by Domain Graduate Staff

As a new entrant in the domain investment industry, you’re likely to find more opportunity in development than in parking alone. Generic names are often sold at high yearly-revenue-multiples (YRMs) based upon PPC revenues, which places them out of the price range of most investors. While the first chapter of the domain industry has unfolded, keep in mind that you’re entering at a stage where there’s still a great opportunity to begin developing names and doing well with smart keyword research.

When selecting names beyond prime-generics, it’s important to be selective and come to understand the potential in a given market. As a first start, since we’re targeting search-engine traffic, you’ll want to check out WordTracker (FreeKeywords.Wordtracker.com) which provides ISP-level data on search query popularity. Make sure the root keyword(s) in your domain reflect a popular industry and have market demand. Let’s take an example of forming a solid-two word domain around the accounting industry – suppose we chose [Word]Taxes.com or Taxes[Word].com where [Word] reflects your choice of prefix or suffix (these can be verbs, e.g. FindTaxes.com, adjectives, e.g., BigTaxes.com, or nouns, e.g. CityTaxes.com.) Wordtracker tells us that the term “taxes” is search 2,679 times per day – this is a strong industry, as we would expect.

Now that we have verified there is market demand, you’ll want to see the monetization potential in the chosen vertical. There are two aspects to this question: advertiser prevalence and SEO-competition. Google provides us with two proxy metrics for each of these questions. To determine advertiser density (the number of PPC advertisers for a given keyword) we can check: http://www.google.com/search?adtest=on

This reveals there are 50+ advertisers on the term “taxes” – this is a green light. However, it’s also important to analyze the difficulty of ranking for such a term – so we analyze the title tag prevalence of the term (how often developed sites use the term “Taxes” in their meta title tag – a prime component of SEO targeting.) We search for intitle:”taxes” on Google to find nearly 2 million competitors for this prime generic term – chances are, when developing a new site we’ll have a tough time ranking for such a top-level term.

Taking the next step, it’s important to analyze the WordTracker data to find “long-tail” keyword that we can target – these will have fewer searches, but will be more directed in user intent, and will certainly have less competition. When choosing domains to begin development keep in mind that Google looks for quality keywords as well as domain age (ideally you want to purchase solid, aged domains at good values on the aftermarket, but when registering a new domain for development, register it for at least 2 years). In the next article we will hone in on how to begin targeting prime niches and choosing a platform for development that is cost and SEO-effective.

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• Should You Sell Your Domain Name? (2)

As the value of good generic names keeps increasing, there is very little reason to sell your domains names at this stage at the game. Yet, people do. You would do well to learn one thing concerning the domain name market very early: PATIENCE. If you are eager to spend money then there will be sharks salivating and lining up, happy to take it from you. The point is, that you don‘t want to spend money just to spend it, you need to make sure the buys you are making are quality buys.

However, if you do come to a time and place that you want to sell your domain, you need to keep a few things in mind.

If you are going to make a business out of domains and you are going to open your own company, you need to make enough to pay any taxes that may be incurred. This is a big area of debate and I’m not a tax expert, so consult your tax advisor.

You obviously need to make enough to cover the original purchase price, but you may also need to factor in other expenses such as renewal fees, how much PayPal, escrow fees (sedo or other escrow company) are going to take from you when you make the domain sale.

Can your domain names make more money if you wait a bit longer for a different person who may want this more? Is there a big enough market to where other people would be willing to buy this name so they had an “edge” on the competition? Or are you selling to a “reseller” (a person just as yourself who is buying the name to hold and resell later).

Is it really the “right” time to sell your domain, if you wait will the product/service/etc become more widely known or will the domain bring in more traffic? (E.g. HybridRVs.com).

Do you really even “need” to sell or do you just want to? You may need money for other ventures, but if you don‘t, then what is the point?

Is it an offer that you just cannot refuse?

