I have been thinking about this for over a year now so decided to share it with all of you before taking the next steps. This idea initially came from a new blog reader who asked me if I had anything with my top blog posts in physical book form. I told him that I did not but did send a recommendation of a few of my most popular posts. He then responded saying, “Well if you ever make a physical book with your top posts in it, I’d like a copy!”

Now a year later I’m seriously thinking about doing it. The question for me is, are more people interested in buying something like this, and what service should I use to do it, if of course people are interested?

My thought was to break the book into four different sections:

1. Buying Domains
2. Selling Domains
3. Developing and Monetizing Domains
4. Running a Domain Business

There are a number of services that can turn your blog into a book but since I have no experience with any of them, I thought I’d reach out to all of you for some advice. Here are the services I’ve look at so far:

• Blurb.com
• Blog2Print.com
• CreateSpace.com
• Lulu.com

Let me know if any of you have had experience with these services, and most importantly, if you would want to buy a physical book like this!

Wow – what a week! A lot has happened this week and a lot is happening this weekend, in fact right now I’m sitting on a plane cruising along at 35,000 feet. This week has been exciting with some major appraiso announcements on the horizon, one nice five-figure sale, and two end-user sales that look like their going to close next week!

Yesterday I was in a kayak on Big Bear Lake, a lake at the top of  a mountain less than two hours from LA. Now we’re on our way to Sonoma for a wedding and followed by a weekend of wine tasting.

Since this weekend really is all about spending time with Daina and my family I’m going to keep this particularly short and sweet, okay maybe it won’t be sweet, alright, I’m really bad at short too, here we go!

• We launched a new kayak store on Kayaking.org that is run by our partner, Outdoor Play, the first website on the Internet to sell kayaks! This has been one of the top requests from our visitors and I am very excited with how it all turned-out.

• BlogAboutWine.com crossed the 3,000th fan mark on Facebook. This feels good, we’ve turned something that we love into a resource that other people truly enjoy, and we’re still at the very beginning. This weekend we will be doing some great coverage of what Sonoma has to offer.
• The top story in the Domaining world this week was .CO and some statements made by Juan in a video. I have stayed-out of this one but will say that like many of you I was not a fan of what was said. Still I like .CO and think that they are doing some very innovative things to build their brand.
• I’ve been getting a lot of questions from readers about the Google Penguin update. If you haven’t had a chance to read my post about 3 ways to rank better after the Penguin update, make sure to check it out.
• I am blown-away by how fast WPEngine is, seriously, it’s insanely fast. Next week MorganLinton.com will be moving over to WPEngine so get ready for a much faster experience with my blog!

Last, but certainly not least, Happy Mother’s Day to all the incredible Moms out there! Have a great weekend, now back to the flight!

(Photo Credit)

Serial entrepreneur and Domaining legend Ammar Kubba has announced he will be starting a new blog on Afterthought.com. If you don’t know Ammar, you really should, he’s one of the pioneers in this industry as well as one of the smartest entrepreneurs I’ve had the pleasure of being friends with. This is a major win for the Domaining community and beyond as Ammar will be sharing his thoughts on business and life with the world, and it’s all coming soon!

Right now you can enter your email address and get notified when the blog goes live. I can tell you this is one blog that I think will quickly become a daily read for many people, myself included. Congrats to Ammar for this new venture and a huge “Thank You” from myself and many others out there who can’t wait to read!

Rick Latona is one of those people that isn’t afraid to try new things and innovate in spaces that few people have entered. From building one of the top brokerage companies in the domain space to creating a number of successful businesses in other niches, Rick is always looking for great opportunities. Now, Rick has embarked on a new adventure that is seeing some incredible success.

Rick left the world of domain sales behind and has pioneered a service that truly is the first of it’s kind. Latonas has turned-into a full-scale platform for buying and selling web properties. Of course when Rick does something, he goes big, these aren’t mini-sites brining in a few bucks a month, these are real businesses bringing in passive income.

