Domaining.org.uk

If ever there was a time for domainers to think seriously about becoming domainer-developers, that time is now.

Pure domaining usually involves buying quality domains and parking them with one of a number of parking companies such as NameDrive.com and Sedo.com. The problem is that domaining world is changing - in fact it always has been changing - and its clear that domainers who fail to adapt will be left behind.

The solution is simple - goodbye pure domaining and hello domain developing.

There are many changes that could influence domaining in quite significant ways but my main concern is ‘more difficult trading conditions’ predicted by financial experts. I am old enough to remember the economic problems of the 1980 s and 1990s. Whether we are headed for a world recession or a 1930s style depression is far from clear at this point of time. What is clear is that we are going to be hearing a lot more about ‘problems with the economy’ over the next 2 – 5 years, and very little of it is going to be good news! Just about everyone,  who thought that they could buy quality domains and live off the parking revenue for the rest of their lives is probably in for a big shock.

What the domaining industry will look like after 3 or 4 years of economic recession is anyones guess. In a recession we would see lots of things happening that have not happened for a long time – increased unemployment, falling financial markets, people having less disposable income and lots of bankruptcies. Domainers should expect domains to take longer to sell and lower sales prices when they do sell (only good news if you are buying, not selling). PPC revenue is likely to be affected as companies attempt to save money by cutting back on advertising costs.  If people are generally spending less then affiliate ad revenue is likely to be affected too. On the positive side buyers will see more quality domains dropping and cheaper domain sales prices.

If ever there was a time for domainers to become domainer-developers, that time is now. Even basic websites will make more revenue than domain parking. Developing out domains just makes good business sense.

Basic web development skills are reasonably easy to acquire and there are many shortcuts and templates to make things easier for you. A simple minisite or niche site consisting of no more that 5 – 25 pages can be set up quickly using free templates or by using Wordpress (Wordpress.org). I am not saying the domain parking industry is finished - far from it - but developing sites is just such a better option.  In times of economic difficulty the pressure to maximize revenue is even greater than it used to be - goodbye pure domaining and hello domain developing!

Mobile communications firm Orange launched an ad campaign in the UK this month.

The ad campaign (TV, outdoor and print) focuses on the theme of “I am”, as in I am who I am because of everyone. You can see the ads I am talking about on this description of the campaign, here.

There are billboards all over the UK advertising Orange and urging people to “search online for “I am” “, instead of asking them to visit Orange’s website at Orange.com.(In fact the website is not mentioned at all).

This form of navigation is fairly new. I call it ’search phrase navigation’. It has important implications for the use of domain names in marketing, which I touch on later in this article. Now, I have covered this topic on this blog in May this year and at the time speculated about the threat this form of marketing held for domain names. In that article -’Keywords are back and this time its serious‘ - I wrote about a few Japanese firms that were using this form of search phrase navigation, however, this is the first time I have seen it in the UK.

The way it works is that a company chooses a phrase, not necessarily one that that relates directly to their business, and builds a marketing campaign around the phrase. The company website is then optimized so that it ranks well in search engines for that phrase. Customers are urged to enter the phrase in the search box of their favourite search engine, instead of the URL of the company website. If all goes well a search using this phrase will then bring up a list of websites with the company site at the top.

With this form of navigation you don’t need a memorable or category killing domain name. (You only need a memorable phrase.) In the case of Orange your search takes you to a very ordinary sounding – www.i-am-everyone.co.uk.

The lack of reasonably priced generic domain names is encouraging companies to look for other ways of getting their message out there. While generic domains rule the address bar they don’t necessarily rule when it comes to searching.

Having said all this, generic domain name holders do not need to give up, quite yet. I understand that, at the time of writing, if you type in the phrase “I am” into Google, Orange does not appear in the first page of Google’s natural search results - yet!