discredit.org

I remember when I first started domaining most of the emphasis was placed on how much traffic a domain name received.  These days, the savvy domainer understands that traffic can be classified in a number of different ways.  I tend to classify traffic in two categories:

1.  Targeted

Targeted traffic tends to directly correlate with the domain name.  If you owned a used car domain name and there were a number of people visiting the site, looking for used cars you would have a win, win situation.

2.  Untargeted

This tends to be the most common type of traffic.  Traffic like this normally comes from foreign countries.  For example, I run a proxy site which receives thousands of unique visitors a month.  Since proxy sites tend to appeal to users who reside in countries with strict Internet rules, the site tends to receive the majority of its traffic from China.  I find it difficult to capitalize on the traffic because the campaigns I tend to run with google adsense are gear towards Americans.

Now getting back to the point.  Domainers do not pay as much attention to traffic as they once did.  Most of my domaining associates are more concerned with branding.  I completely agree with this notion and feel that branding outweighs the majority of the statistical figures out there.  When shopping a domain name it is very hard to convey the stats to the end-user.  Most end-users will hear a domain name and if they like the way it sounds or the meaning behind the name, they will make an offer to purchase it.  If you start rambling off statistical data you are more likely to lose the end-user.

Early on during my domain registration days I made many mistakes.  The majority of those mistakes revolved around purely concentrating on the statistical data of a domain.  I went as far as registering several typos similar to wwwexample.com, just because I knew the main site received a massive amount of visitors.  This definitely backfired on me, most of those domains did not monetize well and were nearly impossible to flip to another domainer.  The next step was to let the domain names drop and that is exactly what happened.  Over the years, I learned to focus more on branding instead of statistics.

Jason Thompson

PS: Heading over to the bido auction!

It’s been a few days since I accidentally ordered DedicatedServerForum.com via Pool.  I say accidentally because I don’t remember actually telling it to put the domain in my queue.  This is actually and error that I appreciate, as it definitely could of been a domain name that I did not want.  In this case I wanted the domain name and now I am faced with the dilemma of either flipping it or developing it.  Over at webhostingtalk.com the domain name has sparked the interest of a user:

nexbyte  nexbyte is offline
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As a reply to his post, I answered with the following statement:

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As I moved forward with the private message, I definitely wanted to make sure that the potential buyer knows that we are looking for a serious buyer.  I feel that this domain name is easily worth high $XXX - low $XXXX undeveloped.  Developed, the sky is the limit with this domain name because top hosting companies which specialize in the dedicated server market are willing to pay top dollar for advertising.  You could easily bring in a $1,000 - $5,000 a month with a forum of this nature.  To be honest with you, building a forum dedicated to a subject like this would not be hard.  So, I private messaged the potntial buyer with the following:

Private Message: DedicatedServerForum.com
Recipients: nexbyte
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October 2008 Meeting: Cloud Computing & Guest Speaker Damon Young Sales Director of ProjectLocker

I have not heard a response from the potential buyer as of yet.  I might actually call the buyer on the number provided in his signature, to talk with him about DedicatedServerForum.com, this will allow me to show the buyer that I am a serious domain seller and allow me to connect with the buyer on a more professional scale.  It should be interesting to see how this plays out, because the potential buyer obviously sees value within the name, now the question is how much are they willing to acquire the domain for.

Best Regards,

Jason Thompson

PS:  Look out for dnpimping.com very soon, the programmer is putting the final touches on the site.  It is looking great so far!

I didn’t realize there was a facebook land rush tonight until 20 to 30 minutes before it actually occurred.  Once I read a few blogs about the land rush I decided to come up with a plan. The plan consisted of writing down a few terms that I was interested in registering.  Although I thought about registering generic keywords I decided to go after the industry that I love and came up with the following:

1. domain

2. domaining

3. domainer

4. domainname

Luckily instead of wasting my time typing in domain, I jumped right to the word domaining and it was available for me to register!  Now everyone can go directly to www.facebook.com/domaining to add me as a friend.  This will be an extremely valuable tool for me to network with other domainers in the industry as well as getting the end-user interested in domaining or purchasing domains.  I am going to outline exactly what steps I want to take with the name, it will be an exciting trip!

