An short story appeared on the Deseret News, on how Ryan DeLuca started BodyBuilding.com and turned it into “the Internet most-visited body building and fitness site”
My favorite quote from the article:
“He took a huge risk by getting a $20,000 loan to buy the domain name BodyBuilding.com”
Bodybuilding.com is ranked by Compete.com as having just under 1.5 Million visitors a month.
Not bad for $20K.
Fortunately for Mr. DeLuca he didn’t follow some of the suggestions contained in another article out today, in the WebWorkerDaily.com, which talks about what to do when the .com you want is taken.
Some of the suggestions included:
Pick A Different Name
Add Dashes or Numbers.
Use an alternative extension like .net, .org, .biz, or .info.
In all fairness the article does also list as an option buy the .com from the owner if its not in use, but the article clearly failed to recognize what Mr. DeLuca learned.
There is no replacement for a category killer .com
Not everyone can afford the generic category defining .com Michael so IYO what should they do ?
Wow Mike!
I saw that same article in the webworker daily website, and took the time to post on it. My thoughts were exactly as you expressed here, but I didn’t address them on their site because… yipes… how many times can we try to educate even the WEBMASTERS? Their article was suggesting domains with hyphens? Numbers? Convoluted domain phrasings? It’s getting old now.
For example: A domainer friend called me recently to tell me a ridiculous story about a webmaster in charge of a large client’s account who wanted to “get” a domain my friend owned and asked if he would “release it”. My friend, thinking the webmaster wanted to buy the domain for his client, replied and asked for a price the webmaster’s client would pay for this domain.
The webmaster wrote back saying in a sense “you mean you want money for this domain you aren’t using? You just have ads on the domain homepage! If that’s the case, I will offer you $XX for the domain.” That’s right. The webmaster offered to buy a powerful marketing domain for their client for two digits. How can a webmaster have NO CLUE ABOUT DOMAIN VALUES AFTER FIVE YEARS OF MAINSTREAM MEDIA DOMAIN SALE STORIES?
The bizarre thing was that the domain specifically defined the webmaster’s client’s geo location and their generic prodserv. This poor client’s webmaster just screwed them out of owning a geo category killing domain for maybe a few thousand $$$.
We have all seen these type of idiotic responses hundreds of times, and it’s frustrating, but our question should be to ourselves as an industry — Why are WE domainers educated on domain values, but the rest of the business world is NOT? Why do WE as investors in domains, spend very little on an organized effort to SELL THE BENEFITS OF OUR INVESTMENTS? Everybody else does. Mainstream business all have their powerful publications, public relation firms, etc, but what about the Domain Industry? Who is our PR firm?
What can we do to move domains from the “cybersquatter” image to “appreciable marketing assets” and set this foundation as a basic “ONLINE MARKETING 101” rule?
If you are a company that wants to do business online, and kill your competitors in the online market, owning the generic descriptive domain name of your prodserv is YOUR FIRST MAJOR ADVERTISING/MARKETING BUDGET EXPENSE.
If you have a $50,000 annual ad budget, and the domain that defines your top prodserv clearly would cost you $50,000 to own, then BUY THE DOMAIN FIRST. Wasting your ad budget on traditional advertising will always come soon enough. Owning your generic prodservs domains though, may even save you significant advertising/marketing costs with wise usage of the domains you bought.
Some day the domain industry players, especially those with the biggest $$$ and most domains to sell will figure out that end user sales, (the true value of a domain,) will come with EDUCATION and a cohesive respectable program explaining domain values to any business person in charge of promoting their prodservs online.
Let’s see… I think this is the 150th comment/post/reply I’ve made about this idea since 2005 on over 100 different websites regarding domain names. No, I’m not financially or respected enough to form this organization myself, but I can blow the horn.
BOTTOM LINE: All domainers can achieve huge financial gains when the biggest domain holders come together and form a non-profit organization that details why domains are valuable. The biggest domain companies have everything to gain by doing this. I’m not naming names, but soon, why shouldn’t we?
First suggestion: All the parking services should agree to put a little link at the bottom of ALL landing pages (force it into their TOS) that points to a “Domain Values 101” educational page created by the domain non-profit organization. If they do, all domainers parking with the PS should agree to a small 1% refcomm paid to the PS. That should be impetus enough to get at least the PS’s interested. How hard is it to add a little link, icon, at the bottom of all their landing pages? And why wouldn’t any domainer want that?
Nice article, Mike. It’s right on target.
