You Should Make Landing Pages for your Domains

[DomaHub]

Link to original Medium article.

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First of all, what is a landing page? The term has many meanings on the internet, but for domaining purposes it simply means:

A site for your domain name where visitors can make sales inquiries.

Sounds simple enough, but what’s so special about it? Is this an alternative to listing on secondary marketplaces (e.g. Sedo, Flippa, etc.)? Is it better than traditional parking?

Okay, okay — you’re skeptical. Let me help break it down for you.

Parking Revenue is Declining…
For the end-user at least. Look at this 2015 survey result from popular domain news source domainnamewire.

Credit to Andrew Allemann (www.domainnamewire.com)​

Yes, domain parking revenue used to be very lucrative for many domainers in the early days of the internet. Yes, it was a simple and easy way to make money from your domains. But, in today’s reality, parking tends to only bring in a couple of bucks a month.

There could be a few possible reasons for this such as fewer people typing in URL’s to unknown websites, people becoming less likely to click on advertising links, parking companies not giving you a fair share of the revenue, etc.

Regardless, parking revenue is on the decline for many domainers (and basically nonexistent for many others...). So where should you put your domains now?

Marketplaces Don’t Cover All Your Bases
There are dozens of domain name marketplaces where you can list and sell your domains to other people. Some marketplaces allow you to redirect your domain to its respective listing page. Or they may provide free and/or paid parking options while your domain is currently being listed. And some marketplaces provide neither.

You probably have a number of domains listed on marketplaces. You’re relying on the people who peruse these marketplaces to eventually find your domain and then purchase it.

But what about the people outside of these marketplaces? How will direct visitors know your domain is for sale — especially if your domain only shows parked ads or shows nothing at all?

Don’t Alienate Your Visitors
There are going to be a number of people who visit your website directly (i.e. by typing in the domain into their browser). Some of these people are going to be interested in buying it. How can we best persuade them to make an offer on the spot? Or at the very least, let them know the domain is for sale?

A typical Uniregistry parked domain. (with satire)​

The above image is an example of a typical parked domain’s site provided by Uniregistry. A single banner at the top that states the domain is for sale and provides a phone number. Clicking the banner directs you to another marketplace where you can submit an offer (quite redundant). The rest of the site is all advertisements.

If a potential buyer were to stumble onto this domain, would they know what to do? No, chances are they’ll bounce because the site looks like typical spam and you lose out on a potential sale opportunity or lead.

Let’s try to help visitors avoid seeing this little guy.​

Even worse, you have nothing on your domain and the user sees some kind of browser error or blank page.

AdBlock Is On the Rise
The number of users who use some form of adblock (software to detect and avoid ads on a page) is increasing. Let’s face it. Not many people like being targeted for advertisements.

Source — 2017 Adblock Rep​

When people arrive at your site and see advertisements or they see nothing because of adblock, they are more likely to just leave the page immediately.

Dedicated Landing Pages Bridge the Gap
Landing pages ensure that your visitors will see something better than just ads or errors when they land on your domain. Good landing pages will also make it immediately obvious to the visitor that your domain is for sale. An even better one has a visible price tag (buy-it-now price or minimum offer price) and a simple contact form to get in touch.

This way, visitors won’t get confused by strange advertisements and redirects, errors or blank pages, and they’ll have a easy way of contacting you.

But that’s not all! Landing page services and platforms also provide a variety of different stats and visuals you can show on your page. These things help visitors understand the domain better, potentially increasing the likelihood of a sale. Additionally, many of these services provide portfolio management and help you get set up across all of your domains in a short amount of time.

Don’t want to lose out on potential marketplace sales? Don’t worry, you can have a dedicated landing page and still list your domain on other marketplaces. This way, you can maximize your reach and alienate as few visitors as possible.

Conclusion and Follow-up
Our next post will cover the things that make a good landing page as well as things to avoid when creating one!

