February 5th, 2010 the following presentation was offered to an engaged audience of entrepreneurs at LaunchCamp Boston.

The presentation covers four major areas

1. Domain Names
   1. How to Choose
   2. How to Register
   3. How to Retain
2. Why use WordPress for a website (even without a blog)
3. SEO
   1. Key Word Research
   2. Local SEO
   3. Directories
   4. Citations and Links
4. Website Redesign walk-through

The audience had great questions on choosing, registering and retaining domain names, key word research, WordPress for websites and renaming files. They also had great observations about the motives for the website redesign what made the changes appealing and effective.

Special thanks go to Selina McCusker for assistance with the slide deck design.

More LaunchCamp presentations;

click the link to visit the speaker’s site and view the presentation

Mike Troiano on Achieving Scalable Intimacy

The two character .com and .net auction over at Sedo seems to be moving right along. As of this posting three domains have risen into the $100,000 range. Six to eight are in a range about half that price.

Two out of three of the domains at auction remain priced at $10,000 or below.

There are no .net domains priced over $11,000. The .com domain names are clearly the most desirable in this auction.

Reserves Not Met

I am surprised to see that only 5 our of the 31 domains have met the reserve price. And one is bid up to the lowest price of the auction, $1,000 for 5r.net.

il.com has a reserve of $500,000. Even though it has bid up and shows one of the highest bids, it is still well shy of the reserve price.

cd.net seems like one of the most commercially viable generic names in the auction. Of course .com would be better, but for a current bid of almost $10,000, it is worth considering. One more bid and it meets the reserve price of $10,000.

Possible Buyers

Too bad the days of the P4 are over, or maybe the seller of p4.com might have interested Intel in that domain name for their Pentium processor.

I wonder if a major car manufacturer might be bidding on xb.com. Scion, where are you? That would be a great marketing move. Think of the resale value of that domain even if the car gets canceled in a decade.

It is interesting that some of these domains are showing less than 100 visitors a month. Clearly their owners have not been developing this Internet Real Estate. Instead they buy and sell, while leaving the development to someone else.

Two Days Left - Click to visit SEDO auction page

Which is the most commercially viable domain name in the lot?
If half of the domains do not meet their reserves, is this auction a failure?

Please leave a comment below and share your insights and questions.

See the first post in this series, along with the opening bids here - SEDO’s Two Character .com and .net Auction

I don’t see two character .com and .net domains at auction very often, so this is fun for me to watch.

There are 31 domains in an auction that began today and will run for 6 more days.  It is interesting that the reserve prices range from $1 to $500,000. Already nearly all of the domains have met their reserve prices.

The Domains

Every domain has at least one bid on the first day of bidding.

64.com already has 24 bids, the most of all today.

P4.com has 11 bids. Most  other domain names have one to five bids.

il.com has the highest bid of $85,000

nl.com has a bid of $30,000, which is the next highest

There are only 10 domains with a current bid price under $5,000

What, No Website?

Nearly all of these domains have no website and generally under a 100 inbound links.  Although one has over 8,000 inbound links.

This means that you are buying potential.  You are buying scarcity. You are buying Internet Real Estate.

These domains do not have operating websites with a developed revenue stream.  They may be parked (at SEDO of course) and earning a revenue stream on direct type in traffic converted via Google AdSense.

If I had the money would I love to own a 2 character domain name? Absolutely!

Day 1 of the Auction - click to visit SEDO site.

How Will it End?

Which domains will fetch the highest prices?

Which domains will garner the most bids?

Which domains won’t sell?

– What do you think?

Read Part Two of this series here SEDO’s Two Character Domain Name Auction

Domainers buy website domain names and sell domains for profit.  Maybe you are not a domainer, but have some ideas about buying domain names for profit.  Where do you start?

If you want cheap domain names, and by that I mean you only want to pay $10 or less for a domain name (the registration fee) and don’t want to sign up with the various drop services, you still have some options.

How to Find Domain Names

You can search for and find domain names at godrops.com

This site allows you to search for recently dropped domain names that have been tasted, but not registered.

Tasting describes the process of registering a domain name, seeing how it performs, and then returning the non-performing domain names to the registrar for a refund within 5 days.  This serves as a quick filter, preventing you from searching through lots of undesirable domain names.

Domains with hyphens, numbers and domains that are not dot coms are undesirable.

How to Evaluate Domain Names

You could simply pick the ones that sound good to you.  This is an unreliable approach for selecting a domain name.

