New top-level domains are going to be
the digital real estate of the future.
Contributed By:
Guest Writer
Online Marketing Strategist
Source: Entrepreneur
I remember back in 1994 when a friend asked
if I'd like to buy a domain name. I had no idea what that meant, so I turned
down his offer. And that turned out to be a big mistake. The domain offered
(www.dog.com) is probably worth $2 million now. Later, I worked for Hotels.com
when that company purchased its iconic domain name for a reported $11 million;
and that's when it became very clear to me that an incredibly brandable domain
is one of the keys to a successful business.
That's now so much the case that, these
days, the best keyword domains in .COM are sold out, and that's why I believe
that new top-level domains (TLDs, meaning the last part of the website name,
like .COM) are going to be the digital real estate of the future.
I'm not a domain investor myself, but,
after spending 10 years in internet marketing working for companies like
Expedia, the travel company, and Partner Fusion, a leading marketing and
technology incubator, I've seen many signs pointing to the value of new
exact-match
domains.
For instance, a recent study
found that choosing a relevant domain extension can potentially help a website
rank well for specific keywords, resulting in dollars saved on paid marketing.
Ultimately, whether domains end in .COM,
.INFO,.FORSALE, or .LIVE, they all stand on equal ground when it comes to SEO
performance. I have to believe that Google's search results will always value
high-quality domain names because of someone like me. Specifically, I'm
investing a lot in a domain name and am also likely to invest in
developing a high-quality website that will be relevant to users.
The startup I'm currently building aims to
modernize real estate marketing, and is scheduled to launch this summer. To
position myself in the market, I opted for the exact-match domains www.homes.forsale and www.houses.forsale. They
weren't cheap, either: I worked with Name.com and purchased the domains for
$90,000.
But I'm hardly alone in paying a premium
for an exact-match new domain; others are being sold for five or six figures
each, including www.video.games
for $183,000, and www.personalinjury.attorney
for $60,000. Companies like Stream.Live have even gone through a complete
rebranding, with StreamLive spending $20,000 on its new .LIVE domain. These
figures come from the domain company Rightside, which recently released a snapshot
of many of its $10,000-plus "Platinum Domain" sales.
Our expectations of the online user
experience are changing as we get savvier about navigating to exactly the
things we want; and relevant TLDs are going to be a big part of that. People
will see my Houses.forsale domain name and say, "Oh, that's exactly what
I'm looking for." Of course, you can always pay for online advertising and
search-engine placement, but we exact-match domain owners will have a huge
advantage over the competition.
The reason: A high-quality, exact-match
domain means we won't have to pay to get as many clicks. We saw some early
evidence of this when one of our pages accidentally got indexed by a search
engine while it was still in development. Within a day, we already had a
potential client find us organically!
What I don't think people realize is that
there's an entire world out there of domain investing going on behind the
scenes; and it's been going on for 30 years, back to the time when the first
.COMs started popping up.
The most perceptive of those early domain
investors made millions merely by identifying the highest-quality domains. And
there's still a tremendous opportunity to invest in TLDs, as the world moves
beyond .COM. That said, I'm not just looking to buy low and sell high, although
that option has been tempting. I feel that building-out a business on top of a
brandable domain is where the real value is right now, and the right domain
name can represent a huge amount of the equity in your particular business.
Overall, brandable new domains confer some
amazing advantages to successful businesses, including:
1. Flexibility in choosing a name
The pool of short, memorable .COM domains
is shrinking rapidly, but that doesn't mean that you can't secure an amazing
name for your business. Overnight, new domains have increased the availability
of possible names a hundredfold.
2.
More memorable names
The potential uses for meaningful new
domains, like .FORSALE, .SOCIAL, and .MARKET, are virtually limitless. Every
word in your domain can and should be relevant to your brand.
3.
Increased web traffic
When you use meaningful, relevant terms in
a domain, people will be more engaged with your brand. That's going to help
drive more traffic to your site, and will
boost your search result rankings.
4.
Reduced online marketing costs
Because new domains drive organic web
traffic to your site, you'll be less reliant on expensive search engine
placement and other online ads.