Supernatural Agency: Online business tales

The Afternic blog describes sailboater.net as a ‘great’ domain about to expire. This is pure silliness and one of the reasons that some recent auctions have fared poorly (and, conversely, why some have done very well).

First, it’s a dot net. Nuff said.

Second, let’s think this through:

• ‘Sailboater’ is not a phrase anyone in the real world ever uses. They describe themselves as ’sailors’. If you used the word ’sailboater’ in their world you’d at least get looked at very strangely, at worst you’d get laughed off the dock.
• So if you park or develop this domain you’re extremely unlikely to get any traffic from those you want traffic from: wealthy sailors and boat-owners who spend boodles on boat stuff.
• Sailboater is not a keyword that is likely to get used- so forget type-in traffic.

The point here is that domains that are not marketable or are just plain stupid aren’t going to command the big bucks or generate real revenue. You’re far better off owning a good dot com, keyword domain that is likely to attract valuable traffic as opposed to stupid traffic. That’s why sailor.com would be worth huge money compared to something that makes no sense in the real world like sailboater.net.

Adding original relevant copy to parked domain pages can make a big difference in organic search ranking for those pages which, in turn, drives a lot more traffic than type-ins. Given that many domainers have large portfolios covering many diverse subjects, how much copy do you need and where can you get it?

The answer to the first quantity issue is at least 600 words or approximately two 1.5 line-spaced 8.5 x 11 pages of 12 pt type. However, more important than how much is what you write. First, it must be original content. Duplicate content such as copy and paste from Wikipedia is a sure-fire way to get de-listed from Google; likewise copying reviews from Amazon, scraping content from similar sites, etc. The entire purpose of original content is to give search legitimacy to your site. You can use these sources for research but you should write your own take on the results.

Format

600 words is a lot of text for a page. Develop a consistent format in a template and it will be much easier to put your content together while ensuring that it is optimized. You can break the text up by subject and create additional pages which helps with your credibility and provides more targeted landing pages. If, for example, you’re doing a jewelry site you might have pages for Diamonds, Gold, Silver, Wedding, etc.

The outline or template your writer might use should look something like this:

Page title with keywords (in the browser bar, not the site text)

H1 Headline with keywords: Diamond Buying Online, Everything You Need To Know About Buying Diamonds Online For Less (note, headline leads off with keywords)

Brief descriptive text explaining what the site is about.

H2 Headline: Five Things You Need To Know About Diamonds

Bullet list. Web readers start with headline and scan the first few words of a text paragraph, then go to picture captions, then bullet points. Blocks of text get read last.

So what if you hate writing or can’t do it well? Hire a writer. Find one worth paying a little extra for because a pro will do it right and turn it around fast. $.25-.50/word is reasonable.

If you need a writer, Contact Us, and we’ll hook you up.

If you manage domains and have been following the various discussions of recession-proofing your business then you have to get more advanced and start using the tools available now to develop richer visitor experiences.

We are obsessed with the idea that the future is building sites whose content is delivered automatically while maintaining relevance to the subject matter of the site and the intent of the readers. With APIs, RSS, Google News Feeds and your own original content, it’s possible to build out sites that are legitimate media sites without huge staffs and big budgets.

Jonathan Mendez, always worth a read, agrees:

“In the user controlled medium that is digital advertising success is predicated on delivering relevance. Nowhere is this exemplified better than the success of search where there is a data input (rule 1) and multiple additional rules (geo and behavioral) that results in the delivery of content believed to be most relevant to the goals of the user. There is no question that the race to gain access to more implicit and explicit input data from users and from publishers to create rules will continue to increase the ability for marketers to deliver relevance in the coming years.”

The days of static content and parked sites are numbered, IMHO. Domainers must get more technologically sophisticated and more content-aware. When companies like Oversee (covered ad nauseum in the domaining blogs, no link needed) raise $150 million it is a signal: the big players are coming in and they have big guns- and they’re going to use this money to create sophisticated automated media empires. That’s where this ship is headed.