Ahhhhhhh, it makes sense you ninny!!!!!!

I have close to 1,000 domain names covering practically every extension and niche possible. Many of my domains are generic and even though most are not .com they are enduser centric and provide value if coupled with development. I’m talking about nice generic hyphen .com or .net that receive over 10k exact searches (Hardwood-Flooring.net, Computer-Games.net, Motorcycle-Lift.com….) lots of domains like those.

For someone that understands domain names, marketing, and SEO; domains like the ones above are no brainers…especially for my asking prices. But I continually get shut down, why you ask….I have no idea. I can only blame it on the infancy of the global domain name market and the lack of understanding that domain names have in SEO, the latter is especially apparent when it comes to pitching to Marketing Directors/Sales Directors – they just don’t get it.

Since I like examples, here is one for a Real Estate .com domain that I was trying to sell a few weeks ago. The domain is Laguna/Beach/Real/Estate/Agent dot com (remove /). If you’re thinking whats so special about this domain, well how about that Laguna Beach and Newport Beach have some of the most expensive properties listed in the US. We are talking about $15 – $20 million homes and not just a couple but many of them. The average commission on a sale is 6%, that is usually split with the real estate group to 3%. 3% of $15 million is $450,000 – thats a lot of money. So if you are the owner of a real estate company in Laguna Beach and you are listing million dollar properties, would it really hurt to have more than one website, utilizing more than one domain to get all the visitors you can?

To me the clear answer is, no it wouldn’t hurt, you dummies!!! Even if I were to buy my above domain at $999 then spend another $4k on development and SEO – optimize for Laguna Beach Real Estate, then wait a few months, it would still be worth it. Even if I only sold one home in 10 years it would still be worth it…why is this such a hard concept to grasp. I would think that people within the Real estate world would be able to convey the value of a virtual property more concretely than any other buyer, but I guess not. The high offer I got for this domain was $200, thanks but no thanks

I think that we are still about 5 years away from the general public completely understanding the inherent value of domain names (all things remaining equal) not only from an SEO perspective but also from a marketing aspect. Domains are a crucial component to a website and their supply is limited…I wish some companies had the foresight that most of us domainers have. If only they understood that domains are an investment, an asset – a vehicle for future revenue generation…ay theres the rub.

Sedo.com

Sedo.com’s Ryan Colby has been given the awesome task of finding a home for an extremely generic portfolio of domain names. The portfolio includes many six figure domains and some truly amazing generic category killer domains. Here is a partial list of the domains being brokered:

• Italy.com
• Spain.com
• Laptops.com
• Desktops.com
• TVs.com
• Profit.com
• MutualFund.com
• Fiji.com
• Denmark.com
• Paint.com
• Directions.com
• Hearing.com
• Nuts.com
• Outdoors.com
• Dad.com
• Financing.com
• Holidays.com
• Venezuela.com
• Netherlands.com
• InteriorDesign.com
• InsuranceBroker.com
• FinancialAdvisor.com
• Management.com
• StThomas.com
• NiagaraFalls.com
• Champs.com
• Government.com
• Cozumel.com
• Assets.com
• Opportunities.com
• Mechanic.com
• CaboSanLucas.com
• FloodInsurance.com
• Lithuania.com
• GiftShop.com
• Psychologist.com
• PuertoVallarta.com
• Insider.com
• Creations.com
• Mazatlan.com
• Latvia.com
• Optometrist.com

What do you think the value of this portfolio is?? What’s the most valuable domain in this portfolio of gems…which one would you buy and develop (if you could )

I started writing this entry a while ago but decided to scratch it…until now. This was the original “Selecting a domain name Part 2″

So now that you have a clear cut idea on how you plan on utilizing your domain name, the next step is narrowing down the options. There are plenty of options available, more options than you think. Your domain name options aren’t just limited to a generic product or service related to your business, in fact, there likely are a multitude of domain names that will be suitable for your needs.

I’m sure you’re thinking “What!!! More than one option???” Sounds crazy, but yeah – domains are abundant and the possibilities are endless.

When you are selecting a domain name, you really want to find a brandable domain as well as a great domain for SEO (search engine optimization) purposes. The brandable domain name is the one that you put in front of the customer – on marketing material, your website, business cards, etc. The SEO domain is the one that you use to help elevate your search engine rankings and redirect to your main domain name. Granted, there are SEO (generic domain names) so memorable and brandable that they cover both facets, i.e. Hotels.com. Lets use a hypothetical situation to find a brandable domain and an SEO domain name.

Lets say that you are a Chiropractor in Dallas, Texas and the name of your facility is BGMV Chiro Clinic.