Last week Rick and I had a quick call to catch-up and after a few minutes I realized that I had to interview him for the blog. Since so many of my readers are interested in developing their own names or buying income-generating property themselves this seemed like a perfect fit. As you know, I don’t do interviews on here often so when I do I make sure they are highly valuable and relevant to you, my readers! And with that let’s take a step-into Rick’s world:

(Morgan) How does selling websites differ from selling domains?

(Rick)They have little in common. The differences are so many that they would be impossible to list but I’ll highlight the biggest ones.

Most domain brokers would agree that there are a few buyers that make up a majority of their business. It isn’t even fair to say there’s an 80:20 rule. It’s more like a 98:2 rule where 2 percent of the buyers make up 98% of the sales.

With developed revenue generating websites, it’s the other way around. We deal with new buyers on a daily basis. This makes the management of relationships more intricate but it’s a wonderful problem to have. I get so excited when over and over again we sell a site to a “new” customer. That rarely happens in domains.

The closing cycles are long. Due diligence is everything. Latona’s offers a dedicated broker service and we walk the buyers and sellers through every step of the process. Sometimes coming to agreement on price and terms is easy, often it can be very complicated. The offers are rarely straightforward (e.g. I’ll pay $x for the site). More often than not, there are terms and conditions that both parties have to agree to (e.g. seller providing support for x months).

Likewise, sometimes it’s easy to transfer and move the sites, affiliate accounts and other assets but other times it can be a long and drawn out affair.

In summary, the reason I’m telling you about the closing cycles and the large pool of active buyers is that it all comes down to high quality salespeople and sales management.

With domains, anyone can have a newsletter. Just send out an email and people reply saying they’ll buy the domains. With websites, it’s much more complicated.

Our brokers have to use every tool available to them and be very organized and efficient. We use salesforce.com’s enterprise edition as well as Chatter which is sort of an internal facebook which is used to keep track of deals and activities. So, when someone is talking to a buyer or seller, it updates their “wall” and the other brokers as well as management can “like” the activity to follow the progress.

(Morgan) Is your typical buyer also a Domain Investor or someone completely different?

(Rick) More often than not it’s someone completely different but I hope to bring more domain investors over to our side. There’s a lot of opportunity. Buy cash flow!

I understand that most domain investors are worried about the risks associated with buying a developed site that relies on Google search results. I have mathematical formulas that can help them make the right decisions on what to offer to mitigate that risk. I encourage both the curious and the interested to contact us. I’d be happy to do a one on one conference call with any one of your readers to explain our spreadsheets that we use to calculate values.

To give you a little more insight into our pool of buyers I can share this list. Internally, we classify buyers into three categories:

• Strategic
• These are what domainers would call “end-users”. They are the companies in the Insurance business that would be interested in buying sites in the Insurance vertical. The sites are a “strategic” fit.
• Cash Flow Investors
• These buyers are assembling cash flow. They are focused primarily on their internal rate of return and the ease of management of the website.
• Network Players
• These are primarily SEO firms but can take on many different personalities. They are companies that have huge networks of sites that all support each other. So they’ll have an insurance site, a mortgage site, a weight-loss site, etc.

(Morgan) What category/niche are you finding to sell the best?

(Rick) You’ve just identified another difference between domains and websites. There are two ways to look at categories. Is Insurance a category or is lead gen?

At Latona’s we break them down by revenue streams or verticals. The latter is what you are used to in the domain business. For example, insurance is a vertical. Mortgages are a vertical.

Most of our buyers are focused on the nature of the revenue stream. For instance, cash flow investors are often looking for AdSense sites or sites that operate on clicks alone. There are many companies besides Google in the space. Insurance sites use SureHits, etc. Network sites are often looking for ecommerce or lead generation sites, etc.

If you go to Latona’s, you can filter by both revenue stream and vertical. This image below shows the active filters as both “insurance” and “lead gen”:

(Morgan) How do your sale prices compare to Flippa sales?

(Rick) Flippa is a great company and we work closely with them. I have nothing bad to say about them but we are in two different businesses. They are a marketplace, much like eBay. Latona’s is a brokerage firm. We provide dedicated brokers, we review and verify stats, we ensure a secure transaction and we provide transfer guidance.

Our total sales numbers are probably very similar but they do far more deals. We prefer to do fewer deals but bigger deals.