 

[Kate]

Some parking pages are so lame or look so spammy, you just wanna click back and get out asap.
The sponsored links can be dangerous too (UDRP-wise).
I think building your own landers can be a good thing because you have total control of the visitor's experience. You can also deliver pages that stand out from the rest. Some pages are so familiar people are no longer paying attention.
Adblock can be a real concern, because once it's installed users have no idea of the stuff they are missing on. Thus it can result in lost sales opportunities.

My rule is that if the domain doesn't get significant traffic, then the parking revenue is inconsequential. Therefore you can renounce monetizing the domain and put it on your own landers instead. The clutter is not worth it if you're earning peanuts.

 

[creataweb]

Most pages I visit that are parked are 100% blocked. So I don't see any for sale links or banners. I stopped using those awhile ago because I wasn't getting enough sales. Once I switched I started getting a lot more sales.

 

[toughdomains]

have a great story that just happened today...Ill mention the domain once the escrow is complete. And it will be posted in namebio once approved.

this guy calls the number listed on the for sale landing page leaves a message. (another pro to having your own sales page vs a marketplace page) I feel from the info I have this was a direct type in to the domain.

he states his name I look up area code which is Canada.
Before I return the call I want to be armed with info so I pull up the toughdomains panel and see when I bought it 2013 and for how much around $160
Since it was parked with our system I can see how much traffic it gets not much and that its 5 years old. (dont think age or traffic mattered one bit in this sale but age helps me personally see how much lower from ask I may want to come down)

I return his call he says "Im calling for my boss" we dance around the obvious for a few seconds and then I ask him how much are you looking to offer for this name? He immediately states the min bid price on the lander which is $700 I look at the buy it now and I quote the buy now price of 3k.
He reacts to the price and says
"Wow! Thats alot...well ok I have all I need to know."

and he quickly hangs up the phone. I sit back and wondered if I should call him back and lower the ask a bit but I actually really like this name its a short .com and easy to remember. If he likes as much as me he will at least come back with a counter.

I wake up this morning and I have an email from escrow saying the buyer (same name who called me accepted the price for 3k and the terms of the offer) I accept the trasnaction and select which account I want escrow to pay.

I can see the email in escrow so I look up the company and it says he is the CEO so I guess he wasnt calling for his boss...He was the Boss!
I would say from the details of this sale the lander helped in the following ways

1. provided a number to call and speak to me an easy way to reach me
2. set an expectation of the price with min offer $700 (if min offer is set our form wont let you submit below the min offer)
3. offered a clear buy price with a way for anyone to purchase the name at anytime. This creates a sense of urgency when you narrowed your choice of names. The domain was set to buy now and when a buyer sees that anyone can buy the name at any time for that price it must have motivated him to click buy now.

you can offer all these influencing factors on any lander page and you dont have to use any of the services promoted in this thread. but simply consider if these factors helped speed up this sale the contact number, price range and quick buy option will work again for another buyer.

Could I have made the sale without the lander? probably but it certainly helped close the deal. (and close the deal while i was sleeping with zero back and forth on email or price)
I didnt have to think last minute what i wanted for the name.
I already added a price and min to the offer page that I was happy with and wasnt ambushed by a new offer or wondering how he came up with his offer price.

Every deal is different but in this case I feel the lander helped me establish and solidify the asking price and streamline the sales process.

 

[DomaHub]

@DomaHub , with all due respect, I think it's you who didn't get Biggie's post.

Biggie is asking a very sensible question,
why someone that is interested in buying a domain won't click the -quite obvious- sales banner?

As long as that banner is clicked then the landing page will immediately switch to a more appropriate page according to the visitor's interest, ie. buying the domain.

Hi,

That is one part of his post I actually overlooked and did not respond to, thanks for bringing this up.

I understand that people who are looking to buy the domain are more than capable of clicking the obvious sales banner. But why must someone who wants to buy the domain have to go through an extra click to get to the sale? Why do they have to be redirected to a different marketplace page? Also why must the domain have all these irrelevant advertising links?

