Appraiso And Protrada A Partnership Which Makes Perfect Sense

On January 30th, 2012 Morgan and Daina officially launched Appraiso.  The excitement from their presentation filled the room at the very first Southern California Domainers Meetup of the year. I and a few others knew what Morgan and his fiance were working on, but I didn’t realize how much of an impact this tool would have in such a short period of time.  It’s been quite a ride for the Appraiso team, one which is being viewed by many of us on the sidelines. I for one feel that Protrada couldn’t of picked a better partner. I want to see Appraiso become the standard for website appraisals.  I have a hunch that the Appraiso team won’t stop until they make that happen.

Here is the press release, for those of you who haven’t had a chance to read it:

In early 2012 an innovative startup in Los Angeles released Appraiso, the first tool to put serious mathematical modeling behind website appraisals. The founders saw a gap in the market and spent a year crunching numbers and building a tool to accurately estimate the price of a developed website. “We saw the opportunity to innovate in one of the fastest growing spaces on the Internet and we went for it,” says Morgan Linton, one of Appraiso’s three founders. Before marketplaces like Flippa, website sales happened underground, scattered across hundreds of forums across the net. With over 31 million dollars in website sales in 2011 alone, Flippa has shown that the market for developed websites is growing, and fast.

Last year another innovative company, Protrada, created an all-in-one platform for buying, selling, and developing domain names. In early 2012 they refined their platform creating a website builder tool that took the platform to the next level making it easy for anyone to build content-rich interactive websites. The tool was an instant success with hundreds of thousands of domains running through Protrada and thousands more coming onboard each day. “We created a platform that allows anyone to build one, two, or ten websites all with a few clicks. Partnering with content providers and allowing for the addition of interactive features without writing a single line of code has greatly contributed to the initial success we have seen,” says Troy Rushton, Protrada’s CEO.

Today Appraiso and Protrada have announced a new partnership making the Appraiso Website Appraisal system available directly from the Protrada platform. “It was an obvious fit for us, thousands of people are building websites with Protrada, now they can find out how much those sites are worth,” say Linton. “This gives Protrada users a way to better understand how the digital real estate they are developing can grow in value over time.”

Protrada users can immediately begin using Appraiso from within the platform to evaluate their current sites as well as track website value on a regular basis. Then, when they are ready to sell, Protrada can seamlessly allow users to list these sites on some of the top domain and website marketplaces on the planet. “Having a valuation benchmark will reduce uncertainty and stimulate transactions, Appraiso is well positioned to become the standard. We are already seeing an increase in web development services as investors seek to unlock the value of their digital assets,” say Rushton about the early results of the integration.

In a world where digital real estate is growing faster than physical real estate both Appraiso and Protrada are positioning themselves to play a critical role in the development and sales of digital assets. “Let’s face it, physical real estate used to be one of the best investments you could make, but those days are over. With the incredible growth of smartphones and rapid adoption of Internet users across the globe, digital real estate is a large and growing market, and we’re looking forward to playing a valuable role in this next phase.” says Linton, “The best part is we are still seeing only the tip of the iceberg, and unlike physical real estate, with digital assets the sky really is the limit!”

End-Users Don’t Bite And Some Don’t Answer Their Phones

Today marked another day of cold calling end-users.  Lately I’ve been making my cold calls after 5:00 PM pacific standard time.  I like making phones calls at this time because the business day is either over for most people or it is almost over.  I am in the process of contacting several potential leads for a medical term that I own.

Today was interesting because all of the gate keepers seemed to have gone home right at 5 or it seemed to appear that way. So what happens when you are unable to talk to a live person?  In my case I like to leave a polite voicemail which sounds understanding but urgent. One of the messages I encountered stated that the doctor and his staff would be away from the office for the next week.

This message caught me a bit off guard, but I made sure to tailor my response to the message in the best way possible.  I promptly stated that I was a domain investor looking to sell a domain name (I stated the name) which could potentially be beneficial for their business. I let them know that I understood they were out of the office for the next week. I even said that I would wait a week before selling the name to anyone.

