Short Brandable Domain vs Long Keyword Domain: Which one Would You Choose?

If you had a choice between one of the two domains in the following niches below where one was a short brandable domain and the other was a long keyword domain then which domain would you choose?

NICHE	SHORT BRANDABLE DOMAIN	LONG KEYWORD DOMAIN
Business	Triant.com	LaptopRepairBusiness.comm
SEO	SEOCentral.com	SEOBusinessTools.com
Marketing	MCLN.com	RealEstateWebsiteMarketing.com

Think that BOA.com is Owned by Bank of America? Think Again…

It would only seem natural that Bank of America, the largest bank in the US according to assets, would own the domain name BankofAmerica.com – and of course they do BUT it would seem like a no-brainer that a company as big and as well known as BOA would also own the domain name BOA.com. Buuut do they? By now I am sure that you can guess that the answer is no.

If you visit BOA.com right now then this is all that you see on the page in extra large form… well, actually – go ahead and visit http://www.BOA.com yourself and take a look for yourself (it’s kid friendly and workplace friendly so don’t worry – just strange).

OK, so now is the chance for all of you domainers who love to flip names to get busy buying this name and then selling it to Bank of America…

P.S. Have fun typing out the email address: http://www.whois-search.com/whois/boa.com

Live Chat Transcript from Bido’s Domain Auction

I spoke with Art from Bido and he gave me clearance to go ahead and post up the live chat transcript from yesterday’s live domain name auction where I answered questions in their live chat room.

Read through some of the interesting discussion below about keyword domain names, finding type in traffic domains, and more.

Here is the chat transcript in it’s entirety:

[13:01] Jarred: Welcome to Bido
[13:01] Joel Ohman: Thank you very much for having me!
[13:02] Jarred: Thanks for being our special guest today Joel
[13:02] Jarred: @Joel, what is your background?
[13:04] Joel Ohman: I originally started out in the finance space as a CFP (I still am although I don’t currently take clients) and then began to do some web work on our the health insurance agency website that I own
[13:04] Joel Ohman: from there that morphed into more SEO
[13:04] Jarred: CFP as in certified financial planner
[13:04] Joel Ohman: all for in house websites that I own
[13:04] Joel Ohman: yes
[13:05] Jarred: thats fantastic so you enjoy helping people and make money at the same time
[13:05] Joel Ohman: and then the SEO turned into more of a domaining type angle as I realized the value that a domain name can have on not only your ranking but on your long term sustainable value
[13:05] Jarred: and then moved from that to in house stuff
[13:05] Jarred: @Joel when exactly was that when you started domaining?
[13:06] Joel Ohman: yes, I currently own 4 companies with 1 being the health insurance agency, 2 being companies that hold portfolios of domain names, and the 4th being a new domaining tools site at http://www.DomainSuperstar.com
[13:06] Joel Ohman: I started domaining probably almost 2 years ago
[13:07] Joel Ohman: although before that I was maybe a domainer but didnt know it as I owned various domains but all I thought about was SEO really
[13:08] Jarred: were you going straight for premium and aftermarket domains or still able to get hand regs at the time, or both?
[13:09] Joel Ohman: I tend to do a mixture of both: I am able to find a lot of nice hand registrations that I really just can’t pass up when I use the type-in traffic finder and some of the other tools on my site but my main focus is premium insurance .com domains
[13:09] Joel Ohman: I love insurance .com domains and really almost any other finance .com domain
[13:10] Joel Ohman: although I have domains in every niche available both developed and waiting to be developed
[13:10] Joel Ohman: anything from hypnosis to heartburn
[13:10] Jarred: @Joel when did you start DomainSuperstar.com and can you tell us a little more about it?
[13:10] Jarred: wow thats great
[13:10] Bido: Today’s special guest is Joel Ohman of DomainSuperstar.com
[13:11] Joel Ohman: DomainSuperstar.com is a fairly recent site that was developed by my partner John and I
[13:11] Friend: Joel Ohman, You mentioned two domain portfolio companies you have ownership in. Do these companies strictly buy domains, develop domains, sell domains, flip domains, or just sit on them for long term investment?
[13:11] Joel Ohman: the really cool thing about DomainSuperstar.com is that a lot of the domain finding tools use real time data from Google, Yahoo, MSN, Alexa, etc to help find domains
[13:12] Bido: Yes, @Joel what is your domain strategy, and are you more of a buyer, seller, or holder of domains?
[13:12] Joel Ohman: the 2 domain portfolio companies I own buy domains in order to develop them
[13:12] Joel Ohman: so monetization and cash flow is what we are all about
[13:12] Joel Ohman: of course, although selling is not a goal – everyone has a price no matter what they say
[13:13] Friend: Is that price usually market value or much higher? Also do you base your sale prices off revenue?
[13:13] Jarred: what type of domains do you actively seek to acquire?
[13:14] Joel Ohman: in light of today’s auction with the geo domain knoxlanding.com I also wanted to point out quick that we just released a new tool at DomainSuperstar.com that is a Google Maps mashup that will find geo domain names
[13:14] Jarred: that sounds fantastic
[13:14] Joel Ohman: we don’t actively list domains for sale so I don’t necessarily offer a price to anyone but from time to time I am approached with offers to buy some of my established domains that are developed into websites and I will entertain offers
[13:15] Jarred: whats your typical response?
[13:15] Joel Ohman: I actively seek to acquire auto insurance, health insurance, life insurance, homeowners insurance, and long term care insurance exact match keyword only .com domains
[13:16] Jarred: very lucrative industries. Have you been able to pick up some deals now with the state of the economy?
[13:16] Joel Ohman: my typical response is to first get them to make a solid offer because a lot of the time it will be people that aren’t maybe qualified or serious enough in the first place
[13:16] Joel Ohman: absolutely, I firmly believe that now is a fantastic time to pick up domains for very cheap that can be monetized quickly
[13:17] Jarred: you mean you wont accept $5? j/k
[13:17] Joel Ohman: maybe not flipped quickly but i you know what you are doing as far as monetizing a domain name then you can have a lot of success
[13:17] Jarred: do you have some strategy to make it easy for people who are interested in buying your domains to locate and contact you?
[13:17] Joel Ohman: that is kind of the goal behind some of our new website development tutorial videos for premium members at DomainSuperstar.com
[13:18] Jarred: Joel approx how many domains do you have in your portfolio?
[13:18] Joel Ohman: most of my domains are built out and developed into functioning websites so I don’t like to have a specific area for people who are interested in buying the domain but of course there is a functioning contact form on each site
[13:19] Joel Ohman: I have around a thousand domains in total
[13:19] Jarred: thats great, do you also use whois as a tool to find buyers?
[13:19] Jarred: some companies are marketing their domains in the whois output, how do you feel about that, is it a good strategy?
[13:19] Joel Ohman: I never look for buyers as my main goal is not to sell a website but rather to buy a website that I think I can monetize
[13:20] Joel Ohman: marketing your domain via your who is records is not a bad idea,
[13:20] Jarred: very good strategy