[edit:]

It's like when you are really craving a hamburger so you go to the local hamburger chain. After sitting down, the waiter comes to you and instead of directly taking your order for the hamburger, he starts blabbing about all of the special deals available. But you know you only want the hamburger right now damn it! Imagine after all that waiting, your waiter says, "okay please follow me to a different table so you can order your hamburger."

That would be ridiculous! Taking it back to domain names--if you know what your target audience is, why are you creating artificial barriers that prevent them from making that purchase? We know customers are fickle and can get cold feet easily. We should make it as easy as possible for them to make that final purchase.

 

[DomainVP]

I have been using custom optimized landing pages since day #1.

As a developer it only made sense to control the content of my own domains.

Landing pages are not a magic sales solution but it can assist your sales funnel if you have one in place.

 

[Criterion811]

I've just started building dedicated landing pages for each one of my domains, to feature on my website, built on wordpress.

Each domain when typed directly in redirects to my site. It's a reasonably long process but I dont have a huge amount of domains and I'm sure there's quicker ways to do it than my way.

For me, if I was in the shoes of being an end-user (which I have been before I started domaining), I would like to see a professional looking page, virtually spam-ad free (targeted ads are much better), with some proof of concept about the domain (e.g. a conceptual logo), some information, a price and a clear link to where/whom I can contact to get this domain.

It just feels better to look at a nicely designed page and puts the customer at ease. I had loads of pages parked with SEDO going to literal pyramid scheme scam sites and it was annoying at best and damaging to my domains rep at worst.

I think this is what DomaHub meant in the OP? It looks more legit. Although that being said I do really like UniRegistry landing pages they look very sleek.

 

[Willox Perez]

A very important decision I had to make was keeping the domains parked and earning some type of money towards renewals or have a nice looking landing page to obtain more leads and this way increase my sales.

Since I didn't know what to choose I decided to just test it for 3 month with landing pages over at Uniregistry and I did see an increase in inbound leads which lead to more people to follow up with in order to close more sales. When I saw this I decided to stay with it and so far so good. I noticed Bodis had some nice landing pages as well that I thought about trying out since I liked how they kept track of the traffic stats vs with Uni.

For someone faced with making the same decision I simply say if the parking income you are earning is significant stay with it but if that is not the case give landing pages a shot and see how it goes for you.

- Will

 

[maxtorz]

Why not use Efty or Undeveloped? and not waste a ton of time into developing landingpages?
Efty is my favorite for many reasons.

 

[biggie]

hah,

trying to present a "sky is falling scenario" with parking, using the poorest looking parking page ,

for a lame intro to the promo that's bound to come.

why assume that "a buyer"... someone who is looking to "buy" wouldn't have sense enough to click on that link?
it's a dumb assumption, given the sales data recently released from Uniregistry marketplace

also, why not show what the lander looks like after they click the for sale banner or simply state one can redirect right to the lander at Uni or at any other ppc that have sales landers too?

ie: https://uniregistry.com/market/domain/fiat.us

or show what sedo's landers look like
ie: https://sedo.com/search/details/?pa...73&domain=wujo.com&et_sub=1010&origin=parking

or what fabulous landers look like
ie: http://www.fabulous.com/domainsales...t&utm_campaign=DOMAIN ACTIVE FOR SALE BANNERS

or parkingcrew?
ie: https://www.mydomaincontact.com/index.php?domain_name=etv.org


with so many choices, why the need to make your own lander or pay some service the dollars you could be spending on domain renewals?

just saying as a counter point.


imo.....

