The Rick Schwartz Domain Name and Traffic Blog RicksBlog.com.........Home of the "Domain King"

The purpose of RicksBlog.com

I have been making daily posts for more than a decade. Long before the "Blog" came to be. So I have no deep passion to continue to do that. However I do want to get some of what I have shared privately with other domain owners out to a larger and more general audience. It was hard enough to convince domain owners that "Type in"" traffic was a very valuable commodity and it had direct connection with the value of a domain name. I think I have done a good job here comparing that traffic to "Mineral rights" like an oil well. I am trying to melt things down to some simple foundations. The first being to have folks understand how bad they screwed up by missing this multi billion dollar business that is STILL under the radar.

If I encounter folks that STILL can't grasp how valuable and important that a domain like Hotels.com is and still sees no value in having thousands of NEW customers lined up each and every day at their business, well, do you think I am going to waste my TIME with THEM?? At least come to the point where you smack your palm on your head and say "OH!!!" If you can't do that......don't waste time here. Follow the plan of etoys.com. They spent tens of millions in advertising and their GENIUSES in their IT department FAILED to have the traffic folks were typing in directly to the browser bar get to their site. It was Thanksgiving Day 1999 I think. Commercial after commercial. etoys.com all day long. So I typed "Etoys.com" into the browser bar. Guess what?? I get a 404 error!!!! Why?? Because the GENIUSES in IT could not get into the minds of a customer watching a commercial and figure out that they won't type in http://www.etoys.com. So they lost a HUGE amount of the customers and to this MOMENT, they don't even know. Why do I bring this up? Well besides losing hundreds of thousands in the stock, it illustrates why Internet ONE collapsed. Tech guys ran marketing because marketing guys were clueless and they had to depend on folks that had no clue about marketing. Add that to the flawed impression based ads and you had the makings of a collapse.

So now I rambled a bit. But it connects to something I said last week that needs to be understood. "The single biggest cost website owners incur is the invisible cost of sales being lost." I often say, and I truly believe, that more sales are being lost on the net than actually being made on the net. Read more about it on my April 17th post "Truth to power."

So now that I have defined a couple things let me get back to the purpose of this blog post. This is a blog that I know domain owners will appreciate. But as much as I like you guys, it isn't for you directly. It is for the masses in the corporate world that don't get it. It is for the masses in the investment community that are missing one of the easiest way to grow money with the lowest entry fees of any commodity ever. It is for the guy on
Main Street that has 5 customers a day walking thru his doors that can easily be transformed to thousands if they knew the path. It is for domain owners to point to so that others may have a quick understanding of what a GREAT domain name represents. Then taking it a step further.

I hope folks will use these limited posts to help folks grasp the power of domain names. It can be overwhelming and complex at times. My job is to simplify how folks look at domains and the importance they have. Besides the outright business of a domain name it is also becoming a status symbol, a collectible and a statement.

What once was a game played by a few dozen people is now a thriving industry that is supported worldwide and now has a dozen or more trade shows each year. The premiere event is T.R.A.F.F.I.C. which is the largest and is by invitation only. This just illustrates why domain names are in such demand and why prices of this commodity has gone up faster than ANY other commodity EVER KNOWN to mankind. Besides .com there are some 330 country codes plus other extensions and new ones coming. So the opportunity is not over. On the other hand each day that passes makes entry more difficult unless you come with a thick wallet. It is not uncommon for a domain purchased for $100 in 1996 to sell for $100,000 just a few years later.

People will be leaving comments on posts here for many years to come. The debate may be heated at times, but the blog today with 15 posts in April 2007 will be more active a year from now with limited posts. Consider this ground zero for the great domain debate. The debate is really over. The story has been written, but there are about 6 billion folks that still need to understand and embrace.

Have a GREAT day!
Rick Schwartz

Assumptions in business

In business every decision I make is based on a set of assumptions. Some assumptions prove right, some prove wrong and some prove not to even matter. But you have to base an improvement or a change on an assumption. If the assumption proves wrong, your job is to step back and start again. DO NOT just continue on. MOVE BACK because that is your benchmark and you don't want to abandon that benchmark until you reach a new plateau and can sustain that plateau. Without a “Working assumption” I would be lost. I would rather be wrong, make a mistake and correcting the mistake than being “Lost.”