[13:20] Joel Ohman: I have seen that done and it is probably worth the effort if selling the domain is your goal
[13:21] Jarred: @Joel why should someone join DomainSuperstar?
[13:21] Joel Ohman: all of our tools are free but premium members have access to all of the premium features for each of the tools as well as access to all premium content like the website tutorial videos I mentioned earlier
[13:22] Jarred: Jeff1, AlmightyNinja, SAnon, hi
[13:22] Jarred: Carter, AlexIn, gentlesavage, hello
[13:22] Jarred: cvm3654, Ty_, DomainBits, welcome back
[13:22] Joel Ohman: for example, one of our very popular tools is the type in traffic finder that uses real time data from the Google Keyword Tool to find exact match keyword domain names
[13:22] Jarred: Friend, theoretical, tldagent, hello
[13:22] Jarred: Art, protuberance, Sahar, hi
[13:22] Carter: Hi Jarred
[13:23] Joel Ohman: free members get access to search for .com’s on a limited basis while premium members get unlimited access and also the ability to search for additional tld’s
[13:23] theoretical: what kind of numbers do you like to see before you hand reg a name?
[13:23] Art: hello
[13:24] Joel Ohman: it all depends on the niche of the domain but generally speaking I like to see at a bare minimum a CPC of at least $1 and average exact match searches of at least 500
[13:24] Jarred: so the output of the tool makes it easy to spot a gem?
[13:24] Joel Ohman: even then I pass on A LOT
[13:24] Jarred: do you feel that domain tasting has made it harder to mine nowadays?
[13:25] Joel Ohman: yes, with the type in traffic finder if you type in say “home loans” then it will return all of the related keywords from the Google tool and then check the availability of the domains for all of those related keywords
[13:26] Joel Ohman: so what I like to do is start out broad and then go more narrow by re-seeding the tool with some of the more specific related keywords
[13:26] Joel Ohman: the cool thing is that the tool will ONLY return domain names that match exactly to keywords with montly search traffic in Google
[13:26] Jarred: and you have tutorials on the site that show you what to do, correct?
[13:26] Joel Ohman: yes, we have written tutorials and video tutorials as well
[13:26] Bido: Today’s special guest is Joel Ohman of DomainSuperstar.com
[13:27] Jarred: do you feel that domain tasting has made it harder to mine nowadays?
[13:27] Joel Ohman: as for the domain tasting question I don’t necessarily think that domain tasting has made it harder to find great domains
[13:28] theoretical: Do you ever reg dashes? What kind of things would make you go with a dash?
[13:28] Jarred: so some fish were perhaps caught and thrown back? or just overlooked?
[13:28] Joel Ohman: just the other day someone was complaining in a forum about not being able to find a good keyword domain related to “web templates” or “web design” or something and so I plugged one of those terms into the type in traffic finder and I think it returned like 55 or so available domains available to hand register – and every one of them were exact matches to keywords with searches in Google every month
[13:29] Joel Ohman: I am not a big fan of dashed domains unless I own the non dashed version as well
[13:29] Jarred: not many current events and breaking news type domains in insurance industries as compared with new technology type domains
[13:29] Joel Ohman: I just hate the idea of losing repeat traffic to the non dashed version
[13:29] Joel Ohman: (or people thinking that I couldn’t afford to purchased the “best” domain – i.e. the non dashed version”
[13:29] Joel Ohman: )
[13:30] Jarred: true, those repeat visitors will be hard pressed to find you again
[13:30] DomainBits: Do you buy cctlds?
[13:30] Jarred: they may find you the first time in a search engine but the second time they might try and look for you and find some other site
[13:31] Joel Ohman: so for example, if your business is called Bob’s Plumbing and you register bobs-plumbing.com people will most likely return to bobspluming.com and/or maybe even wonder if you are the “real” Bob’s Plumbing since you didn’t register the non dashed version
[13:31] Joel Ohman: *bobsplumbing.com
[13:31] Jarred: maybe by then they have their insurance policy though so repeat visitors might not be as important as with other industries such as medical
[13:32] Joel Ohman: I definitely see value in certain cctlds although I personally do not buy them currently
[13:32] Joel Ohman: true – certain niches are different than others
[13:32] Jarred: Joel do you have direct deals with advertisers, or how else do you monetize your sites?
[13:32] Joel Ohman: I have some direct deals
[13:32] Jarred: so you cut out a middleman or did you not ever deal with one?
[13:32] PrivyDomain: Hi Joel
[13:32] Joel Ohman: hello
[13:33] Joel Ohman: my last resort for monetization is Google Adsense
[13:33] PrivyDomain: I have used your tool several time & found it quite nice & user friendly
[13:33] Joel Ohman: thanks!
[13:33] Jarred: perhaps coming from the financial sector you have some good connections there I would presume
[13:33] Joel Ohman: yes
[13:33] PrivyDomain: but some point i have to add
[13:33] Jarred: fantastic
[13:33] Ross: what up
[13:33] Jarred: @Joel what do you think is the state of the domain market today?
[13:34] Jarred: hi Ross
[13:34] PrivyDomain: the searches shown in there are not exact ” ” searches
[13:34] Ross: Jarred, lol i though you said human market
[13:34] PrivyDomain: it would be better if they are provided instead of broad
[13:34] Ross: thought*
[13:35] Joel Ohman: yes, the searches are broad match because the Google API does not currently allow exact match data to be accessed via its API
[13:35] Ty_: @Joel, how accurate do you think that the various metrics and figures are in predicting real world behaviours?
[13:35] PrivyDomain: ok
[13:35] Jarred: Ross, seeing double today
