As you know, I blog about each $1.18 coupon I come across, so be sure to test the next coupon you find for transfers and see if it works. That’s it, just thought I’d let you know since I’m pretty sure quite a few readers would be interested in using the next $1.18 coupon for a transfer.

Pretty interesting and if you visit a certain site on a regular basis, something like this helps you save time, very convenient. Anyway, a lot of you probably didn’t know about those LLL dot coms, just wanted to share this info.

For ccTLDs or other gTLDs, the 30% off coupon is an excellent fit. So whenever you have to renew ccTLDs or other gTLDS at GoDaddy, here’s the approach I’d recommend:

1) find out if there’s a coupon for the specific ccTLD/gTLD you have in mind and if you manage to find one, use it

2) if not, simply use one of the 25%/30%/33%/35% off coupons that are floating around

Where to find coupons? Lots of sites keep track of them or you can just visit some forums and take it from there.

This blog post was inspired by the following statement Mark Jeftovic made in his first comment:

“But the name WILL NOT make the difference between success and failure.”

Mark wrote two comments up until this point and I encourage you to read both of them. Click HERE to read Mark’s first comment and HERE to read the second one (the second one got caught by the blog’s spam filter initially, good thing Mark sent me an email about it so that I could approve it manually… after going through over 2,600 spam comments haha).

Here’s my response to the “But the name WILL NOT make the difference between success and failure.” statement I referred to previously, I’m publishing it again:

That’s not true in my opinion, domains represent one of the cheapest investments which actually can make the difference between success and failure.

Sure, anyone would obviously love to have a product that’s 2x better than all of the competing ones and anyone would obviously love to be able to sell a product 2x cheaper than everyone else but in most cases, that’s just not possible in 2011 and beyond.

Why? Because the Web has matured a lot and the competition is fierce. Thus, the free market does its thing and brings prices close to zero profitability which is great for consumers. What I’m saying is that in most cases (and I’m talking about the average online business owner, a person who isn’t a genius capable of innovating to a degree that makes everything else pale in comparison), there just isn’t enough room for significant/dramatic improvement and that’s why anything that can help you stand out counts.

That’s exactly what domains do.

First of all, please click HERE and read the post I’m referring to if you haven’t by now.

Then, click HERE and read Mark’s comment. I’m going to quote one of his statements but I’d recommend reading all of it.

Domain Names – Anything But Unimportant

Here is one of Mark’s initial statements and the message he was communicating through his comment (again, I encourage you to read all of it because he raises some very interesting points) was that in his opinion, domains are not as important as domainers consider them:

“Even worse, if you successfully build the business, then the domain name you build it on is less important (dare I say, unimportant).”

Let’s leave the fact that I’m a domain investor aside for a moment.

As a business owner and a marketer, I disagree with this statement.

Why?

Simply because no matter how successful a project is, a domain will still represent a permanent asset.

If you buy a domain now, it’s yours forever as long as you renew it.

Unlike the average advertising expense (PPC, media buys, whatever), a domain is an investment which will always pay dividends:

Whenever you pay for traffic and have to display a domain, having a great one will significantly boost your CTR. This is not just an opinion, there is lots of data which makes it clear that when it comes to text ads as well as banners, a good domain represents a credibility boost which has a higher CTR as a result.

Why Should You Care

Because the higher your CTR is, the less you’ll end up paying.

This principle is valid when it comes to AdWords, Facebook Ads and pretty much any other platform.

Why?

Because these platforms display ads based on which generates the most money for them.

If you pay $1 per click but have a CTR of 0.1%, they will receive $1 for every 1,000 impressions.

If you only pay $0.2 per click but have a CTR of 1%, they will make $2 for every 1,000 impressions.

Which Ad Will They Display?

The $0.2/click one because even though the person in question is paying 5 times less per click, the ad network is making 2 times more by displaying that person’s ad ($2 per 1k impressions instead of $1 per 1k impressions).

Now crunch the numbers yourself.

Let’s assume you spend $10k/month on advertising, how much money will a good domain help you save monthly?

What about during the lifetime of your project?