Have a GREAT day!
Rick Schwartz

The intersection of Art and Science

Domains and a website are the exact intersection of art and science. To me this is where they collide and merge. First of all many if not most will not even agree with the statement that a website is where art meets science. To me it is crystal clear. And very simple.

Art? Why art? Well that is pretty easy. The art is the website. The feeling you get when you are on the website. Is it static and boring or is it warm and cozy? Are the colors easy on the eyes? Is the contrast right so it is easy to read? Do you feel welcome? These are all elements of art and there is a little science behind some of that because of an overlap. We know what colors work best. We know what things touch the senses. We know how masses will react when specific stimuli is applied. That sounds like science to me. Science on the art side before we even get to the science side. Confused?

Now on the science side we talk traffic. How potent is that traffic? How targeted is the traffic? What is the source of that traffic? How much you pay for that traffic? What that traffic is worth and finally what that traffic produces in the way of profits.

Once you have the traffic and you have the fuzzy feeling art the next component of the science is how the traffic flows thru your site. As a site owner you are also a traffic cop. Just like a supermarket or a department store, your job is to gently guide your customers to where YOU want them to go to BUY what YOU want them to buy. If you gain control than at least 75% will be guided to where you want. Your job is to tweak one link at a time. One new position at a time. One new color at a time. One new anything at a time and then wait until you see a real result. Art and science together at last!

Have a GREAT day!
Rick Schwartz

Domain "type ins" represent more eyeballs than American Idol

The power of domain traffic is far from understood. But in most cases it is highly targeted and potent. What if I told you that type in traffic from domain names is a bigger number than the numbers American Idol pulls? What if I told you that instead of "Idol" doing it a couple times a week, with domain names that traffic is generated every single day of the year? And what if I told you that instead of having 50 million viewers with different interests watching the same commercial the domain name can give you the power to advertise to just one segment with the same interests?  Did you hear that? Do you understand what that means? The power these domains possess? Imagine what that would do to the sales of the end user. Imagine which way the rates would go if they doubled or tripled their business. 

In fact the daily visitor count for all combined domain names DWARFS American Idol and the buying power is off the chart. This does not even include type ins to brands like Microsoft.com, Dell.com, Amazon.com, Costco.com and millions of other companies. These are just generic, keyword domain names from visitors looking for something specific. You have their UNDIVIDED attention. Why is that important? Read on! 

Did I mention that when watching the commercials on Idol that 30% of the audience is peeing. 30% just opened the refrigerator, another 30% just are not paying close attention and the other 10% are arguing about Sanjaya not being there. Compare that to a visitor ACTIVELY typing in a specific domain name. That is a MUCH higher level customer and he deserves your attention. It can be either a brand like amazon.com or neimanmarcus.com or it can be a generic like colds.com or shoedepartment.com. All are actively looking to fill a need and you can either fill that need or lose another customer. The comparative numbers between the 2 forms of advertising are finally starting to be talked about. And that brings me to another subject. Click Fraud. That's just nonsense! As Dr. John Berryhill pointed out at a recent TRAFFIC convention, do you hear about fraud when the newspaper gets thrown away without reading? Do you hear about fraud when all those folks leave their TV's during the commercials?

It is my personal belief that this is just a red herring introduced by folks with millions to lose. But instead of running scared it is TIME for them to fully embrace the net and realize there are less blacksmith shops today then 100 years ago no matter what they tried to do to save their old set ways.

 

Failure or Success is up to you

Don't be part of the 98% of the masses that GIVE UP! They give up, throw in the towel and often when they are at the brink of achieving their goals. 98% just give up. They lose. They lose not by some outside force. They lose not by some force of the marketplace. They lose because their MINDS just gave up. Lost patience, collapsed. That allows the 2% to come along and scoop up YOUR success with little or no effort. You did YEARS of work, they get rewarded for YOUR work in minutes. All because you gave up.