[13:35] Joel Ohman: broad match is still a great indicator but then when you go to buy I like to double check the exact data
[13:35] PrivyDomain: thats it
[13:35] Jarred: no slavery here @Bido
[13:36] Joel Ohman: so I will use the tool to find some potentially good domains and then right before I make the buying decision I check the exact match data and the CPC
[13:36] PrivyDomain: i have to again cross check with google keyword
[13:36] PrivyDomain: same
[13:36] Jarred: Joel are there other data repositories you plan to tap into there at DomainSuperstar?
[13:36] Ross: .99cent coupon at godaddy today – 99BUYCOM
[13:37] Jarred: trellian, wordtracker…
[13:37] Jarred: thanks Ross
[13:38] Joel Ohman: @Ty_ I think that some of the metrics like avg searches, CPC, and other similar data is a great place to start but if you have a true understanding of your niche and what people really want then that can make the different between just having an average performing domain and a truly great performing domain
[13:38] Ross: Joel Ohman, you can find a domain with little to no search but with huge PPC that a company will pay a premium for
[13:39] Jarred: Joel how do you host your sites you develop?
[13:39] Joel Ohman: @Jarred We really love the data from Google as opposed to Wordtracker just because we think that it is better all around although we do use data from MSN, Yahoo, Alexa, Compete, and some other proprietary data that we have obtained
[13:39] Jarred: Ross Joel said he holds, tries to not sell, just monetize when he can
[13:39] Jarred: proprietary is good, bravo
[13:39] Joel Ohman: we have a proprietary spider that searches throughout the web and then seeds in keywords into the Google tool via their API and returns exact match keyword domain names
[13:39] Ross: Jarred, i was just simply pointing out that a domain with no traffic can be sold for a premium price
[13:39] PrivyDomain: Jarred i’m thinking of submitting some good domains for Bido. How many days do you take to confirm the submission & how many domains can one submit at one time?
[13:40] Ross: Joel Ohman, wordtracker on your tools would be amazing btw
[13:40] Joel Ohman: free members can view all of those domain names from the spider plus domain found from other type in traffic users at the keyword domain repository
[13:40] Jarred: Ten at a time and it takes 24-48 hours to get an approval notice if any were selected
[13:40] Joel Ohman: premium members get instant access while free members don’t see domains for the first 24 hrs
[13:41] Jarred: so there’s a delay, more incentive for someone to be a premium member
[13:41] Ross: .
[13:41] Jarred: how much does that cost?
[13:41] Joel Ohman: @Ross Yes, sometimes it is very interesting to see a domain with huge PPC and somewhat small avg search traffic go for a pretty high price
[13:42] Joel Ohman: premium membership is $97/month full price but it is currently at a discounted rate of $47/month
[13:42] Joel Ohman: the price will increase to $77/month on 5/1 though
[13:42] Jarred: how long is that offer good for?
[13:42] Jarred: ok
[13:42] Ty_: Joel, do you think that these metrics are accurate in defining a domain’s value?
[13:42] Joel Ohman: all current members never receive a price increase though
[13:42] Ross: Joel Ohman, there is a technique to selling those types of domains
[13:42] Joel Ohman: so you can lock in the lower price for lifetime
[13:42] theoretical: Can you talk about your research/development process a bit more once you find a good keyword name in order to get the most out of it?
[13:43] Joel Ohman: @Ty_ I think that those metrics are just a start – there are a ton of things that are sometimes hard to be quantified that still need to be considered – one example is buyer intent
[13:44] Ty_: And that elusive “Wow” factor too I guess
[13:44] Jarred: @Joel do you ever joint venture with others?
[13:44] Joel Ohman: @theoretical I like to use data from the Google keyword tool, the Wordtracker keyword suggestions tool, and some other sources to “Mind Map” out my site architecture for a new domain
[13:45] Joel Ohman: I also really like to use Wordpress as a backend if I can just because I love the automatic scheduling feature
[13:45] Joel Ohman: although most of my sites are not WP
[13:45] Jarred: DomainSuperstar seems as if it is, at least the outside shell
[13:45] Joel Ohman: @Jarred I do consider joint ventures – in fact 3 of the 4 companies I own I own with other partners so yes, I am open to that idea
[13:46] Jarred: thats great, what advice do you have for people as far as that goes?
[13:46] Jarred: WP is great
[13:47] Joel Ohman: find people that complement your abilites – for example, with DomainSuperstar.com I am the guy that thinks up all of the tools and figures out how they could be done and then my partner John is the coding genius who actually makes it all happen and puts my ideas into reality
[13:47] Jarred: @Joel do you offer direct internet marketing coaching aside from the tools and tutorials on DomainSuperstar.com?
[13:48] Joel Ohman: we offer the video tutorial videos so that people can “look over my shoulder” as I develop a domain etc but no direct consultation
[13:48] Joel Ohman: although of course we answer questions and interact with our members
[13:49] Joel Ohman: but nothing paid outside of the premium membership
[13:49] Jarred: gotcha… thats great, too
[13:49] Jarred: @Joel what else is in store for you and your company in the future?
[13:51] Jarred: and Joel, what do you think of KnoxLanding.com?
[13:51] Joel Ohman: we plan to release one new tool every month – we just recently released the geo domain name finder tool which is the Google Maps mashup I mentioned earlier, we just released the bulk keyword domain name checker where you can upload or paste in a list of keywords that you have and the tool will check the availability of all of the exact match domain names, and we also just released a dictionary domain name tool with a ton of dictionary domains available to hand register
