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/

 

[frank-germany]

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


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



Didn't you just answer that?

sorry

I am really interested in this matter
and I didn't find a satisfying answer yet
based on testing and facts

so again
I will do the job myself

 

[davin riera]

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/

Thank you Bram for sharing. Great stuff. Efty is great Doron is a good guy with great customer service

 

[frank-germany]

Thank you Bram for sharing. Great stuff. Efty is great Doron is a good guy with great customer service

no support of + 5000 domains
no hassle free import of domains
wacky server

 

[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]

I know for a fact DNS ran a number of tests on their landing pages prior to moving the market over to Uniregistry.

would be great to know what they discoverd
and how they tested

 

[frank-germany]

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.

that is perfectly true for stuff you can buy elsewhere
if the buyer has alternatives

in domaining its a little different
each domain is unique

a visitor who s not interested in domains
won't become a buyer of the domain
no matter what you try

a visitor who is interested in the domain it self
is just interested to get the details of the deal

so design doesn't matter much
just usability


but maybe its a question of
who is your domain buyer?

if you targeting end users
you need trust
domainers know how to protect themself, right?

--- any other thoughts?

 

[Brandworthy]

that is perfectly true for stuff you can buy elsewhere
if the buyer has alternatives

Unfortunately you're again showing that you have limited understanding of what hypothesis testing is, and how human perception can be guided through messaging.

 

[frank-germany]

Unfortunately you're again showing that you have limited understanding of what hypothesis testing is, and how human perception can be guided through messaging.

thats why I ask

 

[DomainDepot]

I see you referenced both your personal landing pages and Efty.

How would you compare what Efty offers versus your custom landing pages/marketplace?

I currently use Afternic MLS services with landing page and am thinking about switching.

Thanks

 

[DomainVP]

Most domainers don't have stellar names.

I just said I spoke with domainers with stellar names, so why go on a diatribe about domainers without stellar names? Why assume?

Singular one word .coms with high SV domains aren't good enough for you? K.

Point being OP is not the first person to do this, and YES having your own landing pages is a good thing, but the better the copy the more lowball inquiries that want to buy your DN for $100 dollars (max budget, not negotiating).

Most people have found this to be the case, so OP stating that's not the case for him is odd.

Funneling the buyer through messaging is sales 101, and again just look at some threads here about the landing page subject.

When a person comes to a domain, they already want to buy it. They will message you, and that's where your sales copy and purchase influencing takes place.

You reference DNS, look at their landing pages - simple & clean with a way to buy/contact owner. As most industry leaders are, with the exception of BB and HugeDomains, that enjoy telling a story over simply providing contact info.

So again, having a clean landing page is nice, and should be done, but trying to build elaborate POS landers to increase high ticket sales is ineffective.

 

[Bram C.]

I see you referenced both your personal landing pages and Efty.

How would you compare what Efty offers versus your custom landing pages/marketplace?

I currently use Afternic MLS services with landing page and am thinking about switching.

Thanks

Honestly, I have never tried Efty. But I know some friends of mine who did and they were pleased about the service so I figured I would add it to my blog post as an alternative choice to create your own landers.
Efty evidently is a more easy way to get started with landers compared to doing it yourself from scratch (and in the end you eliminate the middleman as well since you have zero commissions to pay).

 

[Bram C.]

You reference DNS, look at their landing pages - simple & clean with a way to buy/contact owner. As most industry leaders are, with the exception of BB and HugeDomains, that enjoy telling a story over simply providing contact info.
.

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.

 

[frank-germany]

Frank believes that optimizing a landing page works and so do I.

of course I do

but based on sales in case of domains
and hard coded facts

no gut feeling
as non comparable data is compared

.. and yes I know you didn't refer to me

 

[Bram C.]

of course I do

but based on sales in case of domains
and hard coded facts

no gut feeling
as non comparable data is compared

.. and yes I know you didn't refer to me

Well I already told you what I did to come to my conclusions that optimizing a lander works (for me). You can always ask Frank (Schilling) for his opinion on the matter as well.

 

[frank-germany]

Well I already told you what I did to come to my conclusions that optimizing a lander works (for me). You can always ask Frank (Schilling) for his opinion on the matter as well.

just kidding to get the hate out of here

 

[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

 

[Bram C.]

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

Can we see the 2 landers or are they a secret ?

 

[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!

 

[briguy]

@Bram C I read the article that you linked too in your original posting and I found it, very informative!
I also checked out your landing page (Blogcode)..loaded fast, eye catching ( great use of color/colour)!
Plenty of content, (search engine spider "food"!

Really impressed by the "lease" part. Something that I should look into...

My question is when you decided the amont to lease per month, what kinda of formula did you use..yearly (sale price divided by 12) etc
Thanks

 

[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.

 

[DomainVP]

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

Why do you keep ranting about SPLIT TESTING?!?!?!

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...

Really? Tell me more...

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

You are already hearing it from people. You just choose not to listen due to some kind of delusion.

Who else would write these ranting diatribes in the face of numerous people telling you otherwise.

You do you my friend.

I have nothing else to say to you about this.

 

[alcy]

i don't know about everyone reverting to simple.. but I definitely did go through 10 or so landers and/or porotoflio sale/display sites... only to end up with this.
I'd say most people do go basic in the end.

maybe simplicity and the most basic lander is indeed the only thing that can prevent these sorts of discussion your having here.. running around in circles.. and going nowehre... cause with a basic lander, there just ain't all that much to talk about or discuss.

seriosuly, what else do you need from your buyer other than his email? even phone is not necessary, askign for name is cool and makes some people feel warm at heart.. but its abotu a sale.. not cozy feeligns.. so u can skip names too.

 

[Bram C.]

You are already hearing it from people. You just choose not to listen due to some kind of delusion.

If I wasn't listening I wouldn't respond to you now would I? And the funny part about your statement is that the few people (lol@numerous) who share a similar view with you never bothered to really A/B test anything.

At the end of the day we both share a different opinion (and I'm fine with that) but I tested mine and yours is just an opinion.

I'm also done with this.