Imagine you are 5 years old and you are on a 20 hour trip to Disneyland. It is 11 hours into the trip. Instead of focusing on the reward for putting up with the 20 hour trip, you feel dejected. You are tired and cranky and you want to turn back before you get your reward. That is a TRICK played by your mind and it is YOUR JOB to outsmart your mind. Outsmart the feeling that can only sink you. Now imagine the same scenario after 18 hours. All pain no gain if you quit and turn around. The result, 36 hours of driving with no results to show for your time. But guess what?? 98% of all people do exactly that when it comes to business goals. They quit just before they realize their goal. Instead of the great feeling you get after a great success, they get nothing but a sick feeling every time they look back. Instead of getting fuel for the next task, they added an anchor to their leg and their minds. That automatically makes the next task even harder to have a success with because instead of exercising their “Success muscle” they have exercised and made stronger their “Failure muscle.”

The main KEYS to all this is TIME, PATIENCE and TIMING. If you picked the wrong TIME to do something your results may not be the same if you had chosen the RIGHT TIME. Unfortunate as it is, when the RIGHT TIME comes, many are so battle fatigued that they are ready to give up at the PRECISE MOMENT they should do the exact opposite and work their hardest as their GOAL is right over the next horizon. They just ran out of patience and a great victory has been snatched by the jaws of defeat.

Don't even think about being part of the 98% of masses that embrace failure and fear success. Don’t feed failure and starve success. Don’t be one to achieve failure because you give up on the doorstep of success. And more importantly, don’t fear failure unless you give up and don’t learn anything. Failure on the journey is an opportunity for success unless you give up. If you make a wrong turn on the way to it is only a failure it that is the point you decide to give up. For the 2%, that “Failure” is no failure at all. It is a CLUE to your next success!

Have a GREAT day!

Rick Schwartz

Truth to Power

We speak truth to power, and if they don't like it....TOO BAD! My job is to have domains recognized in the marketplace for the great investment that they are. More importantly it is to have businesses of every industry  look at and understand the source and quality of the traffic produced by GREAT domain names. Massive amounts of targeted visitors looking for something very specific.

This “type in” traffic can be converted into buyers when matched with the right product and website (or as I look at it…….“Mousetrap”) at a higher rate than average traffic. Often at astoundingly higher rates. Now if you don’t know about this then it is your JOB to learn about it. If you don’t believe it then it is your JOB to find out why you are flat out wrong. If you don’t care and you run a website that is dependant on closing more sales, then either wake up or have your competition figure it out and give you years of angst for goofing up!

My job is to help folks understand the importance domain names have in the future of commerce throughout the world and throughout the lifetimes of everyone reading this. To get the highest possible revenue our domains can make and keep prices rising by educating website owners the science and the art of closing more sales and gaining new and future customers.

From where I sit, THIS is the perfect intersection of “Science and art.” The science of targeted traffic. The science of closing more sales. The science of understanding the visitor and so on. The art is of course your  website. Is it flat, dull, boring? The art of your website is an important piece of this equation. The art of how you lead your customer thru the maze and to the cash register at the end of that maze. The intersection of “Science and art” when that sale is made.

If you are paying attention the one question you might ask is how many visitors are we talking about? THAT would be a great question! The answer is stunning. I have an entire post devoted to it. But to just give you a LOUD HINT……..Let’s just say it may DWARF “American Idol” and it runs 365 days a year. Now folks that is POWERFUL. VERY powerful.

The single biggest cost website owners incur is the invisible cost of sales being lost. I often say, and I truly believe, that more sales are being lost on the net than actually being made on the net. If you read this post and you are a company leader and just shrug your shoulders…. there is little else I can say. Your mind is made up. You live in a world where doing the best you can has no meaning. Being #1 has no meaning. You are mediocre at best. And if that ruffles your feathers and pisses you off, guess what?? That is called, “TRUTH TO POWER.”

Have a GREAT day!

Rick Schwartz

What if

I think that "What if" is an important question to ask if you are looking at the COMPLETE picture. What if my competition can market online better than my company? What if their costs for a new customer are lower than mine? What if they spend 100% of their budget online and I only spend 20%? What if I am losing market share?

"What if".......What if Ford owned Cars.com? Perhaps their financial condition would be better?

The POINT of all this.......What if you are hiring folks that are missing the BIG things? What if your CEO got $150 million in annual salary plus bonus and your company lost money? I just love the NEW MATH!! Reward FAILURE!!?? You want me to buy into THAT?? I wonder how all the dead guys I talked about earler would feel about that?