[13:51] Jarred: one per month, thats a fair schedule, gives you time to create and test
[13:52] Jarred: have you taken suggestions of the members and made any a reality for them?
[13:52] Joel Ohman: there are so many great deals to be found via hand registration that you a premium membership can literally pay for itself in under an hour if you really dig deep with the tools
[13:53] Joel Ohman: yes, one great suggestion we got from our members was to allow additional tld’s to the type in traffic finder which we have done
[13:53] Joel Ohman: we custom code things for our members as well
[13:53] Joel Ohman: if they want a feature in a tool or a new tool then we can most likely code it
[13:53] Joel Ohman: by “we” I mean John
[13:54] Jarred: Sounds great, we like services that actually listen to their members
[13:54] Jarred: What do you think of KnoxLanding.com?
[13:55] Ross: Joel Ohman, type in traffic finder is top notch. One of the best tools around IMO
[13:55] Joel Ohman: I think that KnoxLanding.com is an ok domain for a domainer and I say ok just because there are so many other great geo domain names out there
[13:55] Joel Ohman: @Ross thanks!
[13:55] DotSauce: hey Guys
[13:55] Jarred: so many places, so little domains
[13:55] Jarred: DotSauce, welcome
[13:55] DotSauce: Where is KnoxLanding? Sorry didn’t do my homework
[13:56] Jarred: click description tab
[13:56] Joel Ohman: IMO I would rather use our geo domain finder tool or even better our bulk keyword domain name finder and keep pasting or uploading a list of all of the largest US cities until I found some available
[13:56] DotSauce: oh i see, multiple places.. nice
[13:56] Bido: 4 minutes to go
[13:56] Jarred: yea, big potential
[13:56] Ross: Joel Ohman, havnt looked for any domains for a bit but i did mention your site and tools in my up and coming 7 Days to Becoming a Better Domainer challenge on my blog
[13:57] Joel Ohman: KnoxLanding.com does have some potential value to an end user though
[13:57] Jarred: thousands of potential users, many people live in a knox landing
[13:57] Joel Ohman: @Ross awesome thanks! Shoot me a link to that if you don’t mind
[13:57] Jarred: always nice to make the news Joel
[13:57] Ross: Joel Ohman, http://www.ygrab.com i believe it is in the 4th or 5th day but will be launching the whole thing on monday
[13:58] Joel Ohman: if you are a domainer who has a strategy of buying and flipping and don’t mind being proactive about contacting end users then KnoxLanding.com would make a very solid choice
[13:58] Bido: Today’s special guest is Joel Ohman of DomainSuperstar.com
[13:59] Jarred: @Joel how may the viewers get in contact with you?
[13:59] Jarred: < 1 minute to go
[13:59] Joel Ohman: joel@domainsuperstar.com or http://www.domainsuperstar.com/contact-us
[13:59] Jarred: 5 mins
[14:00] Jarred: was just about to congratulate someone on a great score
[14:01] Jarred: @Joel what internet or domain events are you next attending?
[14:01] Joel Ohman: I don’t have any on my schedule at the moment
[14:02] Jarred: By the way we have a winner of the free ticket to announce
[14:02] Joel Ohman: I am somewhat of a recluse – I like to stay in my office in front of my 3 30″ monitors
[14:02] Jarred: we ran a contest yesterday for a free ticket to the Targeted Traffic tradeshow
[14:02] Sahar: free ticket? something I don’t know about.. fill me in !
[14:02] Joel Ohman: although I do plan on attending some in the future potentially
[14:02] Ross: Jarred, who won that by the way?
[14:02] Joel Ohman: Targeted Traffic would be awesome
[14:02] Sahar: Jarred, who participated?
[14:02] Jarred: Michael Bahlitzanakis – BPHG Media
[14:02] Sahar: i didnt get the memo lol
[14:02] Jarred: congrats Michael
[14:02] Recordweb: I never win anything :>
[14:03] Sahar: Recordweb, me neither
[14:03] Ross: lol i think i am on that boat as well
[14:03] Jarred: a $1,995.00 value
[14:03] Sahar: not fair
[14:03] Jarred: there will be more contests everyone
[14:03] Sahar: re run the contest!
[14:03] Recordweb: I can imagine getting a plane ticket from NJ right now to the show. Probably have to pay $1000 LOL
[14:03] Jarred: fat lady left the building
[14:04] DomainsIreland: 5 mins
[14:04] Recordweb: god, I hate proxy bids LOL
[14:04] Jarred: bid to win
[14:05] Jarred: pop it
[14:05] Recordweb: I’m going to suggest 2 minute extensions
[14:05] Jarred: 5 too fatiguing?
[14:06] Jarred: bid to win early on and there wont be any
[14:06] Jarred: well thats not entirely true, people can always stab away at it
[14:06] Jarred: nice little run here at the end though
[14:07] Jarred: @Joel who do you consider an inspirational figure?
[14:08] Joel Ohman: in the domaining space I consider anyone that purchased domains years and years ago when domaining was not really publicized or popular and inspirational figure and then personally I consider my old youth pastor in PA Pastor Crews very inspirational and someone that I admire and look up to
[14:08] Recordweb: I always wished Ebay would allow 2 minute over bids. No more sniping.
[14:09] theoretical: it actually makes it fun to bid it up, but I don’t think ebay cares
[14:11] theoretical: but yeah, two or three minutes should be all that’s needed
[14:11] Jarred: Congrats owntech
[14:11] Jarred: $162 final
[14:11] Owentech: Thanks.
[14:12] Jarred: nice bidding war there at the end, you took it home though
[14:12] Joel Ohman: congrats Owentech and thank you very much for having me today Bido
[14:13] Jarred: Thanks Joel, it was nice to have you as our special guest
[14:13] Jarred: I encourage everyone to check out www.domainsuperstar.com
[14:15] tldagent: Great site, thank you Joel
[14:15] tldagent: thank you Jarred
[14:18] Owentech: @Jarred – Well, I was a bit worried, but it worked out at the end…
[14:19] Owentech: @Joel – it was a good discussion.
[14:20] Owentech: I may even want to place a site in the near future… now I must figure out how to “get” the domain to use.