 

[DomaHub]

hah,

trying to present a "sky is falling scenario" with parking, using the poorest looking parking page ,

for a lame intro to the promo that's bound to come.

why assume that "a buyer"... someone who is looking to "buy" wouldn't have sense enough to click on that link?
it's a dumb assumption, given the sales data recently released from Uniregistry marketplace

also, why not show what the lander looks like after they click the for sale banner or simply state one can redirect right to the lander at Uni or at any other ppc that have sales landers too?

ie: https://uniregistry.com/market/domain/fiat.us

or show what sedo's landers look like
ie: https://sedo.com/search/details/?pa...73&domain=wujo.com&et_sub=1010&origin=parking

or what fabulous landers look like
ie: http://www.fabulous.com/domainsales/?formdata[domain]=hdc.net&formdata[affo]=6141&formdata[affhash]=1507842927&utm_source=bannertop&utm_medium=6141&utm_term=Non DDN Make Offer&utm_content=hdc.net&utm_campaign=DOMAIN ACTIVE FOR SALE BANNERS

or parkingcrew?
ie: https://www.mydomaincontact.com/index.php?domain_name=etv.org


with so many choices, why the need to make your own lander or pay some service the dollars you could be spending on domain renewals?

just saying as a counter point.


imo.....

Biggie, I believe you misunderstood what we were explaining in this post.

There is a difference between the domain's listing page on the respective marketplace and the actual site that is shown when you visit the domain. We are specially talking about direct traffic to your domain. Not to your domain's listing on some secondary marketplace.

For example, let's take a look at the "landers" you linked. We think that these domains are perfect examples of what we are talking about

1. www.fiat.us - This is what you see what you go to www.fiat.us:

2. www.wujo.com - This is what you see when you go to www.wujo.com

3. www.hdc.net - This is what you see when you go to www.hdc.net

4. www.etv.org - This is what you see when you go to www.etv.org

So as you can see, the domain sites display a starkly different page from the respective marketplaces' listing pages. Additionally, if you had AdBlock turned on, you wouldn't even be able to see any of the links on these pages. They'd just have a lot of blank space instead.

In this post, we are simply pointing out that these parked sites look sub-optimal and may lead to a poor experience for potential leads who are visiting your domain directly (not to mention the declining revenue factor). We then state that landing pages may be a good alternative solution.

We are not trying to knock the marketplace's domain listing pages. Not sure how you got that idea from our post.

 

[MrConor]

If you have hosting - Install WordPress with Instabuilder plugin. Drag and drop landing pages, looks nice and add a contact / make an offer form without any knowledge of HTML/PHP

Hope this is of help to some.

 

[Kpett]

Sometimes I use the proverbial "we" in my business responses on my website - even though its really just me. So I'm here on NP as just me ... kinda thought @DomaHub is really just one person???

 

[tonyk2000]

And yes some users know they will get a better deal by cutting out the marketplace and make an offer on your landing page.

Sometimes this may be the case, but endusers should not count on it:

- Expressing interest, or starting negotiations, may well result an unexpected outcome of an increased fixed price. Especially if the seller is well funded and is not looking for urgent sale. Some sellers do this routinely and frequently (I heard this technology is used by hugedomains), some sellers may increase prices from time to time, based on number and quality of inquiries received, or just after the 1st inquiry. So the best thing an enduser can do is just to buy the domain name using the marketplace if the price is affordable for them

- MANY domainers are using marketplaces and brokers to outsource daily routine (myself included). If I have a domain listed on some marketplace with fixed BIN - then it makes zero sense to contact me directy trying to pay less. Some buyers are trying to explain that they want to save on marketplace commissions. This would not work. I _want_ the domain to be sold on a marketplace, as I do not have time and resources to set own customer support, merhcant accounts, phone lines, etc. etc. Want to buy directly? You may, but this price will be higher, not lower.
And, as soon as I set all the own infrastructure - I may start selling directly, but the prices will be - again - increased, as maintaining own sales and support infrastructure is a costly thing.

On another issues discussed in this thread, it appears that many parking companies (and, possibly, providers of landing pages) are missing one important feature. How the forsale domain is shown in search engines results? I googled for somedomain.com and/or "somdomain.com" with quotes on different domains (hosted with different providers). OMG. Sometimes, yes, it is "somaindomain.com is for sale". Fine. With other providers, it is "somedomain.com connects you with providers of home loans for nearly 10 years" or similar. Sometimes, it is "loading java, please wait" text in search engine output description. Yes, many endusers are using search engines even to reach the website they already know about, by typing in exact website address in SE bar and following the 1st result which normally is the website in question. And, naturally, they see the description provided in SE output.
So, making own-hosted landing pages makes sense also to make sure that even minimal SE optimization will be applied.