That's when "What if" turns into "No Way!"

What if?

Go down the following list. Many of these companies have already been posted by you folks as you are one step ahead of me. Ask some "What if questions. What if they did not secure the domain name? What if their competitor got it? What if you just are WRONG about the importance of GREAT domain names? What if it was a unique opportunity in time and you would never get a second chance to make the right decision?

What if???

See I think it is one thing to have just missed something. But in the light of all the evidence what if your company is being run by folks that are still missing it?

WHAT IF?

Have a GREAT Day!

Rick Schwartz

Chips.com Intel inc
Vitamins.com Puritan's Pride
Vitamin.com Nature Made
Plants.com Stokes Tropical
Pens.com National Pen Company
Trashcans.com Dawn Concrete and Stone products
Saddles.com County Saddlery.com
Laundry.com Tide.com
Vacations.com TRAVELOCITY.com
Burgers.com Carl's Jr
Freezers.com Polarpod
LCDS.com Lumex.com
Ink.com FlintGroup
Label.com Bradley name plates
Bottles.com Custom Bottles
Talk.com Cavalier Telephone
Buttons.com JHB International
Carpets.com Al Abdullatif Industrial investment company
Names.com Family-Crest.com
Brush.com Braun Brush Company
Salads.com Foxy Fresh Vegatables
Costumes.com Rubie's Costume company
BreadMachine.com Krusteaz Continental Mills
TreadMills.com Woodway Inc
WheelChairs.com 21st century Scientific
WheelChair.com 1-800-Wheelchair.com
Worldmaps.com The Map and globe store
Gourmet.com Epicurious.com
Visit.com Citybreak inc
Floors.com Mannington.com
Tennisshoes.com K Swiss
Plate.com Kenilworth Steel
Flag.com Aradyne flags
Dentures.com Fixodent
DentalCare.com Procter and Gamble
PoliceBadges.com Berben Insignia company
Sweepers.com contract sweepers and equipment
Foodprocessors.com Kitchenaid

Word.com Merriam Webster dictionary
Eat.com Ragu
Scooters.com Honda
Dogfood.com Petsmart
Motorcycles.com Honda
Dish.com Dawn soap
Collectibles.com ShopatHometv.com
Gear.com Overstock

Heat.com NBA
Open.com American Express
Jobs.com Monster
Coat.com Burlington Northern Coat factory
Go.com Disney
Dig.com Disney
Beds.com Select comfort
Toothpaste.com Proctor and Gamble
Games.com aol.com

Wow.com aol.com
Game.com hasbro.com
Tacos.com TacoBell
Do.com MSN

shoes.com = brown shoe company

IceCream.com Edy's IceCream
Sauce.com Ragu spaghetti sauce
Soap.com Hill Manufacturing
Glasses.com 1-800-Contacts.com
Aspirin.com Bayer
Coffee.com Peet's coffee
Bikes.com Rocky Mountain Bikes

cnet.com owns some great ones such as:

BESTBARGAINS.COM
BROWSER.COM
BUILDER.COM
CATCHUP.COM
COMPUTERS.COM
FUTURE.COM
labs.com
news.com
shopper.com
upload.com
uploads.com
Radio.com
TV.com
Chat.com
Kids.com
KIDS.com
downloads.com
freeware.com
shareware.com
help.com
radio.com
search.com
events.com

Disney owns many. Here are a few.:
Movie.com
Movies.com
Video.com

IAC has many known and many not so known. Here is just a few.

Gifts.com (formerly with ReadersDigest)
Entertainment.com
RealEstate.com
Ask.com
Hotels.com
Chemistry.com
Match.com
etc. etc. etc

How Madison Avenue let down Corporate America and how both failed

Do you remember a few days ago I said I would "Ruffle some feathers." Well that is a promise I can keep with this post. Get ready for some flapping and chirping on a grand order.

 

Hotels.com is one of my favorite stories because it illustrates the stupidity and failure the majority of Corporate America and Madison Ave have achieved. It is a clear indictment of not only them missing the single biggest opportunity in any of their careers, but 12 years into it and they have yet to figure it out. As I said in point #7 of my April 5th post, the guys that started these companies are rolling in their graves. The people entrusted to run these companies have for the most part failed them.

