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!

 

[garptrader]

I get far more offers with individual landing pages (i.e. EFTY) than I did by merely redirecting all domains to a portfolio site. However, I still get a lot of "offers" that aren't really offers - people looking for apartment rentals, jobs, investment in Bitcoin, submitting offers in Colombian pesos (exchange rate ~3000 to the US$), submitting acceptable offers and then not responding to a request on how to handle escrow, etc. So you end up dealing with inbound messages which do not lead to a sale.

 

[toughdomains]

one non intuitive comment (at least to me) we get from our members is once they create a store they get less low ball offers. Im not sure if this is due to the parked pages suggests you will sell lower or dont care enough about the name or if you invested in a store the bottom feeders are less likely to think you will sell your one word .com for $500.
Whatever the case its an interesting insight we got back.

parking companies has zero interest in selling your name in the end a good name sold is less revenue for them.
There is a ton of psychology in selling a name for the max price. I have to believe just a little that the landing page plays a small role. I would be a good survey to run here. What are the biggest factors in your domain sales.
marketplace penetration
negotiation
reputation
landing page
price point
min offer
etc...

 

[toughdomains]

reminds me. I need to do this with all the newly transferred domains. I don't understand why the receiving registrars don't have an automated way that changes the dns soon as you transfer? why is that? to prevent what? if the domain is pointing to your website hosted at the last dns?

probably.

what a hassle. and most registrars don't have a "global" option to switch all domains in account to default.

registrars make money from your domain traffic. either in the form of advertising their services on the default parked page or from parking directly. imagine the rev or audience they get from the millions of names in btw the time you switch your DNS. There is no incentive to offer an auto update but they do have a bulk DNS update option so you can switch all your names in a few minutes. But I buy and drop so many names in a month I have to admit I also forget to update unless I check the current dns across the board.

 

[toughdomains]

you waste your time

agreed think if your trying to develop avg names one by one huge waste of time. but if you can mass create a feed page for thousands of names with your ads in minutes then its better than parking...advertising your own store or link to portfolio on a marketplace is better than not.

 

[namelancer]

one non intuitive comment (at least to me) we get from our members is once they create a store they get less low ball offers. Im not sure if this is due to the parked pages suggests you will sell lower or dont care enough about the name or if you invested in a store the bottom feeders are less likely to think you will sell your one word .com for $500.
Whatever the case its an interesting insight we got back.

The store might harbor a contradiction in terms, posing as a self-negating, value-stripping phenomenon.. In the words of another experienced domainer whose insight should weigh rather heavily under the years of trial-and-error with landing pages, as a downside, when, under certain circumstances (we wont define the conditions for the sake of brevity of our discussion ), the buyer arrives at a domain store rather than a sought-after individual landing page, it leads to lower conversions.
The moral of a story - all verifiable insights should come from data and nothing but data to stay be above the threshold of anecdotal evidence

 

[toughdomains]

wait for it....wait for it....

The store might harbor a contradiction in terms, posing as a self-negating, value-stripping phenomenon.. In the words of another experienced domainer whose insight should weigh rather heavily under the years of trial-and-error with landing pages, as a downside, when, under certain circumstances (we wont define the conditions for the sake of brevity of our discussion ), the buyer arrives at a domain store rather than a sought-after individual landing page, it leads to lower conversions.
The moral of a story - all verifiable insights should come from data and nothing but data to stay be above the threshold of anecdotal evidence

well put...one can never know the intention behind a buyer without being inside the mind of that buyer. its all conjecture

 

[Corey]

An example of my sales landing pages

www.etnapp.com.au

Cheers
Corey

 

[Corey]

GOIN.com.au

Cheers
Corey

 

[namelancer]

Landing Pages are targeted at a type-in traffic (following observation on parking platforms of their performance) with a hope of encountering, among those who go through the lengths of writing a full domain name into a browser, either a lonely random visitor or a healthy percentage of elusive would-be buyers going on and about internet,exploring different domains out of curiosity, or for developmental or investment purposes, as well as the presumed, primary group of people seeking to find a content in the first place.

