We or I?
This is not the most pressing issue, but I have been getting fed up with obviously lone operators who insist on referring to themselves as “we.” What? Do they have multiple personality disorders? Or do they really think they are kidding me?
“Our company handles 1000s of domains every month. We can guarantee the best prices…”
I visit their website, and it smells of a one-man operation.
So, what’s wrong with that?
The “we” game has been around a while, but is based on an outmoded, and probably never correct, concept that buyers are more persuaded by a large company they don’t know than by a person they don’t know. Most direct advertising exposes this as a falsehood. People want to hear from other people. Not from a cog in a wheel they’ve never heard of. Big companies can be persuasive, if they are called Microsoft rather than XYZ International Consultants. But, even in the Microsoft example, I will be very quickly alienated if I am forced to deal with a faceless “we” rather than a person with a name.
If you do this, stop it right now.
If you want to sell as domain, and you are not in fact part of a large organization, then refer to yourself as “I.” Trying to sound like a “we” makes you seem very small and dubious. If you can’t even be honest about how many of you there are, how can I trust you with anything else? Are you so insignificant and unimpressive that you need imaginary partners? How sad is that?
If you want to build trust, start with “I.”
Our rant is over.
Well, gang. It’s time to lift the gloom. The domain industry has not been informed about the current recession, and is going through the roof. Domains may very well be the best place to have your money right now.
Let’s look at the news from Verisign (Bolded phrases added by me):
“The year 2008 ended with a total base of 177 million domain name registrations across all of the Top Level Domains (TLDs). This represents 16 percent growth over the previous year. In the fourth quarter of 2008, more than 10.1 million new domain names were registered across all TLDs. The composition of the domain name industry and rank order in terms of base size remained consistent in the fourth quarter. The five largest TLDs in terms of base size were .com, .cn (China), .de (Germany), .net, and .org.
The overall base of .com and .net domain names grew to 90.4 million at the end of 2008. This represents a 12 percent increase over the previous year and a one percent increase over the third quarter of 2008.”
One percent increase over the third quarter. One percent ain’t much, but considering that one percent came in the middle of once-in-a-century financial meltdown, that tells you something. That something is this:
The Internet isn’t waiting for the economy to get better!
All this said, the action is most definitely not in the domain auctions recently. Resellers and speculators are scared, and not buying unless the deal is either sweet or vital to them. So domain prices are flat and falling at all the auction sites and the forums. But, get this….
I have heard nothing but good news about end user sales.
One could make the case that a bad economy will drive more businesses to the net as companies and individuals seek new ways to market. This means more demand for domain names. To an end-user, names are more valuable than ever. What I think is happening is that speculation is fast deflating. Trading will continue, and end users will pay well for a name they need. The days of easy domain flipping are mostly behind us, for now at least.
So what do I plan to do? This:
1- Learn new ways to approach end users and make sale direct to them. This is the real market.
2- Develop sites. This opens a whole can of worms, I know. The whole point of domaining is buy cheap, sell high. Once we start developing, we may as well give up the good life, right? Well, not exactly. On marginal names that may not warrant a huge website, even a simple landing page, or blog with just one post and a picture, will bring in more that parking. True, that one-post blog won’t rise all that high in Google, but the name will be building age with the search engines, and will get a trickle more than it would parked at Sedo. When an end-user finally buys the name, it will have the added advantage of being aged – giving the new owner a jump-start in the rankings.
For the domainer, a one-post blog may at least bring in renewal fees.
3- Buy names. An awful lot of domainers are very marginal types (sorry, if that’s you – it has been me at times, too). Bills need to be paid, and when the crunch comes, that name with great potential will go for whatever it can get most quickly. So, I plan to keep a reserve of cash and wait for the fruit to fall from the trees.
Eventually, the economy will recover. Better yet, speculators will return to domaining – we will achieve heights that are multiples of what we have seen so far. The keyt is to be sure you can hold what you have until then
Noomle.com
Nobody knows because noomle is new. And Noomle is free. And you keep all the revenue gained from your site.
Better than free, you get more than you would pay for at other parking options. Noomle is nothing less that a free place to host your domain, with an easy-as-pie form that automatically builds a nice looking website for you. Let me list the ways I love Noomle:
1- Free parking that doesn’t look like parking
2-An easy mini-site builder. Just fill in the blanks.
3-Nothing to write? Noomle offers a full library of PLR articles to post on your site.
4-You keep 100% of your Adsense revenues.
5-You keep 100% of your Adsense revenues (I can’t say that often enough!)
6-You are free to add affiliate links and banners to your site.
7-You are free to add video to your site.
8-You are free to promote your site and add backlinks.
9-They provide automatic links between your sites with related domain keywords, and you can link to other related Noomle sites too.
10-They are adding great new features daily.
This sounds like an ad, but it’s only because I am so impressed. The Noomle founders expect to make money back from donations, and I hope it works that way.
In any case, it’s a great way to put your domains up and start seeing quick revenue and search rankings.
I will say no more, but take a look for yourself. Your reward for reading my lil’ old blog…
Domaining mistakes are legion, and it’s hard enough to avoid the mistakes we know about even. Let me add just one more. Love letters.
That takes on a whole new meaning in short-name domaining (LLLL.com, even LLL.com), especially where we are looking for acronyms. If you are still lost, let me explain my own personal problem with love letters.
I have spend much of my life now bouncing around Asia, especially Japan and China. When I first got into domaining, I was inordinately attracted to a J in any LLLL.com. I saw J everywhere, in email addresses, on banks. OJ didn’t mean orange juice to me, it meant “of Japan.” The problem is, go outside Japan and the J becomes much less prominent. Even in Japan, since Japanese are not serious domain buyers, it’s not worth all that much. But, it was such a familiar letter to me that I consistently overrated it. It was my “love letter.”
I see the same thing happening with people who have never stepped outside the US. If they live in San Francisco, they are inclined to pick up SF. Actually, since that city is a huge tech center, it might not be a bad move. But, even then, it’s worth remembering that the SF means nothing to most companies outside of Northern California, unless they are based in Santa Fe or sell science fiction products. Another example might be KY, for those who live around Kentucky. Yes, it might work in Kentucky, but Kentucky is relatively under-populated. Still, if you live in Kentucky, you will likely have a more familiar and positive view of the letters KY…….
….which might lead you to pay too much for the name.
And that’s the point. Check your letters, and be aware of personal biases. Don’t let a letter’s familiarity to you cause you to think it’s familiar to everyone.
So I just bought XIXIO. How smart was that? Well, X is widely used in China, and pronounced as an “sh” sound. A couple very major cities (Xian and Xiamen) start with X. “Xin” means new, another great marketing term. As China grows, I expect awareness of the pinyin X to grow among Westerners – the way we all know not to say “fill-it mig-non” when we order steak. And it may happen fast.
On the other hand, it might be an X love letter!
Do you have any letters you are overly fond of?
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