The only other thing I’ll say on the matter is that Latona’s has an average sales price of $87,600. We feel that is high.

(Morgan) What is the best piece of advice you have for someone that wants to build a revenue-generating site?

(Rick) Don’t build. Buy. Ha! I know that sounds self serving but honestly, if you don’t know what you are doing already or how to build a site, it’s probably better to buy one. More than anything, it takes time for a site to get established. Buy an established site and arrange for the seller to stay on as a consultant if necessary.

(Morgan) You’re always on the cutting-edge, anything to share as far as trends we should all look for in 2012?

(Rick) Thank you for what I will take as a compliment. Unfortunately, I don’t have all the answers. Sometimes I’m on the bleeding edge which is worse than being on the cutting edge. I’ve been wrong often but with the trend towards buyer, selling and trading in developed sites, it looks so far like I was right on this one. Being that it’s all still in its infancy, it’s hard for me to say the trend is any different than what I’m currently focused on.

(Photo Credit: DNJournal)

Lately I’ve been trying to secure what I call “The Trifecta” when I’m buying a brand. When I say Trifecta, what I mean is owning the brand’s .COM, along with corresponding exact-match Twitter and Facebook accounts. Just like most people will look for a company on their brand name .COM, they also look for a company’s Twitter and Facebook account the same way.

I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve seen brands miss-out on some great Retweets and customer interaction all because they had a weird Twitter handle. Think about it, when people hear your brand name and then tweet about you, they usually just guess your handle assuming that if you’re a real brand, you have your brand’s name on Twitter.

The Trifecta is important to me for the same reason that a .COM is, if you want people to easily find your brand online and you don’t want to lose traffic to someone else, then owning your brand’s Twitter and Facebook handles is important. Of course, just like .COMs being taken, your brand may already be spoken for on Twitter, Facebook, or both.

When it comes to Facebook there’s not much you can do outside of contacting the owner and seeing if they have any interest in parting with their account. The problem is that if someone has already built-up a list of friends, etc. this may be quite challenging to do. Twitter on the other hand offers quite a bit more hope, especially when the person who owns your brand name on Twitter isn’t doing anything with the account.

There are two ways you can get the Twitter handle that corresponds to your brand, the first is if the account is inactive. Twitter defines an inactive account as follows:

To keep your account active, be sure to log in and Tweet (i.e., post an update) within 6 months of your last update. Accounts may be permanently removed due to prolonged inactivity. (Twitter)

The second way to get your Twitter handle is if you have a Trademark on your brand name and thus, just like in the Domaining world, someone is squatting on your name. Twitter considers a Trademark Violation to be:

Using a company or business name, logo, or other trademark-protected materials in a manner that may mislead or confuse others with regard to its brand or business affiliation may be considered a trademark policy violation. (Twitter)

In my opinion, having your exact-match Twitter handle is more important than your Facebook username (or pagename) so I’d go after this one the most. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen incorrect company Twitter handles references in a Tweet. When this happens the traffic from the mention goes to whoever owns your brand’s name on Twitter. This is the same as if you own a .NET or .ORG and advertise on the radio or in a magazine, some percentage of people will go to your name .COM, the same thing happens on Twitter.

So if you’re building a brand online, yes, .COM is king and it is important to have your brand’s .COM, but don’t forget about Twitter and Facebook. At the end of the day it’s all about traffic and both Twitter and Facebook represent incredible traffic sources, having your brand’s exact-match domain and Twitter and Facebook handles is the best way to make sure people can easily find your brand online, and ensure that you get all that wonderful traffic that you deserve.

Building a brand sounds exciting doesn’t it? While it is exciting and a lot of fun, it’s also a lot of work and often a bit of money too if you’re not doing the development yourself. I haven’t done development in years but have been building tons of brands which means that most of my time is spent understanding the market, and of course shelling-out the dough for development, social media management, etc.

Over the years I have found that the biggest mistake most people make when building a brand is not taking the time to learn about their market. They get excited about building a brand because of the search volume or CPC (or both) and rush in to get started. Many people then look back six-months later and wonder why they aren’t making any money, the answer often lies in a lack of experience in their market. While some brands can make a splash right-away, other markets require far larger investments and longer time-horizons to be successful.