Do you have any comments to add? Add your comment below and then head on over to our dashboard to get started using our tools! (Remember to sign up for premium membership to lock in the discounted price of $47/month before it increases to $77/month on May 1st).

How Bido.com Got My Link

A couple of days ago Art from Bido.com contacted me to see if I would be interested in being the guest speaker for their live chat that takes places during today’s live auction of the domain name knoxlanding.com.

Art took the time to email me a few times and then followed up with a phone call this morning to confirm that I was attending. He was also smart enough to ask me to put up a blog post and link to Bido which I have done.

All that to say that simply by asking Bido got a link that they might not have otherwise gotten. Two things to keep in mind from this exchange is:

1. Look to people you naturally associate with for links (could be customers, clients, partners, friends, and other people that you may have offline relationships with).

2. Don’t be afraid to ask (Art took the time to email me personally a few times and then he made sure to follow up by phone making it much more likely that I would do what he asks).

All in all, great job Bido and I look forward to chatting in the chat room today at Bido.com from 1-2 PM EST. If you have any questions for me then head on over there and jump on the live chat. I will answer almost any question you have but here are some of the questions that Art provided that may be asked:

When did you start domaining?
How did you get into domaining?
What is your background?
What is your favorite domain?
Which domain would you buy if you had no financial constraint?
What was your best purchase?
What are some examples of your most recent purchases or hand registrations?
What is your favorite domain registration company?
What was your last sale?
What is your domain strategy?
Are you more of a buyer, seller, or holder of domains?
What type of domains do you actively seek to acquire?
How many domains do you have in your portfolio?
What do you think is the state of the domain market today?
Where to you see the domain name industry going over the next few years?
What do you hate about domains?
What do you love about domains?
What are some projects you are working on at the moment?
What are your favorite auction sites?
Who do you consider an inspirational figure?
Do you think most people have what it takes to be successful with domain names?
What internet or domain events are you next attending?
Why should I join x?
What are some of the domains you own?
Do you ever joint venture with others?
Do you offer internet marketing coaching?
So when did you start service x?
Tell us a bit more about service x.
What else is in store for you and your company in the future?
How may the viewers get in contact with you?

After you check out the live chat at Bido then be sure and select a domain name tool from our home page and get started finding some great domain names for yourself!

Domain Capital Review – My Experience Getting Domain Name Financing

What do you do when you come across a steal of a premium domain name but you don’t have the funds available to purchase the domain name outright for cash? One option available to many domainers, webmasters, and business owners is to use a domain name financier like Domain Capital LLC.

I recently obtained a domain name loan from Domain Capital and thought that sharing a few things about my experience in the way of a Domain Capital review might be helpful for anyone that is considering domain name financing.

Vince Harasymiak from Domain Capital was the person who assisted me throughout the entire process and I can honestly say that he was an absolutely great help. I was on somewhat of a tight schedule because the 29 premium domain names that I was trying to buy were all being sold in an open auction at GoDaddy and I was under a time constraint to be able to purchase the domain names via the buy now option before the time was up.

Vince had me fill out the standard required paperwork that is required by Domain Capital (financial documentation, desired domain names, non-disclosure agreement [I have already double checked with Vince to make sure that it was acceptable for me to write this post as long as I do not give away any real specifics), etc.). I emailed the paperwork back to Vince and had a decision in less than a day.

A few things that I really loved about working with Domain Capital was that Vince was available by email or by phone pretty much whenever I had a question, the financing approval was extremely quick, and they offered an automatic draft option for my monthly domain name loan payments.

All in all, I would definitely recommend working with Domain Capital LLC if you are considering financing the purchase of a premium domain name that has a purchase price of $10,000 or more (Domain Capital specializes in financing for premium domain names that generally cost over $10,000 – if you are looking for a short term domain name loan for a domain name that costs less than $10,000 then you may want to check out Rick Latona’s DigiPawn).

Do you have any domain name financing stories? Who would you recommend for a domain name loan?

Ideas for Choosing Domain Names When You Have “Domain Name Block”

Do you ever have one of those days (weeks, months…) when you feel like you are just sapped of all creativity and you can’t really get any good ideas for finding profitable domain names?

I know that I have. It’s often the easiest part of the domaining process to find good domain names once you have a niche already selected. You can plug in keywords into our type in traffic tool to get back a bunch of related keyword domain names or you can bulk upload an entire list of keywords into our bulk keyword domain checker (currently available via our beta dashboard) and return a list of available domain names that are exact matches to those keywords but the hardest part is often finding a niche in the first place.

Here is a list of some different resources that you can use to get your creative juices flowing and bust out of your “domain name block”:

Google Trends – Check out the “Today’s Hot Trends” for trends across your country that are rising in popularity.

NicheADay – Niche A Day is a free service that will send you out an email once a day with a new niche and attached to the email will be a zip file of keywords related to that niche along with their average monthly searches (great for uploading into our bulk keyword domain checker that I mentioned earlier).

Google Analytics – Google Analytics (or really any website tracking software) can help you if you use data from the keywords that people have typed in to arrive at your site. This kind of keyword data can be very valuable when looking for new niches or domains to purchase within niches that maybe you are already in.

There is my list of resources to get the creative juices flowing when trying to find domain names and new niches for domain names. What are yours?

Linkin Park, Kevin Rose, and Timothy Ferris on Choosing Domain Names

I just finished watching a great video from one of my favorite blogs that is not necessarily related to domaining, SEO, or Internet marketing: The Four Hour Workweek.

The video is an informal conversation between Timothy Ferris (the author of Four Hour Workweek – highly recommended) and Kevin Rose (founder of Digg.com) and has a lot of really good stuff related to naming companies, choosing domain names, and angel investing.