Best Regards,

Jason Thompson

Would you drop a gold bar on the sidewalk while walking down the street?  Well if you are anything like me that answer would be an automatic NO! Then why are so many people letting domains drop?  I don’t think anyone can answer this question, nor will I even try to myself.  The best thing I can do as a domainer is to try and make use of the wonderful gold you have gently placed into my pocket.  I currently have a couple of scouts out there who are looking for you as you knowingly or unknowingly drop gold bars and coins right from your wallets and purses.  The scouts take the form of justdropped.com, who have presented me with an amazing view of all the domain gold that can be collected with the simple stroke of a keyboard and click of a mouse.

Domain Gold

Domaining has definitely changed and I am announcing today that this is the beginning of a new era.  An era where the majority of domainers have turned into philanthropist and are simply giving there pots of gold away.  I commend each of you on your generosity and will make sure that your gold is put to great use!

This blog entry was sparked by my registration of FreeCreeditReportScore.net last night.  I could not believe how this domain just simply dropped from the registrar, especially since it is taken in .com, .org, .info and .mobi forms.  To make this situation even more shocking I brought in google to shed a little light on the stats.  According to google:

Local Search Volume (May) - 74,000

Global Monthly Search Volume - 27,100

This is an example of what I call dropping gold.  The previous owner of this domain definitely missed out on an opportunity to capitalize on it.  It might actually be my best domain registration of the year!  To all of those who are saying that its getting harder to find good domains, simply look in the right direction and you might actually find a little domain gold yourself.

The quicker the better right?  Blast 1,000 people with emails and you are bound to find a potential domain buyer.  WRONG!  Times have changed and simply emailing potential leads does not work anymore.  The amazing pitch email you took half a day to write finds itself flagged as spam.  In the end you are left with a list of cold leads.  This is where snail mail intervention comes into play.  As I have come to learn sometimes technology is not always a good thing.  In the world of domaining we struggle with selling an intangible product to a market which is used to purchasing tangible goods.

How do we change this concept?

First you have to step back a few years, before email was actually mainstream.  What are you left with?  You are left with snail mail and a phone line.  In this blog entry I will focus on snail mail and why you should be using it for lead generation.  The following points are why you should be using snail mail for lead generation:

1. Snail mail allows you to make an intangible product tangible.  Since the potential lead will receive a physical letter in the mail, they are able to touch your domain name.  I am a strong believer in the concept of creating a tangible domain name.

2. Letters are less likely to be thrown away without being read.  Emails can find there way automatically into a junk mail box due to filters, while a letter will actually be opened before it is disposed of.  A basic envelope printed with your address will most likely stimulate a little curiosity for the potential domain buyer.

3. Mailing a letter allows you to include marketing material.  Everything from pens to your business card can be included in the letter.

4. The cost of mailing a letter is cheap.  Here in the United States, you can mail a letter for 42 cents.  This provides you with a 1 ounce threshold.  (Sending a letter from Los Angeles to Canada is only 75 cents!)

5. A letter provides for a professional introduction.  Potential domain buyers will take a letter more serious than an email.  The fact that you actually took the time to write a letter and mail it shows that you mean business!

Now that I have proven a couple of points on why you should snail mail your prospective domain buyer, lets talk a little about what should be included in your envelope.  I can’t reveal everything, since I am working on an ebook which will contain this topic but I will provide you with a few secrets.  Here are two tips:

1. The letter in your envelope should include a domain pitch.  It is important that this letter is written very well!  It should include your pitch, the domain being sold, supporting domain evidence which is easy to understand and at least three ways to contact you.  Make sure to provide your telephone number, email, fax and address.  If you don’t, you might actually miss the opportunity to sell your domain name.