You want customers to find you via a search engine ( Google, Bing, Yahoo,etc) for both the name of your company as well as the product/service you provide. I would want potential customers to find me by searching for “Chiropractor Dallas”  as this is a niche search and describes where you offer services and what services you offer.  Now, you have a few choices – you can either utilize a domain name like ChiroractorDallas.net (or .com/.org) and construct a site strictly for SEO purposes to increase your organic search engine rankings for your desired keywords OR you can utilize your brandable domain “BGMVChiro.com” or something similar, and build up SEO for the keyword “Chiropractor Dallas.” I personally would recommend 2 separate websites, with completely different and original content on each site. This will give you a better chance of getting to the top of the search engines.

The above instance is actually a “local search” example, as it incorporates a specific geographical location in the desired search parameters, a true generic product/service will

My next post will consist of how to choose a domain name based on characteristics like: keyword domains, brand name, hyphens, extension, exact match, and some more fun stuff…stay tuned or subscribe to our RSS feed or follow us @bvardag!

Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has been confirmed dead by the WSJ’s sources on Sunday May 1st. The United States apparently has his body, and will officially confirm his death tomorrow. Finally, this monster has been ridden from our Earth…hope it hurt

Red Tulips in April

The majority of the domain names I own were acquired for reg fee and usually caught on the drop. These aren’t exactly million dollar domains that I’m catching but most of them are either brandable or have enough search volume to be site worthy.

One of the great things about my portfolio is that because my acquisition costs are so low, I have a higher margin for profit. Hell, if I sell a domain for $100 I’m looking at 10x ROI…yeah, I have to consider the time I spent prospecting as well but even so, I’m still ahead.

I mainly go after .com, .net, and .org domains. Occasionally, I will buy a .info or .us if it really is a great keyword and has some development potential. I don’t shy away from hyphens because when I develop a domain 90% of the traffic comes from search engines, so I could really careless as long as the keywords are in the domain.

Every now and then I go through the popular domain/marketing forums: DNF, Namepros, DP, Warrior Forum, or Flippa to find some deals. The deals are few and far between but they are out there if you look hard enough.

So here are some of the domains I have purchased in April:

JustScholarships.com – awesome potential and very bandable for a site dedicated to secondary education scholarships, this is a big money vertical with substantial payouts for qualified leads

SupportCity.com – clearly a nice brandable and the tailing “city” domains have had some pretty nice results this year, many sales in excess of $5,000

HulkHost.com - another brandbale in the very desired “hosting” niche. This is one of my favorite acquisitions because it is so easy to remember and brand…definitely a winner in my book

Trekking-Poles.com - this may seem like a WTF kind of acquisition but upon further scrutiny you will realize that there are 4,400 exact global monthly searches in G with a $1.13 avg CPC. The stats aren’t mind blowing but this is a domain that can stand alone and be utilized for any online campaign. Plus there are quite a few “trekking pole” manufacturers out there.

SchoolSphere.com - yet another brandable education domain, what can I say there is a lot of potential and demand for these types of domains and many are used as PPC bait only for lead gen campaigns

SleepApneaTreatment.us – HUGE online market with a healthy avg. CPC ($4.37) and large search volume (8,100 exact local). All extensions taken and this one is ripe for development

AllFreeTemplates.net – this is a decent domain, not great by any means but it needs to be developed. There are many sites out there with those sort of domain and it does have the “Free Templates” keyword which gets 60,500 exact searches a month. But these types of domains are the ones I end up selling for $X,XXX, it’s always the most random ones

ReeferDirect.com - with the legalization of marijuana becoming ever so prevalent in the US, this domain is only years away from seeing its true potential…mail order weed. I like it as a brandable and will hold onto it or develop

Letras-De-Musicas.net – ah ha, this is one of those head scratchers where I’m like “Did I do that???” Then I look up the G search and see that there are…get ready for this…2,240,000 Exact global searches a month. This is a Portugese phrase that translates to “song lyrics” – a lot of traffic potential with this one

Thats pretty much it for this month. Would like to hear your thoughts on my acquisitions and maybe you can share some of your recent purchases!

Yield to Google Personalized Search

If you’re ranking on the first page of G on YOUR computer and there is no traffic coming to your site, you might be encountering one of two problems:

1. The keyword that you are ranking for isn’t getting any monthly searches (check Google Keyword Tool for “EXACT SEARCHES” not “BROAD”)

2. Google Personal Search is Enabled

Now if you are encountering the first problem, my suggestion is to do some more keyword research and try to implement higher search keywords in the content of your site.

For problemo numero dos, I have a quick solution.

I have found myself ranking #1 in Google for highly competetive keywords only to find that my Google results were skewed due to the personal search feature being enabled. The personal search feature takes into account previous searches and ranks the results based on relevance to prior search activity, which is all tracked by cookies.

