences.
By doing what Michael did with his portfolio of related domain names, he can have wonderfully unique branding that many others couldn’t match.   Had Michael just registered one or two versions of the term, it’s likely he would have lost visitors who entered a different term into their browser box.
Other companies have also done what Michael is doing with their brands. Playboy, Apple, and the NBA have   spent billions of dollars branding their logos and imaging, and they are able to use an icon to signify the domain name.   Michael has spent 7 figures acquiring his soccer/football related domain names, but the logo clearly shows what users will find when they enter their familiar keyword with .tv.
Just imagine you are watching a game..they can then freeze/pause on the ball…just add a www. to the left of the ball, a .TV to the right of it and you just ‘spoke’ to the whole world during the game with what carries most sentiment – the ball.
I think this is a smart domain acquisition and global branding strategy.

After A Big Sale – How Do You Reinvest?

Elliot Silver
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Subscribe to Elliot's BlogAfter learning about Rick’s pending big sale, I am wondering what other domain investors do with the proceeds from a very large sale.   Personally, I almost always reinvest as much as I can in better domain names for development or for resale.   I would think that once you’ve sold a 7 or 8 figure domain name, you are less inclined to reinvest in lower value domain names. So I’d like to pose a question to those of you who completed large domain sales or anticipate closing on one:
When you sell a high value domain name, how do you reinvest that money?

  • Do you buy other domain names?
  • Do you invest in real estate?
  • Do you provide seed capital for incubating companies?
  • Do you invest in the stock market?
  • Do you live off of your revenue in the French Riviera?
  • Do you make it rain at the Spearmint Rhino?

They May Be Watching Everything You Do

Elliot Silver
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10

Subscribe to Elliot's BlogOne of the neatest innovations in the supermarket industry was the introduction of loyalty rewards cards. Supermarket customers sign up for a loyalty card, and the supermarket gives them special discounts that aren’t available to regular customers when the card is swiped at the point of sale. Not only do these loyal customers save money, but they are also privy to special offers from the supermarket. Sounds like a great deal, right?
Well, the reason supermarkets and other businesses are so happy about these rewards programs is because of the fantastic data that comes along with their usage. When you use your rewards card, the supermarket knows how often you buy milk, when you buy beer, what brand of condoms you use (regular or magnums), and a troth of other valuable personal data that you would probably be reticent to share. When you think about it, this is kinda scary.
This same type of thing happens every day in the domain industry, too – although it might not be as obvious. When you do a Whois look-up, that information may be stored by the company where you searched. When you purchase an appraisal or use a free appraisal service, that data may be stored, too. Same goes for your accounts with your parking companies – they know how much traffic your names receive, which niche makes the most money, and which of your names is your biggest earner. Even when you complete a confidential sale using an escrow service, the buyer and seller data may be seen by the escrow company.
I haven’t heard of any cases where this power has been abused, but you should be very mindful of the potential wealth of data you are giving out by performing every day business tasks. You should be especially careful if the companies or principals of the companies can use the data for a competitive advantage. I am all for domain companies hiring people who are familiar with the domain industry and how domain investors think.   However, with that comes the potential for privacy issues.

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