Comparisons of various landing pages YOUR OWN Afternic Sedo Efty Uniregistry Epik UNDeveloped (DAN)

[xynames]

Perhaps if members could post a screenshot of the various landing pages we could critique them more intelligently. YOUR OWN. Afternic. Sedo. Efty. Uniregistry. Epik. UNDeveloped (DAN). etc.

But let's keep in mind that WHERE you host your landing page has absolutely no effect on landing traffic. None.

I will tell you that a landing page with an immediate buy it now might not work as well for my domains and might even turn some inquirers off. I am very skillful with negotiation and sales talk and I am more interested in getting the buyer's lead off my landing page than trying to herd him into clicking Buy it Now instantly. After all, I'm not selling a twenty dollar item where it is important to convert the landing into an immediate sale, indeed for me, hoping that the person landing on my domain will pay immediately what I want is imprudent, even counterproductive. For some domains it might be best to list the asking price right off the bat, for others, it might not.

The same goes for my real world legal services, whether for face to face clients or internet ones. My first words are not, Give me $$$, they are, what's the problem? The more I engage the potential client the more invested he feels in the process and the more likely that he'll feel like I'm the one he wants to give his money to by the end of the discussion.

How do other landing pages work? Are they geared towards getting the buyer's info for a broker to call him up or email, or towards having him pay immediately?

The top half (darker blue) is what is seen immediately upon landing. The bottom half usually must scroll a bit to see, depending on your screen size and browser.

 

[Windoms]

I like the fact that @xynames lander covers these aspects
1/ Take a look at namebio buydomains etc.. for comparables - informing the buyer, getting rid of confusion.
2/ You can make an anonymous offers through brokers - assistance with negotiations, getting rid of buyer insecurity.
3/ We have many high value domains, we know our business, don't waste our time and yours - engaging the buyer, call to action.

Much of these can be added to DAN landers in description.
Thank you.

 

[namemarket]

IMO it's not a good idea because showing buyers it's for sale at 4 or 5 different places may give the buyer an impression you are desperate for a sale and thinking it may not be good enough to sell using one place so it needs more venues for a better chance of a sale.

 

[kam]

There are many reasons why you might want to optionally forward buyers to a third-party platform to complete the sales : level of trust enjoyed by established marketplace(s), low sales commission, payment security, lack of technical know-how in transferring domains to buyers, you don't want to go through the rigors of domain escrow services, international payment processors don't operate in your country, etc.

Again, you are not directing buyers to just anywhere on the external marketplace. You're directing them to a specific page - your domain BIN/Make Offer page on the third-party marketplace. You can click on on any of the buttons and see what I'm saying.

In any event, you should stick with what works best for you. That's the essence of A/B testing.

You can get the potential buyer's email address if he made an offer using escrow.com. But you will never have his e-mail when the offer is made through Sedo.

By the way, I was parking all my domains to Sedo directly In the past. It was doing really well during 2006 -2015. But it's totally another story since Sedo start to manipulate the search results a few years ago.

Let's say the potential buyer visit my domain cats.in and get into sedo. He want to see more cats domains before placing a bid, So he search cats at sedo. And you know what?! The buyer no longer able to find my domain anymore after searching cats. The only way the buyer can see my domain again is to search the domain with extension. The buyers can't find my domain if they just search cats.

Think about the above scenario. You drive your potential buyers to sedo and make the buyers unable to find your domain again. Are you sure you want to do this ?! If you're lucky enough and end up come with a sales, Sedo took away 15% -20% as comission. But in most of the case, you just drive traffic to sedo and let the potential buyers forget your domain. I have asked SEDO a couple of time to fix it but they just don't care and never response.

Due to this reason, I rebuild my portfolio site in last year and mainly working with escrow.com. You can verify what I said by doing your own search at Sedo.

