Demand Media: Books They Read, Business Model, and Why You Should Care
Ever since Demand Media was profiled in a recent article in Wired Magazine titled “The Answer Factory” (if you have not read this article then set aside 10 minutes and READ IT NOW – then come back here and finish reading this post of course 
) I have been extremely interested in learning as much as I can about them because to a certain degree the Demand Media business model mimics my thinking in running Domain Superstar LLC with John and also my other company 360 Quote LLC.
There is no real need for me to rehash the Wired article because you can just click on the link above and read it yourself but I would challenge all of the domainer/developers reading this post to see how you can take some of the ingredients for success from the Demand Media business model and apply it to your domains.
I would even go so far as to say that if you are a premium domain name holder or even a very strong niche domain name holder then you can take their business model a step further than even they can because certainly content is king but having the best domain in a given niche (i.e. a category killer domain name) coupled with great content can propel you to even greater success than your competitors who may need to work that much harder with a lesser quality domain.
I realize that what I am saying is nothing new and certainly nothing revolutionary but as with anything the only real success comes with not just a great idea but great execution. Rob Monster and Epik are attempting something similar in that they want to couple great content with great domains and truly leverage the power of a great domain. I am unsure about the soundness of their interlinking strategy from an SEO standpoint but it will be interesting to see how well they can execute on such a large scale as they already have a number of great domains.
Demand Media understands the power of domains as platforms for great content to some degree as they own a number of highly trafficked web properties as well as 50 or so niche web properties (and let’s not forget that they own eNom as well). However, there is one thing that Demand Media certainly understands about success on the web and that is the power of content.
While some may argue that the loads of content that the Demand Studio writers churn out every day is inferior in quality to many other sources of content it is important to remember that much of the content that they churn out is extremely long tail in nature and even if one agrees with the assumption that their content’s quality is lacking is still meets a need in the market because there is so little competition out there already for many long tail keyword terms. This of course is where I would like to say that their business model differs from mine in that I am a firm believer in attempting to publish only high quality content but then again I am sure that they would say the same thing
Demand Media certainly does a lot of things exactly right on the content side and if you are someone who wants to see some of the principles that they adhere to generate such success then look no further then the books that they draw inspiration from on the content side of things. Their most recent post highlights these books: “How Big Thinkers Help Us “Go Big” In Content”
What do YOU think of the Demand Media business model? In what ways can the Demand Media business model and content strategy help YOU develop your domains?
Top Picks for the LuxuryNames.com Domain Name Auction (November 18-24)
One of the things I like the most about the upcoming LuxuryNames.com domain name auction to be held at SnapNames.com from 11/18/09 to 11/24/09 is that according to the list I have reviewed 80% of the reserve prices are less than $1,500 AND the focus of the auction is strictly on .com, .net, and .org keyword domains with high exact search numbers.
It’s easy to say that you are going to have an auction and keep the reserves low but what usually happens is that there are a few major TLD keyword domains and the-rest-are-crap.info if you know what I mean I am a huge fan of buying exact match keyword domain names and then developing them into content rich sites so I thought that I would highlight a few of my top picks for the auction (DISCLAIMER: I will probably be bidding on some of these domains and I also am selling some of the domains so in the interest of full disclosure you can take it or leave it for some of my picks below):
1. AutoLoanCalculator.com (Reserve: $50,000) – If I had the money to grab this one right now then I would probably jump on it because with “Auto Loan Calculator” getting 135,000 exact match monthly average searches in Google AND the fact that this niche could be very easily monetized this could be a steal for someone who knows what they are doing. If you are someone who develops domains and actually knows what they are doing when it comes to monetization then this could achieve a very nice ROI for you. Alternatively, you could just loan me the money to buy the domain and I will give you a free case study on how to turn a niche financial domain into a cash cow
2. GalwayIreland.net (Reserve: $250) – I am not really a huge fan of the .net TLD but I certainly recognize their value because compared to the pricing of the .com then sure you may end up bleeding off some of your repeat traffic to the .com variation of your domain but honestly if you can purchase a .net for 1/100th of the price of the .com then it may certainly be a wise investment of your money. Naturally, GalwayIreland.com would be a much better domain name but with “Galway Ireland” getting 40,500 monthly average exact match searches in Google then you probably wouldn’t even blink if GalwayIreland.COM was listed with a reserve price of $25,000 so to have GalwayIreland.NET listed with a reserve of 1/100th of $25,000 might end up being a steal.