’nuff said

The message I’m trying to get across is simple:

A Domain Name Will ALWAYS Help You Save Money When Buying Traffic

How much will you save? Well, that depends on your campaign but this much is certain: if two ads are identical and only the domain differs, the one with the better domain will always outperform the other ad.

But that’s not all.

What If You Decide to Sell Your Site?

If that is the case, then a domain will (yet again) pay for itself multiple times over. I helped several people sell their website and the domain makes a huge difference because again, it’s all about credibility.

A lot of time, people will buy your site because they believe in its long-term potential and it should come as no surprise that you’ll score considerably higher in the potential department if your website is called “BestShoes.com” as opposed to “The-Best-Shoes-Online.com”

What About SEO?

Once again, a domain will always help you develop an edge.

ALWAYS.

No matter how often search engines will change their algo, domains will still represent an edge directly AND indirectly.

How much will owning the exact match domain help SERP-wise and how will things change over time? Hard to say but this much is certain: it will always give you a boost. Search engine algos are constantly tweaked; sometimes a domain ends up counting more than with the previous algo, sometimes less but I have never EVER heard anyone say that domains shouldn’t count at all. Need I say more?

Also, let’s not forget about the credibility factor associated with SEO. Let’s say that you contact a website owner to ask for a link, don’t you agree that the likelihood of you being taken seriously increases significantly if you own a good domain?

Let’s Not Forget About Type-In Traffic

Some domains have lots of type-in traffic, some don’t but this much is certain: word of mouth advertising is important, it always was and it always will be. In other words, it’s in your best interest to make it easy for people to remember your website.

“The – Best – Dash – Shoes – Dash – Online – Dot – Com” or “BestShoes – Dot – Com”… which one do you think the average Joe will end up forgetting?

What About Partnerships?

Once again, a domain gives you the credibility you need to establish solid foundations.

Ask the Castello Brothers if the fact that they own the category killer geodomain made it easier for them to attract advertisers and I guarantee that they will confirm.

Maybe you’ll end up needing an investor, an advertiser and so on… credibility will play a HUGE role and owning a great domain is the edge you need to stand out.

A Short Recap

By owning a great domain, you will have a permanent edge when it comes to:

• paying for traffic
• selling your website
• word of mouth advertising
• SEO
• partnerships

… and the list could go on and on.

While Mark’s comment is interesting and while the reasons why he thinks that domains are not as important as domainers think they are deserve to be analyzed and taken into consideration , my opinion is completely different.

In my opinion, a great domain represents the best investment you can possibly make. Competitors can copy your business model, they can find out where your traffic comes from, they can even steal your landing pages but the domain you have chosen is yours forever and they can never take it away from you

It’s a NICHE TLD

In other words, not all domains represent a great fit for dot tv.

Take a look at the auctions which will end in about 5 hours on Auctionpus.com and you’ll see two .tv domains: PUA.tv and Daniel.tv.

These are examples of domains which work great with this TLD.

PUA stands for Pick Up Artist (PUA = an insanely competitive/lucrative industry, there’s a lot of money on the table because let’s face it: millions upon millions of men want to become better with women and this will never change) and it’s the most widely used pick up related term by far. PUA websites have one thing in common: they contain LOTS of videos (people giving advice, case studies and so on) and that’s exactly why .tv represents an excellent fit.

Daniel.tv is another good example because it’s probably the best possible domain you could use for let’s say a vlog if your name is Daniel. Millions of people are called Daniel and out of them:

1) at least a few thousand are interested in launching vlogs or video-related sites
2) at least a few thousand are local celebrities
3) at least a few hundred are worldwide celebrities

etc.

These are just two examples of domains for which .tv represents an excellent choice. The same thing goes for domains like Documentaries.tv, News.tv and so on.

On the other hand, domains like MortgageRefinancing.tv or UtahLawyers.tv, which would be worth a lot of money as dot coms, are not worth all that much as dot tv domains because they are not media/tv/video-oriented.

All in all: .tv is a niche extension, acknowledge this fact and you can make a lot of money by investing in this TLD.