Here’s an example. Let’s suppose you bought a great domain name related to Car Insurance. You’re jumping for joy as you know that insurance is a hot niche with lots of money in it. You want to rank well for “car insurance” and pay a developer $2,500 to build a kick-ass site for your brand. Next you pay an SEO guru $1,000/month to build backlinks and get your site ranked. Six-months and $8,500 later you’re perplexed, your brand is still not on page one, it’s not making any money, and you’re not happy.

The problem here is you didn’t take the time to learn your market. If you did you’d see that the people ranking well for this term have spent tens of thousands of dollars on SEO, you’re measly $6,000 doesn’t even get you close. Now you might be out of money and after expecting a big return you are out of funds. Since you didn’t properly research your market, you didn’t take the time to understand what it would take to be successful in the space.

Every market is different and some are more competitive and expensive to enter than others. If you don’t take the time to understand your market, you don’t really know what level of investment to make, and what outcome to expect. Here are a few things I look-into before even thinking of building a brand:

1. Who is on Google Page One? Look at who is on the first page of Google, is it major Fortune 500 companies or are there smaller brands on there? If the front page is dominated by Google Local results do you even stand a chance? Look at the first page of Google, above-the-fold and see who is there. Now, learn everything you can about the companies listed above the fold. What is their SEO budget? How many people are working on the site? How many backlinks do they have, etc.
2. Do you have the resources to beat your competitors? Now that you know more about your competition, it’s time to ask yourself if you have the resources to really compete. If you have $100,000 to spend and your competitors are all spending $20,000 you can probably blow them out of the water, if they’re all spending $500,000 you might not stand a chance. Make sure you have the adequate resources to compete, this isn’t always money, it could be a great team, amazing SEO skills, Social Media mastery, etc. Just make sure you have the right resources to make it happen.
3. Is your market growing? So you’ve done your research and now know your market, and you’re happy to say you can compete and be a real player in the space. Now the real question is…do you really want to be in this market? Look at market data for the industry you are entering and make sure its growing. There’s no point in investing your time and money in a market that’s declining. I wouldn’t want to build a brand that is focused on Desktop Computers since Laptops and Tablets are what’s hot and the Desktop market is declining rapidly. Make sure you understand your market as a whole and where it’s going, and stick with markets that are growing, and fast!

Building a brand means building a business, building a business is all about understanding your market and your customer. If you don’t know much about your market, or the industry you are entering, you could burn through valuable time and money investing in a space you either can’t compete in, or you don’t want to be a part of anyways because it is declining.

My blog header has gone through quite a number of iterations. I used Screenshots.com to look back to 2009 and view the evolution of my header over time. Initially my blog was on TypePad starting in 2007, then Domainvestors.tv, and then in 2009 to MorganLinton.com. Before I merged the two blogs MorganLinton.com was being run as a personal blog as you can see from the image below of the blog when it was still separate from Domainvestors.tv:

Next came the integration of the two blogs into one and Domainvestors.tv began forwarding to MorganLinton.com which then became the new home for my blog. This was a very hard decision, I had over ten-thousand readers all of who knew my blog as Domainvestors.tv, would they all leave if I went to MorganLinton.com? Would people not be able to find me? I had to start the whole SEO process over again as well.

Well everything worked-out very well, everyone quickly adapted to the name. The first inception of the new blog looked like this:

For this header I took a photo that I liked from a recent trip to Australia along with a focus on my tagline. I liked this photo because it really captured me, not some guy sitting behind a desk, but an inspired entrepreneur traveling the world. At this time I was literally traveling the world! I also always liked the idea of having a beautiful landscape photo on the site, I feel like there’s something soothing or relaxing about it.

That’s just me and some people like this header, others didn’t. The #1 complaint was that I was squinting too much in the picture, well hey it was sunny that day!

Traffic and revenue started to really grow and with it came more emails, comments, attempted and successful hacks…I think some would say that was the tipping point for me. I had some strong recommendations to update the header and make it more professional. So I went for my first real Web 2.0 look and released this in 2011:

I liked adding buttons for my book twitter, facebook, and my newsletter – those are all important things for people to find easily. What really bugged me about this design is the page just looked too blank and plain. So a new design was born and you’re looking at it!

