“If today is your first day of being a domain investor, good luck. Your job is to copy old paths and forge a new path. A new direction. You are never too late so don’t defeat yourself.”

Domain Investors or, domainers, speculate in the domain name industry by purchasing domain names and later capitalizing on that investment. Each domainer has her own (or his own) idea of what a potentially “good” domain name is, and actively seeks to aquire domain names that fit his or her profile.

Domainers capitalize on their investments in one of several ways.

 

Either they sell their domain name(s) for a profit or they build a traffic-pulling website on that domain. Domainers who build websites can profit when they are able to convert their site traffic to sales. A sale, for a domainer, may occur when the s/he sells advertising space on the site. A sale may also occur when a site visitor simply clicks on a link (Pay-per-click) or clicks on a link and makes a purchase. That purchase, depending on the model the domainer is using, may occur on the domainer’s website or on another website (if the domainer is an affiliate of the secondary site).

This is the business of domainers and, as in any industry, it bears knowing who the the top performers are and understanding the trends they are creating.

I spent a good deal of yesterday reading through Domain King’s (Rick Schwartz) Blog pining for a sense of direction, some ray of hope that would shed some light on what domainers do and how. With each post, the stage was set for a “here’s what to do” and with each post it just didn’t happen. I noted my increasing level of frustration coupled with my inability to hit the big “X” in the right-hand corner of my screen.

I was hooked but left hanging, frustrated by his come-ons only to hear, “No,” when it came time to tango.

I could launch into a literary criticism of his Blog ala “he sets the stage for instruction and lets his readers down…”

And the little voice inside my head whispers (loudly), “So what!?!” He said, “No and No means No!”

I wondered what the point of his writings were - WHY is this blog out there to begin with? (”Because it’s there,” chuckles that little voice.)

His writing style is blunt; it is anything but polished. And corporate America, beware. I’ve seen your bull-headed lack of vision myself, as you sat high on your own mountain snubbing your nose at those of us blazing our own paths along what is now “The Domain Name Trail.” I’ll always remember, in particular, the South Florida travel agency owner I met ten years ago at a local business networking event who condescendingly assured me he didn’t need a website or a domain name since he has plenty of clients who will always call him. *SNORT!*

The Domain Trail is littered with their failure and lack of vision. And those who fell behind because of their lack of foresight and have the good fortune of being well-capitalized have lawyered up. Their cry of “foul play” is the result of their own lack of vision and an attempt at a “land grab” to make-up for their lack of savvy.

They won’t find comfort or quarter here either.

The gold in Rick Schwartz’ writings is not in his cave of the step-by-step-here’s-how-you-do-this. The gold is up there on his mountain of motivation and inspiration. He speaks to the little guy (or gal) saying, “You are not alone; you can do this.” His mantra, well-worth reading and understanding is simple:

The single biggest cost website owners incur is the invisible cost of sales being lost.”

[1] The Domain King

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 27th, 2007 at 10:26 am and is filed under Domain Names. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.