Teen Domainer

Guest Post by PPC Expert Ian Lopuch Combining Domains, SEO, PPC, and Affiliate Marketing

TeenDomainer — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 14:08:30 +0000

Teen Domainer readers, allow me to introduce myself. I’m Ian Lopuch, a guru in the field of corporate pay per click search engine marketing. I manage complex multi-million dollar pay per click campaigns on Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing, Microsoft adCenter, and other search platforms for a living. Recently, I launched my blog, PPC Ian, to empower and educate online marketing professionals.

In addition to my regular job, I thoroughly enjoy domaining and affiliate marketing in my spare time. I actually look at these two as the same because I primarily focus on developing SEO-optimized domains to build streams of passive affiliate income. As someone who’s been reading and learning from Teen Domainer for a while, I’m really excited and honored to be writing a guest post and would like to discuss three pay per click strategies that are directly applicable to domaining.

Strategy 1: Optimize Your Developed Domain’s Affiliate Program Mix

From my experience, every category monetizes a little differently. In some categories, Google AdSense is the best way to monetize your visitors. In others, perhaps eBay is the way to go. In yet other categories, it’s all about ClickBank. Often times, the challenge is finding the ideal combination of multiple affiliate programs.

My solution in optimizing affiliate programs and site layout: testing, testing, testing. The challenge, however, is that testing requires quite a bit of data to arrive at statistical significance. My tip to you: Drive some pay per click traffic to your domains! You will pay for this traffic in the short run, but it will allow you to conclude your testing much faster. Moreover, by optimizing your site’s layout, you’re going to make a lot more money in the long run. Pay per click is an excellent way to understand how users behave on the domains you’re developing, an instant feedback loop.

I particularly like this tip if I’m going to develop multiple domains in the same category. The PPC traffic gives me a great idea how the category behaves and then I can scale my findings to all of the domains that I develop.

Strategy 2: Drive Traffic To Your Premium Domain Name Portfolio

There are two main types of domainers: Those that buy domains with the intent of selling for a higher price and those that buy domains with the intent of developing them for affiliate income. Of course, there are also those that combine these two: Develop domains, accumulate some affiliate income, develop more value, and eventually sell for even more.

Personally, I’m more on the affiliate side, but have also started buying premium domains with the goal of later selling them. Here’s the challenge: It’s difficult to sell your premium domain names if nobody sees them. One of my favorite aspects of Teen Domainer: The great tips around selling domain names, especially to end users (a very lucrative segment). To add to Brian’s awesome list, I’d like to propose that you leverage pay per click to market your portfolio. When someone types in “premium domain names” on Google, why not own that keyword and send the user to your site advertising your portfolio?

I don’t think this strategy is for everyone, especially if you have a smaller domain portfolio like myself. However, if you’re a big time domain investor, I can totally see this paying off. Let’s say you specialize in financial services industry domains. You could buy the keyword “finance domains” on the major search engines. This more targeted keyword is going to generate fewer impressions than a more generic one, but is more likely to convert since it’s very focused on a particular niche within domaining.

Strategy 3: Lock In Additional Users & Corner Your Market

Let’s say you have a really successful domain in your portfolio, one that you’ve developed with some really great content. You’re getting a few thousand unique visitors a month, have a successful opt-in email list, and have a few direct advertisers. My suggestion: Supplement your organic traffic with some pay per click traffic as well.

PPC is an excellent way to corner your market and acquire more visitors, those that keep coming back again and again. Since your site is already sticky, you’re basically reinvesting some of your profits for exponential gains. The gains are exponential because your higher traffic base will raise the value of your property to potential buyers, drive more affiliate commissions, grow the size of your email list, raise prices on your advertising rate card, drive more user comments, and so much more.

To close out, Brian, I really wanted to thank you for this opportunity to guest post on your blog. Your blog is one of my favorites and I truly appreciate the opportunity. Going forward, I truly see the domain, SEO, PPC, and affiliate worlds converging. It’s an exciting time to be in online marketing and I’m hoping these domain-specific PPC tips help everyone out!

Thanks Ian for the post it was great and very useful. You can read more from Ian on his blog at PPCIan.com and also if any of my readers would like to guest post please just contact me above.

