advice Be The Master Of Your Domains With Your Own Landing Pages

[Bram C.]

In 2010, when I started out with domaining, I didn’t have my own landing pages. All the domains that I purchased back then I would simply park at Sedo. The sales were slowly pouring in after my first few months of domaining but I was sure that I could do a lot better. So I decided I would build my own landing pages for my domains and I would do it for 3 important reasons:

1. I wanted to be in control. I wanted to build a smooth user experience. To be able to use my own sales pitch and decide how my landing page would look like.
   
2. I wanted to get rid of the middle man. I didn’t like that I had to pay commissions. Just like anyone I wanted to make as much profit as possible.
   
3. I wanted to be able to optimize my landing pages by doing A/B split testing and I wanted to have detailed stats about my visitors. Where are they coming from, what website are they going to after they leave my landing page, are they returning to my landing page at a later date.

READ MORE: http://domainative.com/be-the-master-of-your-domains-with-your-own-landing-pages/

 

[Bram C.]

Quality, not quantity my friend. 10 - 15 of your sales could equal 1 or 2 of mine.

Maybe. Or 10-15 of my sales could equal 50-60 of yours. Who knows.

Lots of lowball offers do come in when you have a 'pretty page'. If that's the neighborhood you enjoy, then that's your prerogative.

I like how you assume I get a lot of low ball offers and then say stuff about "facts".

I also like your assumption that if a page looks crappy you will get less low ball offers.

 

[DomainVP]

And guess what domain he will choose then? The lander that looks the most professional and which has the best converting sales copy.

That's an opinion you have there, not a fact. You are saying that if someone has to pick between 5 different names they are going to pict the 'pretty' page. That's just false, and foolish to say.

If you are using that kind of logic and proof for all of this, I would have to say that the rest of what you are saying is quite faulty.

 

[Bram C.]

That's an opinion you have there, not a fact. You are saying that if someone has to pick between 5 different names they are going to pict the 'pretty' page. That's just false, and foolish to say.

If you are using that kind of logic and proof for all of this, I would have to say that the rest of what you are saying is quite faulty.

Ok I'll rephrase my sentence. My landing pages with my sales copy convert better than any other landing pages or parked pages I ever tried. With my landing pages I make more domain sales per year.

All of the above statements are based on my own personal results.

How's that?

Lots of lowball offers do come in when you have a 'pretty page'.

Is that a fact?

 

[DomainVP]

How's that?

Not good. It still doesn't correct this assertion you have made:

"...let's face it. Most of the times your domain won't be the only option the buyer has (unless your domain is truly premium). And guess what domain he will choose then? The lander that looks the most professional and which has the best converting sales copy."

That's just wrong...

 

[Bram C.]

Not good. It still doesn't correct this assertion you have made:

"...let's face it. Most of the times your domain won't be the only option the buyer has (unless your domain is truly premium). And guess what domain he will choose then? The lander that looks the most professional and which has the best converting sales copy."

That's just wrong...

In my own personal experience this is true. In any case you saying this is a false statement surely isn't based on facts

Anyways, let's just agree to disagree. If you don't believe that your own personal landers can make a huge difference then that's your prerogative.

 

[frank-germany]

I have used many different landers over the years and I tracked my sales with different landers, did split testing and all the works and I concluded that some landing pages ended up with me getting 10-15 more end user sales in a single year. Landing pages matter. If they didn't I would go back to Sedo and let them do the work for me.

splitt testing is an art in itself

what exactly did you compare?
on how much traffic

in the end you can only compare
design on the same domain that is of mediocre uniqueness
so buyer has alternatives
with decent traffic
and then do a 1:1 splittest
where each same visitor will see the same website design over and over

all for the same domain
now wait until it sells
and repeate proceed process for next domain
giving the design that sold a slight advantage
lets say 2 :1

and so on

that would be a valid test

how did you do it?

 

[Atta]

That's what you call an opinion, not a fact at all. In fact, I can STRONGLY say that you are way off-base with that statement.