One of the nuggets from the video is when Timothy Ferris mentions that the driving reason between Linkin Park choosing the irregular spelling for their name (“Linkin” instead of “Lincoln”) is that the domain name LinkinPark.com was available to register while they were unable to acquire the domain name LincolnPark.com.

It is great to see that the band had the savvy to factor in domain name availability and the importance of having a .com domain when they were choosing their band name.

Check out the video HERE and then get started finding some great domain names with our tools today!

What is the Best Domain Name You Have Hand Registered in the Last Year?

I always love hearing stories about people who have hand registered domain names years and years ago and now they are worth big bucks. However motivating it is, I sometimes get tempted to say that there are no great domain names available to hand register anymore (especially .com’s).

However, this is definitely not the case. Let me tell you about probably the best domain name that I have hand registered in the last year and then you can tell me yours.

Here is the best domain name that I have hand registered in the last year or so and a short back story on how I found it:

Marinater.com/Marinaters.com – I hand registered both of these fairly recently and found both the plural version in our keyword domain repository. I was also very pleased to see that after checking with our instant domain search tool that the singular was available as well. I am currently redirecting the singular to the plural and I have recently developed the domain by paying Site Graduate to build out a mini site and then I have added some small things here and there to further monetize the website.

The keyword “marinater” gets 260 exact match monthly average Google searches and has a CPC of $1.44 so all in all a great one word domain name.

If you have not used our keyword domain repository or our type-in traffic finder then I would challenge you to spend some time using all of the tools on our dashboard and find yourself some great domain names to hand register. The type-in traffic finder also has a new feature that allows premium members to search for multiple TLD’s (free members can only search for .com’s) so I would also encourage you to sign up for a premium membership as the membership will quickly pay for itself and the price will soon be increasing from $47/month to $97/month (existing premium members will never see a price increase so sign up now to lock in the low price forever).

Bonus Domain: I just couldn’t resist adding another domain that I literally hand registered less than 24 hours ago: Leucadendron.com (I also hand registered the plural version as well). This nice one word domain name (it’s a type of flower) has a CPC of $0.63 and 590 exact match monthly average Google searches for the keyword “leucadendron”. I found the singular version of this domain using our soon to be released dictionary domain tool (members have access to this tool already via our beta domain dashboard but the tool is not yet publicly available for use). Yet another reason to sign up for a premium membership now!

Now it’s your turn! What is the best domain name that you have hand registered in the last year?

Afraid of Getting Outranked by Big Corporate Sites? Here’s How to “Stick it to the Man”

One of the biggest fears of many domain name owners and SEO’s is working hard to choose a profitable niche, layout a strategy, buy a domain name, build a website, and then market the website only to see their success dwindle when a big company comes along and uses their considerable resources to outrank them.

Whether you are a beginning SEO working out of your dorm room or whether you are the head of a big time search marketing agency – come on, you know that you have had that thought before haven’t you? Here is one thing that you can do to alleviate some of those fears and give yourself a better night’s sleep: choose the right domain name.

“Choose the right domain name?” you say. “That is all of the advice that you have for me!?” Bear with me. Here is why.

Every Domain Name is Unique

Every single domain name is unique. No one else on the planet can have the same domain name as you.

If you build 100,000 backlinks then your Fortune 500 competitor can certainly use their vast resources to build 101,000 backlinks. If you hire a professional writing service to churn out 100 articles a day of high quality content to publish to your website then your Fortune 500 competitor could BUY a professional writing service (or a newspaper for that matter – and pretty cheap these days) and have them publish 1,000 high quality articles a day to their site.

Almost anything you do to market your site a competitor with more money and resources than you can duplicate and take to the extreme to outrank you. It sounds a little bit depressing but remember there is no free lunch in SEO just as in life. You have to work at it. SEO is best thought of as competitive webmastering because that is exactly what it is. Of course in a competition the biggest and the best (those with the most resources) usually win. Not always but usually.

Notice that I said almost in the first sentence of the above paragraph. The one thing that a Fortune 500 company with billions of dollars CANNOT duplicate is your domain name.

How the “Small Guy” Can Get A Leg Up

Imagine this scenario. Let’s say that you are a part-time SEO working for yourself out of your bedroom on a couple of vitamin websites that you own. Your biggest competitors for your target keyword of “vitamins” are huge corporate sites like GNC.com, VitaminShoppe.com, VitaminWorld.com, etc. All of these companies have vastly more resources than you. However, (drum roll please) you own Vitamins.com.

Guess what. As the owner of an exact match keyword only domain (definition) you have a sustainable advantage that any of these big competitors absolutely cannot copy (unless you sell them your domain name and of course you get to decide whether you want to sell the domain name or not).

With the weight that Google and other search engines place on a domain name that is an exact match keyword only domain to the searcher’s keyword or keyword phrase then even with limited resources working out of your bedroom you can very well outrank many of your bigger competitors based in large part on the strength of your domain name (of course, there are other factors involved and yes, you actually have to work hard at it to provide solid content and build links – remember, it’s competitive webmastering – but having the domain name that matches your target keyword exactly is half of the SEO battle).