Instead, you might evaluation a potential domain name by gathering some relevant data before making the purchase.

Let’s run through an example. Today godrops.com shows that premiumstoves.com just dropped and is available for registration.

Search Google

Search Google for “premium stoves”, “premiumstoves.com” “premium” and “stoves”

How much search volume is there?
How many paid ads are there?
What do the top listings look like?

Search the Google AdWords key word tool for premium stoves

Is there any search volume?
Is there adequate search volume?
How much competition is there?

Also, take a peak at Google Trends.

Gather information at Estibot

Enter your domain name at estibot.com and look at the collected data.  A domain name that already has traffic and ranks is generally better than one that does not.

Enter in another domain name or two to get some perspective.

The dollar figures should be taken with a grain of salt.

Search the Wayback Machine

Visit the Wayback Macine and enter the domain name.

Was a website ever built on the domain name?
If a website was built, does it look good or not?
Was the domain name parked?
When was the domain first indexed by the Wayback Machine?

Search and Evaluate Domain Names for Free

This quick evaluation demonstrates that premiumstoves.com does not fit my profile for possible acquisitions.

Additional Domain Name Search Resources

Bust A Name – enter a few key words as it searches for matches
Make Words – combine key words into domain names that are available
Dot Center – find expired domain names
Domainsbot – creates and searches for domain names based on keywords
SmartPageRank – helps you find domains based on criteria you set.
If you want to purchase software, consider the Domand Research Tool.

There are hundreds of additional resources to find, select, evaluate and purchase a domain name.

How do you find domain names?

How do you evaluate domain names?

I will be happy to udpate the list with your suggestions.

Here you will find information on selecting, purchasing, managing and profiting from domain names. Good News. The exciting world of domainers lies ahead.

Below is a list of domain names along with the date of registration. A few domains are interesting, many were inherited. Most of these domain names are parked at Fabulous for now.

Miscellaneous

www.CORONASINGLES.COM 26-Nov-2004
www.CUSTOMPIZZABOX.COM 19-Sep-2006
www.DRYCLOTHES.COM 22-Sep-2006
www.ALLAMERICANHOMEIMPROVEMENT.COM 6-Apr-2005
www.LOSANGELESFITNESSTRAINER.COM 27-May-2005

Mattresses

www.MATTRESSINABOX.COM 2-Jun-2004
www.DANNASMATTRESS.COM 20-Jan-2005

Golf Cart / Exotic Car

www.EMERALDCARCLUB.COM 19-Sep-2006
www.GOLFCLUBCAR.COM 19-Sep-2006
www.PRESTIGEGOLFCARTS.COM 20-Jun-2005

Short Company Names

www.ATWCO.COM 26-Sep-2006
www.HANGCO.COM 26-Sep-2006
www.LDDZ.COM 26-Sep-2006
www.RDFCO.COM 22-Sep-2006
www.RTRCO.COM 26-Sep-2006
www.SSKCO.COM 26-Sep-2006
www.UMERCO.COM 26-Sep-2006
www.ZYRCO.COM 19-Sep-2006

Design Industry

www.COWGIRLCREATIONS.COM 21-Nov-2000
www.VALDESIGNS.NET 7-Nov-2003
www.VALDEZIGNS.NET 7-Nov-2003
www.VALSTENNISWEAR.NET 7-Nov-2003
www.VALSTENNISWEAR.COM 22-Sep-2006

Bridal industry

www.VICTORIANBRIDALHATS.COM 25-Oct-2003
www.WESTERNBRIDAL.COM 25-Oct-2003
www.WESTERNBRIDALHATS.COM 25-Oct-2003

Web Site Design

www.1800BUSINESSWEBSITES.COM 27-May-2003
www.BUSINESSWEBDESIGNPROS.COM 18-Sep-2003
www.BUSINESS-WEBSITE-DESIGNS.COM 23-Oct-2004
www.GRAPHICWEBDESIGNER.COM 6-Feb-2002
www.JOHNSWEBDESIGNS.COM 7-Feb-2002

Web Site Sales

www.HOWTOSELLWEBSITES.COM 18-Jun-2004
www.WEBSITESALESPRO.COM 20-Apr-2004
www.WHYINEEDAWEBSITE.COM 20-Apr-2004
www.BUILDYOUROWNDOTCOM.COM 13-Feb-2003

E-Commerce
www.SHOPPINGCARTWEBDESIGN.COM 18-Sep-2003
www.MERCHANT-ACCOUNT-ACCEPT-CREDIT-CARDS.COM 23-Oct-2004

