Niche Domain Name Portfolios Offer High ROI

(PRWEB) March 21, 2006 -- Domain names have been making the news regularly since the 2005 acquisition by Marchex of a 100,000 name domain portfolio for a reported $165 million dollars. Google AdWord bids on keywords are steadily rising as more companies turn to the web for new business since the advent of do-not-call lists. Google and other companies are jumping on the new pay per call bandwagon. All of these trends are very good news for companies and individuals that invest in and leverage domain name portfolio traffic.

In real estate, location is everything. The shops on the busiest corners get the bulk of a community’s business no matter what they sell. Business on the Internet is similar; those that use targeted domain traffics reap the bulk of their niches business. For example, Wine.com is the premiere online address for wine. It is estimated that in 2004, Wine.com received over two million visitors to its online wine shop. While Wine.com leverages a serious budget to drive wine lovers to it’s website through advertising and its affiliates, much of their traffic still arrives by “direct navigation”. Direct navigation is the act of a web surfer typing a logical URL into their address bar hoping to find the precise information he is looking for. Type in Wine.com into your address bar and you could expect to find a website offering information on wine. Type in something as innocuous as UmbrianWine.com into your address bar, and you hope to find information on an area in Italy that produces wine. Consumers using direct navigation are highly qualified prospects.

Companies needing targeted website traffic should include acquisition of highly targeted niche domain portfolios in their marketing strategy to leverage direct navigation. The secondary domain market has many companies that specialize in niche domain portfolios. It is possible to buy or lease domain names from them, or simply advertise on their sites on a pay-per-click through basis. With the current aggressive rise in pay-per-click costs, purchasing a domain portfolio is in many cases the smartest avenue. A portfolio that is already generating targeted traffic will, in most cases, save you money in the long term considering it is a one time expenditure.

Targeted generic domain traffic will normally generate a more qualified visitor and ultimately a higher closure ratio on your website. This is very different from the methods used in search engine placement and PPC programs. Prospects coming to you through these targeted domains are looking for exactly what you have to offer. Such domains will not be acquired for a simple $10 registration fee, they may cost many hundreds or thousands of dollars each and whole portfolios can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Acquiring a portfolio should be carefully weighed against future online advertising costs and also the potential increase in value of the domains as a company asset. Premium domains in general have been steadily rising in price and value since 2002.

Chris Campbell of ROIdomains.com has sold many domain portfolios in the past five years. “The first domain I personally bought on the secondary market was WineLabels.com in 1999. At the time I was employed in the wine industry selling custom labeled wine. I set the domain up with simple one page form and the same day had generated a half dozen sales leads. I paid several hundred dollars to BuyDomains.com at that time for WineLabels.com and it paid for itself in a week.”

While employed in the wine industry, Campbell built a significant wine domain portfolio to generate more sales leads. After moving back to the Midwest he collected domains into small portfolios regarding subjects he had an interest in or in markets that were moving to the Internet. “We hold portfolios involving quite a few different niches. Wine is still a passion and makes up the bulk of our holdings and even there we have dissected it into many smaller portfolios beneficial to anybody selling wine online. Other portfolios involve niches like coin collecting, gemstones, diamonds, aircraft sales, gardening, gold markets, restaurants, beer, cigars, alternative energy, home satellite, stock market, motorcycles, casinos, sports betting, I could go on. Each portfolio is priced as a package and each domain can be purchased separately but it is a much better bargain as a package. We have a small five name portfolio for less that $1000 up to our complete wine domain portfolio available for $800,000, so there is something for everyone.”

Campbell isn’t kidding when he says there is something for everyone. His list includes domains like WineTips.com, AircraftWanted.com, SwissHelveticas.com, GiftBasketry.com, XOCognac.com, KUSatellite.com,BuyBrandy.com, CigarInsiders.com and hundreds more in categories with traffic or branding value. “Businesses are coming back to the Net’ in a big way and domain demand continues to rise. I don’t see an end anytime soon to these trends and feel like I have a front row seat to watch one of the greatest times in business history.”

Chris Campbell displays his domain portfolios at www.ROIdomains.com and can be contacted through the site. Campbell is also available for domain name strategyconsultations.

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