3. ColonDetox.org (Reserve: $200) – I am actually a much bigger fan of .org’s than I am of .net’s in certain niches. Certain health niches tend to lend themselves nicely to a well developed .org domain name and I think that this is one of those cases. “Colon Detox” gets 6,600 monthly average exact match searches in Google and I think that if this domain was fully developed into a high quality informational type site then it could rank very well and even attract some links that a more commercially oriented colon detox site might not get (especially because of the spammy nature of the colon detox niche). Naturally, once the site ranks high enough and has a firm foundation of quality content to stand on then you could feel free to monetize to your hearts content
The above domains are just 3 of the domains that I wanted to feature in detail but as I mentioned in the intro paragraph above there are a number of domains with very high exact search numbers so I thought it would be beneficial to list all of the domains that have more than 10,000 monthly average exact match searches off for you so that you can decide if the time might be right for you to pounce on a few:
| Domain | Searches | Reserve |
| AutoLoanCalculator.com | 135,000 | $ 50,000 |
| Stiletto.net | 135,000 | $ 750 |
| PianoSongs.net | 110,000 | $ 500 |
| FlightStatus.org | 110,000 | $ 1,500 |
| CoffeeGrinders.net | 90,500 | $ 2,000 |
| Improve.net | 90,500 | $ 6,000 |
| FloorPlans.net | 74,000 | $ 2,500 |
| DSLInternetServiceProvider.com | 74,000 | $ 12,000 |
| DrumSets.org | 74,000 | $ 250 |
| ChessGame.net | 74,000 | $ 2,000 |
| Kayaking.org | 74,000 | $ 8,000 |
| AtlantaHotelRates.com | 60,500 | $ 1,500 |
| HockeySticks.net | 60,500 | $ 3,000 |
| CruiseVacations.org | 60,500 | $ 1,500 |
| BestHotels.org | 60,500 | $ 900 |
| CowboyHats.net | 49,500 | $ 1,750 |
| HomeLoanCalculator.org | 49,500 | $ 1,500 |
| RomeHotel.org | 49,500 | $ 500 |
| Home-Buying.com | 49,500 | $ 1,000 |
| GalwayIreland.net | 40,500 | $ 250 |
| CompanyLogos.net | 40,500 | $ 2,000 |
| PrimarySchools.org | 40,500 | $ 99 |
| OrlandoAutoInsurance.net | 33,100 | $ 250 |
| BaltimoreHotelRates.com | 33,100 | $ 550 |
| BmxRacing.org | 33,100 | $ 150 |
| WeddingAlbums.net | 33,100 | $ 4,000 |
| EasterBaskets.net | 27,100 | $ 99 |
| DogBowls.net | 22,200 | $ 1,500 |
| CandyBars.net | 22,200 | $ 4,000 |
| PropertyValues.org | 18,100 | $ 1,500 |
| Clarkes.org | 18,100 | $ 300 |
| RefinanceCalculator.com | 18,100 | $ 30,000 |
| Newlyweds.net | 18,100 | $ 3,000 |
| LosAngelesRentalCars.net | 14,800 | $ 1,250 |
| Cold-Symptoms.com | 14,800 | $ 490 |
| Egos.org | 14,800 | $ 1,500 |
| MortgageMarketing.com | 14,800 | $ 500 |
| HealthInsurancePlans.net | 14,800 | $ 1,500 |
| HotelMadison.com | 14,800 | $ 1,200 |
| GraduatePrograms.com | 12,100 | $ 2,500 |
| WeeklyPlanner.com | 12,100 | $ 850 |
| NewYorkRentalCars.net | 12,100 | $ 399 |
| PassportApplications.net | 12,100 | $ 1,500 |
| HolidayDestinations.com | 12,100 | $ 8,000 |
| LifeInsuranceCompany.net | 12,100 | $ 750 |
What is YOUR pick for the best domain value from the auction?
WordPress Coming Soon Plugin: Why I Love It (and You Should Too)
The WordPress Coming Soon Plugin by CSSJockey.com is one of the niftiest little WP plugins that I have come across in quite some time and although it is very simple and elegant I think that you will love what it can do for you just as much as I do.
I actually just stumbled across this plugin just a few days ago as I was looking for a coming soon page to put up on the weight training site that John and I will be working on in the near future (and launching on 2/15/09). Of course, the domain name is WeightTraining.com and as its a great keyword domain name you can expect to see some “Case Study Friday” posts in the future covering our development efforts.
