Following the success of my site XmasGifts.co.za in December I was inspired to achieve the same sorts of results every month with affilaite earnings and went in search of a wordpress theme that operated as a shop and allowed for affiliate links. I have a nice portfolio of domains that shopping related and decided to start off with MensGifts.co.za and then progress through to womensgifts.co.za, kidsgifts.co.za, crockery.co.za and a few others.

The reason I chose MensGifts.co.za to start with, was that the earning potential from the available affiliate programs are great and in particular with Mantality offering up to a 15% referral rate. This combined with the offerings from Kalahari and Pro soccer offers me a nice range of products in many price ranges to satisfy almost any men’s gift seeker.

After a long and exhaustive search for a WordPress shop theme, I settled on this shop theme. The beauty of the theme is that it allows you to build a complete shop selling your own products, a combination of your own products and affiliate products, or to be in affiliate mode only. What also attracted me to the theme was the ability to have a shop feel with a blog built into the theme. The blog operates from one of the categories which I have called “gift ideas”. My reason for this selection was that I analyzed the keywords that brought me the most traffic to XmasGifts.co.za and by far the highest number of searches included the word “idea” or “ideas”.

What did this tell me? That people were looking for ideas of what to give their family/friends and that they needed guidance. If I could give them the ideas and direct them to a shop where I could earn, then I would be onto a good thing.

Now that I had selected the correct domain for the project, identified the affiliate programs I am going to use and selected the theme that gives me the functionality I need, I need to add both products and content.

I have developed many mini sites over the past 3 years and can say through trial and error that trying to beat the system with duplicate content simply does not work and in fact has resulted in a few of my domains being sandboxed by Google. This is a tragic mistake that so many domainers make which effectively reduces your potential revenue stream to parking.

Each product is entered by hand and a portion of the content is written by hand. This is a tedious process but from past experience I know that the long term success of the site depends on me offering unique content. The reason being that they will keep on giving, month after month.

The site is constantly having new products entered and I hope to have it sufficiently populated to take advantage of  Valentines day coming up.

Let me know what you think and feel free to offer any criticism.

Share/Bookmark

Wal-Mart would become the first major international retailer to enter South Africa, but others could soon follow by targeting one of Massmart’s local competitors, Roberts said.

A significant investment in the South African economy is a clear indication that business confidence is on the up in South Africa. Immediately after the rumors were confirmed the gold price firmed to around the $1300/ounce level. Interestingly, the bid from Wal-mart comes at a time when the ZAR/$ exchange rate is at a premium for foreign investors. The Rand has been hovering around the R7.00 to the Dollar for a few days now, levels previously only seen some 2 1/2 years ago. At the time of writing the R/$ is at R7.01/$ and the Gold price is sitting at $1299.75/ounce, with $1300 being an important psychological level.

Reuters Article

Johannesburg Stock exchange

I have been fortunate enough to have spent the bulk of my life in South Africa apart from a short stint in San Diego back in 1994 (Yes I was one who very seriously considered moving to the USA when Nelson Mandela was released) and have experienced the best and the worst of South Africa but can say that I am extremely glad that I decided to stay.

Share/Bookmark

The reason for this is that the domain name is typed into the address bar in much the same way as a user types a search query into a search box and these specific searches will produce highly targeted users. By way of example, if you type “foreign exchange” into the search box or you type foreignexchange.co.za in the address bar and are located in South Africa, the resulting ads displayed are very similar or in some cases identical. Parked domains as they are referred to, use for the most part, the same advertising feeds and will to a large extent provide the same or very similar set of paid advertising results.

This of course is the real value of descriptive keyword domain names, be they owned by investors who capitalize on the type in traffic to serve advertising and profit from each click he receives or the website owner who wishes to drive targeted traffic to his website to convert into paying customers.

Most prospective domain buyers seem shocked given the price being asked for a domain name they have an interest in owning and are using Google adwords paid advertising to drive traffic to their websites. Let us consider a real world example of situation which occurred last week.

The domain name in question, a 1 word, co.za domain name that receives between 90 and 110 unique visitors per month, perfectly describes the services offered by the company, the buyer is using Adwords paid search, average cost per click is R11.00 for the exact match search in Google and the asking price of the Domain is R22 000.