Stephen
Thanks
Just so you know I get offers very frequently offering $25-$50 for a domain and $250 seems to be a very popular starting point as well.
Your points are well taken and part of the reason we both keep plugging away on writing blog posts is to educate.
DOTWTF
Great question.
Short answer get the next best .com available for purchase.
For example, in no particular order; bodybuildingproducts.com (which was purchased by a friend at a TRAFFIC auction for small money), bodybuilt.com, bodybuildingsupplements.com, weightlifting.com, weighttraining.com, workout.com, workouts.com, just to name a few
Mike is right dotwtf.com.
Start with buying a lower rung name then work up. Seeing the top name in the category seems impossible to get at first because frankly it is. But working up from the bottom will get you there. PPC, buy, sell, trade, etc. Keep your eye on the target. Just like bodybuilding.com advises, start with light weights first. Then work up gradually. The site’s contest winners were not born looking that way and did not get there overnight. Its one pound (or domain) at a time….
“How can a webmaster have NO CLUE ABOUT DOMAIN VALUES AFTER FIVE YEARS OF MAINSTREAM MEDIA DOMAIN SALE STORIES?”
Two reasons I have found to be true……
1. They are not true webmasters, but someone that has recently learned to use templates or create a 5 page site with XsitePro and has sold themselves as a webmaster to a company or business on a budget. These people don’t usually have any knowledge on the value of domains, and if they do, they can not relate to such a large transaction. This would seem to be the case in this situation
2. They want the money. If some “webmasters” don’t know, than a whole lot of business owners have no clue, and if the webmaster tells him he should pay thousands for a domain, and it does not include development, they will move on to the next one that could care less and tell them to spend $10 on a hypenated name. This uncaring professional is the one that ultimately gets the business and feeds his family.
This comment can be elaborated on quite a bit, and has many holes left in it for “what if’s” and should’ve, would’ve, could’ve’s, and hopefull starts a debate! 😉
LOOKING FORWARD
Because parked pages disproportionately benefit the domain owner without adding long term, meaningful value to either the advertiser or site visitor, formulas for value are always speculative because in the long run, they are not sustainable.
Minisites provide a bit more sustainability but they’re not anywhere near optimal. After all, it’s still a mechanism by domainers for domainers. Nobody’s thinking, “Wait ’til the end users land on this page. They’ll be blown away!”
Minisites will eventually go the way of the parked page and will one day be replaced by genuine, actual websites that are custom designed and programmed to maximize the site visitor experience through providing the best products, services and information related to the keywords, concept or phrase that is represented by the domain name.
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THIS WILL CREATE A SUSTAINABLE, PREDICTABLE BUSINESS MODEL WITH A BANKABLE INCOME STREAM.
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Unfortunately, that’s not where we are today. You can’t put up a cardboard box on a piece of dirt and expect someone to pay you like it was a commercial building, and except for the major, category killing domains that sell for huge sums, don’t waste your breath on that overworked, undeveloped real estate comparison to justify thousands of dollars of unsupported value out of the domain name that you just hand reg’d for $8 or bought at auction for $100.
Other people have computers and credit cards, too.
@Mikey — Thanks, keep up the good work with these types of articles, broey
@ Anthony — Excellent point. Maybe I gave too much credit to people I called “webmasters”, when in a sense, they are just wannabees who are afraid to introduce serious domain pricing to their budget, and instead, spend it on “SEO”. Or maybe, they’re hoping the pick up the domain for cheap (although 2 digits is ridiculous, so that just spells “idiot” to me) and resell it to their client for a big profit.
I also realized one thing. Maybe the big domain holding companies don’t WANT to form a central non-profit educational website explaining domain values so they can slowly (or quickly) pick off the small domainer’s portfolio because the progression of education to the end user is not organized, nor present. It’s easier for the big domainers to wait it out, and buy up all the small domainer portfolios because the small domainer doesn’t have the resources to sell their domains to end users like some of the bigger domain companies can… when the time is right.
Ever get a reply from a large domain company “interested” in buying your domains, but only offer $15-$20 per domain? I have. Many times. I won’t name names, but I know if a domain company with a large portfolio is interested in even buying your domain, it means they know it has value, but they are going to lowball you until you just say “damn, I can’t keep renewing these domains, I’ll take what I can get”.
I w0nder if that’s a marketing strategy among big domain companies in order for them to capture most of the domain market from the smaller domainers. hmmmmm… 😉