Founders Archive

Past DomainSherpa interviews have highlighted the power of exact-match domain names (EMDs) to instantly create business credibility, increase organic rankings in search engine results, and generate type-in traffic by potential customers.

Today’s interview offers proof that EMDs can also assist in increasing the click-through rate of advertising on search engines like Google’s AdWords platform, decrease the amount per click spent on advertising by 35 percent, and increase the conversion rate of clicks to actual customers by 30 percent.

Those are big benefits in themselves, but the final proof is that – while holding all other factors constant – a change in business and domain name from brandable Beep.com.au to exact-match CarLoans.com.au produced a 66 percent increase in sales turnover, driving their business from a $60 million company to $100 million in only five months.

Michael Cyger November 11, 2013 27

Big companies like Amazon, Citigroup and Dell know the value of an exact match domain (EMD) – they own Diapers.com, Mortgage.com and CloudComputing.com, respectively. But smaller companies and upstarts can also benefit tremendously from EMDs.

That was the case with Marty Metro and UsedCardboardBoxes.com.

In this interview, Metro describes the two failed business models he went through before his current success, and how UsedCardboardBoxes.com grew and is now generating revenue that’s trending toward eight figures per year.

Michael Cyger July 15, 2013 14

Oversee.net already had a profitable online ecommerce business with AboutAirportParking.com. So why did they buy AirportParking.com?

Learn how Oversee is diversifying their parking aggregator offering, how one site helped jump-start the content of the second, and how a differentiated website offering can be custom tailored to a different demographic group of customers.

Michael Cyger May 13, 2013 9

In 2006, Jesse Stein purchased SportsMemorabilia.com for $12,500 when it wasn’t much more than a domain name.
 
Fast forward several years, and the company now leads the market in high-end autographed sports merchandise and memorabilia, making $19.5 million in revenue in 2012. We start at the beginning to learn about SportsMemorabilia.com’s journey and how they plan to be a $100+ million company.

Michael Cyger February 25, 2013 22

Campbell spent $28,000 to buy the single-word, premium domain name Posse.com for her fledgling business idea and expressed no regret over the decision.

That’s understandable: After purchasing the domain name, Campbell was able to raise more than $3 million in multiple rounds to fund her startup. Find out how this premium, brandable domain name helped.

Michael Cyger September 17, 2012 8

How do you build a successful lead generation business to help the growing aging population in the United States?

Chris Rodde shares how he and his two co-founders, Jay Goldstein and Tom Blumer – who were all well versed in lead generation – took an idea and built it into a business that now generates millions in revenue.

In this interview, Rodde answers questions about building a senior-care lead generation business that can be applied to any other niche or market, including:
* How they verified the need for this lead generation business
* How they convinced 2,300 senior living communities to back them
* How to set a price per lead, how much per lead is generated, and how the quality of leads is preserved

Michael Cyger June 11, 2012 16

Coupons.com recently received $200 million from investors in a deal that values the 13-year-old coupon company at $1 billion.

In a rare interview, Steven Boal, President and CEO of the hugely successful Coupons.com, sat down with DomainSherpa to talk about that recent investment, and the immeasurable benefit the company has gained from having a single, generic keyword domain name.

Michael Cyger June 21, 2011 22