 

[D Haynes]

Since I started experimenting with my own landers I've found that a lot of visitors click through to the marketplace sales pages and don't make contact with me through the contact form although the one time I've been contacted through the form it resulted in a sale.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Is a guy who is looking to buy a domain going to care about the company that is selling it to him? Maybe not on the first day when he makes the inquiry, but perhaps later, when it comes to payment time

^^ This. I think you hit upon it exactly @xynames. At the first glance, the only thing that is important is to generate enough interest (by helping them see how the domain name would work for them) to think about it and come back. But ultimately they need trust about who they are dealing with. Your statement about the long time you have been in the domain business (in your sample lander at the top) helps a lot to achieve that (as does in my opinion Afternic now making the GoDaddy association more prominent, and DAN statement re history of successful transfers and stats re how fast they are most of the time).

Thanks for the great idea for this thread. I am going to post a few examples, soonish, and look forward to seeing lots of examples from different people.

Bob

 

[xynames]

Okay I see what you mean, his landing page refers to that the domain is available for the buyer's offer at more than one place. But a buyer who lands on the domain might just think that this means that he may make an offer via various platforms, at least, that is the way that I mention it on my landing page.

But difference is, he has it right on top prominently, whereas I mention it lower right hand corner, as an afterthought for the buyer who might wish to remain anonymous, also I make it clear that these listed URLs are where
"You may make an anonymous offer"
whereas he makes no such distinction and just says "Buy at" - subtle but perhaps big distinction.

Also his, buttons to whisk you away, mine URLs with no hyperlink.

But still, I have occasionally thought about reducing the number of "alternative" buyer options in the lower right hand corner.

 

[Windoms]

Also when you visit a blank DAN lander with no description, buyer might be tempted to think that you wont be renewing the domain when it expires in 9 months.
Letting them know that you have been domaining since 2002 kinda makes things clear.
''It takes money to make money'' are good call to actions.

 

[xynames]

Hmm, so you created this yourself or it is a template that is out there others have used too?

Minimalistic is fine. I think the links on the left to Sedo and such might be a bit confusing - if you insist on them what about changing to something like
View my Entire Portfolio on Afternic
View my Entire Portfolio on Sedo
View my Entire Portfolio on DAN
with the entire sentence being the URL.

Also why are these URLs there? Just for them to view the portfolio or to make an offer, in which case maybe something like

IF YOU PREFER TO MAKE AN ANONYMOUS OFFER:
View my Entire Portfolio and make an offer on Afternic
View my Entire Portfolio and make an offer on Sedo
View my Entire Portfolio and make an offer on DAN

Having a link somewhere on your landing page that goes to the rest of your domains is not a bad idea, I have that too, but making it so prominent and repeated three ways might not be the greatest idea. After all, didn't whoever landed there come only because of the single name, single URL? so is he going to be all that interested in searching all your domains? Do you want to focus him on what he came there for, or offer him options right off the bat?

Also what is the basis of the "some of my domains include" below, are these coming up calculated to include the same keyword(s) as the landing page domain URL? For example the domain is caranddriver and then the list at the bottom is some other auto or driving names. If so, possibly a good idea, but if just offering up a random list of other domains you own, not relevant to the keywords that brought the inquirer to your landing page to begin with, maybe not the best idea.

Simple suggestions too:

Just one line for Name, one box - separating into First and Last name is basically insisting that the person fully identify himself might turn some inquirers off.

I'd change Subject to something like "Domain name" after all isn't this a submission form in which to make an offer? Which by the way you even made the offer optional on your form...making it optional on your FormMail submission software is one thing, but stating it just like that "Optional" in the form might be going too far.

 

[Dosebuy]

Hmm, so you created this yourself or it is a template that is out there others have used too?

Minimalistic is fine. I think the links on the left to Sedo and such might be a bit confusing - if you insist on them what about changing to something like
View my Entire Portfolio on Afternic
View my Entire Portfolio on Sedo
View my Entire Portfolio on DAN
with the entire sentence being the URL.

Also why are these URLs there? Just for them to view the portfolio or to make an offer, in which case maybe something like

IF YOU PREFER TO MAKE AN ANONYMOUS OFFER:
View my Entire Portfolio and make an offer on Afternic
View my Entire Portfolio and make an offer on Sedo
View my Entire Portfolio and make an offer on DAN

Having a link somewhere on your landing page that goes to the rest of your domains is not a bad idea, I have that too, but making it so prominent and repeated three ways might not be the greatest idea. After all, didn't whoever landed there come only because of the single name, single URL? so is he going to be all that interested in searching all your domains? Do you want to focus him on what he came there for, or offer him options right off the bat?