For me it is important to give everyone who would potentially be interested in a name the opportunity to acquire it.  One thing I’ve learned to do is not rush the sales process.  The more time I take while negotiating a domain sale, the stronger a relationship I can build with the potential buyer.  Sometimes it is easy to forget that an end-user is a person just like we are.  If you approach them in the same manner that you’d like to be approached then those that you contact might actually take the time out of their busy schedules to hear what you have to say. The term end-user is a bit impersonal.  I like to think of the people I call as potential business prospects or even partners.

Don’t get frustrated if they don’t answer their phones, some of them might be busier than you are.

Keyword Domain Wednesday: Domains Available To Register 5-16-2012

One of the things I enjoy doing is searching for available keyword domain names. I can’t possibly register all of the names that I find, so instead of letting the research go to waste I’ve decided to publish a weekly list for everyone to benefit from. The majority of the names that you will find in this list will be decent development candidates. Some of the names may even be worthy of being flipped. The weekly list may include .com, .net, .org and .info keyword domains which are available for registration. Each list that is published will contain a maximum of five domains.

With that said, let’s get started with the first keyword domain list!

3dgraphingcalculator.com – The keyword phrase “3d graphing calculator” receives 1,000 exact global monthly searches and 720 exact local monthly searches. Remember that TI graphing calculator you might of used when you were in school? They have a 3d version of that calculator now.

latestsongsonradio.com – The keyword phrase “latest songs on radio” receives 170 exact global monthly searches and 73 exact local monthly searches. The stats aren’t what I necessarily like about this keyword phrase. The brand potential is what I do like. The domain is easy to remember, but then again listening to the radio isn’t exactly popular anymore.

lovetestgame.net – The keyword phrase “love test game” receives 6,600 exact global monthly searches and 1,900 exact local monthly searches. This is a catchy name and game domains have great development potential.

regressiontesting.info – The keyword phrase “regression testing” receives 18,100 exact global monthly searches and 6,600 exact local monthly searches. Those keyword search stats are great and that’s exactly why the only extension available out of the extensions I listed above is .info. In my opinion this term is a perfect match for the .info extension. Here is the wikipedia definition of what regression testing is: Regression testing is any type of software testing that seeks to uncover new software bugs, or regressions, in existing functional and non-functional areas of a system after changes, such as enhancements, patches or configuration changes, Sprint releases have been made to them.

shortformaldress.com - The keyword phrase “short formal dress” receives 390 exact global monthly searches and 210 exact local monthly searches.  This is a decent product domain name.  This is the type of domain that I would turn into a product driven affiliate site.

I look forward to publishing a weekly list and can’t wait to hear about which names you end up registering!  If you decide to register a name, please comment below!

.CO Advertising Seems To Be In Overdrive Lately

In the last week I’ve noticed .CO advertising just about everywhere. Today I was catching up on a few kungfu videos on youtube and I spotted both a text based ad and a banner ad. It’s good to see the extension is marketing itself in this manner. I can’t help but to wonder if this was planned in advance or if it had something to do with the fall out between the ccTLD and the domaining industry. I haven’t really taken sides on the video which started it all, nor do I care to take sides.  I own a handful of .co domains which will all require a bit of development and do believe they are decent candidates to create brands on.

Here are the ads I saw while watching a couple of videos on YouTube today:

 
Update:  I’m aware of retargeted ads and behavioral marketing.  This blog entry was meant to only give a very high level observation of what I have been experiencing lately.  That’s one of the reasons why I used the word “seems” in my the blog entry title.

Today I Moved Hosting Providers

Today I experienced a few more issues with HostGator which sparked me to sign up with two new hosting providers.  Instead of just writing about it, I decided to record a small video.  I’ll post the video here as soon as it has finished uploading to YouTube.  You can blame my slow wimax connection for that!   For now here’s a picture of the whiteboard:

Weekly Reflections

I’m going to keep this weekly reflection a bit short.  I had a great weekend with friends and need to catch up on some rest now!  Here is what happened last weekned:

1.  I purchased a software program called CuteRank. I was looking for a tool which was easy to use and specialized in checking keyword position.  So far CuteRank has done everything that I expected it to do.  I’ve only setup a couple of sites with it so far and it provided the exact rank for all of the keywords that I entered for those sites.  The software also includes a proxy feature which I have yet to test out. On a side note it looks like someone is sitting on CuteRank.com.  The domain is currently showing a GoDaddy landing page.  That person should see about selling the name. When I saw CuteRank it reminded me of CuteFTP and CutePDF.  I guess the word cute is popular when it comes to branding a software product.