Next South Florida Domainers Meeting March 16th

TeenDomainer — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 17:51:24 +0000

The South Florida Domainers group has announced our next meeting. We will be meeting on the night of March 16 at a local sushi thai restaurant. At the last meeting we had over 50 peoplein attendance and we hope to have everyone back this time plus more! We welcome all domainers big or small young or old. RSVP Here

We are also trying to get everyone to meet each other and we are going to try a little speed networking session to allow everyone to meet each other and then there will be ample time for conversation after dinner. If you are local we would love to have you. We already have over 20 confirmed guest and I know that many esteemed domainers will be in attendance. South Florida is the place to be for domainers as we all know take a look at the RSVP list and you will know why.

RSVP Here
Date:March 16th, 2010, 7:30pm
Location:Kansai Restaurant
Address:7140 Beracasa Way, Boca Raton, FL 33433

RSVP Here

If you have any questions just ask me Brian (at) TeenDomainer.com or take a look at SouthFloridadomainers.com for more information

I hope to see you all there!

Success With Godaddy Premium Listings

TeenDomainer — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 17:40:44 +0000

Late last year I added 30 or so domains that I was not going to renew or names that I did not plan on developing to Godaddy's Premium Listing service. The process to add a name is very simple you just enter the name and your price. The major drawback is that godaddy takes a 30% cut so make sure you price accordingly.

Since adding the names I have sold 4 Domains using godaddy this year. I have sold 2 just this month.

I think that the listings have been so successful for 2 reasons. First I have been pricing the names under $1000. These are names I was not even thinking of renewing so I am quite happy with anything I can get for them. I also think the main reason that the listings have had so much success is because Godaddy as we all know is the most well known domain registrar. When people go to look for domain they go to godaddy and search. They see the premium listings and unlike an email from a domain; they trust godaddy. Godaddy does a great job making it easy to buy the domain and they handle the transfer of ownership.

Last Friday I got my first check in the mail from godaddy so it took a little over 2 months to get in the mail. If you have not put some of your domains on godaddy you might want to give it a try. Its free so what do you have to loose?

Some Short Sunday Statements

TeenDomainer — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 15:52:19 +0000

As another week ends and a new one begins I wanted to share a few random thoughts and things that went on this week.

On Thursaday I had dinner with the great guys at Bido Jarred and Sahar and the rest of the guys in blue. (The blue bido shirts) David Castello was also at dinner and we had a great time talking. I learned so much in just one night. I want to thank them again for sharing part of their vast knowledge with me.

While we are talking about Bido, I wanted to point out some larger sales they have been reporting. They are really moving the platform to the next level and with the new voting system everyone can make money. I will be talking more about this in another post but for now lets just say I really like the new system and changes at Bido!

Last night at 10:58 PM I sold another domain via Godaddy Premium Listings, if you follow me on twitter, this is my 4th name sold via Godaddy this year. A few days ago I just got my first check from Godaddy in the mail from the sale of the first name. I am really happy about this sales platform the only thing I don't like is the 30% commissions.

On a personal note I ran a half marathon two weeks ago in 1:21 which I was very happy with. All of the 60 mile weeks have paid off but now its back to track season. Last Friday at our meet I broke the 5 min mile which is always fun, now I am just trying to break 10 min in the 2 mile race.

We will be announcing another South Florida Domainer meeting very soon if you would like to get on the email list please leave a comment or contact me.

Finally a big thanks to my all of my sponsors for supporting me on this blog they rock! I do have a few ad spots open if you would like one take a look my prices are some of the best in the industry.

If I can do anything for you or if there is something you want me to write about please contact me Brian (at) Teendomainer.com

Thanks and enjoy your weekend!

DnCruise Sure to be a Hit! Set Sail one the Domain Boat

TeenDomainer — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 17:43:15 +0000

My good friend Chef Patrick is doing something that has never before been done in the domain industry. A conference on a boat. As we all know the chef is always having fun and this trip promises to be great.

What I really like about the format will be you will also be on a vacation going to different ports in the Caribbean and South America. The networking also promises to be the most valuable part. The price is great for a trip like this. There are also some great speakers lined up to share information. For more information take a look at DnCruise.com.

I just need to see if I can get out of school to go!!

Press Release

CHEFP PATRICK TO HOLD THE INDUSTRIES FIRST EVER DOMAINING CONFERENCE ON A BOAT

Domainers Will Get A Chance To Network Aboard Chef Patrick’s DNCruise Event

Las Vegas, Nevada - March 4, 2010: Chef Patrick of Chef Patrick.com is going to be hosting a domaining conference so awesome it will literally make you float. This event will be the first domaining conference he’s held and the industry’s first ever conference on a boat. The event will be accommodated aboard the Carnival ship Imagination.

