PPC vs Development

[Ammudamus]

Good post about this topic on Rick Schwartz's blog:

http://www.ricksblog.com


Thanks,
A

 

[namegame]

For someone who has thousand's of domain names with many being very brandable, how does one go about learning to develop websites without having any experience??? Not only is the technical knowedge lacking, but I imagine it would take a substantional amount of time to develop and maintain a large portfolio. As an example of the scope, I had 2 of the dozen or so names that sold in the recent GEO auction...quite a number more selected for it...and had about 175 of the approximately 1600 names selected for the CAC Macau auction with one of the small number sold. I'm not so sure the auction route works so well and am agreeing development and SEO is better than ppc for selling names. TIA for any input.

 

[localexperts]

For someone who has thousand's of domain names with many being very brandable, how does one go about learning to develop websites without having any experience??? Not only is the technical knowedge lacking, but I imagine it would take a substantional amount of time to develop and maintain a large portfolio.

This is the classic depth vs breath strategy. Do you focus on your best name(s) and go deep (ie lot of content) or develop many names and go broad. Look at Marchex with a site like Exterminator.com. They are a classic breath play. Tons of thin sites, all based on a yellow pages model. They bought the data from InfoUsa or another source and then did some limited value ad.

So Parking pages (PPC listings) will allow you to manage 1000s domains (albeit thin sites). As you expand content on your sites, you need to make sure that content easily transports to all your verticals sites. Site Reviews is something that could transport if you had existing PPC listings from Yahoo and Google.

 

[Ammudamus]

George,
Good to hear from you! It will be interesting to see what type of feedback you obtain from your traffic tests. Ideally, I think this becomes the tipping point for folks that are small time domainers. In an extension such as .TV, development has been hammered down as the appeal to end users. I get that for any extension, branding a name creates huge value. How do folks that are doing this on a much smaller scale budget for these costs? Here's an example:

Let's say an investor in the .TV or .COM spends $1000 on domain name purchases that are currently being parked. There is not much parking revenue being generated, if any. If you are focusing on 1 or 2 brands on a deeper level, websites that have functionality with SEO, PPC, and PPL are running $500-1000 at a minimum. This is 100% of your current cost basis. How do you budget for these types of costs and eventually obtain margin on your investment?

Thanks,
A

 

[localexperts]

True,

I can give you the results of my first big domain investment at my new company. A couple years ago I bought BanquetFacilities.com for $10K in a private sale. Today BanquetFacilities.com #1 on Google for the high search term "Banquet Facilities". It is also first page for other global synonyms like "Banquet Halls", etc.

Currently, we are making around $300-$500/mo for the SEO and type in traffic on BF.com. However on the purchased traffic, we are making orders of magnitude the SEO/type in traffic. I won't give out the exact number, but add multiple zeros to the SEO/type in traffic revenue.

So being able to drive traffic (at a profit) is the key for anyone who wants to move from domainer to end user.

How do you do it? Three ways: 1) high conversion pct, 2) targeted marketing messages, and 3) effective revenue model at realizing the max value from the purchased traffic.

GP

 

[Ammudamus]

George,
Wow! Those are great residuals to offset your initial risk and costs. Does your firm provide these types of solutions (i.e. website, PPC, PPL and SEO)? If so, what niche industries are you able to focus on?

Thanks,
A

 

[localexperts]

We focus on event/wedding planning, home services, personal fitness, and pets. We don't offer those services because we are still actively buying domains and adding breath.

For example, we just purchased LawnMaintenance.net, LandscapeContractors.net, and WeddingPhotographers.net to do the same thing in those verticals.

 

[Ammudamus]

George,

Gotcha. Any referrals of companies that do offer those services?

Thanks,
A

 

[localexperts]

There are tons of companies who will manage PPC click campaigns. Google even has this service for larger accounts. We always manage our own campaigns or had Google help us, so I don't have experience with any outside firm.

We had one employee who would drive PPC directly to affliate programs. Made good money.

I would run a test with 2-3 firms until you find one that is effective.