I choose teal as my primary color, I’ve been getting very into the meaning of colors over the past couple of years. As we’ve been building more and more brands color really does play a role. Teal is associated with trustworthiness, devotion, and healing. Then the yellow underneath represents joy, happiness and wisdom. I liked the balancing of Teal and Yellow so picked those colors.

While I like the colors I picked I think the design looks fairly boring and generic. Also I think it’s time for me to find a top-notch header designer to really do it right. So I wanted to reach-out to all of you, my readers, and give you the chance to provide your feedback on what would make a great blog header.

I am hoping that this will not only help me make a better header but everyone else that is developing sites and building brands. Your feedback will directly impact the look-and-feel of my blog because I’m doing this for all of you! Comment and let your voice be heard!

]]> http://morganlinton.com/what-makes-a-great-header-help-me-pick-my-next-blog-header/feed/ 4 http://morganlinton.com/you-dont-just-need-content-you-need-the-right-content/ http://morganlinton.com/you-dont-just-need-content-you-need-the-right-content/#comments Tue, 20 Mar 2012 18:17:54 +0000 Morgan http://morganlinton.com/?p=5405

I am a firm believer that content is king. I have said it many times before and I honestly feel that nothing could be more important to a strong brand than great content. The problem is, that not all content is king, it really is the case that the right content is king. You can have tons of content on your site but if it’s poorly written, or not about a topic your users are looking for then it’s really not providing the benefit you think it is.

That’s right, you don’t just need content, you need the right content. So how can you find the right content? It’s actually a bit easier than you might think and it all starts with talking to your customers. Sure, you can definitely go to the Google Adwords Keyword Tool and look-up the most searched keywords related to your site. This can be a great starting point, but at the end of the day you really want to understand what your specific visitors really want.

Talking to your customers means sending them an email, reaching-out on Facebook, Twitter, as many touch-points as you have, and asking them what kind of content they want to see on your site. If you can get a meaningful sample size you will quickly be able to identify trends and better understand what content won’t just get users to your site, but will actually get them recommending it to friends and coming back for more.

I did this on my blog last year and asked readers which topics they liked the most and the least. Last year I had reached a point where I split my content between Domaining and Startups. After completing my survey I found-out that the vast majority of my readers were much more interested in Domaining specifically Domain Development and they loved case studies. I also learned a lot more about what my readers liked and didn’t like and it’s helped me keep my content much more focused on what you, the reader is looking for!

I have done the same thing across a number of my top brands and always find that our first guesses often are slightly off. It really takes engaging your visitor, asking them what they are looking for, and then delivering over and over so that you can create a repeat visitor.

The great thing is that for many of you, this process can begin right-away. If you already have a developed site send a survey out to your customers, what you learn this week can help you make a better site this year! Always remember, content is and always will be king, but it’s the right content that makes all the difference.

(Photo Credit)

Building a brand means doing a lot more than simply putting-up a website and calling it a day. I like to think of a website as the front-end to your brand, sure people can find-out more about your business there, but they aren’t really making any kind of connection with your brand. The problem is that many people put so much time and energy into their websites, they forget all the other facets of their brand, and most importantly forget to connect with their audience.

Honestly, we live in an era where there really are no good excuses for not connecting with your customers. Social Media has leveled the playing field and given you the same access as the big boys when it comes to reaching customers. The problem is, most people don’t understand social media so they miss-out on the #1 way to connect with their audience, and get people excited about their brand.

First things first, Twitter and Facebook are both used for a whole heck of a lot more than telling people what you ate for breakfast. Some of the most incredibly brilliant people in every field you could imagine actively share knowledge and news through social media. Many major brands like Delta Airlines have entire teams dedicated to social media and it’s making a very positive impact on their business.

So how can you get started? Easy, let’s start with Twitter since this is the most open of the two systems. Now do a search for a keyword or phrase you find very relevant for your business. For example, if you sell surfboards do a search on Twitter for “surfboards” or “need new surfboard.” Try to put yourself in the mind of your customer, what would they be looking for?