Anyway, you can read all of the features yourself by visiting the the link above but I just wanted to point out one little thing that I absolutely love about this plugin and that is –
As soon as you activate the coming soon page then anyone who is not logged in as a WordPress admin will see only the coming soon page while you and anyone else who is logged in as a WP admin will see your site live and 100% functional. This allows you to fix bugs and test the site out in a live environment to your hearts content without worrying about visitors seeing a partially finished site or getting turned off by bugs.
I have to say I wish that I would have come across this plugin a while ago as I could have certainly put it to good use but learn from my mistakes and if you are planning on spending some time developing an in depth/customized WordPress site (or even just doing some maintenance on an existing WordPress site) then head on over to check out the WordPress Coming Soon Plugin by CSSJockey.com right now!
Top 100 Domaining Blogs: Fully Sortable by Alexa, Compete, Twitter Followers, etc.
One of the sweetest things about our new list of the Top 100 Domaining Blogs is that the list is fully sortable by all of the column headers. This means that although the default list is sorted by Alexa rank you can also click on different columns to see which domain name blog has the most backlinks, the highest PageRank, the most Twitter followers, etc. Check it out now and see where you stack up!
Also, if your domain name blog made it on to the list then don’t forget to grab the free widget to put on your site that will update in real time and let you show off your rankings for the world to see!
NEW!!! Top 100 Domaining Blogs: Where Do You Stack Up?
Are you one of the top 100 domaining bloggers? Do you want to see where you stack up against your fellow domain name bloggers in terms of Alexa rank, Compete rank, # of Twitter followers, PR, # of backlinks, and more? Maybe you just want an easy place to scour the rankings and find interesting new domaining blogs to read – click here to visit our fully sortable list of the Top 100 Domaining Blogs!
If you are a domaining blogger and want to set some goals for yourself and get the competitive juices flowing then be sure to check back often to see if you can move up in the rankings because the list is updated at least once a day (except for the most recent post column which is updated much more often).
If you made it on to the list of the Top 100 Domain Name Bloggers then be sure to check out our widget award that allows you to show off your award and real time ranking on your site – all you have to do is copy and paste and the widget shows off your ranking in real time every time your blog page loads. Click here to check out the widget award.
How Much Money Can You Make With $5 and 2 Hours?
I will be the first to tell you that I rarely take the time to watch video posts but I just took 6 minutes and 11 seconds to watch the following video and I am extremely glad that I did.
Check out this video from the entrepreneur boot camp of Tina Seelig during the Stanford Technology Venture Program. Tina recounts a classroom experiment that she did that involved her dividing the class up into teams who were given the goal of making as much money as they could in 2 hours and only having $5 to start out with. This video is just chock full of awesomeness on so many levels and I could blather on for a few thousand words about different applications to domaining, building an online business, etc. etc. ad nauseum but rather than do that I would challenge you to stop watching puppies play the piano or whatever on YouTube for just a moment and devote the next 6 minutes and 11 seconds to watching THIS VIDEO.
When you are done watching the video then leave a comment below and see if you could beat any of the money making ideas that some of the students had using the $5 startup capital and 2 hour time limit constraints…. (or if you are really brave then leave a comment below BEFORE watching the video and then watch the video to see if your idea was better than any of their ideas….)
Business Owner to SEO to Domainer vs Domainer to SEO to Business Owner
“Business Owner to SEO to Domainer vs Domainer to SEO to Business Owner” Wow, if this title doesn’t confuse you then please immediately submit a guest post so that I can replace your post with this one… Just kidding!
Alan Dunn had written a post earlier about Ad.ly that had a great little statement in it:
“The first step to success is to quit reading domain blogs – even this one – and focus on SEO, online marketing and viral marketing blogs.”
I love that statement and I was about to type out a long comment to compliment him but I decided that the comment was getting too long so I would just give him a quick compliment via his comment form and steal the meat of my comment for this post (Sorry Alan ).
The reason I love that statement is because it seems that the time line of my “career” as an entrepreneur seems to be exactly the opposite career path of many domainers (although I could be wrong as this is just what I have seen first hand). I was first a small business owner then an “SEO” and then lastly a domainer. I owned (and still own) a Florida health insurance agency and so of course being the nerd that I am I wanted to put up a website to help people compare health insurance plans online.
