Thanks To The Castello Brothers For A Great Weekend in LA

I wanted to type a quick public thank you to David and Michael Castello who showed me a great weekend in LA this past weekend. Between great sushi at SushiRoku, cigars at the Buena Vista Cigar Club in Beverly Hills, or great wine and food at Si Laa Thai, they made sure that my time there was great.

For my readers that are from outside the domain industry you can see the successful online real estate properties that the brothers own at CCIN.com. Although the details will come in another post many of you have heard of the Grape.com project that has started with them.

But one thing great about visiting LA is I also got some great time with my good buds Jason Thompson and Morgan Linton, I have not been out that way in awhile so was very excited to get some time with them as well and also want to thank them for their hospitality, seems Morgan always ends up being my chauffeur when I am in town, sorry bud:)

Every time I get to spend time with the Castello Brothers I come away feeling energized, one thing about them is they see the big picture. They see more than a great domain name, that is a very important thing to get. Too many times I see domain investors talk development and think that ends with the website. The Castello Brothers have the same mindset that I like to think I have, seeing that the domain name is the foundation for a real business that just starts at the website but really takes off when you take advantage of the BRAND that is the great domain name. And that means more than just getting traffic from the memorable name, it means revenue from developing a real business by either getting out there and working the streets for ad sales or selling a product on a category killing product domain name.

Sometimes we get to busy and wrapped up in day to day work or business and can lose track of the bigger picture, this weekend with them helped re-energize and focus my efforts. Stepping back from day to day but still keeping focused on business can be one of the best refreshers you can get, sharing ideas, brainstorming, in a different and energetic environment helps the creativity flow.

Also, the domain industry should give a big thanks to David, watching him come into dinner Saturday night after doing several interviews live and recorded after being sick all week was interesting, he was a trooper and made it though, if you do not know what I am talking about take look at the Good Morning America video of David discussing the "Playboy Plague". If you could of heard the conversations he pushed at the stations in between interviews you would know why I say we owe him a big thank you, he could not help but to sell the value of domain names and why they are so important. And before you think that having a few conversations about domain names and what domaining is to producers, etc does not mean much, think about how most big ideas start and know that he did have emails coming in from one I know of for sure wanting a follow up on the industry. It is a start.

Thanks guys, appreciate all the hospitality!

ScienceFiction.com Launches and a Few Other Things

Merry Christmas to my readers and friends, sitting here on Christmas Eve while my kiddos play with all of their new toys (and my daughter takes over my new iPad) I thought I would post a few thoughts from events this past week.

First off congrats to my good friend and fellow blogger Patrick Ruddell for his launch of ScienceFiction.com, Patrick is a hard worker and great promoter and he deserves a big congratulations on the acquisition of this great domain name and the press on TechCrunch.com. I am looking forward to see what he has up his sleeve as far as marketing and plans for this site.

Also, thanks to Morgan Linton for the very kind words on this post today about reflecting and domainers that have changed his life. Morgan is a true friend, as bright and energetic as they come and just all around great guy.

Another random thought, last year Facebook was big over the holidays, but it is AMAZING to me how mainstream it is this holiday compared to last year. Check out your newsfeed on Facebook and it is filled with pictures, videos, and everything else surrounding Christmas, mostly posted by people that last year at this time probably did not know a whole lot about it and for sure did not know how to upload videos or pictures to the site. Times they are a changing.

On a side note, as much as Twitter is great, I see a whole lot less of this holiday chatter on Twitter, which makes sense if you look at how people actually use Twitter versus Facebook.

If you have not read the post at TheDomains.com about the percentage of Christmas sales done over the internet read it now. If you do business online or have a business that wants to stay in business for the long haul you do not want to ignore the shift that is happening more and more everyday. People are looking online and the percentage actually buying rather than just looking online increases everyday.

And one more interesting story to read, the 10 Hottest Private Companies in Tech, if you want to know where dollars are going take a look, hint hint, lots of social.

Enjoy your holiday and be safe! Do NOT DRINK AND DRIVE, remember there are other people on the roads that would like to make it home safe. Do not ruin your holiday by making a decision to drive when you think you are ok but your reaction time says otherwise.

You Just Lost Affiliate Revenue!

After spending the past few years working on various ways of monetizing product domain names through either Smartname.com ecomm sites, Adsense, or affiliate programs I decided it was time to try some larger dollar affiliate programs.

The one issue with product domains is that it takes quite a bit of product being sold to add up to real money, do not get me wrong, it is nice to have sites making a nice stream of revenue from PPC and affiliate revenue but in reality there are times I would prefer to have higher dollar, bigger hit, affiliate sales coming through.

My good buddy Morgan Linton has been working on this and has found a nice partner in his niche paying $150.00 per lead. Now you are starting to talk some real dollars for one click and conversion. That is something you do not get from product domains.

In no way is this post a knock on product domains, I LOVE THEM, but sometimes it is worth it to go for the less is more strategy, one solid lead to a high revenue service provider will pay you more than PPC on your product domain does for a year at times.