Auto Responder
www.ADVANCEDAUTORESPONDER.COM 10-Jun-2004
www.AUTORESPONDERDOWNLOAD.COM 10-Jun-2004
www.AUTORESPONDERUNLIMITED2.COM 10-Jun-2004

Web Site Miscellaneous

www.DSNAMES.COM 26-Sep-2006
www.AUTOMATEDLINKPRO.COM 1-Jul-2005
www.BUSINESS-WEBSITE-HOST.COM 23-Oct-2004
www.OFFICIALKEYWORDREPORT.COM 24-Jun-2005
www.ONEADMINSUITE.COM 29-Jun-2005

A domain name can be…

1. Registered for 1 to 10 years
2. Renewed for 1 to 10 years
3. Purchased from a private party for big bucks
4. Parked on a MFA page and maybe earn a few bucks
5. Privately registered. Makes it hard to answer the question, “Who is the owner?”
6. Pointed to your domain name server
7. Parked on an existing domain name
8. Rented or Leased
9. Retired. Just let it expire naturally.

Domain names can cost you money or make you money.

Renew

A couple of years ago I inherited about 80 domain names. I did not register them, however, to keep them, I would need to renew them each year at a total cost of over $500 each year or else they would expire. Many were not worth keeping. What a liability!

Domain Name purchased from a Private Pary for thousands of dollars

About a year later a client called and asked me to obtain a few of domain names that were already registered by someone else. I went into Boston to meet with one of the champs at Sedo and learned a whole lot about the domain name market place. We eventually purchased the domain names we wanted for four figures. My client was ecstatic to obtain the domain names of his business name for significantly less than expected.

Domain Name Parking

During this time, I learned of domain name parking and immediately parked all of my domains at Sedo. The pennies started rolling in most days. This was not enough to support the lame domain names in my portfolio, but it definitely eased the financial burden while I figured out which I would sell, develop, park or retire.

Private Domain Name Registration

My client elected to register his newly acquired domain names privately. This keeps his contact information out of the public whois directory of domain name owners. Many of my domain name clients elect to do this. There are spammers and scammers that search the database to populate their spam email lists. Private registration keeps their prying eyes away.

Point to your Domain Name Server (DNS)

Once we had control of the domain name accounts, we pointed the domain name servers to our hosting server. This information tells all DNS queries that our DNS is authoritative and then provides the directions to the web site.

Park your Domain Names

My client also registered a number of additional domain names for future use. So, rather then letting them sit idly by, he elected to park these names on his primary web site. This redirects all traffic for these parked domains to his primary web site.

Renting?

Renting allows you to keep ownership of a valuable name. The renter has the opportunity to build a business without the expense of purchasing a valuable domain name. Make sense?

Retiring – focus your investment elsewhere

I am now down to about 60 domain names after letting those with no value expire. These are typically domain names comprised of three or more words and in industries that hold no interest for me, or anyone else likely. These domain names are now available for someone else to register and develop.

Two last points of advice.

1) Register your domain name for as many years as you can afford.
2) Do whatever it takes to make sure that your domain name does not expire. I have seen business owners lose their domain names and that really hurts.

Resources

Registration, Private registration or Renewal of your domain name www.jbspartnersdomains.com

Private party purchase and Parking www.fabulous.com, www.sedo.com

Major factors in choosing your domain name;

1. Your company name
2. First choice is always a .com. Second choice is the ccTLD. In the US that would be .us. In Britain, .co.uk
3. Keep it short. You will only find a three character domain name in the after-market for a premium price, so start looking for domain names with four or more characters
4. Best if it is memorable
5. Can most people spell it correctly?
6. If you tell me the domain name over the phone, how many times will you have to repeat? Will I have it right?
7. Does the domain name tell people what you do? Or are you going to create a brand, as Yahoo and Google did?
8. Key Words. It is a great idea to have a word in the domain name that relates to the site content. This shows relevancy.
9. Does it sound legitimate? xyy-lz.com does not sound trustworthy.
10. Don’t use hyphens.
11. Try not to be swayed too far a field by what “people” say the search engines like in a domain name. What they like changes over time as they improve. Make your selection from a marketing, branding, sales point of view instead of what folks say the search engines “like”.

Hopefully you can find the domain name that you want and purchase it directly from a domain name registrar. If you can’t, you can purchase a domain name in the after-market where domains cost hundreds, thousands and even millions of dollars. But that is story for another post on another day.

What do you look for in a domain name?