question What to do with a high grade domain? Go.LA

TheBaldOne said:

Why even have the domains if you have no plans for them????

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To sell them? Although I agree that they're unlikely to sell for name value alone.

I would not put all my eggs in this basket.

Joe Nichols said:

To sell them? Although I agree that they're unlikely to sell for name value alone.

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I knew I shouldn't have skipped lesson 2...doh!!!

Sometimes in life you just have to say f@@k it and go where others fear to tread and live and die by those decisions. Not everyone will understand but sometimes you just have to be 'The One'.

Good luck to everyone with your journeys. It may be bumpy lol.

Regards,

Reddstagg

MasterOfMyDomains said:

I would not put all my eggs in this basket.

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If you don't put all your eggs in a basket, do you even have a chicken???

No chicken. I buy at farmers market. Just sayin, its a nice name but i wouldnt go all in. but i dont know what his portfolio looks like, just hacks listed for sale with higher than .com reg fee’s

Grego85 said:

a lot of us have great names in obscure cc extensions or ngtlds. LA is just a polluted & almost has-been city as far as I've heard lately. Many desperate to get out, and not too many going in. Like Apple computers, living off the name, but far behind for awhile. Plus I heard there's poop all over the sidewalks!

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Native Californian. Lived in LA for a time. Not my favorite city of all time but a cool place, certainly not as bad as all that. Every major city has poop on some sidewalk somewhere. Even Paris. Does that make Paris less desirable? Apparently not.

To OP: LA is a city of dreamers, all the non-native folks living there came in on a dream. So dreaming? Cool.

LA is also a city of people who like to be on point. Of all the major cities I've lived in LA is the least likely (in general) to be a city that would embrace non .com domains. Just my two cents as a former resident. Nothing wrong with trying though. If you can build out the domain to stellar perfection, and get some big time influencers (more than one mind you) to talk it up online. You could fetch a decent price. Millions? Perhaps, but very unlikely.

@Way3 - Thank you. (And that appreciation is sincere.)

Indeed, as you will be aware from my previous posts on this thread I am aware that even GoDaddy's attempt wasn't as successful as they had hoped. I also agree it takes real work to succeed in something like this (not a half hearted attempt from a boardroom). It needs a combined faceted marketing campaign to get it to break through the conservative nature of the populace. (You have to be inventive enough to join a lot of small changes into one.)

But it is not just the city with a population of circa. 4 million nor just the county of circa. 10 million, but also the tourists each year that pour into the area that will be targeted, but in nuanced ways appropriate to each. The aim is to do something that hopefully would end up impressing even those who have successful geo-sites at the moment.

It could be interesting that a 61 year old Englishman is aiming for gold not from the 2028 Olympics - but rather because of it.

TheBaldOne said:

@Way3
It could be interesting that a 61 year old Englishman is aiming for gold not from the 2028 Olympics - but rather because of it.

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And here I am trying to figure out how to get from here to your side of the pond...

Thought a bit of light hearted humour was called for.

Obviously working through all kinds of things to do with Los Angeles at the moment and came across the 'official' song of Los Angeles County:

It is the wording of 'verse 2' that made me laugh, "If its growth continues in this most astounding way
New York City soon will be a suburb of L.A.!" LOL. (No mention of all the States and cities in between either. )

I never even thought that LA County would have a ' County song'!

Oh, and the flag of LA county (which is what I went searching for when I came across the above) is:

Had an interesting conversation yesterday with a developer who is well versed in US geo-development and he pointed out to me that of course the 'Go.LA' could be used for an even bigger region, the 'Greater Los Angeles Area' (this would then include the counties of Ventura, San Bernardino, Riverside, Orange. Including these counties would increase the target population to circa. 19 million, almost doubling that of the circa. 10 million present target of Los Angeles County by itself).

At first the above sounded great, but ......... it would severely increase the workload and in my personal opinion severely dilute the brand, at least at launch.

In the end we came to the conclusion that expanding to the 'Greater Los Angels Area' was something that should be left on the shelf as a possibility for the future.

Following on from the above post I have replaced on the Go.LA main menu 'Real Estate' with 'Greater LA Area', this has allowed me to expand the potential user base substantially and of course offer up other attractions such as Disney Land at Anaheim, which of course is actually in Orange County.

Still a heck of a lot more to do (anyone who visits the site will realise that without a second thought), but presently spending most of my time just learning about the geo area. Over the next few weeks should see a massive change in the site. "Plans are afoot" as they say.

TheBaldOne said:

Following on from the above post I have replaced on the Go.LA main menu 'Real Estate' with 'Greater LA Area', this has allowed me to expand the potential user base substantially and of course offer up other attractions such as Disney Land at Anaheim, which of course is actually in Orange County.

Still a heck of a lot more to do (anyone who visits the site will realise that without a second thought), but presently spending most of my time just learning about the geo area. Over the next few weeks should see a massive change in the site. "Plans are afoot" as they say.