Now, with all that said, after some research I decided the niche I wanted to focus on and after some initial testing with SEO determined that with a quality domain name plus proper SEO gathering targeted traffic in the niche would be a challenge but one that can be won in a reasonable amount of time.

But (sorry Morgan) the great thing is that it is completely reasonable to expect $250 to $500 commissions in this industry. To be clear I have not launched yet, but we are talking reputable companies that have real customers with real money. That is the type of pay back I am looking for on a per lead basis rather than .22 cents per click.

After researching the affiliate programs one thing became very clear and has the potential to make or break a site trying to make money off this niche, and in reality it became clear that it can make or break many big dollar sales that people research online but purchase offline.

The PHONE call could be my biggest enemy.

As much as the niche I am targeting will get a portion of bookings online the pricing is high enough that I would expect a) many of the buyers to be savvy enough to look online but b) not trust big dollars for their purchase online. In other words they will do every bit of research and decide to buy but then pick up the phone and dial the 800 number on the website to actually purchase.

I know this is nothing new to people, no big epiphany here, but as we domain owners with quality properties that drive customers to other people through partnerships and affiliate programs move to finding ways to eke out every dollar from our development we need to watch for revenue leakage every step of the way.

Although there are people starting to work towards pay per call affiliate models the majority of affiliate programs do not offer this. And when a site first launches and targets a niche it is unlikely special consideration will be given to the person applying for acceptance until revenue is proven.

One special thing to request would be a special 800 number for your clients, but that only works if they do NOT click through to the partner site and stay on OUR domain, once they get to the partner site the main corporate 800 number would be on the site.

There is no perfect answer for this at this time, but it is something to watch out for. It is very likely if you are working in high dollar lead areas that you may be leaking revenue through that old school technology called the phone.

That said, I am moving forward, I hope to have something launched and discuss what niche I am working on in the near future and maybe some other fun things that have been going on in the background as well on some partnerships.

Sometimes It Is Just For Fun Version 2

Last week Morgan from Domainvestors.tv and I did a coordinated post for FUN just being goofballs and taking  5 made up things you did not know about us and making a post from it. We knew the posts were not serious commentary but thought why not? Blogging does not always have to be serious opinion and news or indepth technical detail. We knew most people could care less but sometimes things are just for fun.

Well, it seems a few people do not appreciate the fact that these are blogs and we are not pretending to always be the most serious of news sources. Other people do that great, this is a blog and at times the posts may be off topic or even just for fun or a laugh (DomainGang.com understands this and people with any sort of sense of humor should get this).

If you expect serious posts day in and day out then I may disappoint at times, I do my fair share of serious posts but I also do not take myself so seriously that I cannot have some fun on this blog here and there. Loosen up people.

I read comments on another site specifically pointing out the posts we did and also received one email pointing out the lack of relevance. I am sure that it must be really offensive to some people when others have a sense of humor and they do not, but most people I know like a little fun in their reading here and there. I am not Domain Gang but do think it is possible to have a serious blog mixed with fun.

To those that do not appreciate a little looseness I say: Smile people, don't take yourself so seriously life is much more fun that way.

Affiliate Convention Day One Closes With Great Keynote By Danny Sullivan

What a great day, met a ton of very interesting people and picked up some VERY interesting tips from some of the top affiliate marketing people on the web as well as SEO company leaders and experts.

Got to meet the Thought Convergence team (caught Ammar Kubba at sign in by luck). Very small domainer showing at the conference but I would encourage anyone that is looking to build the monetization side of their business to attend one of these in the future. Even if you are an expert at traffic monetization you will find useful tips and the networking was great.

A few notes before we head out for dinner, these are all comments and thoughts put out by leaders in the industry (all paraphrased and not exact quotes, it is my fault if something is lost in translation), much of this is info we know all ready but it is always good to repeat so we do not forget what is happening:

Social media is starting to give search a run for its money (paraphrasing), although search is not disappearing anytime soon people telling their friends about products converts better.

If you have affiliate sites do not put 10 links in 1 page. Just do not, Google knows (I am sure we all know this already but we all can be guilty of it). Although people that do land on it may click fact of the matter is your revenue will drop because you get less traffic because the big G is not stupid.

Even though know one can every confirm it there was at least some thinking by Danny Sullivan from SearchEngineLand.com that it would make sense for Google to give preference to Adsense users since they know the quality of the traffic and can thus determine ranking in search. This is not to say it is happening but it would make sense.

What your search traffic and tweak your campaigns accordingly, some really cool ideas about how to take advantage of Google Custom Search, before I give the details I want to test and will let you know the details if it works. This came from a guy that once ranked above Google for the term Google Webmaster Guidelines and has been linked to buy Matt Cutts. He knows his stuff.

A really great point Danny Sullivan made in relation to Rupert Murdoch wanting Google to pay for indexing his news sites is that the newspapers and news sites never pay to have people quoted in articles and never link back to the person quoted. Seems like the news sites are being a little hypocritical. Very good point.

Also, on the topic of the WSJ not being able to convert the millions of visitors they get from Google, shouldn't they hire somebody that can figure that out, shouldn't they have people that know how to make money of visitors (some sarcasm there).