You are seriously suggesting that with a choice of 5 names that a buyer is going to pick the domain with the 'prettiest page' that sells the name the hardest.

Sorry, but that's not true or accurate at all.



Quality, not quantity my friend. 10 - 15 of your sales could equal 1 or 2 of mine. Lots of lowball offers do come in when you have a 'pretty page'. If that's the neighborhood you enjoy, then that's your prerogative.

How would you stop lowball offers from simple landers? Do you have any mechanism in place? Surely, you don't! In many cases, you don't even stop spamming, anyone can flood you with spamy emails by running a 10 lines script.

I like your assumption of receiving xxx+ offer with simple landers which is totally false until your domain has that much potential and someone really wants to buy.

Moreover, if I can create pretty landers, I can also easily filter out lowball offers by setting a minimum offer price for each domain. It is not that hard. But I wouldn't do that! Many times lowball offers lead to high sales after negotiation. I don't mind receiving it!

If your domain is worth 10k, no one is going to offer you 10k at start. It is your negotiation skills and ability to understand human psychology(!) which will get you desired results.

 

[Atta]

cool.. a day ago i just switched to something simple I made with wordpress.. with just couple input lines and no graphics.. though the previous bodis sale lander worked fine, I still found it too much.. words, text etc..

its always the eternal quest of trying to put yourself in shoes of visitor/buyer, most of whom have no clue about fancy domaining concepts.. I am all for getting straigh to point with fewest words possible.

www.lyz.co

Good try but it is very very basic! It asks for email + domain name you want. I am not sure why I need to input the name of the domain if I landed at its sale page. It is like offering me to input anything. I put Google.com and it is telling me "Message Sent!"!

 

[wormfood]

*gets the popcorn*

 

[alcy]

Good try but it is very very basic! It asks for email + domain name you want. I am not sure why I need to input the name of the domain if I landed at its sale page. It is like offering me to input anything. I put Google.com and it is telling me "Message Sent!"!

thanks for checking out. it is basic by intent. not accident. so the question to you the tester would be, how to make it even more basic.. not how to make it more complex. thoughts?

the domain field is a confirmation of what they want.
obviously I am not expecting buyer to enter supercars.com if they want to buy lovecards.com

so a mismatch there is not a problem I expect to encounter. therefore I intend to take no measures to prevent or correct it.
think of it then as a cofnirmation of domain you want.. like "confirm your email" field or something

thanks for sharing thoughts
cheers

now tat I think of it.. might as well change wording from Enter domain you want to Confirm the domain name you want.... i think its a bit of improvement.. anyway, as far as wordpress goes.. this is the limit of basic and simplicity to get a lead for a sale.. I had makeoffer field before.. but even that is useless and against simplicity imo. thanks for all yoru comments. good stuff.

 

[alcy]

*gets the popcorn*

lol
this thread is slowly turning to sheet. heh.

 

[DomainVP]

Anyways, let's just agree to disagree. If you don't believe that your own personal landers can make a huge difference then that's your prerogative.

For clarification; I like your pages. I think you did a great job of design and education.

I just don't think they help sell a name as much as you think. Maybe you have a good combination of good domain + nice lander.

I've had quite a few UX/Design conversations with people that have stellar domains, and no matter what the landing page it simply came down to the domain, asking price, and what someone was willing to pay.

It's okay to have a good looking lander, I just don't think it's worth spending a lot of time to focus on.

 

[DomainVP]

How would you stop lowball offers from simple landers? Do you have any mechanism in place? Surely, you don't!

That's basic, you can find answers to that all over the forum.

I like your assumption of receiving xxx+ offer with simple landers which is totally false until your domain has that much potential and someone really wants to buy.

Extremely inaccurate and incorrect.

Moreover, if I can create pretty landers, I can also easily filter out lowball offers by setting a minimum offer price for each domain. It is not that hard. But I wouldn't do that! Many times lowball offers lead to high sales after negotiation. I don't mind receiving it!