2. Always include a business card.  I can not stress this enough.  If you don’t include your business card, they might actually think that this letter is a joke or that the person behind the letter is not running a professional business.  The business card takes the edge off of your pitch letter.  If you have a decent business card it might actually find its way into a contact manager or rolodex.  That’s what we are shooting for!

Alright, without giving all of my secrets away these concepts should definitely help you on your path to achieving domain gold!  I did not reference how to generate potential domain buyer leads, because that will be included in my ebook.  I have a feeling that it will actually cover an entire chapter.  Leads are everything and in the domaining world, the right leads can turn your domain names into wealth.

Recently I took the time to send a domain pitch letter to five potential leads.  Since the letters are actually being picked up by the post office today, I will give my potential leads around two to three weeks to respond.  If they don’t respond within that period of time I will consider them as cold leads and continue to generate new prospects.  On occasion a domain buyer lead can still remain hot, even without them contacting you.  When this occurs a follow up letter should be sent after two to three weeks.  These letters are pretty much restating what your original letter said and are used to reiterate the urgency of why the domain name might be sold soon.  I will include more information on follow up letters in my ebook.

Domain Sales Pitch Letters

Notice that I am sending out five letters at a time.  My return address looks very professional and does not give away too much information about my company or myself.  I deliberately included the website in the return address, in case the letter touches a few hands before reaching the decision maker.  For those that are skeptical about the letter, hopefully they decide to check the EMDIG.COM website and realize that this is a letter from a professional company.  The return address is displayed with the following information:

EMDIG.COM
2007 Wilshire Blvd.
Suite 719
Los Angeles, CA  90057

You might notice the letter which has two stamps.  That letter is destined for Canada.  I found a prospect who is headquartered in Canada, but also has a presence here in Los Angeles.  I decided to mail the letter directly to Canada because I want it to reach the management team as opposed to a satellite office.

Lets face it, domaining can be quite the adrenaline rush.  One which is lead by an addiction to register the next great domain name.  As domainers, we will sit in-front of our computers for hours searching through auctions, drops and the aftermarket.  With a new domain hunt starting each day, what are we doing with domains we have already registered?  I know what I have been doing and I have decided to change it.  I’ve been letting some domain names just sit around collecting an awful amount of dust.  Some of the domains have been sitting in my portfolio for such a long period of time that they have yet to see the development light.  That will no longer be the case, since I have over seventy domain names in my portfolio with around less than two to three percent of them developed.  I decided that in order for me to continue with my domain acquisitions I will have to develop at least three sites.  The domains I am focusing my efforts on are the following:

www.educationalsolarkit.com
www.lofttable.com
www.blushes.org

For every three domain names that I fully develop into full fledged websites I am giving myself a credit of thirty new domain acquisitions.  So theoretically speaking for every domain that I develop into my site I am giving myself the room to acquire ten more domain names.  To make this a memorable ratio I am going to use bold font that I can reference down the line to remind myself of the rule that I have set.

3 Developed Sites = 30 New Domain Acquisitions

I was finally able to post my complete domain portfolio this evening.  It took quite a bit of time due to the bulk upload option in the script but it is definitely a great start that I can refer people to.  You can view the portfolio here:  www.dnpimping.info

In the future I will add a new theme to the site to fit my pimp motif and might even experiment with referring people to the site via different ad networks.  Should be fun to see what happens.  Alright I am tired and its time to relax for the rest of the evening!