To disbale the Personal Search feature you can simply delete your web history cookies OR you can follow these steps:

1. After conducting a search in Google, click on the gear icon on the Google toolbar next to the “Sign In” button and select “Web History”

Step 1

2. If Personal Search is enabled you will see this heading “Your search results may be customized using search activity from this computer”

Below the bold heading, click on “Disable customizations based on search activity”

Step Deuce

3. If all went well, you will be taken to a duplicate screen informing you that “Customization based on signed-out search activity is disabled.”

Step Trois

And Voila…you are back to being ranked on page 7 for “Computer Games!”

Backlinks from Wikipedia

I have been playing around with Wikipedia over the past few months and kind of stumbled upon something by chance.

I’m sure many of you are familiar with the fact that Wikipedia encourages social editing of its articles and in turn allows anyone to edit an entry. I have had a Wikipedia account for almost a year now and have contributed many RELEVANT edits to a broad range of entries.

When I first started editing entries I did it mainly because the topic was something that I had an interest in and I did have knowledge about the subject and was able to contribute worthwhile information that was not spammy. The good thing is that those edits looked great on my profile because they were done pro bono without any incognito backlink placement or irrelevant content and were never reedited.

So after a few months of doing some editing on Wiki I decided to test the waters and drop a backlink into some of the content that I was amending…and to my amazement it stuck and got indexed. This is like pure gold as Wikipedia is pretty much THE authority backlink and can propel mostly any site into the top of the SERPs.

The only reason this particular backlink stuck was because the site I was backlinking to was relevant to the information I added and this entry had a unique component that I took notice of. To date I have a 100% success rate of the backlinks I have dropped on Wiki! I am not going to give away the secret for fear of spammers ruining this unique opportunity, as they always tend to do. But if you want to know the secret subscribe to my newsletter below!

You can’t just go to Wikipedia and edit a bunch of entries and drop in a <a href> tag, that won’t work; your entry will be edited within hours, and you can possibly be blacklisted from making edits.
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Original Content is King

There is no doubt in mind that content is king.

Sure anyone can get to the top of the SERPs with a targeted and dedicated SEO campaign but at the end of the line, content is what drives traffic. It is relatively easy to emulate a top ranking site and design a SEO campaign around your competition. But at the end of the day what makes your site different….nothing!

After months of linkbuilding, article posting, guest blogging, and content creation you finally get to the top 3 of Google for a relatively competitive keyword. You used the #1 and #2 ranking sites as a guide to your SEO campagin and content creation. A visitor makes it to your site, most likely after visiting the top two ranked sites, and what do they see….

They see the same regurgitated information that was evident on the first two sites. If they didn’t find what they were looking for the first time around and they ventured to your site, what would make them stay and not bounce? The answer is original content that is actually relative and meaningful to their search, not a MFA (made for Adsense) whore site begging for a few clicks. (We are all guilty of this, myself included)

Content is what drives visitors to delve deeper into your site, read your articles, decrease bounce rate, join discussions, and most importantly come back. Don’t write an article or post just for the sake of SEO and filling in the keyword gaps, its only a temporary solution. Original content is everlasting, and with time it will increase your rankings because humans (not spiders) are the people who actually care about what is on your site and have the ability to sneeze your work via an intricate web of social communication.

Google is cracking down on content farms and I suspect that in the coming months there will be a major algorithm adjustment that might possibly include human intervention. Is your site worth visiting?

I for one will be making major adjustments to all of my sites to appease my visitors not the nebulous being that is Google.

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Selecting the Right Domain

So by now you have figured out the purpose of your domain name and more or less have an idea of the domain name you are looking for. Now you have to make a decision on what type of domain name is best for you. Before I purchase a new domain name for an upcoming project I consider the following: Exact Match, Keywords,  Spellings, Brand Name/Trademark, Hyphens, Length, and Radio Test.

Brand Name/Trademark: The reason I decided to start with this topic is because a lot of people don’t understand the severity and repercussions that come along with using someone else’s TM or brand in their domain name.   If you don’t own the TM or if you dont have a logical reason for utilizing a brand name then DO NOT register it -you have been forewarned. There have been many lawsuits against cybersquatters and TM abusers alike,  many ending in seven figure settlements to the plaintiff. The risk is not worth any potential reward in my opinion. Now if you are an affiliate or reseller of a brand or TM name then you can more than likely utilize their name without the likelihood of getting sued, but I would still double check with an attorney prior to diving in. If you aren’t sure if a term is trademarked in the United States you can use http://tess2.uspto.gov/ to check for a trademark.