Alternating between diverse options, one should keep in mind that for every type-in there are at least hundred searches performed through a search engine (the exact number could be even higher), so there comes a point when developing a highly visited domain may be a more profitable proposition than ordinary parking (where high visit count doesn't not translate into high parking revenue).

Where does it leave landing pages ? Well, they are suited to segments within a very defined niche market populated with stats subject to the law of moderation, where the visitor count can't be too low, or else no one would find them by type-ins (unless they are linked to a well-visited domain shop or another high-traffic domain), nor can it be too high due to existence of better monetization alternatives in the form of parking and or development.

Based on anticipated demographics of visitors, the price range of a domain generally sold through parking pages could be expected to fall within what is known as the impulse-buy range by a novice shopper, representing an end user, among others (other demographics), and being somewhere in the 700 - 2500 usd spectrum.

Granted, a professional domain investor isn't going to be swayed by hefty graphics of an ultra modern-looking landing page, nor do we expect them to fall into purchasing complacency out of being star-struck by a blinding mixture of aesthetics and glamor dulling their common sense. None of this is expected to happen, because landing pages aren't created to be seen by their eyes only.

 

[tonyk2000]

As to decreasing parking revenue and increasing usage of adblocks, it's irrelevant to the need for a landing page

I noticed that SEDO-powered parking pages with forsale banners, if visited with adblock enabled (at least with my "strict" adblock config) are 100% empty. They are blank. No "for sale" sign. Nothing.
Parking pages of other providers at least show "for sale" banners (but without PPC ads or "related links") with adblock enabled.

This is of course the case now, and may be changed in future - as both parking companies and adblocks perform code changes from time to time

 

[namelancer]

agree 100% to some its important and to others it doesnt matter one bit.

why exclude all the buyers like @MetBob just because its not how you personally consider a purchase?

Indeed, a Landing page is contingency, like house insurance - one should never buy or leave home without it

 

[toughdomains]

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

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.

another good point to control the presentation of your domain not yet mentioned. its your name no one will promote it better than you. all around a great discussion.

 

[DomaHub]

Both, doing split testing now with a new layout (hasn't gone live yet.)

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

 

[Sinfully Wicked]

The Fabulous page isn't responsive, and that makes me click back instantly

That's annoying.

 

[WhoaDomain.com]

what about fully developing mini income generating sites? I have been procrastinating starting with WPRobot that generates auto content via RSS.

would the ads on such a site be blocked too by the adblocker? or do adblockers specifically detect that a landing page is simply a parked page and automatically blocks all the ads on it?

what about a developed site albeit autogen content from rss feeds?

thanks.

also has anyone seen the benefits of putting your own personal domain email on your whois data for all your domains? or mentioning in your whois (noticed this alot lately)

something like this?

"This Domain is for Sale"

and if your contact email is something like this

[email protected]

assuming most people would hand type DNPremium they could see my entire Efty account with all my domains?

That way you keep or corral visitors inside your Domain marketplace?

like a circle jerk really.

The problem too with marketplaces is this fear I have that the traffic you send your listings. I can't help feeling the marketplaces might redirect incoming traffic to their "buddies" or featured listings?

 

[Josytal]

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.

Really, the OP can't be objective per se, since he harbors ulterior motives of self-promotion.

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?

Here we should not throw the baby out with the bath water
AdBlockers can be an insurmountable barrier between you and your "almighty" landing page.
It has been happening and no point denying it.

 

[creataweb]

what about fully developing mini income generating sites? I have been procrastinating starting with WPRobot that generates auto content via RSS.

would the ads on such a site be blocked too by the adblocker? or do adblockers specifically detect that a landing page is simply a parked page and automatically blocks all the ads on it?

what about a developed site albeit autogen content from rss feeds?

thanks.

also has anyone seen the benefits of putting your own personal domain email on your whois data for all your domains? or mentioning in your whois (noticed this alot lately)

something like this?