What does this mean if the domain name is simply redirected to the buyers developed website:

Year 1

Purchase price: R22 000.00
Annual visitors(minimum): 1080

Cost/visitor (year 1): R20.37

Year 2

Annual renewal fee: R50.00
Annual visitors(minimum): 1080

Cost/visitor (in year 2 and thereafter): R0.05

Combined cost/visitor after 2 years: R10.20

Combined cost/visitor over 3 years: R6.82

In less than 2 years by simply redirecting the domain name at the developed website of the buyer they are receiving the same quality and volume of traffic that they are paying for through Adsense and does not include the domain name as having a resale value.

Now lets take a look at the years ahead.

This is of course assuming that cost per click remains the constant and the traffic remains constant. What is likely to happen, is that the traffic will increase over time and the cost per click in this niche will increase as new competitors enter the market and bid for the keyword.

These figures are based on the minimum possible return on investment without any development or input. A pretty good investment wouldn’t you say?

Share/Bookmark

Studies.co.za at $2200
Institute.co.za at $2000

This is again a very positive step for co.za domain investors and further evidence that as the internet begins to penetrate all areas of the South African economy and South African business turns to the internet to grow their busineses and communicate with their customers, astute domain name investors are seeing the growth potential.

The volume of domain sales in co.za extension has seen a tremendous uptick in the past year as companies realise the SEO and traffic value in keyword and short domain names. This is due in part to the steady increase in the cost of paid traffic through advertising programs like Google Adwords as more and more advertisers bid for keyword placements in the search engines.

Some South African companies are amassing fairly large portfolios of domain names not only as a traffic source but are employing a clear domain strategy to also exclude competitors from their space online.

Share/Bookmark

Furniture.co.za

Sale price: US$33 000.00 or about R230 000

This side up purchased the domain as part of their domain acquisition strategy to drive relevant traffic to the website. Other unreported domain name purchases by Thissideup.co.za include mattresses.co.za.

In the furniture retailers arena, Simco kids are owners of bunkbeds.co.za and kidsbeds.co.za, demonstrating a very clear domain name strategy at driving traffic through product domain names.

Fly.co.za

Sale price: US$65 000.00 or around R500 000

Fly.co.za was originally registered back in 1997 and has changed hands a few times until finally ending up in the hands of Relentless media a UK based new media company with a strong leaning towards domain names as both investors and brokers.

Toys.co.za

Sale price: US$20 000 or around R150 000

Another domain registered back in 1997 which has also changed hands a few times since then. The interesting this is that it has changed from domain investor to domain investor and is still not in the hands of an end user. This will be a very interesting domain to watch in the near future.

Other recent sales that have gone unreported are engagementring.co.za and diamondring.co.za which were recently sold to Crai Marks Diamonds and Diplomas.co.za, ouch.co.za, s.co.za, domains.co.za. For more info on companies with clear domain acquisition strategies and an idea of some of the domains they own, take a look at the “whats in a name” post.

Share/Bookmark

There is one fundamental difference in the online arena, that being the method of gathering information about products and services that we are interested in. People search for products and services and to a lesser extent, for brands or company names. This fact, and if you have ever made use of Googles “Adwords” advertising campaign, will know what it costs to “buy” relevent visitors. As more businesses go online, so the competition for these advertising spots will increase, driving the cost per click up, which for certain keywords can be as high as $100 per click in the foreign exchange trading business.

The smart money has adopted a different approach which also makes use of another lesser known tactic, and that is to own the domain names of the products or services that they sell, develop satellite websites/blogs or communities which drive traffic to their stores or even have thier main website located on a keyword domain. In some cases these domain names are merely forwarded to the brand site and capitalise on the “direct navigation” traffic that generic domain names inevitably reveive or to effectively prevent their competitors from dominating particular keywords.

Perhaps the most important factor to consider is making the Brand synonymous with the product. If your company sells crockery, it would be advised that the company acquire crockery.co.za, or if you supplied towbars to own towbars.co.za.

• Search activity is predominantly for products or services
• By owning the domain name of the search term, you exclude your competitors and dramatically improve your ranking
• Makes your company synonymous with your brand
• Benefit from type in or direct navigation traffic

Is this not incentive enough for you to consider domain name acquisitions as part of your online strategy?

Here are a few examples of companies who recognise the value of acquiring prime domain names to compliment their brands. (This is just a small sample and most of these companies own many names, in some instances hundreds or even thousands of names are owned by single companies)

South Africa

• Foshini – home.co.za
• Craig Marks Jewellers – engagementring.co.za, diamondring.co.za
• Super group – super.co.za
• The notebook company – notebook.co.za, laptop.co.za
• Rand refinery – gold.co.za
• Primedia (iafrica motoring) – car.co.za
• Primedia (sport24.co.za) – rugby.co.za
• Multichoice (Supersport) – golf.co.za
• Exclusive Books – books.co.za
• Cutters Generators – generators.co.za
• Truworths – Fashion.co.za
• Prins and Prins – Jewellers.co.za
• LLew Bryan Architects – architects.co.za
• Pierre DuPreez Attorneys – Corporatelaw.co.za
• Aircharter.co.uk – aircharter.co.za
• Kalahari.net – bicycles.co.za, camera.co.za and others
• Cellphones direct – cellphones.co.za
• Karl Zeiss – sunglasses.co.za
• Technical analysis seminars – Money.co.za
• Rennies – forex.co.za
• Parmalat – milk.co.za, cheese.co.za, yoghurt.co.za
• Dulux – paint.co.za
• Active printers – printer.co.za
• Konica Minolta – photocopier.co.za
• Itec Corporate Solutions – colourprinters.co.za, colourprinter.co.za,
• colorcopiers.co.za, colorcopier.co.za and others

International

• Bank Of America – Loans.com
• Barnes and Noble – Books.com
• Bayer – Aspirin.com
• Carl’s Jr – Burgers.com
• Citibank – StudentLoan.com
• CityBreak – Visit.com
• CNET – News.com TV.com
• CNN – Money.com
• CondeNast Publications – Gourmet.com
• Country Buffet – Buffet.com
• Diago – Malts.com Rum.com Scotch.com
• Disney – Movies.com
• Enterprise – RentalCar.com
• Fixodent – Dentures.com
• Foxy Fresh Vegetables – Salads.com
• Honda – Motorcycles.com Scooters.com
• JC Penny – Gift.com
• Johnson and Johnson – Baby.com
• K-Swiss – TennisShoes.com
• Kraft – CreamCheese.com
• Mannington – Floors.com
• MasterCard – Priceless.com
• Merriam Webster – Word.com
• Monster – Jobs.com
• National Pen Company – Pens.com
• Nestle – Meals.com
• Office Depot – OfficeSupplies.com
• PetSmart – Pets.com
• Procter and Gamble – Toothpaste.com Laundry.com
• Puritan’s Pride – Vitamins.com
• Ragu – Eat.com
• Rocky Mountain Bicycles – Bikes.com
• Sylvan Learning – Educate.com
• The History Channel – History.com
• The Map and Globe Store – Worldmaps.com
• The Weather Channel – Weather.com
• The Wedding Channel – Weddings.com
• Travelocity – Vacations.com
• U-Haul – Trailer.com
• Woodway – Treadmills.com
• 1-800-Wheelchair – Wheelchair.com

Buying good generic domain names is not for the uninitiated and a well thought out strategy needs to be in place before you enter the world of the domain name traders. These are astute investors, some of whom own tens of thousands or even millions of domain names.

Please contact us should you wish to discuss a domain name strategy for your company.

Share/Bookmark

Adgator blog advertising

As one of the lucky few to have had and maintained an Adgator account for some time now, I was really pleased to see that new blog registrations were opened up.

Adgator offers CPM monetization which is fantastic for blogs that have high volumes of traffic but best of all, the eCPM is a whole lot higher than the R5 or R10 you receive from most other CPM programs. The eCPM on Adgator is around the R30 mark. That is to say your share of the revenue.

I have been using Adgator ads on cookbook.co.za for a while and I can tell you that the revenue received is an added bonus to the other monetization methods I use which requires no work at all.