The cruise is leaving out of the port of Miami, Florida on October 11, 2010 and returns to Miami on October 15. DNCruise is perfectly timed for those attending the T.R.A.F.F.I.C. event in South Beach, Miami, which kicks off on October 17, 2010.

With a starting price of only $429 per person (interior cabin), no other conference can offer such a great value. Fare includes your cabin, all you can eat food, cruise taxes, port fees, gratuities, most of your cocktails and your conference pass.

Chef Patrick promises a laid back atmosphere of fun and mingling mixed in with some speakers and sponsored parties. There will be plenty of free time as well to enjoy the beautiful beach in Cozumel, Mexico.

Although the conference is in the early stages of planning, DNCruise has had a tremendous amount of interest so far and anticipate selling out within the next few months. In addition, Chef Patrick has a lot of great sponsors already lined up and even more coming. These sponsors have allowed him to keep the pricing down and still cover the expenses for some awesome activities and parties.

Chef Patrick has lined-up some great speakers ranging from web development, domain investing, SEO, affiliate marketing and social media. He will encourage room participation through moderated group discussions. In addition he will hold several networking sessions in ways never before done!!!

If for some reason a guest cannot afford the pass, Chef Patrick will work out fair payment arrangements. No one should miss an opportunity like this to network with fellow domain investors.

If you’d like more information about the cruise or would like to book your room please visit www.DNCruise.com or you can contact Chef Patrick directly by email at Patrick@ChefPatrick.com or by phone at 702-373-1127

How to Monetize Product Domains

TeenDomainer — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 18:18:04 +0000

As an owner of a few product domains I have been trying a few different methods of monetizing them with mixed results. A product domain for those of you that don't know is a domain name that is a generic product like fishingrod.com. I like them because when people visit them they are already looking to buy or research a product that you can try to sell them. There are many different options to try and monetizethem, I am just going to talk about building your own site using wordpress for now. Later I want to test out smartname and review that service. The one beinfit about is building your own site is you have total control over the revenue and design and all other parts of the site.

Build your own site

I have been building out sites using wordpress. I like wordpress's ease of use and thousands of free plugins and themes. It also does a fairly decent job at SEO which helps your rankings. On the basic sites I have used Ebay Partner Network to monetize the site. EPN recently went to a QCP pricing which is kind of like PPC and since that my earning have been up. On the sites I use a wordpress plugin called PhpBay to display the ebay ads in a great format. The ebay ads do not look at all like traditional PPC ads and the click through rate (CTR) has been much higher. I have also tried Amazon affilate program, but I do not like the results so far and am in the process of switching my sites out to EPN or other affiliate programs. On some of my sites I still have some AdSense.

I am also looking at starting to drop ship a small amount of products from some websites. Drop shipping does not require any overhead and the margins can be quite large.

I would also like to begin to reach out to direct advertisers now that my sites are getting traffic and ranked for their keywords I think that I could provide value to a potential advertiser.

My Early Results

I recently built Portable Camping Shower and USB Powered Speaker. Both sites took me about a little over an hour to put together and set up. I have a few articles and reviews on each one with some pictures and videos. I used some basic seo plugins and now the names both now rank in google and bing and have generate over $50 a month in revenue combined. Its not a ton but from making nothing with a parked page I am very happy especially with the time I put in. Tip google image search drives nice traffic so seo your images.

If you have any questions please ask them below, I might also be interested if people wanted in build a very small number of sites for clients.

Sample End User Domain Sales Call Transcript

TeenDomainer — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 15:34:20 +0000

Yesterday I called a few potential end users for four of my domains that I picked this week to try and sell. I think that the telephone is a great way to sell domains especially I feel that some people feel many emails may be spammy or they may just not respond to them. With the phone you get to talk to a live person.

Before I call an end user I do a little research using who is and google to get a little background information on them.

I try and stick to a fluid script so that I get my main points across but do not end up sounding too scripted.

Yesterday it went something like this

Hello my name is Brian Diener I am a (web developer, domainer, domain owner depending on the tech education level of the person) and I am the owner of the domain name xxxxx.

I think it could benefit, (help, would be of use) your company / business to own domain xxxxx because reasons. (Search Data, SEO, Brandability, Easy of Use Whatever points you want to talk about. )

I am offering this name for sale (name price or ask for offer)

Thank you again for your time

Some time they just say "no" right away, other time they will listen and then say "no". Many times they ask a simple question or two and then I give them my contact information and we move on from there.

I have found it is easier to sell to small and mid size businesses because they do not have 10 different people you need to talk to to get the deal approved.