"This Domain is for Sale"

and if your contact email is something like this

[email protected]

assuming most people would hand type DNPremium they could see my entire Efty account with all my domains?

That way you keep or corral visitors inside your Domain marketplace?

like a circle jerk really.

The problem too with marketplaces is this fear I have that the traffic you send your listings. I can't help feeling the marketplaces might redirect incoming traffic to their "buddies" or featured listings?

I think WPRobot is dead and this idea wouldn't work well on full automation unless someone developed a system from scratch for today's world.

Same goes for mini-sites. Used to be great but now they're mostly dead. Better to dev 1 or 2 larger sites and focus on them. Just my opinion of course.

 

[creataweb]

cool cool. can I ask what your issue is with WPRobot. sounds like you used it? or you read some bad news about it?

and I'll quote this

"this idea wouldn't work well on full automation unless someone developed a system from scratch for today's world."

they do have another hosted solution like an Efty style set up called

CMSCommander.com

how about that one? was looking into that too.

why is all of this dead? new Google Algo ruining everything again?

I haven't used WPR but looked at it, it seems dead and not useful imo.

I'll checkout the CMSC and yeah I think Google helped kill these things faster.

 

[DomaHub]

geez. that was my only hope really to do like automated income. I really was gungho about it.

as parking was dead for sure.

I had planned to use WPR to created autogen RSS feed site like turn domains into mini Amazon or Walmart affiliate programs using those sites XML feeds.

and then maybe slapping some of those "content ads" like Taboola or OutBrain or RevContent to add more income to the mix.

would Google ban such sites? or blacklist a domain for this?

A bit unrelated--but is MarketDN.com down? Tried to visit it but got DNS errors...

 

[WhoaDomain.com]

A bit unrelated--but is MarketDN.com down? Tried to visit it but got DNS errors...

hey thanks. I don't know why but damn! I think I never changed the DNS on that since I bought it! lol

unbelievable!

 

[DomaHub]

hey thanks. I don't know why but damn! I think I never changed the DNS on that since I bought it! lol

Haha no problem. Happens to the best of us

 

[Sinfully Wicked]

The problem with things like WPR is that your site will never be unique. There probably will be 100's of domains doing exactly the same thing.

It may only work well if your domain has direct traffic, as ranking them kinda sites is difficult.

Building out niche sites that utilise Amazon and others XML feeds is fine. You'll just have to put a little work into the content side of things, or pay someone to write for your site(s)

I own NicheWebsites .co.uk and moving forward I'll use that to sell my affiliate sites, and create my own domain portfolio site.

Sometimes we have domains that are just begging to be developed and would sell for a lot more as a site then on its own.

 

[namelancer]

i'll concede that ad blockers have had some effect on ppc revenues, but conventional landers don't generate revenue at all.

Not at all.. If you don't want to rock the boat of continuous usage of Uniregistry service, there is a third - a compromise alternative, stuck between the rock and a soft sales page - option, i.e, landing/pages, with affiliate links attached instead of the traditional parking strings .

 

[noonoo1]

I decided to build my own landing page for my domains.

Here's and example:

Golf/d/o/t/wales

It works and i get the odd enquiry

 

[biggie]

so now you wanna know how much ppc money goes in my wallet huh?

well, that's not for you to know

don't need my hard numbers, nor do i need to back up any claims

you make negative characterization about parking because it uses ads, but there is nothing spammy about the pages.
the landers provided by them look good enough to get the job done and the templates may have even been created by professional writers, even though they are provided to users "FREE" of charge

but no one has to justify their usage of ppc services for you or to you,
or to anybody else who doesn't use it.

the consensus you speak of, is only based on those who post.
and those who did post, do not represent the majority opinion of all domainers


imo....