What a "lowball offer" and what a "high sale" is can be relative. I do not think we are on the same page.

That's as nice as I can be in response to classic messages de merde.

 

[frank-germany]

For clarification; I like your pages. I think you did a great job of design and education.

same for me

"For clarification; I like your pages. I think you did a great job of design and education."

I was just asking
what makes your sure your lander has converted better / aka has sold more

how did you you find out?
what excact method did you use

is that a gut feeling
or a proven fact?

as I would be interested in having the best lander possible
if it was a proven fact that it matters

which I highly doubt

 

[Bram C.]

same for me

"For clarification; I like your pages. I think you did a great job of design and education."

I was just asking
what makes your sure your lander has converted better / aka has sold more

how did you you find out?
what excact method did you use

is that a gut feeling
or a proven fact?

as I would be interested in having the best lander possible
if it was a proven fact that it matters

which I highly doubt

Doing A/B tests on domain landers is difficult because every domain is different. Some domains will sell regardless of what lander you put there (usually stellar/premium domains) and some domains won't sell regardless of what lander you put there (atrocious domains for example). But like I said before: in my opinion it's not as clear-cut as this. A lot of times a potential buyer does have some interest in your domain but it's not their only choice so concerning cases like these I believe the quality of a lander can often make a difference. So the point of A/B tests in my case was to optimize my landers for these kind of buyers. And see if, in fact, optimizing a lander can bring me more domain sales on a yearly basis.

I did a lot of different A/B tests and I'm not going to elaborate on all of them (as I'm planning to make a blog post on "A/B testing for domain landers" in the near future) but I can give an example of a possible split test:

When I make a lander I make 2 versions of that lander: One with sales copy X and one with sales copy Y. You then take a large chunk of your domain portfolio (for example 300 random domains) and give them all the lander with sales copy X. You then take another 300 random domains and give them a lander with sales copy Y. You track all landing page sales (ignoring all sales from other marketplaces) during a 6 month period. The ones from sales copy X and the ones from sales copy Y.

Now for example if the first 300 random domains from sales copy X had more sales I realize it can be due to the fact that for example they were some better domains in that portfolio. So to give myself an even better indicator of what lander works better I then swap the landers. The 300 domains (or what remains of those 300 domains since some got sold) that used sales copy X will now get sales copy Y and vice versa. Again I will track domain sales for 6 months.

If the lander with sales copy X after one year will consistently get more domain sales I would say it is a good indicator the sales copy is indeed better converting.

 

[frank-germany]

Doing A/B tests on domain landers is difficult because every domain is different.

thank you for your eloberate explaination.

I regard myself an expert in split testing
as I deal with it seriously since 2008
and I have delevoped tools to do so better since then

( http://web.archive.org/web/20081106154328/http://trafficsplitter.net/screenshots/ )

they way you describe it for me is definetely not the best way to do it
as it takes a lot of time
and is more or less vage

in split testing on low traffic ( less then 10000 hits / day )
you don 't want many variables

max you test are 2 versions A/B

but they need to be completely different
in order to tell you something
just the sales copy won't do it

and they definetly need to be be on the exactly same domains while testing
as you want to eliminate seasonable factors like football championchips or xmas
holidays or thunderstorms

and you want to rotate evenly
1 visitor see version A next visitor sees version B
and watch out: first visitor will always see version A and second visitor will see version B only

thats the only way to make a valid spit test

 

[Bram C.]

thank you for your eloberate explaination.


in split testing on low traffic ( less then 10000 hits / day )
you don 't want many variables

max you test are 2 versions A/B

Well I did not use multiple variables (only variable is the sales copy). Max I tested was 2 versions A/B.

and they definetly need to be be on the exactly same domains while testing.


and you want to rotate evenly
1 visitor see version A next visitor sees version B

Both versions of the sales copy were tested on the exact same domains (with the exception of the ones that got sold and left the list) since each list of 300 domains got its sales copy swapped after 6 months. I do believe that using rotation would have been better.

but they need to be completely different
in order to tell you something

I respect your advice but I do not think however that the 2 versions need to be completely different. In this example I wanted to know which sales copy is performing better. So I'm only changing the sales copy in this test. If I would change other stuff, such as graphics, then the results get clouded and I won't know what variable is potentially making my LP perform better. Or am I understanding you wrong?