Now you can follow all the people that are active in your niche. You can even @reply the person who said they needed a new surfboard and let them know about your company or even offer them a discount on a new surfboard. As you follow more and more people you’ll find-out who the category leaders are in your space. Maybe there’s one surfer who has the most followers and tweets the most about cool boards, now you know one person that could be a major influencer for your brand. It is finding these influencers, these evangelists in your space that can really help you get your brand out there.

So we’ve got the basics of Twitter down now let’s move-onto Facebook. I find Facebook is a better place to connect with your existing customers. You can put a Facebook like box on your website and even hold a contest to get more fans. Usually when someone becomes a fan they’ve already heard of your business so it’s your job to give them things to be excited about!

One great example is a tent manufacturer I know called Light Speed Tents. They make these very cool tents that you can setup almost instantly. On Facebook they are constantly running contests, sharing information on new tents, and asking questions that engage their audience. It’s actually fun to follow them and their fans share things from their wall with their friends which creates even more fans. This is the key thing to understand when it comes to Facebook. If you get one fan, it is your duty to make your brand so exciting that your fan wants to share that with his friends. See, Facebook is a network of friends so there is a lot of trust associated with recommendations. Just a single share from one of your fans could bring 50, 100, or more fans to your brand and it keeps multiplying from there.

We now operate five brands that have over 1,000 Facebook fans and one (our wine blog) which has over 2,000! This has been a huge part of our growth and something that allows us to connect with our customers in ways far beyond our website.

So if you’ve just built a first-rate website, have a killer logo, and a product or service you’re truly proud of, it’s time to tell everyone else about it. The easiest way to do this is social media and if you’ve been waiting to get started, stop waiting, your current and future customers are out there and it won’t cost you a dime to reach them!

(Photo Credit)

Like many other people, I’ve often said “Content Is King” and this is absolutely true, however I think the statement could use a slight modification. I would actually like to change this statement to “Great Content Is King” because lousy content really doesn’t live-up to the title of “King.”

With so many Domainers getting-into development and monetization I am finding more and more people coming to me and asking how to get content for their sites. I have a few recommendations and I think this should evolve over time, getting better and better as your grow your brand and your business.

In the beginning if you are running one website I recommend you write the content yourself. I wrote all the content for my first ten sites and put a lot of time and energy into making it the best content that it could be. While this took-up time in the beginning it was a great learning experience and helped me better understand what kind of content I should be looking for when hiring a writer for one of my brands.

This is also a great way to get started without having to make much of an investment. Once your sites start to generate revenue then you can look-into paid content options but you’ll want to make sure that in doing so you are keeping a focus on quality. Avoid content services that charge you $1-5 for an article as these rarely deliver good quality and can often hurt more than they help.

So where can you get good content?

There are a few places I recommend for getting good content, each one a bit different.

1. TextBroker – this was originally recommended to me by my buddy Elliot and I have been really impressed with them so far. Elliot recommended that I stick to Level 4 or higher and I think this is the best compromise between quality and price. When you find a good writer you can add them to your own team within the platform which means over time you’ll build a nice group of good writers. This is one of the easiest ways to manage a team of writers too so can save time and a zillion emails and Pay Pal payments back-and-forth.

2. Hire A Writer Through Craigslist Or The Newspaper – you can always hire your own writers by putting an ad on Craigslist or in the local newspaper. Many of my initial writers were actually stay at home Moms that I found by advertising in the newspaper. While the quality is often quite good, like TextBroker you aren’t finding someone who is truly passionate or experienced with the topic.

3. Hire An Expert – this is the technique I’ve found myself using more and more. If you really want the best content, you’ll want to find someone that is already passionate about the topic and who actually enjoys writing about it. On our Kayaking brand, for example, we found a buy in British Columbia who absolutely loves Kayaking. He kayaks just about every day and takes some amazing photos and videos of his adventures. While you’ll pay more for experts you’ll get the best content and create something that really engages your visitors and keeps them coming back.

So next time someone says “Content is King” just remember that while this is true it is the quality of that content that really makes all the difference.