Once the website was up and running I quickly realized that I actually needed to get people to visit the site in order to make any money
This caused me to learn as much as I could about SEO and about all of the various factors that went into building a quality website that would give the search engines and most importantly the website visitors exactly what they were looking for. Once I started ranking the website high for its target keywords and working hard to provide a ton of high quality content on the site and a great user experience I naturally wanted to duplicate the process on other websites.
The more I learned about SEO the more I came to appreciate the importance of keyword domain names. An exact match keyword domain name is the one key element of a winning online strategy that cannot be duplicated. Let me say that again: your domain name cannot be duplicated.
If we can agree that domain names have inherent value (because of keywords, length, TLD, and any other combination of these 25 rules for choosing a domain name) and that domain names are unique (fact) then it’s easy to see why having the best domain name for a given market niche online is a HUGE sustainable competitive advantage that even the deepest pocketed competitors cannot copy (unless they buy your domain name from you for $$$ and then well, that is OK too )
If you are the owner of say DogFood.com then you have a significant competitive advantage in building a business online in the “Dog Food” niche that even huge Fortune 500 companies cannot duplicate no matter how hard they try. Purina.com and Iams.com and other very large dog food companies can pay out the wazoo for the very best web developers and the very best SEO company and they can hire a professional writing service to churn out hundreds of pages of dog food related articles every day (and you thought that sorting through lists of dropped domains was boring… that is if you are not saving yourself time and red eyes by using our dropped domain alerts instead… ) BUT they can do all of these things but if you are the proud owner of DogFood.com then you have a very real and very sustainable competitive advantage that they cannot copy
(Note, I chose the domain name “DogFood.com” randomly just because my Bull Mastiff Caesar and my Pit/Lab mix Mercedes both just got done chowing down and they now need some more dog food. Also, I just noticed that if you type in DogFood.com it redirects to PetsMart.com so it appears that at least PetsMart.com recognizes the value of this domain).
All of that to say that if you are a domainer then its time for you to branch out and learn as much as you can about SEO, online marketing, and general business skills. If you are a business owner then you need to learn as much as you can about the value of domain names and about bringing your business online. If you are an SEO professional then you need to quickly appreciate the impact that domain names can have on your search engine optimization efforts.
What about you? What is your story?
What is the Best Domain Name Investment You Have Ever Made?
What is the absolute best domain investment that you have ever made?
Come on, I know that all of us get the urge to brag about some of the great deals that we have gotten or how we were smart enough to spot a money making trend years in advance or how we were able to grab a great domain and immediately flip it for a great profit or monetize it to bring in boatloads of cash and we just can’t wait to have someone ask this question so out with it.
The contest is on! What is the best domain name investment you have ever made?
PS To many who are in the same boat as me when it comes to NDA’s then just give your second (or third or fourth) best domain name investment and let’s all chant together “I will not break my NDA. I will not break my NDA. I – ” OK, you get the point
Type In Traffic Finder 2.0: Premium Domains, Geo Targeting, and More!
A few days ago John posted that we had just released the new exact match capability to the Type In Traffic Finder and as of tonight we have also added some additional exciting new features. Here is a breakdown of the new features (and then I will show some screenshots detailing what some of the features are and how they can actually help you find great exact match keyword domain names quite easily):
Keyword Matching Options – The ability to choose to have the tool return either “EXACT MATCH”, “BROAD MATCH”, or “PHRASE MATCH” (all of the data from this tool is returned real time for every search directly from Google so if you are familiar with the Google Adwords Keyword Tool then you understand the importance of being able to distinguish between these different types of keyword data options).
# of Domains – The ability to have the tool return from 20 different domains all the way up to 200 domains (all exact match keyword domain names according to the data provided real time from Google).
Geo Targeting – The ability to choose to view domains generated from the Google data for a given language and/or a given targeted location (for example, German domainers could change the “Target Language” from the default of English to German and change the “Targeted Location” from the default of United States to Germany and then all of the domains generated would have data from Google.de)
Exact Match Premium Domains – In the prior version of the TITF the tool would show a result of either “Available to Register” if the domain name was available for hand registering or “Backorder Now” if the domain was already registered. Now the tool is fully integrated with NameMedia so that any domain that is not available to hand register is now searched for against the entire 2,000,000 + domain names in the NameMedia portfolio so that when a match is found there will be either a “Buy Now” price shown or a “Make an Offer” displayed to convey that the domain is up for sale.