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You might need to temper your expectations in the near to mid term at least.

California is a major hotbed of Covid. It will likely be a while until things are back to "normal" when it comes to travel, entertainment, etc.

Brad

are you going all in on development or looking for a basic set up then selling the domain and site as a package?

If your all in I would look at getting a professional logo, securing suitable social media handles and making sure their designs compliment your logo, pay someone to write a minimum of 20 blogs/articles for your site (20,000 words+ in total) that are SEO optimised, look at paying someone for your technical onsite SEO, put a plan together for weekly blogs, daily social media posts & engagement, also how to connect with industry leaders, journalists etc etc to help build up some back link juice and help drive traffic to your site........as a start...

GL....

bmugford said:

You might need to temper your expectations in the near to mid term at least.

California is a major hotbed of Covid. It will likely be a while until things are back to "normal" when it comes to travel, entertainment, etc.

Brad

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I look on this as a short - long term investment. If the right offer comes in the short term fine, if not then it will be just a waiting game (patience is a commodity all domainers need).

I am not that concerned about Covid. Already tourists are going back to Spain, and that was hit very hard indeed.

NickB said:

are you going all in on development or looking for a basic set up then selling the domain and site as a package?

If your all in I would look at getting a professional logo, securing suitable social media handles and making sure their designs compliment your logo, pay someone to write a minimum of 20 blogs/articles for your site (20,000 words+ in total) that are SEO optimised, look at paying someone for your technical onsite SEO, put a plan together for weekly blogs, daily social media posts & engagement, also how to connect with industry leaders, journalists etc etc to help build up some back link juice and help drive traffic to your site........as a start...

GL....

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Hoping not to go full throttle on this, I am not a website developer. If I do decide to go along that route I would use an agency to do everything for me and just sit back and accept the percentage cheque every month. LOL

As for your last point, I already have a couple of leads in the press and TV in LA thankfully.

...............................

At present (and I mean for the next few weeks) all I am doing is laying the groundwork, serious marketing and / or development isn't planned to start for another few months. So at the moment just getting up ideas of what 'COULD' be done with the site.

TheBaldOne said:

I am not that concerned about Covid. Already tourists are going back to Spain, and that was hit very hard indeed.

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The US is pushing 70K cases a day right now and keeps accelerating with no end in sight, including 7K-10K a day in California alone. The scale is on a different level than Spain.

Brad

Spain reached circa. a 1000 deaths a day - and cases, are they all severe or including just mild cases? Oh and Spain's dearth toll was under-reported because they used different measuring parameters to that of the UK (where I am).

It will pass.

It was pointed out to me last night that LosAngeles.com is up for sale. I was asked, or rather 'told', whether this fact will downgrade the value of Go.LA?

It seems at first that with LosAngeles.com obviously being a '.com' that the answer would be 'yes' - but after a few seconds thought it is obvious that the correct answer is in fact 'no' - and what is also apparent is the fact that with LosAngeles.com being on the market actually solidifies if not increases the value of Go.LA.

Before the hoards of you start typing just how stupid my statement above is it would be good if you actually thought about it first.

LosAngeles.com requires 15 key strokes including the 'Enter key', Go.LA requires just 6 key strokes including the 'Enter key'. That is Go.LA requires only 40% of the number of key strokes.

Then of course is the so-called radio-test. Well Go.LA obviously passes the radio-test, after all how else would it really be pronounced other than "Go dot L A".

Then it is whether 'Los Angeles' or 'LA' is more popular. To this I honestly do not know the answer, but I suspect that to the vast majority of people whether Angelenos or not the fact is the two are totally interchangeable.

Now the fact that both are on the market could mean that both become worth less, the argument here is that if there were a single potential buyer s/he could actually choose between the two, and here the difference in the asking price between the two domains could have a baring on the the domain chosen by the singular potential buyer, however, the obvious fact is that there is not only one potential buyer but rather a whole multitude of buyers.

Based on the above I would say that LosAngeles.com being on the market will actually cement the value of Go.LA on the market, indeed it could and does in my opinion actually increase the value Go.LA.

(I don't actually know what value the vendor has put on LosAngeles.com, but hopefully @Fred Mercaldo who is brokering the LosAngeles.com {and over 20 other US city ,com's} might just give a hint at The Domain Show run by @Page Howe next week on the 23rd -25th July. )

Comparing LosAngeles.com to Go.LA is silly in my view. There is absolutely no doubt LosAngeles.com is far more desirable as a pure domain, with value likely in a seven figure (or close) price range.

As far as a radio test goes, people actually recognize .COM as an extension. I bet the average person has never seen a .LA advertised nor do they know it even exists. I think the same marketing is likely to be far more effective on LosAngeles.com because of that reason, among others like instant credibility.

I know you like your domain, which is fine, but I would say most of your comments just seem to be a sales pitch really.

Actually developing this in any meaningful way, and getting traction, is likely to be a very expensive and tedious process IMO.