On the calls I like to keep it simple and get strait to the point. If I get an answering machine I ask them to call me back and leave my number. I use skype, and google voice and once and a while my cell phone to make calls. Skype works really well and is only a few dollars a month for calls and a voice mail box. Do you have any tips to share?

Some Basic Domain Minisite SEO 101

TeenDomainer — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 22:30:12 +0000

Minisites are some domainers answer to declining parking revenue and they also work great for long tail domains that receive no type in traffic . They work the best with exact match domains meaning that if you are trying to rank for the term “Teen Domainer” you are using TeenDomainer.com. Google and other search engines give extra weight to exact match domains.

I have recently developed a few minsites and I am earning money from them and they are ranked in the top 3 for their terms. Exact match domains are a must for a small minisite.

This is part 1 of a short series I am going to do on some basic SEO tips and terms for minisites but they will work for other sites in general.

Pick 1-3 Main keywords to try and rank for
1. These will be the main topics in your content on your website
2. These should be targeted enough where you will be able to rank up top in the results but not too small where you will not see any traffic from them.
3. Use the Google Keyword tool to help you determine some keywords.

Content – You need quality text to draw the visitors and spiders to your site
1. Get unique content search engines punish your site if you have copied all of your content from other sites.
2. Make sure you use the terms you are trying to rank for in your content SEO’s say anywhere from 2% to 15% my thought is just keep is sounding natural and do not try and force your keywords in your content.
3. Each page on your site will be trying to rank for one main term keep that in mind.

Titles make sure your Page titles are not something like index make them relevant for the page and terms you are trying to rank for
1. Each page on your site should have a unique title

Page Descriptions are exactly what they sound like they shortly describe what the page is about
1. Keep them under 180 characters
2. Do not stuff them with keywords
3. These will often show up in the search engines so make sure they read smoothly and make sense

SEO Friendly Page Titles

Are a must instead of naming your page blogoholic.com/page2.html name it blogoholic.com/blogging-tips
This way search engines and visitors know what your page is about
Try and keep your url the same as your page title

That’s about it for part 1 I just wanted to lay down some basics, in parts 2 and 3 I wil get more detailed and will also talk a little bit about wordpress SEO and image seo. I am also going to share some results from my new minisites. If you likes this please tell me I know its ultra basic for many people

Live Domain Auctioneers Live Auction Today

TeenDomainer — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 16:20:32 +0000

Today the people behind Live Domain Auctioneers Live Domain auctions are throwing another auction. It has been a few months since they held the last auction. I like the auction platform they use in which every name or lot of names starts at $1 with no reserve so if you bid on a name you will win.

The auction is done by professional live auctioneers via an audio feed so it feels just like a live auction. In the past there have been a few good domains sold at the auctions for very fair prices. The auction is held on proxybid so you must register in order to bid.

The auction takes place Today Sunday, February, 28 2010 at 1:00 PM Pacific Time

Here a a few names that caught my eye

AdultGiftStop.com - Google Search it Enduser Sales?
SiteBugs.com
TrollingSkirts.com -Great Fishing Name
LandUseConsultants.com
WroughtIronGifts.com
CanadianDog.com - Nice Name
Xploding.com
HoopsStore.com
PremiereCycling.com

Happy bidding view the whole auction list here

New Experiment Selling Physical Products via Social Media

TeenDomainer — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 14:28:16 +0000

I have just ordered a small quantity of unique products that I am going to use as test and try to sell them using social media websites mainly Twitter, Facebook ,and Google Buzz.

From my eBay selling experience I have some connections with dropshippers and wholesalers in China so I am able to get my products at a great price. The product I am going to be selling is the type of product that is cool to own and once and a while you might realize you need or want to own one and people seem to be tweeting a lot about them.

My idea is to have an main website and also a very active facebook and twitter account. When people talk about the product on twitter I will write a response back to them saying we have them to buy for a price that as far as I know is one of the best on the web.

On facebook I am going to offer discounts and giveaways to my fans and hopefully they will help spread the word. I also want to try facebook advertising because of its amazing ability to target users. You can pick gender, age group and even interest. I think that this is the future in online advertising and I want to see just how well it works.

As for domains I am going to have a main memorable website and also smaller sites that I can rank for their exact keywords to drive traffic and links to my main website.

My order should be here in the next few days and I have everything in place so I will keep everyone updated on how it goes after I am done.

I am going to do all of the shipping myself for now as I already ship many products a week for my current eBay business so I have the process down to a science.

Do you have any suggestions or think this idea is horrible?