I have had offers on domain names that I could not refuse before, it’s not common but it happens. I had just registered about 20 .us domain names and shortly thereafter a guy got a hold of me and offered $500 off the bat for one of them. Considering that I just registered the domain name, and the mere fact that the .us market has really not picked up, it was probably a good decision to sell. I sold him the domain for $500 total. That sale paid for the purchase of the other 19 .us‘s and also the renewal fee for them along with some money to spare.

In a case like the above, unless what you just registered is a true gem, there is probably no reason to decline the offer. But before you sell make sure a transaction will even be worth your time. If the same guy came to me and said he would have given me $40 for the domain name (and that would be as high as he would go), then there would have been very little reason for me to sell.

Remember, your time is worth money too. However, if you are a “time” person, then these are the types of sales you need to target and you need to target them over and over again until you reach a healthy base with domain name parking revenue. Once you become a “money” person, these types of things are not worth your time at all in the slightest. Remember, you want to become a money person as soon as possible.

So if you decide to keep your domain names or not which is completely up to you. Just be sure to make a well thought out decision.

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• The Importance of Owning Your-Own-Name.com (5)
• Graduating from Direct-Navigation to Organic Search - Lesson 1: Understanding Opportunities and Competition (0)

Since I work directly in the domain name industry, I know firsthand the importance of branding a website, a publication, or a business. The name of a business/website/etc. can make or break an entity.

Take for example some of the blogs out there on the Internet. Most people these days go to some-blog-service.com, sign up for a blog. The service then issues a subdomain for that blog (such as seanstafford.some-blog-service.com.)

The subdomain is functional, and it does brand you to a degree. However, it also may cause confusion or a mistype when inputted into the URL bar. And since the ultimate goal for your blog/website is to get people to visit it, you are making it harder for your visitors to actually reach you. Why would they type in YourFirstNameLastName.some-blog-service.com when they expect to see your site at www.YourFirstNameLastName.com?

Registrars such as NameCheap.com, Moniker.com, and GoDaddy.com provide a service for domain registration at very reasonable fees. And by “reasonable” I mean in the ten dollar range or less.

One of the huge tragedies I see in today’s online world is people who use their names as income (writers, journalists, etc) forgetting or not appreciating how important domain names really are. One of the biggest assets a writer or journalist has is his name, yet does he own his-name.com?

I recently had the pleasure of getting to meet a number of journalists at a party that I attended over the holidays. After they inquired about my profession, I asked a lot of them if they owned their own FirstnameLastname.com domain. Much to my surprise, I found that one, only one, had registered his name. And when I asked the others why they had not registered their own names, they told me they did not think it important.

This is the question I always ask when I get that response: “Would you believe it to be important if someone else registered your FirstnameLastname.com and then put offensive material on it for the world to see”? Example: A malicious person could register the name of a local, but well known person and put ads on it that were offensive. Now, every time someone searches in Google for info about this well known person, this offensive site comes up somewhere in the search results. Although this probably (hopefully) would not cause major damage, it certainly does not help the person affected and will also probably cause major confusion for the visitor. It may also cause the loss of a reader, client or advertiser for the organization the person works for.

Do you think the above is unlikely? Well it is more likely than most would like to believe. The objective of the malicious person described is to extort money from the victim. Once a newscaster, journalist, writer, or otherwise well known person (maybe industry wide, locally, or nationally well known) sees this type of material on his FirstnameLastName.com, more than likely he will be concerned. And a lot of the time, the victim will be willing to do or pay whatever necessary to have this offensive material go away. There are legal avenues available to remedy situations like this, but they aren’t quick, and they are usually not cheap.

So, what is the best way to protect yourself against this? Register your own domain name! Now, it also needs to be noted that sometimes it is not going to be possible to obtain your own FirstnameLastname.com domain. Domains such as “johnsmith.com” and “billjones.com” or any other common name were probably registered long ago. In that case, you can always go for the .net or maybe another extension. But if your .com name is available for registration, it is a travesty for you not to do so.

So maybe you are a journalist, writer, locally famous person, or maybe just an avid internet guru who would like to reserve your brand for future use. At a price point of 10 dollars or less a year, it just makes sense! After all, the only thing we really have is our name.

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• Should You Sell Your Domain Name? (2)