In any case it's not the only A/B test I did to get an indicator what landing page is performing better. It was just one small example.

I do appreciate your feedback, seems like you got some great tips on how I can further improve my A/B tests. Thanks!

 

[frank-germany]

I respect your advice but I do not think however that the 2 versions need to be completely different. In this example I wanted to know which sales copy is performing better. So I'm only changing the sales copy in this test.

"but they need to be completely different in order to tell you something"

the reason is that the sales copy is a minor change
when you try to find which look and feel converts best

the first thing you want to know is which "design" attracts the most leads / sales
as you try to find which "nice looking" landing page converts better the a "shitty" one

when you find one winner
you may want to make further changes and tweeks in terms of sales copy

as "sales copy" is not what we are discussing
we are discussion nice look ( what ever that is ) versus not so nice look

 

[Bram C.]

"but they need to be completely different in order to tell you something"

the reason is that the sales copy is a minor change
when you try to find which look and feel converts best

the first thing you want to know is which "design" attracts the most leads / sales
as you try to find which "nice looking" landing page converts better the a "sh*tty" one

when you find one winner
you may want to make further changes and tweeks in terms of sales copy

Well I never start an A/B test with sales copy. I usually start with testing the design. So I guess we're on the same page on this.

 

[frank-germany]

but unfortunately you didn't answer the core question
"what exactly makes you think version A converts better then version B?"

as after 6 month the sold domains are no longer in rotation
so they may also have been sold on another even on an ugly page

-or not

and why?

so but I am german
and even a tough one
I want to know it exactly
- nothing personal --> everything-

guessing and hear say just is not enough to me

 

[Bram C.]

but unfortunately you didn't answer the core question
"what exactly makes you think version A converts better then version B?"

as after 6 month the sold domains are no longer in rotation
so they may also have been sold on another even on an ugly page

I already answered that question, I guess you choose to skip over it mate.

Also, what happens with my domains after they are sold is not my concern. My concern is to sell more domains with my own landers.

 

[frank-germany]

http://shortiedesigns.com/2014/03/10-top-principles-effective-web-design/

 

[frank-germany]

Now for example if the first 300 random domains from sales copy X had more sales I realize it can be due to the fact that for example they were some better domains in that portfolio. So to give myself an even better indicator of what lander works better I then swap the landers. The 300 domains (or what remains of those 300 domains since some got sold) that used sales copy X will now get sales copy Y and vice versa. Again I will track domain sales for 6 months.

If the lander with sales copy X after one year will consistently get more domain sales I would say it is a good indicator the sales copy is indeed better converting.

are you referring to this ?


here you are talking about sales copy
not design

so the core question is
is it a fact or a myth ( a gut feeling )
that a nicer looking page sells more domains?

 

[Bram C.]

are you referring to this ?


here you are talking about sales copy
not design

so the core question is
is it a fact or a myth ( a gut feeling )
that a nicer looking page sells more domains?

My thread title is not "Nice Looking Landers Sell More Domains".
IMO it's about the sum of the parts, design, sales copy, smooth user experience, etc..

 

[Bram C.]

Anyways I noticed that a lot of times you're answering your own questions. Here's an example.
First you say this:

the first thing you want to know is which "design" attracts the most leads / sales
as you try to find which "nice looking" landing page converts better the a "sh*tty" one

when you find one winner
you may want to make further changes and tweeks in terms of sales copy

So in other words you say you should tweak the domain landing design first and when it converts (sells) better you should start with A/B testing your sales copy.

And then you say this

so the core question is
is it a fact or a myth ( a gut feeling )
that a nicer looking page sells more domains?

Didn't you just answer that?