 

Now this is not universal. In some cases they did figure it out and I will list a few below. They make my case stronger not weaker. The question is why did some figure it out last century and why are the majority still not figuring it out so far in this century?

 

Let's start with this undeniable premise. Before you ever plug in a GREAT domain name it is capable of getting type in traffic, it starts gushing from the moment the domain name goes live. Again, may be widely known to domain owners, but possibly not to the folks that would be best served either owning your domain or at least buying the traffic on an exclusive basis. The "End user."

 

How much traffic a domain gets is on a domain by domain basis. A domain like sex.com will likely get somwhere close to 200,000 new visitors every day of the year. A domain like widgets.com gets 500 visitors each day but that is up from 60 last year. Candy.com gets 1000-1500 each day with spikes during holidays. There are many domains that get 1000-25,000 daily visitors and some much more. The reason this natural resource is so important other than the obvious value of a targeted visitor, is the growth factor. If you have zero traffic and you double it you still have zero. Anything other than zero and you will have the wind at your back. Just remember one important point. Word of mouth advertising is still the greatest advertisng medium ever known and online it is even more evident and more valuable.

 

Here is the story. Earlier this year my partner Howard Neu and I met with the GM at the Hyatt Grand Central Station in New York City to book the T.R.A.F.F.I.C. domain show and live domain auction there for this June. He wanted to understand domain names. So he began to ask some questions.

 

I used hotels.com as my example. I asked isn't it interesting that with all the hotel chains and all the execs and folks paid to beat the competition that EVERY single person in the hotel business failed and they failed BIG TIME? He was puzzled and looked at me like the old RCA dog on the old lp's. But that was actually a good start cuz it meant he was paying attention.

 

Imagine if Hyatt had gotten hotels.com. Instead of you being 1 of hundreds of hotels listed including all your competitors and paying for each lead or each booking Hyatt would have received ALL the leads. Would that not increase sales? Would that not increase market share?

 

Step in Madison Avenue. These folks are sooooo hooked on "Branding" that they forgot the REASON they brand is to INCREASE SALES. So their REAL job is to increase sales. THAT is ultimate branding. Having your product everywhere. Funny how in time they have LOST SIGHT of that basic core contract. So Madison Avenue failed the hotel industry as well. IMAGINE, of all these high paid execs at all these companies and not a single one could figure it out. Figure that if they own a domain like Hotels.com they would be a leader in their sector. But they are all so hung up on BRANDING that they would rather IGNORE a reservoir of new business. New business snatched directly from the competition.

 

Even before it was attached to a business plan or went online hotels.com was going to be a million user a day site because it had a substantial traffic base. My guess would be that a domain like that would have gotten somewhere between 25,000 and 50,000 new visitors every day since the moment the domain went live. I guess the corp guys and Madison Avenue saw no value in having their call centers receive 9 to 18 MILLION added calls a YEAR. 9 to 18 MILLION calls that Hyatt would not lose to Marriott or Westin or Hilton or Holiday Inn or Ritz-Carlton or the other way around. They EACH had a chance to lock out the other hotel chains and they ALL missed it. They spend millions on a superbowl ad with results that can't compare and cannot even truly be measured. They let InterActive Corp (operator of Hotels.com) and Barry Diller beat them by disrupting the entire travel industry and for that they will pay dearly for decades to come.

And of course if Hyatt or Hilton or any of the others marketed hotels.com there is no way to even imagine how many tens of millions of leads would have been discovered. Leads that they get FIRST CRACK at getting. First crack at a new customer. First crack at a new reservation. This has no value??

 

Until folks face the greatest failure of their careers and learn from it they first must see and understand that failure. I don't want to beat these guys up. Really I don't. I am sad to report that 12 years into this and they STILL have no clue just how bad they failed. With 20/20 hindsight you would be hard pressed to find a hotel executive to say they screwed up by not getting hotels .com. What the hell is wrong with you folks??

 

Johnson and Johnson figured it out. They own baby.com and a LOT more. See how they OWN this sector. How they CONTROL this sector. How that have positioned themselves to lead the next 100 years just like they have lead the past 100 years. THEY GET IT!! Then think what would be the consequences if their competitor got it!

