Domain Investor - Know the facts
1 ) - DOMAIN INVESTOR or INVESTOR IN DOMAIN NAMES
Let us take a closer look into what a domain investor really is. If you are a frecuent reader of some domaining blogs than you may notice a lot of domainers who are trying to explain to the general public what a domain investor is.
To be true, in my opinion the most of them fail in this point. Whay do they fail? Why the general public and even big media people doesn´t get them?
Guess what...because these people are not mentioning the fact that domaining is just not another thing than investing in media assets. Somebody is calling domain names to be "virtual real estate" but most of us have heard the term "New media" and domaining is a part of it.
Domains are virtual media assets and if you are a investor in domain names you are at first a pure media investor. It is like you buy a radio or TV company - you are a media investor.
As such one, as you own media assets, it is in my honest opinion a absolutely must to develop them into something useful to the general public - now if you are one of these who shows his media assets off as developed websites the general public will understand you when you are explaining to them that domaining is a part of the media business, all other things will not work.
As long as you, as a domainer, as long as you continue to try to explain to the general public that you are a domainer...without mentioning the media business as the home of domaining...without showing that you have working websites...without showing the enormous value you are providing to the general public....nobody will understand you, believe me, I have seen much cases of domainers who are failing at this point. This is the reason for me to write this.
2 ) DOMAIN PARKING vs. DOMAIN DEVELOPMENT aka WEBSITE
I am noticing that a lot of experienced domain investors and also some of the not so experienced ones are talking that the vast majority of domain names are worthless. Did you hear or read that opinion too? Than we are two!
Let us dive closer into point
DOMAIN PARKING
If you register domains, if you buy domains just to park them, than I agree in full with the above, the most of domains will not pay for itself even the registration fee ( later the renovation fee ), so you have to delete them or to sell them maybe just for the registration fee - if you have luck, this isn´t the case in the vast majority of cases I have seen in the domaining space.
Well, I really don´t like the word parking, maybe it is because I don´t like the parking business off the internet, you know what I mean as a driver of a car.
The same thing happens with the domain parking.
Imgine you are coming to a domain name about a certain geographic location you are interested to collect some information about and there´s a lousy parking page popping up in front of you...what would you do? As this, as mentioned earlier, as domain names are a integral part of the media world you will get disappointed, right? Just the same thing when you are annoyed when too much TV ads are pulling you off from your favourite TV show or movie....the same it is with domain parking...a parking page is popping up instead of a informative website about that what you are looking for...maybe you have luck and some of the ads are showing some links where to find that information, you are supposed to click on these...bingo...the domain owner earned some cents and you are becoming a bit stressed to find information...BUT
This visitor will never come back! It is like your domain, your media asset has lost a possible long-term customer and there´s nothing more bad than losing a customer these days...uh oh! Your eventual competitors would like to write a "Thank you..." email letter to you. Would you like to do that to your media investment? Sure, you wouldn´t!
This may not happen when you do the following:
DOMAIN DEVELOPMENT aka WEBSITE - Did you forget that your domain is a part of the media business? Well here´s a refresh!
First, many domainers are talking about "minisites"...and now what is a minisite? A website of course, nothing other than a website, even if it´s only one page, it is a website.
Sometimes I don´t understand why some domainers are so deeply focussed onto these minisites...it would be easier to use the term website. When they are talking about "domain development"...my god, it is just turning a domain into a website. I am a friend of not so complicated things but sometimes it seems that some people like to complicate easy things.
Back to the topic.
A website is just that what you are currently reading, my own personal website plus blog. You are here because you have found this useful information to you and that is the reason you are reading this...and you may turn back or recommend it to your friends or associates. Well that is the whole secret...a domain converted into a website which is providing useful information, useful tools, all related to the word "useful", than you have done your work well as a domainer, domain investor or even as a person who doesn´t the term domainer or domain investor!
Could you imagine my domain as a parked one? Never!
Even if my website isn´t actually monetized, as it is becoming useful to the general public it wouldn´t be difficult to monetize it in the future because of the ( hopefully ) increasing number of visitors ( traffic ) the provided information generates - because that is what the domain business is, that what the media business is:
A business based on words...yes...a busines entirely based on words...information is nothing other than words! You speak them as a moderator on a TV show or you write them like myself on your own perosnal or business website in the cyberspace!
Wondering why CNN is achieving such a success as a globally recognized media brand? Because it is wholly based on words!
A word on the term "traffic": Traffic is nothing other than the amount of visitors on your website, your readers, people who have found your website based upon their search for certain keywords, keywords are those words describing terms they are looking to find information about.
Even if you are receiving small amount of visitors, if the visitors are happy with that you provide to them they will come back to you instead to hit Google and to search for the previous keywords again. Than this is called "qualified traffic" because it tend to convert better if you are monetizing your website. Even if you not, this will be stable or better, it may increase so monetizing this kind of websites will be never too late.
There´s one more advantage. If you have met the goal to win fellow visitors who are just typing your domain into their web browser instead to try to find you on Google than you are about to become branded. A brand, we know it all, Coca-Cola, McDonalds, GE, Microsoft and so on...you know already what they are doing, what they are selling and how good they are within their segment ( sometimes not... ) so are you with your website! If people find you trustful, if they really begin to interact with you, if you are proving to be a star within your area or segment, you have build a online brand.
You have branded yourself, whether it´s a personal website like mine or if it´s a business website! Is there something nicer than that, based solely upon words to become such a success! We, as we are already into it, we are proud to call ourselves to be a golden generation and it´s still not too late for others to join this, it is worth the effort.