Makes sense?

Revenue from Type-In Traffic – No Long-Term Predictability Whatsoever

Just take a random domain (again, I’m referring to non-typo domains only) from your portfolio that you’ve owned since let’s say 2007, any domain, and analyze how it did revenue-wise back then.

Let’s assume the domain in question averaged $100 per month back in 2007… how much is it generating now?

$100 per month like in 2007? Yeah right!
$90 per month? You wish!
$80 per month? Nope!
$70 per month? Wrong again!

I’m sure you understand the point I’m trying to make: revenue from type-in traffic is anything but predictable. Just look at how much things have changed since 2007!

That being stated, let’s assume that you bought domains strictly based on revenue back in 2007 and that you bought them at 20x yearly revenue.

How would things stand now, when you’re not even making 50% of the monthly revenue you were counting on three years ago? Instead of expecting to make your money back in 20 years, you end up realizing that it would take 40+ years for you to break even… that is, if your earnings won’t continue to decrease like they have done so far!

Anything But Revenue-Based Valuations… Anything!

Can you analyze an investment in a domain based on the future of the market it’s catering to? Sure, why not!

Can you analyze an investment in a domain based on let’s say scarcity? Sure, why not!

The list could go on and on and if you were to extract just a drop of knowledge from this post, do yourself a favor and remember this: anything, and I mean ANYTHING, but revenue-based valuations!

Liquidity, Liquidity, Liquidity

If you own NNN dot coms, LLL dot coms or CVCV dot coms, you’re probably well aware of the fact that liquidating such domains or portfolios is not hard at all. Sure, you can buy and hold but it’s nice to know that in case you will need additional capital, you have assets that you can liquidate for a fairly predictable amount.

Other great .com domains are also easy to liquidate but the market value of such a domain is not as easy to determine. Regardless, you at least know that you have an asset that lots of others domainers want and would buy at the right price.

Now as far as ccTLDs are concerned, there isn’t a strong reseller market in most cases and for this reason, holding on to a very large portfolio will be tricky. You’ll own domains that have end user potential but will have to understand that liquidating your portfolio will not exactly be a piece of cake.

How Deep Are Your Pockets?

Everyone would obviously prefer to make money through end user sales exclusively but most people can’t afford to play the buy and hold game and if that’s the case as far as you are concerned, you’re better off focusing on domains which can be liquidated easier should you need or want to.

Fortunes will be made through ccTLD investments but, unfortunately, not everyone is in a great position to take advantage of the ccTLD opportunities that are right in front of them now.

Dot Brand vs. Dot Keyword

It’s important to understand that there will be two main categories of new TLDs. On the one hand, we’ll have “dot brand” TLDs such as .apple or .IBM and on the other hand, we’ll have “dot keyword” TLDs such as .music.

Now there’s a HUGE difference between the two when it comes to the goals of the people behind them. The people behind dot brands will not be interested in convincing random folks to register domains, they are simply interested in the branding effect of owning a vanity TLD. On the other hand, the folks behind dot keywords will probably (assuming they’re not billionaires who are only doing it for fun) want to run a profitable business, in other words make more from registrations and renewals than they spend keeping the TLD alive.

Let’s analyze both of them and their impact on the domaining industry:

Dot Brands

“Oh noes, all businesses will apply for their own TLD rather than go after the dot com!”… yeah right! In case you didn’t know, the costs of running your own TLD will be quite restrictive, so anyone with half a brain will realize that only huge businesses can afford their very own dot brand.

If you’re the owner of “Dan’s Car Dealership” which operates in Chicago, does going after your own TLD make financial sense? Why spend six figures initially and then a lot of money each year in order to keep your TLD alive when you can just buy a domain like ChicagoCars.com for a lot less and only pay a few dollars each year (literally) in order to keep it? And let’s not forget that running a registry will be a lot more complicated than simply signing up for an account at a major registrar, a process which takes a minute or so.

Will some huge brands spend millions promoting their dot brand TLDs? Yes, some will and the result will be that consumers will pick up on the fact that there are a LOT of TLDs these days fairly quickly.