SEO firms are turning more and more into conversion analysts as most customers do not know what to do with the targeted traffic once they receive it, this is something I have posted on a couple times.

Got to see Hamlet Batista talk about his success doing $923K in PROFITS from viagra affiliates over a few year period of time (letter confirming shown from the affiliate company). By proper link building he made it to the first page of Google for the term Viagra but started with long tail terms. Oh yeah, NO PAID ADVERTISING.

Research what the competitors are doing before you launch, figure out what they are doing and emulate it. If they are paying thousands for ads over a period of a few weeks something is converting....

I hear Morgan typing away, I know he is typing up a great post so I will let him fill you in on the rest of the details. There is so much to tell but only so much this little mind can remember.

We are headed out to the Affiliate Bash at the Aqualounge in Beverly Hills, Jason Thompson from DNPimping is going, and more importantly Shock G from Digital Underground is doing a whole set (OLD SCHOOL HIP HOP!!!! Humpty Dance).

5 Ridiculous Things You Didn’t Know About Morgan Linton

Well, I have had the pleasure of spending the afternoon and evening with Morgan Linton, after some great sushi and drinks and figuring out how to solve the problems of the world we have settled back in his office/TV studio, kicked back listening to Radiohead and I thought I would let you know 5 crazy things you did not know about Morgan Linton:

Question: What is your favorite girly drink?

Answer: Cranberry Mojito

NOTE: We cheated here, Morgan introduced me to these tonight, no umbrella at least.

Question: What is the TV show you are most ashamed to admit you watch?

Answer: Cops

Question: If you could be anyone actress who would it be?

Answer: Jennie Garth

Question: If you could take any one movie to a deserted island what would it be?

Answer: Star Wars - A New Hope Episode 4

Question: What is the worst domain you ever registered?

Answer: MySlice.mobi

Well there we go, what have we learned? Well Morgan likes to drink girly drinks while watching Star Wars and registering bad .mobis!!!

A Little Keyword Research Can Go A Long Way

Today we have a guest post by Morgan Linton of Domainvestors.tv and Linton Investments, here is a bit more about Morgan:

Morgan is the publisher of Domainvestors.tv a blog about Domain Name Investing with a focus on Video. Morgan is also the Founder of Linton Investments, a Domain Name Investment company in Los Angeles, California. Morgan has also written a popular book about Domain Flipping available from DNFlipping.com.

Many people know that using keywords and anchor-text can go a long way towards improving your search engine ranking. What most people fail to realize though is that it is not just picking any keywords, it is picking the right keywords that will bring solid targeted traffic to your website or blog.

So how can you identify which keywords your target customer is looking for? It's not as hard it you might think but it does take knowing how to use the right tools. The first tool you want to look at is the Google Adwords Keyword tool. If you don't know what this is - get ready to meet your new best friend. The Google Adwords Keyword tool is like a Google cheat sheet. It gives you data on how many people are searching for a particular keyword (or keywords) on Google every month. On top of this it also shows you which related keywords are most frequently searched so that you can make a top ten list of the most searched keywords relating to the keywords in your domain name. 

Here's an example. Suppose you own the domain name Kayaking.org - you would use the Google Adwords keyword tool to determine what keywords related to Kayaking have the highest search volume on Google. In the case of Kayaking - the top five related keywords are (in order of search volume) - canoeing kayaking, canoe kayak, kayak fishing, sea kayak, and ocean kayak. Do you think this would have been the five related keywords you would have guessed? This is a step that many Domainers forget - they assume that they know what the most popular keywords are when they haven't taken the time to do the research. In the case of Kayaking there could be thousands of related keywords, but only five that get a bulk of the searches - these are the keywords you want to use in your text and anchor text within your site. 

Suppose I decided to guess the most popular keywords and picked "kayaking trip" as one of my anchor text phrases. I use this keyword phrase instead of "canoeing kayaking" because who the heck would think of that? Well "kayaking trip" gets around 4,000 searches on Google a month, "canoeing kayaking" on the other hand gets around 450,000 a month - pretty big difference don't you think! This research only takes a few minutes of time but can go a long way towards allowing your domain to rank well for keywords that people are actually searching for. 

Another great keyword research tool you can use is Wordtracker. While this is not a free tool, it is an excellent way to research keywords and determine which keywords are the best fit for your site. Wordtracker goes a step further than the Google Adwords Keyword Tool by providing even more detailed keyword data and an entire academy for learning more about how to use this data to improve your search engine ranking. Wordtracker even has a cool plugin for Firefox called "SEO Blogger" that will allow you to do your keyword research in a separate panel while you are writing a blog post. 

Whether you use the Google Adwords Keyword Tool or Wordtracker you will find-out very quickly how a little keyword research can go a long way. Remember, organic traffic is the best traffic you can get, not only is it free, but it is targeted traffic, so take your time, understand your keywords, and dominate the search engines!

Today is a guest post by Morgan Linton, here is a little background about Morgan, most of you are probably already familiar with Morgan but just in case....