 

Bank of America owns Loans.com. THEY GET IT!

Barnes and Noble own Books.com. THEY GET IT!

Kraft owns CreamCheese.com. THEY GET IT!

JC Penny owns Gift.com. THEY GET IT!

Calvin Klein owns Underwear.com. THEY GET IT!

 

So these corporations and their Madison Avenue ad execs deserve recognition. I have a list of about 100 companies that GET IT. I give these folks a tip of the hat. They are probably yelling "Shut up" at the screen so not everyone figures it out. LOL

 

Now let's look at a disaster.....and a failure by the same counterparts

 

Campbells owns MySoup.com. The competition (Knorr) owns Soup.com. Somebody SCREWED up there! They DON'T get it and by the time they figured it out....TOO LATE! How much do you think it will cost Campbell over the next 50 years not having that domain? I would invest in Knorr. They have SHARP people there and they may unseat the leader just like 1-800-flowers gobbled up FTD. That is one of my favorite stories of not keeping up. Here is a business (FTD) that OWNED the sector for 100 years and here comes 1-800-flowers and the tiny fish gobbled up the GIANT fish. The ONLY way Campbells will get soup.com is buying the other company. But they better do it NOW before it goes the other way! Knorr is owned by Unilever.

 

Imagine if 1-800-flowers did not own flowers.com?? Would not that have been a MAJOR screw up? Well if you can see it there....it is time to apply it to your own sector and see if you pass or fail. The key to all this was that it WAS a "Unique opportunity in time" because a domain like hotels.com could have been bought a few years back for LESS than the price of a SuperBowl commercial. Today I bet some chains pay the price that could have run many commercials. And what do you think the price of hotels.com is today?? Do we count in hundreds of millions or billions? I think the latter if you could even get to that point.

 

So the hotel industry and dozens of other industries and their Madison Avenue agencies DON'T GET IT! They are soooo stuck on branding that they just can't GRASP that in the virtual world you can have more than one door. You can have more than one front door. You can market in generic ways. You can do lots oif things you can't do in the real world.

 

Regardless of all this. Their #1 jobs is to INCREASE SALES. Branding without increasing sales is not branding at all. Branding without using every tool is not building brands it is destroying brands. Branding is a buzz word that means little. SALES is what pays the bills and the salaries. Here they missed the #1 opportunity to increase sales, take market share, grow their business at the expense of the competition and they just sat there and talked about branding and to this very MOMENT still don't get it.

 

That my friends is a sad indictment of where we are. They are so busy slapping themselves on the back that they BLEW IT! They failed. They continue to fail. To me, this is the single biggest and clearest illustration of their total incompetence.

 

At least come to the point where you slap your forehead and say...."Oh my goodness, how the hell did we miss that?" Until you get to THAT POINT, there is really little else to say. Defend yourselves all you want. Somebody go do a spreadsheet and show them what it would have looked like today if they did not miss the biggest opportunity they will EVER have to increase sales.

 

Barry Diller and IAC (InterActive Corp)  figured it out when they bought hotels.com and you geniuses will be paying THEM for the next 100 years because you guys FAILED! And you will continue to fail until you can see how badly you messed up. Go take a look at THEIR spreadsheet.

 

Luckily there are other related domain names. Vacations.com. Ooops, owned by Travelocity. Too late! Do they charge commission too? Motels.com, motel.com, hotel.com, travel.com......Are you guys on Madison Ave. and Corp America getting the picture yet??? Instead of having an income producing ASSET on your ledger you have an EXPENSE!!! DUH! A significant expense. You can either "Get it" or call me names. Go ahead, give it your best shot. Nothing you can call me can cover up failure of this magnitude. NOTHING!

 

I rest my case!

 

Now I know you hear the frustration in my words. 5 years ago you would have had to peel me from the ceiling. But it is not as bad as it seems. I do see a light at the end of the tunnel. I do see a dialogue developing. I just really wanted to be on record and 100% clear of how I see it. I hope this filters up, down and sideways throughout the Corporate world and Madison Avenue. Start with Donny Deutsch and let it circulate down to Main Street.

