A few days ago, I wrote about 3 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started Domaining. One of those things was to forget the hand registrations and save your money for a premium domain. I mentioned that there was one exception to that rule, and that’s what I want to talk about today.
The exception to not hand registering domain names
The one exception, in my experience, has been geo-business names. While you may not find many keyword, generic domain names still available for hand reg, you can certainly find some geo-business names with dot coms. Let me first define what I mean by geo-business names. A geo-business name is a name that uses a geographic area, like a city or town, in conjunction with an industry or trade name. ChicagoAccountant.com is an example of the type of name I am referring to.
Now, using big city names like Chicago, New York, or Boston will make it difficult to find any names worth your time. But if you look to surrounding cities or less populated areas, you’ll likely find some great names. That’s exactly what I did.
What should I charge?
Before I go any further, I’d like to mention that a couple years back, I made a loose agreement with myself that I would never ask more than $200 – $300 for a hand reg. I felt that was a reasonable number that I could live with without feeling too weird about charging someone for something that I paid $10 for (granted you’ll also have some names that never sell). As it turns out, I have found that as a fairly easy number for end users to swallow when they are presented with an unsolicited offer for this type of name.
What types of businesses should I target?
My first attempt at this was a using the name of the town I live in along with “Plumber.” I sent out about 10 emails to local plumbers and hoped for the best. A day or two later, I had my first bite. A local plumber was ecstatic to see this name available. He had been paying for the keywords on AdWords for months with little to show. I tried to repeat the strategy with other local plumbers but had no additional luck. I thought it was a fluke. Then I tried a different industry… Chiropractors.
Again, I started with the town I live in and registered “AlgonquinChiropractor.com.” That one was snapped up after just a few emails went out. A couple of days later, after I had already sold it, I got another offer to buy it. I happened to own the plural and ended up selling that one to the person that made the second offer. I tried another nearby town with “chiropractor.com” and again, it sold within 10 emails. Many of these sales have resulted in repeat buyers, scooping up names of neighboring towns to corner the market on their business.
It’s not fool proof and there have been a few that I haven’t been able to sell even though there are high number of chiropractors in those towns and/or their competitor has the plural. Surprises me, but you just never know.
“Chiropractor” has worked well for me while “plumber” has not. I suggest you experiment and find out what works best for you. There may be some names that are hot and others that are not. “Tanning” names worked well for me for a while but then went cold.
What do you think?
I want to hear how this works for you or if you’ve applied this same strategy in the past. What are some of the industry names that have yielded results and which ones have not?
15 comments
I love geo names, however i use a certain keyword and it comes first, then the geographic name.
ex. sullyblogtoronto or sullyblogengland.com
Most big sales seem to come with the geographic name first. These are not a niche, however, covering a variety of topics including travel, vacations etc. and are a long term plan.
Do you have any advice on travel geo names other than buy .com only or should I invest more money in .xyz or .000
or is it .ooo or .OOO
Hi Cameron,
Some names will be more appealing with the geo in the beginning . Excellent point. As for TLDs, I prefer dot com.
What do your emails look like? The ones that you sent 10 of and had a sale. I would like to copy that format.
Sullivan, you’ve got a good tactics for this great business; when you work more on the strategy it coukd fetch you more $ as time goes on.
I will also try your strategy especially for not over pricing domains.
Thanks and cheers.
This is really a great business model, but most of the location based domain names are already registered….. you can also check in drop list as well.
Mary
http://portfolio.e07.net
what do you put in the “subject line” of the email for them to open it?
That’s a really small town, which only receives about 20 hits a month. I guess these business owners know the value of the name.
What do you include in the email pitch about the domain name?
Thanks,
Steven
Hi Steven,
I’ll post the email I use in a couple of days.
Is there a certain time of day you send out the emails?
I guess search volume doesn’t matter as long as the city name is first, correct?
I had been using the keyword + the city and haven’t had a lot of responses. I’m going to try city + keyword.
Can you post the email you use? I want to compare it to what I use and send out some emails tomorrow.
Thanks,
Steven
Hi Stephen can you also post one of your emails that worked? Thank you!
Hi Mike,
Can you please share the email template that you send to prospective buyers of your domains.
Regards,
Sumit
@Sumit, I posted it here. Let me know if it works for you.
Mike thanks for this post-we recently were able to get-to my surprise-
BeijingListings.com along the lines of exactly what you’re saying-this will be developed for either real estate or an auction house.
Here it is. It has not been very successful.
My Name is Steven I own the domain -dallascoindealers.com. This Domain is a great marketing tool to capture additional traffic, reduce advertising costs and brandable. I am offering, All, coin dealers in and around the, Dallas , area a chance to buy this domain. The Price for “dallas coin dealers” is $250.00. The first to
reply will have the opportunity the buy the domain. I found your contact
information through Google and this is a one time, personal email.
Hi Mike,
If the prospect already has a web presence, why would he like put additional money to buy another domain? In that case what should be the approach of domain seller to sell his point?
Hi Sumit, I realize this is an older question and I am just now responding, so apologies for that. If someone already owns a domain and has a website, the benefit to additional names come from type in traffic. Depending on the name, I’m sure there are other benefits. Feel free to email me if you’d like to discuss more.