For a domainer, I had quite a productive domaining day.  To start the morning I joined other domainers in the bido chatroom to watch the DisabilityCompensation.com auction.  The domain was auctioned off for a total price of $1,193.00, although some say it could of been more, I feel it was a great auction and it hit the target price of what I was expecting.  After that I proceeded to work on a new site for the domain EducationalSolarKit.com, I installed wordpress and vanilla cart.  This site will be strictly dedicated to featuring different affiliate products for educational solar kits.  Since this is an affiliate based site, I signed up with the ebay partner network and am currently waiting to hear back from them.  I am tempted to sign up with amazon’s affiliate program since ebay hasn’t gotten back to me as of yet.  Apparently many have said that the ebay partner network can be a bit picky now, to keep from wasting more time on the project I might just have to let ebay go!  I then headed over to domainertelevision.com, to talk with a small group of domainers about several different domaining topics.  The site itself is run by Bruce, who definitely has tactful ways to sell domains to end-users.  That’s specifically why I decided to join the chatroom at around 4PM PST.  There were two other domainers in there one who goes by the name of TeenDomainer and the other DNSamauri who just graduated from law school.  It was a nice way to network with those in my industry and learn a tip here and there.  Bruce actually took the time to describe how he approaches end-users for domain sales.  It definitely sparked a few light bulbs in my mind, because until recently I have always geared my marketing efforts towards other domainers.  I feel now that if you gear your domain marketing efforts towards end-users, you will receive a better range of offers.  While in the chatroom, I went ahead and followed one of Bruce’s tips, searching for the keyword claim on a drop site.  To my amazement AutoClaim.org was listed on the deletion list.  I could not believe that no one else had registered this name before I had the chance to.  It was at this moment my adrenaline started pumping and I ended up finding AutoInsuranceClaim.net, talk about lucky!  That’s what you call a double whammy!  The second domain was pure luck because .com and .org were both taken for it.  This pretty much told me that it probably deleted within the last couple of days or was just overlooked!  I can honestly say that I have raised the value of my domain portfolio by registering these two amazing names.  I already approached Sedo.com with AutoInsuranceClaim.net to see if it can be featured on the GreatDomains website.  If they do not accept it, I will then proceed to find potential buyers myself for the name and debate on whether to submit it to Bido.com or not.  Now the only dilemma I have left is finding an appropriate domain to feature my entire domain portfolio on.  I am still debating on whether I want one main site to feature my domains on or whether I want to create a number of different sites to increase the awareness and potential traffic that my domain portfolio would receive.  Either way, once I develop my domain portfolio I plan to advertise it with google adwords and on various domain forums.  My goal as a domainer is to bring as much attention to my domaining portfolio as possible and glamorize this industry to the point where more end-users partake in it.  I’ve got a few other tricks up my sleeve, one that involves a dnpimping.com which will be sure to open soon.

Best Regards,

Jason Thompson

SouthEurope.com Auction Log

As you see I came quite close to winning this auction, but during my experiences with auctions and geo directional domains I’ve learned to stick to a rule-set.  One that is defined by setting a limit and following by it even if the domain is priceless!  My limit today was $300…

Look out for dnpimping.com, this will be the new domain blog home.  I will eventually transfer all posts from this blog to the new blog and use the discredit.org domain name as a forwarder.  I am excited about starting the new brand!  The design for the brand is currently being worked on.  Here is a sample of the logo / mascot if you haven’t seen it already:

DNPIMPING.COM LOGO

Best Regards,

Jason Thompson

DNPIMPING.COM Coming Soon!

Today while surfing the net, I found an interesting site which allows you to simply enter a country name or city and it provides you with a map of the area along with the estimated population.  This was easier to navigate than the US Census site.  I definitely would recommend such a site for those of you who are currently into geo domaining.

www.geonames.org

Speaking of Geo, I was able to bid on a Geo domain recently using namejet.  The domain name is SouthEurope.com.  Not only did I bid but I am actually winning the auction and have been leading the auction since it started.  We’ll see what happens, but if I can grab this domain name for an extremely low price it will definitely convince me that namejet, pool, snapnames and tdnam are the way to go!  When I say are the way to go, I have actually been involved in a number of auctions in the past where the domain price simply doesn’t make sense.  Provided that I win the auction for SouthEurope.com it will definitely make me pay more attention to the domain aftermarket sites and convince me that the domaining world has entered another gold rush!