To dismiss any of these first few posts would just be perpetuating a 12 year failure to understand how a GREAT domain name can grow your business, lead to greater market share, and if you fall asleep at the wheel be prepared for someone to come and disrupt your entire industry no matter what industry you are in.

 

Have a GREAT Day!

Rick Schwartz

Hotels.com, Campbells and Hyatt are registered Trademarks

It's the TRAFFIC....Stupid!

It's the TRAFFIC...Stupid!

 

View this photo It's nothing more than the famous shell game and your job is to be trained on what to look for.

 

There are 3 shells. Shell "A" contains TARGETED TRAFFIC. Shell "B" contains UNTARGETED TRAFFIC and Shell "C" is hocus pocus NO TRAFFIC at all or the quality is so bad it has the same result.

 

Let's say you buy 1000 visitors and you are willing to pay 10 cents each for a $100 investment. With group "A" you can close 10 sales and you make $100 per sale. A closing ratio of 1 in 100. You made $1000. With Group "B" you made 1 sale. A closing ratio of 1 in 1000 so you broke even but you made a customer who hopefully return and that of course has value. Group "C" of course produced nothing and if you buy it 10 more times you will have nothing 10 more times. Closing ratio is......

 

So with "A" your $100 turned into a $1000. RIGHT DIRECTION!

 

With "B" you broke even. No direction at all but there could be a CHANCE at some future business.

 

With "C" you got the shaft and few even ever know it. So there is ample amounts of "Shaft" available. Want more? If not....you MUST learn about traffic.

 

Now this is one side of the equation. The next step is to focus on the website and see if you can increase your closing percentages. If you could tweak it and double the revenue you would create 2 things. Demand for more traffic of equal quality and you would be willing to pay more for it which is why I as a domainer am so interested in this happening. Now be careful. If you buy the traffic under shell "C" you will be tweaking with no possible way of ever improving it and THAT us why TRAFFIC is the name of the game. Once you truly understand traffic, you can sell virtually anything on the net.

So with the widgets.com example yesterday and the traffic illustration today, you shoud be able to clearly see both sides of the equation. If you can see it you can tweak it.

 

So back to my example....if you double your closing rate and end up with 20 sales and make $2000 for your $100 bill you are likely willing to up that offer and you may up it to the point where you buy as much of that traffic as you can find.

 

While all that is going on you are still getting the benefit of the customer returning to buy more but you have increased your odds by 20 fold. You are growing your business. You are likely growing your business at the expense of the other guy. And guess what? That is okay!!

The bi-product of all this is I have also just given an example of a value of a domain that varies by a HUGE amount when you can match the traffic with the right website. So that is the reason when folks sell a domain based on "X"....my big question is WHY?

Have a GREAT day!
Rick Schwartz

Widgets.com

Widgets.com is more than a domain name. For today it is an example.

 

Yesterday I mentioned one of my domains and put a link to it on the lower left side of this page. Widgets.com was a domain I registered back in the 90's and I got it to illustrate the most generic domain describing the most generic of products. A "Widget."  What's a widget? It's any silly little item with market credibility that makes a whole lotta money. That may not be Webster's version, but it is how I think of it and I would think others as well. Webster's version goes like this: "an often small mechanical or electronic device with a practical use but often thought of as a novelty."

 

And if we were going to write the definition of widgets today it may be computer related. How versatlie! Which is the exact reason I bought the domain. A generic business waiting to be launched at any moment for any item for any market. And as a poster pointed out yesterday, the results on the landing page don't match what it is folks are looking for. Now I have targeted traffic coming from widgets.com going to an untargeted page. So it is no doubt costing me money. But that is okay. It is like this for a reason. It illustrates why domain owners selling for "X" are selling themselves short.

As time goes on the traffic will become better matched and my example on the next post will illustrate even more. I won't keep this page as it is very long. So future readers are likely to see a different page and some of this may not make sense. But for those of you reading within a short time of writing this sees a great illustration of a domain not being used to it's fullest by any stretch. It isn't even on the first step. But the 250 daily visitors will soon be monetized more effectively. It would be easy to exponentially increase the income, It is fascinating to watch a domain earning pennies blosson and start earning hundreds of dollars raising it's value every step of the way. I'll have more on traffic on my next post and you will see it all tie in. 

Have a GREAT Day!
Rick Schwartz