Brad

bmugford said:

Comparing LosAngeles.com to Go.LA is silly in my view. There is absolutely no doubt LosAngeles.com is far more desirable as a pure domain, with value likely in a seven figure (or close) price range.

As far as a radio test goes, people actually recognize .COM as an extension. I bet the average person has never seen a .LA advertised nor do they know it even exists. I think the same marketing is likely to be far more effective on LosAngeles.com because of that reason, among others like instant credibility.

I know you like your domain, which is fine, but I would say most of your comments just seem to be a sales pitch really.

Actually developing this in any meaningful way, and getting traction, is likely to be a very expensive and tedious process IMO.

Brad

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Actually at first I held the same opinion about the comparison as you state, but then with the exception of the domain 'LA.com' it is the nearest comparison on the market today.

As for the 'radio-test', you now try to bring in a secondary requirement, i.e. recognition of the suffix. This is not an integral part of the 'radio-test'. As it is I would argue that most people that I know are capable of understanding 'dot L A'. (Unless you have evidence that people are unable to recognise that '.la' is the suffix, which would be strange as most people seem to have no difficulty in my experience recognising such, here I point to all the ccTLDs and of course the other major gTLDs.)

Actually novelty in marketing is seen as a benefit. Now I wasn't going to declare this yet but might as well as it is hardly a trade secret. Imagine an advert, a very short advert on TV or radio as the following:

Or how about another:

Or even another:

Then these would simply be supplanted by the following simple advertisement:

Now what was it you were saying about people not being able to recognise '.la' as the suffix. Of course such radio and TV adverts could easily be reinforced by exactly the same wording in print adverts, whether online, on TV as text, in newspapers, or even on billboards. This gives instant credibility and recognition. (Also the above would be relatively cheap and indeed not only applicable to use in LA or California or even the US, but because of the international usage of the English language could be used internationally as well. )

If my posts on this thread were a sales pitch then I must be the worst ever salesman, why would I aim my pitch at a site whereby the prospective buyers do not even visit? The chances are likely in excess of 10,000:1 against any prospective buyer or partner even visiting this forum.

The truth is that I post on this thread things I find out or come up in discussion (obviously things that are not private that is) that I think might be of interest to some other members on this site. Obviously 'you' are not one of them.

As for your last comment, well can I just say that most people find most work tedious - but we do it because the end result is worthwhile, and as for 'expensive' I do not think it will be anywhere as near as expensive as 'you' seem to think it will be. (Clue - I have actually looked into it. )

Hope this has answered your points.

The project is either going to succeed or it won't.

I don't really understand the point of lengthy sales pitches about the domain on NamePros honestly. It is like you are trying to convince yourself or something.

I just don't see it. The domain is fine, but I think you are hyping it up way too much.

Best of luck.

Brad

Brad,

This isn't 'hyping it up', this is just discussing what is going on during the domaining process, and of course what is being done in the backroom exploring the development. Great examples of this are the 'flag' post and the 'song post'.

Many domainers just buy a domain name and it sits in their portfolio, one of the aspects I am trying to show is that understanding your domain name can actually be interesting and give you a better understanding of it's worth to an end user. I used to think this is how most domainers behaved but time has taught me differently and I think a lot of domainers lose out by not doing this. Even if just one other member here after reading these posts thinks about researching their domain then I will have succeeded in helping someone.

Oh, and if you think this is 'hyping up' the domain name I hate to think what you would make of what I am planning to do with prospective buyers.

Just a 'heads up' that the website Go.LA will be going blank for a few days as it is being redesigned, this time using Kinsta as the WordPress hosting platform. After some discussions with another domainer-developer the plan has evolved.

How’s the site coming?

I'm seeing this post with my name mentioned, so I thought I'd reply even though it's been 4 years!. I also have acquired a .city name that is LA.City. Out of 1100 domain names I have listed at Dan.com, it is one of my largest traffic names, which I find amazing. I like the name, even though I am 99% .com. I feel Go.la is not yet developed.
Los Angeles is a strange market; having lived there for 2 years, and frequently visit there, I love the area. But for some reason, like many pure City brands, LosAngeles or LA.com both have never been properly developed. The Boston.com numbers are amazing, and Los Angeles can do the same thing....we are striving for the same success now with NewYork.com. Boston Globe Media numbers, basically Boston.com:

Annual Revenue: $387.7M


Monthly Unique Visitors: 16M


Monthly Organic Traffic: 5.1M


Monthly Page Views: 82M


Newsletter Subscribers: 2.5M


Social Media Followers: 4.4M


Monthly Ad Impressions: 820M (estimated)

While content is shared from the newspaper The Boston Globe, the above numbers are digital only. The newspaper generates over $510M annually on its own.

Regarding the valuations of LosAngeles.com, many of the recent sales are NDA protected and also some are being developed and also some are avail for resale. I cannot divulge the selling price of LosAngeles.com, but as recent as 6 months ago it was offered back to me at $3M. I don't think this price is out of line.