But if you DO own a TM or have rights to a brand name that is a different story. More than likely you already own the TM domain name or brand but if you don’t its not that easy to get the domain. You can file a UDRP dispute but it must backed up with evidence that you have owned the TM prior to the domain name being acquired and that the current owner of the domain in question is using it in bad faith. It is an annoying process for both the TM defender and the owner of the domain, as the process is expensive and arduous, additionally if your plead is unfounded you may be labeled as a “reverse domain name hijacker.”

Exact Match: Exact Match domains are the creme de la creme, they are the products/services you offer, they are category killer domain names…think Hotels.com, Cars.com, Credit.com, CreditCards.com or Loans.com (redirects to Bank of America.) Exact match domains offer many benefits and usually are associated with a premium price; the domains mentioned before all would sell for over $5million without content. But that is the price you pay for owning prime real estate.  Chances are that the exact match domain related to your industry or product/service is already taken in every extension – but consider the benefits, the asking price is often justified, especially with the right development plan behind the domain.

One of the many benefits of Exact Match domains is the amount of type-in traffic associated with a given term, usually applies only to the .com extension. But this is free traffic coming into your site due solely to the generic nature of your domain name…5-10 years ago domainers were making mad money off type-in traffic but as parking revenue declined so has the value of their virtual real estate. Today the value lies in development potential and traffic.

I am going to do a follow up on why I would pay big money for an exact match domain name – stay tuned or subscribe.

Hyphens: A hyphenated  domain (Reverse-Phone-Lookup.net) may not look pretty, but in terms of development/SEO it holds a lot of potential. First let me cover the negatives of a hyphenated domain: it doesn’t translate well when spoken, hard to remember, doesn’t look good, not brandable, potential for traffic bleed to non-hyphen, and seen as spammy. The benefits: has virtually the same effect in SEO as an exact match domain, is a lot cheaper compared to exact match, often times is available to register, is becoming more widely used as alternatives are scarce (commonplace in Europe), developers love them, domainers hate them because there is no type-in traffic (good for buyers).

I personally like hyphens, because I have seen many instances first hand where they have been used effectively and gained first position Google rankings for extremely competitive and saturated terms. With the proper resources hyphen domains can be developed into powerhouses, example (highspeed-internet-providers.com), the hyphens aren’t even in the right place but nonetheless this site gets tons of traffic and has ranked very well organically. My opinion is to have one domain designated for SEO and another as your brandable/marketing site.

Keyword Domains: Not everyone has the capital necessary to acquire an exact match domain related to their product/service, the next best option is a keyword domain. A keyword domain is a domain name that contains the exact match keyword but adds a prefix or suffix (MiamiHotelDeals(.)com) Keyword domains are still a good option as they can rank well with SEO/Development but they have a lower keyword density. Depending on the domain in question, keyword domains can work as they are often times brandable but can also be expensive.

Extension: The most prevalent extension is .com, try to stick to it, but if the cost of the domain is too high your next bet is .net or .org. I would not venture outside of these three as they are considered global TLD and can be used universally. Also, don’t get into the hype of all the ccTLD (.co, .me, .tk, .yu,.ru, etc.) they are meant for a localized/select country audience – these domains aren’t meant to be utilized for a global audience and can effect your Google rankings.

Length: In the domain world, shorter is better. Keep it short and sweet, memorable, and easy to type. Some words are hard to spell, try to avoid those and stay away from homophones.

Spellings: The trend is to start a tech company with a cutesy name that is spelled incorrectly (Wyspr.com) – try to ignore the masses, I know it’s hard, and stick to real word domains that are actually searched.

Radio Test: When buying a domain name make sure it passes the “Radio Test.” Just imagine if the domain you are buying was being advertised on the radio, would people be able to spell it and remember it when they got home? (Czir.com doesn’t pass the radio test but FoxBet.com does.)

Selecting a domain name

The art of selecting a domain name for business use or really any use is literally a science. Some of you that may have attempted to buy a domain name from a “domainer” probably got a little sticker shock when they responded with their asking price.

Once you manage to digest the asking price the next step is to evaluate what the domain has to offer your business.

• Is this a brandable domain that doesn’t really have much value other than when the site is launched
• Is this domain being bought in concerto with a new product release
• Does this domain have any monthly search volume that can be captured once the site is developed and SEO is implemented
• Is there natural traffic already coming to this domain, either by type-in or due to an existing website
• How important is this domain name to your business – can you find an alternative?
• Do you know how you are going to use this domain?
• Is this domain name brandable, memorable, does it relate to your core business, will it be received well by your target audience?

These are all questions you have to ask yourself before purchasing a domain, you need a solid plan and idea of how, why, when, and where you are going to use your domain name.