Domain Development Drops For The Week Of January 2nd, 2012

Domain Development Drops

Hello and welcome to my first Domain Development Droplist of 2012! I introduced this weekly feature at the end of last year and saw a ton of interest and positive response so it’s here to stay! I’ve put-together a great list to kick-off the new year and help you find your next domain development gem! In case you haven’t read this series before, below is a list of basic criteria I’m looking for in a domain that makes a good development candidate.

  1. Search Volume – this is the most important for me, I like to see at least 1,000 exact-match searches with reasonable traffic around related terms as well.
  2. CPC – I have a very simple way of looking at this – the higher the CPC the more valuable customers in this niche are to companies. I think of this as getting more bang for your buck or being able to sell your traffic at a higher price. Great example of this is a debt site I run vs. a sports site, they both get roughly the same amount of visitors and clicks but the debt site makes 10x what the sports site makes! If the CPC is below $0.50 I tend to ignore it
  3. PR and Backlinks of Competition – last but certainly not least I want to understand what level of SEO the top three sites in Google have done. If they are all PR 6 sites with thousands of backlinks it could take me years to beat them. My goal is to find a niche where the top sites are PR0, PR1, and PR2 if I can.
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CustomSuits.com

A great two-word .COM domain with 4,400 exact-match global monthly searches and a CPC of $2.97. Looking at the first page of Google I can see a site with only 18 backlinks sitting in the #5 position. This means that it’s not going to cost a small fortune in SEO to get on the first page. This domain has great development and re-sale potential and would make a great addition to any portfolio.

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LuxuryCarRentals.com

Originally registered in 1998, this three-word .COM has 2,400 exact-match global monthly searches and a CPC of $4.47. It is in a market with lots of affiliate and lead generation opportunities and some nice initial monetization options just with Adsense alone given the CPC of this keyword phrase. Google Local has taken-over this term quite a bit but there’s still a good chance to get on the first page. Of course this would make a stellar domain for a full-scale online brand focused on luxury car rentals and there’s definitely some nice end-user sale potential with this one.

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OverheadProjector.com

You might think that Overhead Projectors are old news but according to Google, over 12,000 people search for this exact term globally every month. With a CPC of $1.94 this domain has real monetization potential in a niche with a very healthy search volume. You might initially think that OverheadProjectors.com would be the better domain but it only gets 1,900 exact-match global searches, about a sixth of what OverheadProjector.com gets! The challenge here is that Goolge’s page one is incredibly competitive for this term. This could definitely make a nice flip to someone with a real budget to build it out, or if that’s you this domain has some serious potential given how many people are searching for this term.

GetInShape.com

I really like this one and think it is a particularly good domain for this time of year when everyone has made their New Years resolutions, many of which are to get in shape. Originally registered in 1998 this keyword phrase gets 2,900 exact-match global searches and a CPC of $0.96 it meets all of my development criteria. This is another domain that makes both an excellent development candidate or potential end-user sale. The #1 Google result only has 100 backlinks which means you have a nice chance of getting a strong position in Google if you focus on great content and SEO.

LEDCarLights.com

2,400 exact-match global searches, a CPC of $1.02, and a trend that is only growing every day. LED is in and while most car lights still use traditional bulbs this is changing and LED will be the standard before we know it. The first page of Google has some good competition but with no local or places results taking-up spots there’s definitely room for another contender.

AppleSalad.net

This may seem like the odd-man out as a .NET in a niche that might seem hard to make money in. Looks can be deceiving and while this probably won’t ever make $x,xxx/month it could make a great Adsense site to add to your portfolio. The keyword phrase “Apple Salad” gets 4,400 exact-match global monthly searches and has a CPC of $0.61. Like I said, this won’t be a huge money-maker but if you can get in one of the top spots on Google a few thousand visitors/month along with Adsense could get you into the $xxx range before you know it.

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton