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.]

is this like a showcase of landers or a one man show? cheers.

Well I wanted to show the evolution of my landers over the years. And tell what I did good and wrong in the past. So other domain investors who are planning to create their own landing pages won't make some of the mistakes I made in the beginning.

Most importantly:

1. Make sure your landing pages are responsive.

2. Make sure that if you have a business website and created your own landing pages that your landing pages have a similar design compared to your business website so people will easily understand the landing pages are created by the same business (looks more professional imo).

3. Don't distract the visitor away from your main goal, to sell the domain.

 

[Bram C.]

if a visitor doesn't come to your site in order to look for the availability of the domain
do you think you can convice somebody to to buy the domain??

Evidently is nobody is visiting your landing page then it doesn't matter how your landing page looks like and what content you put there since it won't be seen.

But if an interested party contacts you and asks if your domain is for sale ( and they didn't look at the landing page, but for example found your contact information through a WHOIS search) you can always say that the domain is for sale and give your landing page as a reference link prior to negotiations.

versus
why should a bad landing page keep someone from buying,
if they were looking to buy the domain?

I never said a bad landing page won't sell your domain. I sold domains that I parked on Sedo (and I would dare to say that those are bad landing pages ) before I was using my own landers. I just sold a lot less domains on Sedo (and had to pay commissions on top of it).

In any case, yes you're right: if the visitor really wants your domain and they can afford the price they will buy it, regardless of the quality of your lander.

But in a lot of cases it's not as clear-cut as this. A few pointers why I think you need to have a good lander:

- A lot of times a potential buyer has some interest in your domain but it's not their only choice so they are not desperate to own it. That's when a good landing page will give you better results compared to a poor landing page. Why do you think so many marketers use great (and not poor) landing pages when trying to sell a product or service? Because those landers convert better.

- A good landing page makes your business look legit as well so it comes with instant trust.

- You know what they say about first impressions right? I believe that concept works for domain landers as well.

- Part of the negotiation (for example "explaining why your domain is valuable") can already be integrated in the landing page as well (aka the sales pitch) so you no longer need to convince your buyer during actual negotiations that your domain is worth more than the $100 USD he's offering.

- I strongly believe that a great landing page can make your domain name look more valuable that it really is. Just like a great website and logo can make your business look more valuable that it really is.

 

[Bram C.]

After moving to parkingcrew.com some of my name earn really high and socking to me one name got $80 for single click and the name was .net not even .com, so far the parking revenue is in $$$ every month which is not high but good thing is i got domain sales inquiry which was zero with godaddy.

Check this name deluxspa.com they have orange tab which take you to custom pop up form.

What you or other experts think , should i loose on revenue and earn back by having good landing pages rather then parked pages.

I have around 750 domains. Around 700 of those domains are using my own landers, the other 50 are currently parked at DomainNameSales. The reason I parked those 50 at DomainNameSales is because those domains were originally using my landers and when I was looking at my visitor stats it seemed that they received a lot of traffic but that traffic would never result in an enquiry nor would the visitors click for example on any of the "buy" or "lease" buttons. Domains like that I usually end up parking for one month at DNS to test drive to see how much money they will make parked. If a domain make more than $2-$3 during that testing month (so potentially that would mean around $30 per year) I let it stay at DNS. Of course regular follow-ups are needed because traffic can drop and earnings can slow down or disappear. A domain that loses its parking revenue will return to using my lander.

In the end it's all about optimizing your domains. If it seems that your domain has the potential to make $XX or $XXX (or more) per year parked then you should test this potential. In my case $30 per year per domain doesn't seem like a lot but with 50 domains parked that's around $1,500/year in parking revenue. The parking revenue of those 50 domains pays for the renewal of around 180 of my domain names.

 

[alcy]

My landing pages are all static html/css pages. My reseller hosting allows unlimited add-on domains (as most reseller and shared hostings do) and since static html/css pages take extremely little resources 700 domains on one hosting is perfectly possible. If those landing pages were wordpress pages that would be another story. No shared or reseller hosting would allow 700 wordpress installations on one account. It would eat too much resources.
As for managing: My CSS for example is centralized (and a lot of other files). So in other words, if I want for example to change some layout of my landing page I can easily do it from one location and all my 700 landing pages will immediately be changed.

just forr the record, in example i gave of me lander with wordpress, as I said I am firstly redirecting all domains frrom all regisrtars to above.com, then from there in one click, I do a masked/cloak url redirect to a single wordpress forsale page. there is no question of any storing of wordpress pages or others on my hosting. I do not even have a hosting plan. hope this helps anyone intereasted in doing similiar... cheers.

 

[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?

 

[Bram C.]

Your design is nice, but you can have the most amazing & beautiful landing page on the planet - it still won't motivate and convert sales.

I've been doing my own landing pages from day 1, doing anything else was inconceivable.

I've done everything like information heavy pages to pages with just an eMail address.

If you want a bunch of low-ball offers from people that want your domain for $50 - then create a pretty landing page with a 'contact form' and enjoy having conversations that lead to low value sales.

Design will not sell domains; domains sell domains.

It's not just about design. It's about the sum of the parts. Design, sales copy, etc...

Domains sell domains yes, but imo only when the buyer really wants your domain. When he's desperate for it. Basically when there are no other alternatives available. And 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.

And I'm sorry but I have different results compared to you. 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.

 

[BrandClub.com]

Any physical or digital product (domains included) sell better if nicely packed ...
That´s not rocket-science, is visual-marketing or neuro-marketing, everything
can be a game changer, believe it or not ! Even the color of the BUY NOW button ...
Do you thing that BB domains would sell if not packed with a nice landing page,
a description and a logo ??? Just think about that; all that is added value.
BB is not selling domains: they are selling logos, text and nice landing pages
Most of brandables aren´t worth the reg. fee, but packed with a nice landing page they sell for $X,XXX

Great landing pages @Bram C.
Congrat´s ...

 

[alcy]

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

 

[Name Trader]

I'm all for minimalism

 

[Nile Patel]

Great read and gave me lots of food for thought.

Say you have a lot of domains, if you want your own custom lander, you'd need the domain hosted...how do you determine which domains would be best to create custom landers for? I'm assuming some keyword research but any other tips or info on determining the best/most likely domains to create landers for?

Thanks

James
What i feel and will do is if my name is valuable and if i think it can sale for above 5k i will going to develop nice custom landing page because that look more professional and easy to convince high ticket buyer or marketing head of big corp.
But if the name is for sale under $500 i will just sale that by parking and doing outbound marketing and don't spend my money or time creating nice landing page.
If the name bring parking revenue i will for sure keep it as parked and it still has opportunity to sale even it parked with buy now link.

 

[Bram C.]

yes but I think thats a different story as they really try to sell stuff to people the didn't intend to buy

I doubt that works with domains

Marketers usually sell products that they claim "make money". Why would someone buy from one marketer that claims his product makes money and not from another marketer that also claims his product will make money? Because the landing page of the first marketer did a better job at conveying his message across.

That works for domains as well. If a potential domain buyer has alternative choices for a domain name then I believe that a good sales pitch on your landing page can turn him from a doubting visitor into a paying customer.

 

[DomainVP]

Your design is nice, but you can have the most amazing & beautiful landing page on the planet - it still won't motivate and convert sales.

I've been doing my own landing pages from day 1, doing anything else was inconceivable.

I've done everything like information heavy pages to pages with just an eMail address.

If you want a bunch of low-ball offers from people that want your domain for $50 - then create a pretty landing page with a 'contact form' and enjoy having conversations that lead to low value sales.

Design will not sell domains; domains sell domains.

 

[Bram C.]

That's what you call an opinion, not a fact at all.

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.

It's not an opinion. What I'm saying is based out of my own results. I'm selling more with my landers than with any other landing pages out there. That's a fact.
I understand you had different results with your landing pages but that doesn't make my facts less true.

 

[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.

 

[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.

 

[wormfood]

*gets the popcorn*

 

[Brandworthy]

FWIW I think you've done a great job on your lander. Not sure what all the daft comments about testing etc. are about. Quite obvious to me that most of that commentary comes from users who don't have even the first notion about testing...

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.

Most domainers don't have stellar names. If you have a couple of thousand average names, each getting qualified traffic, testing your landing pages/copy etc. is most likely going to give you an advantage over competitors who do not.

To anyone who doesn't believe landing page design/copy can make a difference I can tell you firsthand of the very serious spend by global online brands on online testing. No real reason why it cant equally be applied to domain sales landing pages IMO. I know for a fact DNS ran a number of tests on their landing pages prior to moving the market over to Uniregistry.

 

[frank-germany]

so just to let you know

today I redesigned my lander based on the facts I got from here
( thanks )

the idea is to rotated 2 landers evenly
with making sure same visitor will see same LP over and over

one is very rudimental
the other is having a little mokup

I will wait for inquiries to come in
and let you know how it works

 

[DomainVP]

You're missing the point here though. The point is not that DNS has simple and clean landing pages. The point is that they were optimizing it to make a difference in sales/parking revenue compared to non-optimized pages. Frank believes that optimizing a landing page works and so do I.

Nobody is missing a point except for you.

Having a nice self-managed presentable landing page that encourages a visitor to make an inquiry is nice to have, but adding a huge amount of sales copy and making it into a POS portal is not going to sell a domain any faster.

This qualitative & quantitative back and forth is absurd, if you love huge overly produced landers than so be it - but I have seen people do this before. You are not the first person in domaining history to create a landing page and test what happens with variants.

Everyone I have ever encountered that had too much information on a landing page reverted back to minimalist. Some people have gone so minimal they only use an eMail address, and they stand by it firmly just as much as you believe in your landers. Some people use a huge amount of copy and very little design; It's all a personal choice at the end of the day.

I like your lander; it's pretty. Is it completely unnecessary; of course it is...

but it is personal choice, and you do you my friend.

 

[Abdullah Abdullah]

Nobody is missing a point except for you.

Having a nice self-managed presentable landing page that encourages a visitor to make an inquiry is nice to have, but adding a huge amount of sales copy and making it into a POS portal is not going to sell a domain any faster.

This qualitative & quantitative back and forth is absurd, if you love huge overly produced landers than so be it - but I have seen people do this before. You are not the first person in domaining history to create a landing page and test what happens with variants.

Everyone I have ever encountered that had too much information on a landing page reverted back to minimalist. Some people have gone so minimal they only use an eMail address, and they stand by it firmly just as much as you believe in your landers. Some people use a huge amount of copy and very little design; It's all a personal choice at the end of the day.

I like your lander; it's pretty. Is it completely unnecessary; of course it is...

but it is personal choice, and you do you my friend.

I certainly agree with the no sales copy idea. I believe any user who comes there and wants to biy the domain already knows how important the domain is and how much it can help him in his or her business so no need to to bore him or her with a lot of sales copy.

Once user emails you, then you can try to convince him and this part is also for makimg h accept your price rather explaining the benefits of the domain

 

[Brands.International]

@Bram C.
Very nice landing pages, and perfect design Thank you for sharing!

 

[Bram C.]

Nobody is missing a point except for you.

I'm sorry but I disagree with that. You really miss the point.

Having a nice self-managed presentable landing page that encourages a visitor to make an inquiry is nice to have, but adding a huge amount of sales copy and making it into a POS portal is not going to sell a domain any faster.

I'm confident all the big players are doing split testing on their landers to make them perform better. Split testing can mean a lot of things: Placing links in different location, placing some sales button on the top of your page or on the bottom, making your links blue colored or red colored, having a good sales copy, etc... All of these can increase your sales % imo. Sales copy is just one of possible way to improve your landers. Since you mentioned hugedomains.com let's look at their landers shall we? They are using a similar approach to me and if you would bother to check out some of their landers you would notice they are often different (different sales copy, different placement of links, etc..). It's clearly obvious they are also doing A/B testing, I have seen them doing this for many many years, if it wasn't working for them they wouldn't continue doing this.

It seems to me you see all in black or white. "Domains sell domains" is what you said if I remember correctly. While that may be true for stellar domains, most domains are not stellar. Most of the times a buyer has other options and I'm confident an optimized page can make the difference between getting a sale in that case or having that buyer buy another similar domain elsewhere.

I like your lander; it's pretty. Is it completely unnecessary; of course it is...

I didn't make my lander for looks, I made it for performance. And it performs better than any other lander I ever tested or created. So your comment " Is it completely unnecessary; of course it is..." is solely based on your opinion, not on facts, and most importantly your comment is completely contradictory with my results.

So yes we can go back and forth on us but that doesn't change my results, nor my view on the matter.

Everyone I have ever encountered that had too much information on a landing page reverted back to minimalist.

I would love for those "people" to confirm your statements.

 

[frank-germany]

Did you send this feedback to Doron?

cloud is not synonyme to speed

We host with IBM Softlayer in the cloud but I agree with you, speed and loading time can be improved and it's high up on our list of priorities.

 

[frank-germany]

I don't want any populating. just what you see there.

and it's confirm the domain
like conmfirm your email.
I've seen worst.
(like yours).

to each his own
cheers

for me populating is a must
not only the domain name
but details like buy now price
or search data

and each domain need to resolve as the domain itself
thats a must too