Placements are in premium above the fold positions and hence the high payout, so be prepared to sacrifice the top of your sidebar or header ads for the Adgator CPM program. You are allowed up to 3 ad units per page providing that each ad is a different size and are all above the fold(visible to the visitor without having to scroll down)

Adgator serves a combination of CPM ads and CPC ads, the CPC ads are from a link up with Ad-Dynamo so if your CTR(Click through rate is very poor, they will in all likelihood serve more CPC ads.

Like all advertising programs, your blog needs to be at least 90 days old, have a minimum 10 pages of content, original content that is and must not be sexually explicit etc, etc, etc.

Apply for an Adgator account and start earning some hassle free cash.

Share/Bookmark

An end user may want to purchase the domain name for a number of different reasons:

• For a development project, be it for a new business or an existing business
• To benefit from type in traffic in the case of generic product or service domain names
• To prevent a competitor from acquiring the name
• To measure a traditional advertising campaign by directing traffic to a different domain
• To make the brand synonymous with the product or service
• To shorten a long company name, eg: law firms or accounting firms that use names of partners in the business name

The value is determined in the old fashioned way where we have a willing buyer and a willing seller who negotiate a price and conclude a deal. Many potential buyers find it difficult to justify a purchase in the thousands or millions of Dollars range but should remember that thereafter the cost is purely an annual renewal fee of between $7 and $40 depending on the extension.

The End user should consider firstly that the domain name is an asset with a resale value, what value is placed on preventing a competitor from owning the domain name and potentially dominating the space, the value of new customers derived through the domain name and the value of that customer in the future.

When we carefully consider these factors, the purchase price is a lot easier to justify and provides good reasoning for what may initially appear to be very large sums of money paid for domains like Toys.com, Slots.com which both sold for over $5 million, or in the co.za domain space, furniture.co.za at $33 000 or poker.co.za at $45 000.

A domain speculator may have deep pockets and be willing to pay large sums of money for generic domains that will not diminish in value and with the knowledge that at some stage it will be bought for a higher price. He also needs to be forward thinking, attempting to predict future trends, a good example would be 3D digital products like televisions and cameras. Possibly the most important factor for a speculator is to monetize the domain name during the holding period in order to achieve a return sooner rather than later.
Domain name speculation is not to be confused with Cybersquatting, which is:

registering, trafficking in, or using a domain name with bad faith intent to profit from the goodwill of a trademark belonging to someone else.

Domain names are the real estate or billboards of the internet

Share/Bookmark

This bodes well for all domain investors who were fortunate enough to have entered early enough and snapped up a few choice domains names in the co.za namespace.

A few notable reported sales in recent weeks have been, furniture.co.za at $33 000, domains.co.za at $20 000, slots.co.za at $10 000, s.co.za at $8500, mortgage.co.za at $4920, okb.co.za at $1 100, ouch.co.za at $1050 and tnt.co.za at $1 000. There have been numerous other unreported sales and it is very clear that South African businesses are seeing the internet and the value of domain names in a new light. We have previously reported on other high profile sales like porn.co.za and fly.co.za at $45 000 and $65 000 respectively, two of the highest prices realized for South African domains to date.

For regular reported sales updates please visit DNJournal.com

Read more about keyword domain development and the benefits it has for your online business.

Share/Bookmark

There have been a couple of really good sales in the co.za domain space of late with the leader being Porn.co.za selling at $45 000 and Fly.co.za fetching $5 000.

Both domains are showing parked pages at the moment but will be interesting to watch any potential development of these premium co.za domains.

The co.za domain space is most definitely hotting up with purchase enquiry levels at their highest ever levels on premium and 3 letter domains. Perhaps it is the promise of faster and cheaper broadband or simply an awareness of South Africa as an offshoot of the World cup, either way South Africa domains are receiving some long awaited attention.

Fly.co.za shows a registration date of 1997-07-11 and porn.co.za of 1998-01-19 back when new registrations were R200 each. That is a long time to wait for a potential buyer but considering the renewal fees which could not have exceeded R700 over the period, is quite a return not taking into account any parking revenue earned during the period.

Share/Bookmark