• Will this affect the value of dot coms? Nope, in my opinion it won’t because think about it. Over the years, billions upon billions of dollars have been spent promoting dot coms and money talks. Which sites do consumers love? YouTube, Google, FaceBook, Twitter and so on. What do they have in common? They all have a “com” at the right of the dot. So in my opinion no, the small islands of marketing efforts (remember, each company will promote its own TLD: Apple will promote .apple, IBM might promote .IBM and so on) will have no affect on the value of dot coms. It’s a millions (the amount a huge brand will probably spend on marketing) vs. billions (the amount spent promoting dot coms) thing.
• Will this affect the value of ccTLDs? Nope, for the same reasons outlined above (small islands of marketing efforts will not “kill” something as huge as a country’s ccTLD) but on a smaller scale.
• Will this affect the value of existing TLDs? As always, money talks. Some TLDs will gain traction, some won’t. Yes, new TLDs will make it harder for existing ones to gain traction but there’s no “one size fits all” answer to this question.

Dot Keywords

Now as opposed to dot brands, dot keyword TLD owners will run their registry as a business and, naturally, everyone wants to make money. As mentioned previously, it’s all a matter of money and eyeballs.

What do most people see when looking at billboards which feature a domain? They see the dot com TLD in most cases. What do they notice when they take a look at their bookmarked sites? They’ll notice that most of them are dot coms.

What do they notice when they deal with their ISP? They’ll notice that quite a few companies like comcast or cox use a dot net domain. What do they notice when they analyze the charities and organizations they support? They will notice that quite a few of them use a .org.

It’s all about exposure and exposure costs money. I gave you three examples of TLDs which receive lots of exposure but what about others such as .ws? How many people visit dot ws sites? Not a lot unfortunately and that’s what will make or break a TLD.

The principle will be the same for both existing and new TLDs: if enough people have adopted your TLD and are using their money to promote it (billboards and whatever), you’re on the right track. If not, too bad.

No, the Sky Is Not Falling

Forums are always flooded with “the sky is falling” threads but they should be labeled as “noise” and nothing more IMO. Take information from as many sources as possible but use your own brain and don’t just blindly accept the “facts” others feed you.

[sarcasm] Of course, I could be wrong so it might be a good idea to sell all of your high traffic one-word dot coms while you still can. Out of the goodness of my heart, I’ll gladly help you by offering 1x yearly rev for all of your one-word dot coms, you know where to find me [/sarcasm]

White Hat SEO = Honest Cheating = Oxymoron

You guys know I don’t like to turn posts into novels, so I’ll keep it simple:

1) Search engines want ALL links to be editorial (in other words, they want website owners to link to you because they like your content or something about your website and NOT because you asked them to or because you paid for a link).

2) Most people use the term “white hat SEO” when they want to make it clear that they have playing by the rules as their business model.

3) Most people use the term “black hat SEO” when they refer to someone who is (in their opinion) not playing by the rules. In other words people who generate LOTS of links through methods such as commenting on thousands of blogs, forums and so on.

Unfortunately for “white hat” webmasters, they are NOT playing by the rules and search engine representatives have made it clear on more than one occasion that if you’re not relying on editorial links exclusively, your hat is no longer white.

Let’s assume that you own WebmasterBlog.com and write some excellent blog posts. Let’s also assume that 50 people land on your website each month via direct navigation and that they like your posts so much that they decide to link to them from their own websites. Congratulations, you can consider yourself a white hat webmaster. Again, I said “webmaster” and not “SEO” because there’s no such thing as a white hat SEO.

Why? Because link building is the most important part of SEO and by building links, you’re automatically breaking the rules. Did you submit a blog post of yours to one social bookmarking site? Did you ask someone to link to you at least once? In that case, I’m sorry I have to break it to you but your are “officially” a black hat SEO!

Now, of course, some link building methods are shadier than others (some are even illegal) but that’s irrelevant to the topic at hand. The bottom line is that unless ALL of your links are editorial, you’re a black hat SEO. So let’s leave hypocrisy aside as of this point, shall we?