Also what is the basis of the "some of my domains include" below, are these coming up calculated to include the same keyword(s) as the landing page domain URL? For example the domain is caranddriver and then the list at the bottom is some other auto or driving names. If so, possibly a good idea, but if just offering up a random list of other domains you own, not relevant to the keywords that brought the inquirer to your landing page to begin with, maybe not the best idea.

Simple suggestions too:

Just one line for Name, one box - separating into First and Last name is basically insisting that the person fully identify himself might turn some inquirers off.

I'd change Subject to something like "Domain name" after all isn't this a submission form in which to make an offer? Which by the way you even made the offer optional on your form...making it optional on your FormMail submission software is one thing, but stating it just like that "Optional" in the form might be going too far.

Wow, awesome input @xynames.
Im using one of Squarespaces templates, but I have stripped it down to a bare minimum to keep it clean and simple. They have a lot of templates to choose from, I havent seen anyone else using this particular one.

The thing about the name being divided was very clever. I have changed that along with a couple of other things you recommended (I did a tiny bit of compromise with my links). I have a pretty good understanding how to communicate with people due to my background in social media and the newspaper-industry. But those sell-techniques that you are offering here is pretty usable. So big thanks.

There are currently no logic for choosing which domain names to show at the bottom, my portfolio is still pretty small so I tried to showcase some of the ones I have in different categories (Hard to make soup on the head of a nail). And I stole the small commenting on the domains from your page. That was a neat idea I think.

Thank you again for your insightful input.

Best Regards

/Dose

 

[xynames]

Okay I looked at domainmarket and I ran a keyword for a domain of my own that I sold last year for high five figures. The "alternatives" at domainmarket were garbage and in some cases priced much higher than my domain that I sold, so is the reason you suggest linking to domainmarket is so that potential buyers will find expensive crap over there and then come back and realize that my domains are better and in fact less expensive?

On the other hand with buydomains I am able to tell my buyers that my domain is priced about right and that if they look at buydomain comparables they will find this to be true.

 

[xynames]

I am experimenting with different landing pages for different domains. I have my system set up to where I may have the landing go to a different page for each domain, but obviously I am not going to do this for all 1500 domains, just some of the top ones.

 

[xynames]

Thanks for sharing.

Well the way you have your landing page set up

those green ovals are before even your own contact us submission form, plus those are just one click while your contact form, like any contact form, requires some typing into more than one field, so it's no wonder most of your landers click what comes up first and is easiest.

Your company VDN Domain Names seems more like an afterthought than anything else, your landing page resembles a letterhead, with the co. name just a little line at the top left corner. This might be okay, might not, but that is the impression it creates. No real info about your company anywhere, no link to learn about your co. either, doesn't make any sort of presentation.

Is a guy who is looking to buy a domain going to care about the company that is selling it to him? Maybe not on the first day when he makes the inquiry, but perhaps later, when it comes to payment time.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

My thought process was to give potential buys a choice of established venues to carry out a transaction which would hopfully instill trust.

If I am understanding what you are suggesting, have a landing you manage, but on that have links where they can close the deal at various options - like Sedo or Afternic or DAN etc. I used to do exactly that. I have decided it just added confusion, so I am at the moment modifying my site so that I give only two choices - one that is a transaction directly with me and the other a transaction through a third party site (and depending on the name that is different third party sides, but I no longer state where it is).
Bob

 

[Dosebuy]

Hello.

Here is my page.

My thinking is minimalistic.
* Directly to a contact form where you can ask questions or give offers.
* Short information on the left side together with links to my portfolios at three popular marketplaces.
* A couple of showcases at the bottom (more if you scroll down on the page)
* Socials and Search function up right.
* Site Navigation on the left.(Which I will work adding content to).

Two pictures attached. One with sidebar not shown and one with sidebar shown.

Happy for Feedback.

 

[frank-germany]

I have experimented with a lot of different landing pages
over the last years

undeveloped got me faster inquiries and sales


but it all depends on the name and the buyer
in the end

 

[frank-germany]

to me that's a great landing page:

 

[xynames]

Try clearing cache on your browser. Also sometimes nameservers take a short time to update.