Related Premium Domains – A new tab has been added to the tool titled “Related Premium Domains” that offers suggested domains that are available for sale that are related to the keywords entered into the TITF.
Here is an example of how I can use the new features of the tool to find great exact match keyword domain names:
GOAL: I want to find exact match keyword .net domain names in the “health” niche.
First I go directly to the Type In Traffic Finder on our tools dashboard and I enter the general keyword of health (the goal is to start out with the most general keyword and then use some of the keywords generated by the tool to re-seed the tool with more specific keywords to hone in on a given niche or sub niche), I choose the TLD .net, I set the number of results to 200, I leave the search type set to “EXACT”, and I leave the default Target Language set to English and the default Targeted Location set to the United States:
As you can see from the above screenshot there are a number of very nice health related .net domain names that are either available to hand register like HealthBeliefModel.net (10,300 Global Monthly Exact Match searches), VinegarHealthBenefits.net (3,400 Global Monthly Exact Match searches) or available to purchase like HealthTips.net for $1,888 BUY Now (34,700 Global Monthly Exact Match searches), KidsHealth.net for $7,188 BUY Now (30,100 Global Monthly Exact Match searches) or make an offer on like HealthEducation.net (18,500 Global Monthly Exact Match searches) etc. etc.
What is really amazing is that even with a very general keyword like “Health” where one would expect almost every single closely related domain name to already be taken the tool still returns some very impressive domains to both hand register and buy from a 3rd party.
Before we begin seeding the the tool with some of these keywords that were returned from the Google Adwords Keyword Tool and suggested to us via the TITF we want to first click on the “Related Premium Domains (200 loaded)” tab to see what other additional domains might be an attractive acquisition:
As you can see from the above screenshot there are a number of attractive “Related Premium Domains” suggested to us. Some of the nicer domains out of the 200 suggested include HealthJobs.net for $3,388 Buy Now, HealthMassage.net for $3,060 Buy Now, and HealthIns.net for $359 Buy Now.
Now of course the tool really starts to shine when you are looking for long tail exact match keyword domain names so one of the best ways to do this successfully is to take some of the suggested keywords and plug them right back into the tool and run it again. Since all of the keywords on the first tab are coming real time direct from Google’s servers with Google’s most up to date keyword data then it makes sense to look at these keywords and see dig deeper.
I am going to take the keyword “health supplements” from the first tab and plug that back into the tool and see what comes up. When I leave all of the settings the same and plug in “health supplements” this is what I see:
As you can see from the screenshot above there are a number of quite nice domains both available to hand register like CLASupplement.net (2,100 Global Monthly Exact Match searches), MemoryVitamins.net (1,400 Global Monthly Exact Match searches) as well as purchase like SportsNutrition.net for $5,888 Buy Now (24,600 Global Monthly Exact Match searches), CalciumSupplements.net for $988 Buy Now (9,200 Global Monthly Exact Match searches), and many others to make offers on (not to mention the 200 domains that are displayed on the “Related Premium Domains” tab that I will not take the time to talk about.
As you can see from taking a look at just a couple screenshots of this tool the only real limitation to finding as many exact match keyword domain names with potential type in traffic is simply your imagination. If you can think up a starter keyword, no matter how general or broad the niche, the Type In Traffic Finder will consistently give you all of the rabbit trails you could possibly want to wander down to find a ton of high quality keyword domains both available to hand register and available to buy from a 3rd party.
With real time keyword data direct from Google it’s hard to go wrong. What are you waiting for? Head on over to our dashboard to try out the TITF tool now!
Is Domaining.com Worth $3,000,000?
Domaining.com is one of my favorite sites and I visit the site on a daily basis. If you have visited the site recently you most likely saw that Francois has the Domaining.com domain name listed for sale at a buy now price of $3,000,000 (the price does not include the website but Francois has mentioned that he may be willing to selling the website with the domain name if the price is right).
Some Positives:
- By far the most authoritative sounding domain name for anyone in the domaining niche
- Good (but not great) existing traffic level
Some Negatives:
- No real content (not a concern if one just wants to buy the domain but definitely a concern for someone wanting to buy the website)
- Limited revenue to date
Two questions for you:
A) How much do you think Domaining.com is worth? (please specify whether your are referring to just the domain name or the domain name + website)
B) How much do you think that Domaining.com will end up selling for? (if you guess within $10k of the sale price if any then you will win a 3 month free Domain Superstar premium membership with full access to all the premium features for our domain name tools)
