Domain Names - Investments That Pay Dividends

When people first hear about domain investing, even experienced marketers, they often cringe. Some think it means buying trademark and typo terms to get "accidental" visitors looking for a different site. Some believe domains have little monetary value, and are instead traded on intrinsic characteristics like "cuteness" or scarcity.

Some still believe a domain name doesn't matter, thinking JiggyPop.org is just as good as Hotels.com, provided the site's content is the same. Listen, at one time I thought those things too, but those assumptions are dead wrong. Let me illustrate the real value of quality domain investments with a little quiz: Which domain name is most valuable on a strict valuation basis? a) Google.com or b) CellPhones.com

I expect most of you have answered Google.com as it does stand out just a bit, but incredibly it is not the correct answer and this is why. Google is as we know just the brand of a search engine and it is not very often used as a keyword. The important thing that comes out of this is that when you own a domain name, you have total power over your keyboard.

The domain name Google.com is one of the short names that sound cool and easy to remember and I too have several similar type domain names. They only receive minimum traffic as they are not proper words that people would use to find something and the same would have applied to Google. This type of domain name investment could cost millions of dollars in branding costs, otherwise it would only earn a couple of bucks a year through click revenue and at auction would only sell for about 2000 dollars.

Now try and just think what you could do with a domain name like Books.com and just how much casual traffic you would get. The is commonly known as type-in traffic or direct navigation. If I were to base this on established type-in click-through metrics for the domain industry plus my own personal experience, I would expect a domain name like Books.com would normally receive up to 5000 type-in visitors a day, which is an incredible 125,000 monthly hits.