 

[xynames]

Hi, I dunno I guess I just have confidence in that my names are the best. I play a game of chess with my buyers where I assume that they will make the best possible move, not that they are dumb and will not find out or will not already know about the competition.

I'll take a look at domainmarket.com and consider it, thanks!

As I explained above, I list all my names at Afternic with Make Offer only. Only after a price inquiry comes in will I then set a BIN/Floor and in most cases, after I have done that, the domain sells, so the end result is that most of my domains are not Afternic premium listed, at least not for very long because they sell.

 

[Windoms]

Okay I looked at domainmarket and I ran a keyword for a domain of my own that I sold last year for high five figures. The "alternatives" at domainmarket were garbage and in some cases priced much higher than my domain that I sold, so is the reason you suggest linking to domainmarket so that potential buyers will find expensive crap over there and then come back and realize that my domains are better and in fact less expensive?

On the other hand with buydomains I am able to tell my buyers that my domain is priced about right and that if they look at buydomain comparables they will find this to be true.

Yes domainmarket is much higher prices and has more inventory (it's Mike Mann's).
I didn't suggest anything but you are right about both.
I only suggested domainmarket as I thought it'd make a better first impression on buyer and provide a lot more educational data because of # of domain names, high prices and professional platform.You type a keyword and you get a lot of results from 2.000.000$ to 200$.
Buydomains is much cheaper price range.
I'd link both.

 

[xynames]

Josytal, I think your landing page is a step further in the direction of driving people to buy the domain elsewhere, so comments made above about D Haynes' landing page with the green ovals to click to buy the domain on Sedo Afternic GoDaddy Uniregistry would apply to yours too, x2 because your links are even more prominent. At least you have the Make Offer option right there below.

I dunno my thinking is that I want people who land on my page to buy directly from me, and not have to pay the commission. I present the alternatives as an afterthought, not the main event.

Yes domainmarket is much higher prices and has more inventory (it's Mike Mann's).
I didn't suggest anything but you are right about both.
I only suggested domainmarket as I thought it'd make a better first impression on buyer and provide a lot more educational data because of # of domain names, high prices and professional platform.You type a keyword and you get a lot of results from 2.000.000$ to 200$.
Buydomains is much cheaper price range.
I'd link both.

I went ahead and linked domainmarket on my landing page too, above buydomains. But these are "afterthoughts" that the average person who lands on my landing page might not even explore.

I tested the theory out, with a certain recalcitrant domain buyer who was stuck at mid to high three figures I sent him over to domainmarket and suggested he search for what domains with his keyword are going for there. He eventually wrote back "I get it" and tripled his offer, and it is close enough to what I wanted so I might just accept.

Such an approach - direct - not afterthought - sending the potential buyer to another seller - could backfire too though.

 

[Josytal]

There are many reasons why you might want to optionally forward buyers to a third-party platform to complete the sales : level of trust enjoyed by established marketplace(s), low sales commission, payment security, lack of technical know-how in transferring domains to buyers, you don't want to go through the rigors of domain escrow services, international payment processors don't operate in your country, etc.

Again, you are not directing buyers to just anywhere on the external marketplace. You're directing them to a specific page - your domain BIN/Make Offer page on the third-party marketplace. You can click on on any of the buttons and see what I'm saying.

In any event, you should stick with what works best for you. That's the essence of A/B testing.

 

[Mister Funsky]

Just wanted to get this thread back into the spotlight to see if any of the original posters (or new ones) have new data to share.

I agree with the absurdity of having a landing page that allows visitors to search for other names that may not be mine...not unless they (the parking/selling site) are willing to forgo any commissions charged to me if a sale is made thru one of my names bringing them traffic (or at least give me a discount when one of my names is sold).

 

[Chris Hydrick]

Epik landing page example

 

[Ostrados]

Using Dan landing with option "redirection to internal Dan marketplace" enabled, to make chat button appears.. this gives trust feeling to the buyer and he can make direct chat with Dan staff to ask about anything (buying process, payment options ... etc).

I am satisfied with this and I dont think I can make a landing page better than that.