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How to Monetize Product Domains

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

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

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.

1. 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.

1. 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.

1. 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

1. 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

1. Are a must instead of naming your page blogoholic.com/page2.html name it blogoholic.com/blogging-tips
2. This way search engines and visitors know what your page is about
3. 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

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

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?

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