 

[Hypersot]

@DomaHub , with all due respect, I think it's you who didn't get Biggie's post.

Biggie is asking a very sensible question,
why someone that is interested in buying a domain won't click the -quite obvious- sales banner?

As long as that banner is clicked then the landing page will immediately switch to a more appropriate page according to the visitor's interest, ie. buying the domain.

btw. I totally agree on the adblocker's risk you mentioned. That is indeed something troubling.

 

[E-Promote]

Cool, good luck with your experiment! If you can, please share what you learn so we can all benefit

Another approach could be to simply (depending on # of names) direct all of your non traffic names straight to the sales landing page (avoiding an ad landing page).

 

[karmaco]

Unpopular opinion but I agree with almost everything the article said @DomaHub and I have my stuff on landers. Nobody likes ads. Domainers just don’t like to accept how spammy an ad filled page looks to a consumer if they see the ads at all. Ads are also a good way to get a UDRP for some names. Mainly though unless you have an extremely lucrative dictionary word it’s not going to do beans for you to have ads polluting your domain, I like to think I am keeping the name clean for its future owner.

 

[Kpett]

I've just started building dedicated landing pages for each one of my domains, to feature on my website, built on wordpress.

Each domain when typed directly in redirects to my site. It's a reasonably long process but I dont have a huge amount of domains and I'm sure there's quicker ways to do it than my way.

For me, if I was in the shoes of being an end-user (which I have been before I started domaining), I would like to see a professional looking page, virtually spam-ad free (targeted ads are much better), with some proof of concept about the domain (e.g. a conceptual logo), some information, a price and a clear link to where/whom I can contact to get this domain.

I'm with @Criterion811 - dedicated landing pages on a wordpress site that I can control the look and feel of, as well as making it look "professional" by offering other services, tying in to social media accounts, and making a few extra cents on Adsense revenue, so the user (and potential buyer) knows they are buying from someone who is reputable.

See my site at Domain Direct Services , as well as the jagdomains site I've listed for sale on Flippa (see my signature below) if someone wants to buy a pre-made domain site.

 

[MasterOfMyDomains]

Use www.efty.com has made my life simpler.
its not as easy as it looks, landers and with multiple wp sites comes multiple security risks, multiple updates to plugins. I am tight but my time is worth more than i pay efty

ps. just my opinion, I am sure many will disagree

 

[biggie]

A very important decision I had to make was keeping the domains parked and earning some type of money towards renewals or have a nice looking landing page to obtain more leads and this way increase my sales.

Since I didn't know what to choose I decided to just test it for 3 month with landing pages over at Uniregistry and I did see an increase in inbound leads which lead to more people to follow up with in order to close more sales. When I saw this I decided to stay with it and so far so good. I noticed Bodis had some nice landing pages as well that I thought about trying out since I liked how they kept track of the traffic stats vs with Uni.

For someone faced with making the same decision I simply say if the parking income you are earning is significant stay with it but if that is not the case give landing pages a shot and see how it goes for you.

- Will

i think what @Willox Perez says above, illustrates the point i was trying to emphasize.

not matter what the popular opinion is, in this thread,
the common sense route for those still earning parking income, is to stay with it.

if you're not making any money from ppc, then do what you gotta do, to keep you going.


Good Luck!

imo...

 

[DomaHub]

Most of our posts are just one person (me--Jeffrey) to represent the company's views. But we did have others chiming in at random times whenever necessary.

Seeing as how that goes against Namepros TOS, I (Jeffrey) will be doing all the posting from now on. But I might still refer to myself as "we" and "us" just to make it clear that it is DomaHub's viewpoint and not necessarily my personal viewpoint.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Why not use Efty or Undeveloped? and not waste a ton of time into developing landingpages?
Efty is my favorite for many reasons.