“Stick it to the Man” by Choosing the Right Domain Name and Dominating that Niche

So what does this all mean? Am I telling you to go out and try to buy Vitamins.com or Cars.com or Loans.com? No, of course not (unless you can afford it ). What I am telling you to do is to concentrate on finding a great domain name that is an exact match keyword only domain name to maybe a longer tail keyword in your target market and then own that keyword.

For example, I wrote a post about how to use data from the Google Adwords Keyword Tool to find domain names that match exactly keywords returned from the Adwords tool (Watch Me Hand Register Keyword .com Domain Names Worth More than $100). While it may not be in your budget to be able to buy Vitamins.com you can most certainly afford to pay the regular registration fee of under $10 at the registrar of your choice to buy a domain name like DailyVitaminC.com, BuyVitaminC.com, or CheapVitaminC.com each with 3,600, 1,000 and 110 average monthly Google broad match keyword searches according to the Google Adwords Keyword tool and all available for anyone to hand register as shown by entering in “Vitamin C” into our Type-In Traffic Finder Tool as of 2/25/09 at 3:05 PM EST.

You can stick it to the man. You can maintain a competitive advantage over the big corporate sites that cannot be duplicated. You can do that with the right domain name.

What do you think?

Watch Me Hand Register Keyword .com Domains Worth More than $100

Want to hand register .com domain names that are an exact match to keywords that have profitable Google searches each and every month? Of course, what domainer wouldn’t?

The catch often is how to find those exact match keyword only domain names and calculate if they are worth the hand registration fee. Well, watch me as I attempt to hand register some .com domain names that hopefully we can all agree are worth more than $100.

Step 1: Choose Profitable Niches

The first step is to choose some niches that are profitable. For the purpose of this exercise let’s define profitable as keywords that have a Google CPC (Cost Per Click) of $1.00 or higher and more than 1,000 average monthly Google searches according to the Google Adwords Keyword Tool.

Let’s start with a list of some of the top paying Adsense keywords that we can get here, here, or here.

Of course, not all of those niches will work. We can discard the pharmacy, porn, and casino related keywords and concentrate on some of the other “safer” niches like finance and health. Let’s grab some of the keywords that we like and head on over to the Type-In Traffic Finder Tool. This tool will pull data from the Google Adwords Keyword Tool and check the availability of all domain names related to the keywords that we enter into the tool.

Step 2: Find Available Related Domain Names

The trick with using the Type-In Traffic Finder Tool is to first enter in general keywords and then look at the related keyword results returned by the tool to see if any of those available names are attractive and if not then start to enter some of those more specific related keywords back into the tool to drill down and find some great .com keyword domain names available for hand registration.

Let’s enter in “student loan” into the tool and see what comes up:

The first available domain name that the tool returns is studentloanconsolidationinterestrates.com. Kind of a long domain name but it has potential because it matches the keyword phrase “student loan consolidation interest rates” exactly and it seems like this keyword phrase is a phrase that is very commercially oriented (i.e. high CPC and shows strong user intent). Just to make sure let’s now take a look at the Google Adwords Tool and see what the CPC is for “student loan consolidation interest rates”:

Wow! $39.12 CPC. Very high. It looks like studentloanconsolidationinterestrates.com is a winner predominantly because of its extremely high CPC but also because of its search volume (1,000 average searches in Google alone every month). Even if one was to decide to just write a simple one page article and slap up some AdSense ads then this domain could very well turn a profit after only a few clicks with that kind of extremely high CPC. Yes, a domain name that is this long will probably not get much if any type in traffic BUT it should be quite easy to rank for the keyword phrase “student loan consolidation interest rates” even if one only has the most basic SEO knowledge – all due to the exact match of the keyword to the domain name + .com.

Let’s try to find a couple more good ones. Let’s enter “incorporation” into the Type-In Traffic Finder:

There are a ton of very good domain names available in the “incorporation” niche. I personally like incorporationcertificate.com. Let’s take a look at what the CPC is for “incorporation certificate”:

“Incorporation Certificate” is a very respectable $3.97 CPC and I also notice that the plural version “incorporation certificates” has a CPC of $8.70 with average search volume of 260 times per month so I check to see if the plural is available as well using our Instant Domain Search Tool:

Yup, the plural version is available so I decide to grab both of them and probably just redirect the singular to the plural. incorporationcertificate.com and incorporationcertificates.com have a combined average monthly number of Google searches of 8,360 and a CPC of $3.97 and $8.70 respectively. These 2 domain names are definitely worth more than than the registration fee that I am about to pay and prob worth more than $100.

Step 3: Purchase the Domain Names

The 3rd and final step is the most obvious. I need to actually purchase the 3 domain names (note the date and time on the invoice and then note the date and time of this post):

Find Some Great Keyword .com Domains for Yourself!

Now you have seen how simple it is to find great keyword .com domain names in lucrative niches that are exact matches to keywords with significant search volume. Use our Type-In Traffic Finder Tool or our Keyword Domain Repository (our database of domain names that the Type-In Traffic Finder and our proprietary Domain Spider have found previously) to find some great domain names now!

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