Domain Name Interviews

Most developers build a site, increase readership and then sell advertising space. Unless you own an ultra-premium geographic domain name like FrenchRiviera.com, in which case the brand alone is enough to set up meetings with some of the most exclusive potential advertisers in the region.

Toby Hardy bought FrenchRiviera.com in 2009 and, in partnership with Fred Mercaldo at CitiesPlanet.com, is turning it into the ultimate online destination for the rich and famous who visit cities such as Monte Carlo, Cannes and the like.

Michael Cyger April 23, 2012 13

Bill McClure is not a newcomer to the domain name industry. Years ago he bought and built FlowersDirect.com and eFlowers.com and then sold them to FTD. Over his many years of acquiring, building and selling businesses, he has learned one simple fact: You can always trust your family.

Listen along as Bill discusses how he targets markets, how much he purchases domain names for, how he develops them, and what kind of leaders he is looking for to continue building more businesses in the future. If you are an entrepreneur or passionate about e-commerce, this is a must-see interview.

Michael Cyger April 2, 2012 16

It’s relatively straightforward to build a geodomain into a directory or blog. But where most people fall short in making their venture a successful business is the sales process.

That’s because many would-be entrepreneurs loathe the idea of selling advertising, directory listings and leads. Shane Wells, on the other hand, loves to sell. His enthusiasm for sales (and his success) speaks for itself – he went from $50,000 in sales to more than $250,000 per year in sales. To help others be successful, Wells shares the strategies, tactics and tips he uses for selling advertising and services at his geodomain-based Internet marketing company.

Michael Cyger March 26, 2012 11

Paolo DiVincenzo, general manager of DomainPower, increased revenue on 9,800 parked domain names by more than 70 percent. To achieve this revenue lift, he deployed a methodology and four-step process: 1) establish metric/baseline, 2) group, 3) test and 4) optimize.

In this interview, DiVincenzo describes the four steps in detail, as well as how to implement them in your own portfolio.

Michael Cyger March 12, 2012 21

A parked landing page oftentimes doesn’t provide enough information to encourage users to click through on an advertisement. Instead, visitors back out and “bounce” off the site.

Enter Sean Sullivan, co-founder of BankAds.com, which develops full websites for one specific niche – banking and credit card domain names. With original content and a better user experience, the websites his company develops drive higher clickthroughs and create stronger relationships with advertisers. One example is CheckingAccount.com, which increased its revenue three-fold.

Michael Cyger March 5, 2012 15

In the midst of a recession and with domain name parking revenue down, what can you do today to maximize your domain name pay-per-click (PPC) income?

Howard Hoffman, president of PPCIncome.com makes a living focused on maximizing the revenue from his portfolio of 9,000 domain names. Actually, that’s only half of his living. The other half is O2Cool Oxygen Water, a company he founded in 1998, which was the catalyst for his domain name career.

Michael Cyger February 20, 2012 8

How do you take a domain name with a single parked page and turn it into a 10,000-page profitable, local online community guide in three months?

Jennifer Manz of Mannix Marketing shares the content and marketing strategies that made GlensFallsRegion.com – an $8 hand-registered domain name run by three full-time equivalent employees – profitable after only three months of operation.

Michael Cyger February 13, 2012 38

What are the best domain names to buy for parking, how can you maximize your return on investment when buying such names, and what is an appropriate return on investment for parking? These are but three of the questions answered in this week’s show with Michael Gilmour.

An entrepreneur and investor, Gilmour started his domain name business by placing a big bet: his last $100 on a single domain name that he immediately parked. Learn how Gilmour parlayed his earnings from that single domain into a portfolio that at its peak generated thousands of dollars a day in parking revenue.

Michael Cyger January 23, 2012 34

Andrew Hazen knows a thing or two about marketing. In fact, he has built and sold two Internet marketing companies, pocketing millions of dollars in the process. And he has written a book using easy-to-understand language about search engine optimization.

In this show, Andrew shares how he turned 90 admittedly marginal hand-registered .com domain names and one .info domain into $56,000 per month. (I have seen the Google Adsense report to verify this impressive figure.) You will be surprised to learn that in addition to search engine optimization, a clever television ad campaign drove the results.

Michael Cyger January 16, 2012 59