I agree entirely. Efty makes it easy to set up and change landing pages, even for a large number of domain names. You can add a custom logo if you want, and select an appropriate background. I like the paragraph plus bullet note appearance, and the design of Make An Offer. I still keep a regular website too (because I had it first), but if starting from scratch would probably only use Efty.

Contrary to the view expressed earlier, I think landing pages ARE important. I was surprised by the earlier response that someone said they never check landing pages before buying. I always check out if there is a landing page, not just for the domain I am considering but the same name with other endings and similar names, before deciding if a name is a good investment.

Happy domaining!

Bob

 

[toughdomains]

I am new to domain flipping and my question might sound silly, Its been 20 days since i purchased a couple domains and put it on godaddy auction and i do not have a single offer yet, if i purchase a domain and create a landing page how effective it would be? Or do you'll suggest i use flippa auctions for selling my domains?

The following is how I think about domain sales it will not apply to all.

Landing pages have little to no influence with godaddy and most marketplaces. And that should be the way it is. Marketplaces are designed to provide the domain exposure to buyers and promotion you need to sell a name.

Landing pages are part of an overall strategy to promote your domain portfolio.
I see domainers even here promoting links to auctions and marketplace links.

Why spend time resources and traffic promoting marketplaces when they should be doing that for you? That is why marketplaces are charging you a % of the sale because they connect you to buyers.
You will lose all that traffic and exposure once the listing ends.

I would suggest spending those resources, money and effort to promote your own domain store to bring attention to your own names for the long haul.

Most domain stores allow you to redirect your domain to an auction or marketplace link. After the listing is over you can remove the redirect but your marketing efforts remain with your stores domain. not the marketplace link.

So my suggestion is
-have both a good store a good landing page,
-park the names that bring in good rev (most stores including ours allow you to park and list your names at the same time)
-list your names on all marketplaces.
- promote your best names on namebio, here and other featured placements.
-Combine that with outbound email
and you have the overall strategy.

Once you have a buyer the landing page should help you close the deal. There you can adjust the price to set price closer to the ask of the buyer. Set trusted payment options like escrow.

I usually set my domains in my store to make an offer. If a buyer comes to me with $700 offer I switch to my asking price of lets say $1495 and send him a link to the landing page. There the buyer can focus on that name but also review related names.
Tossing a logo up there and having a reasonable price that anyone can buy and being able to adjust based on your negotiation has worked well for me. Landing page is just one important tool in the many parts of the overall strategy to sell your names.It should be powerful, graceful and flexible to help you close the deal. And yes some users know they will get a better deal by cutting out the marketplace and make an offer on your landing page. This works esp well when promotion is done through brokers.

In my expereince godaddy buyers look for name quality (for cheap) and perhaps use the traffic info they have. I have over 300 names on godaddy and only about 15 of them get offers..they are mostly one word or amazing two word names..(castingdirector.com) other 280 got zero offers in 6 months. its a volume and quality game with godaddy. if you look at namebio you will see some amazing sales prices ( just today ostatic.com sold for $25,000 USD) but im not getting those buyers.

 

[mpls]

I'll remove all my domains from parking.
All my domains, previously parked and now moved to development presents an high (bad) EFL (External Follow Links) parameter.
All those external follow links are parking Ads.
I've switched to NameSilo market place, they offer a FREE landing / contact page.
Here you are an example:
http://www.scary.club
http://www.toys.one
No links, no Ads, no bad SEO parameters, no money to pay!

 

[namelancer]

Biggie is asking a very sensible question,
why someone that is interested in buying a domain won't click the -quite obvious- sales banner?

@Hypersot ,I may have an answer for that. I've read it in a study (double-blind, observation and user-testing derived) somewhere that every time a user (a potential customer) is faced with a situation where they are required to make an extra click for gaining a reward (new knowledge, info) for satisfying curiosity they are inevitably just a click away from an actual sale. Domaining is like a sport of golf: the shortest path to success is paved with 'click' shortcuts