2.  I decided to try my luck with hiring a virtual assistant.  I found a great person who is now helping me on a business and personal scale.  They are now working for me part time and I am already seeing the benefits of having someone help me on a daily basis.  The first task I had them work on was pinning all of the shoes featured on TrendyMafia.com to the TrendyMafia pinterest account.  They were able to complete this task extremely quick, much quicker than I would of ever been able to do it.  One thing I have learned when hiring a virtual assistant is to set one day out of the week to discuss goals.  It’s important and beneficial to have weekly meetings with team members.

3.  Since I work from home several hours out of the week, I decided to invest in a bit of office furniture.  My current chair is falling apart and doesn’t provide the proper support for my back. I’ve been meaning to purchase a really good office chair and I finally decided to go all in on an Executive Aeron Chair by Herman Miller – Polished Aluminum Frame – Size C (Large).  Herman Miller Aeron chairs are extremely comfortable.  I used t0 work eight hour days while sitting in an Aeron chair when I was a Systems Administrator for a web design firm in Glendale.  From that point on I was a believer.  I decided to purchase one of the latest Aeron models because of the strong reviews and the mere fact that these chairs tend to last for 10 years without any issues.  I can’t wait till the chair gets here!

4.  I became a NameJet verified bidder.  There is one domain name that I had my eyes set on for the last week that I am sure will surpass the $2,500 mark once it goes to auction.  Since that’s the case I decided to get verified.

I hope everyone had a great week and an even better Mother’s Day!

Why I’m Signing Up For Two More Hosting Accounts In The Next Week

I love the hosting industry and have had the pleasure of being both a web hosting business owner and a customer, but yesterday reminded me why I can’t depend on just one hosting provider.  If you tried to visit my blog yesterday, you might of noticed that it was down for a few hours.  This blog and several of my affiliate sites are hosted with none other than HostGator.

I chose HostGator a few years ago because they are known for their customer support and quality of service.  HostGator has an incredible infrastructure, but lately I’ve noticed that the service I am used to has declined tremendously.  Sometimes this happens when a hosting company grows to a certain level, customers become numbers and they start paying more attention to marketing than supporting the current clientele.

Now don’t get me wrong, I like HostGator for basic website hosting.  They are a decent hosting provider for hosting some of my affiliate sites and blogs.  I am have a reseller accout with them and I currently pay $24.95 a month for it. As a domain investor and affiliate marketer every minute a site is down the potential for making money is lost as well.

Yesterday HostGator went down for a scheduled maintenance window.  The problem with their scheduled maintenance windows is the fact that they only post these maintenance alerts on their company support forum.  I was not notified by email that the server my reseller account was located on would be down.  Notifying customers of maintenance windows is extremely important in the hosting industry and normally a hosting provider has a system setup to email their customers about these maintenance windows.  I was pretty shocked to find out that HostGator does not have such a system.  The customer support representative who helped me let me know that a system of this nature is being worked on.

With that said my entire reseller account was down for more than 30 minutes.  When the server was brought back up there were issues with database connectivity, which effected all of the sites that I have that run mysql databases.  This isn’t the first time I have experienced database connectivity issues with HostGator.  This happens more often than I would of ever expected.  I was able to catch the exact time that my sites went down with the help of ManageWP‘s monitoring service.  As most of you know I just started using the service and I can already say that it is benefiting me.  I am going to upgrade my ManageWP account to a paid account next week.  ManageWP has more than proven itself and with that said they have made me not only a believer but a customer.

In addition to that I will be moving forward with two more hosting accounts.  I want to spread my websites out onto different network infrastructures to help keep downtime to a minimum.  One account will most likely be a vps offered by inmotion hosting and the other will be an account hosted with WPEngine.  When I worked in the hosting industry a few years ago I had a chance to view the inmotion hosting cage at One Wilshire.  This was an amazing site, they had everything racked and cabled to perfection.  As far as WPEngine is concerned they have gotten some rave reviews.  I was convinced of trying them out when I heard woothemes.com moved to them after suffering a security breach.  Morgan is also in the process of trying them out and has already announced that he will be moving his blog there.

Next week should be a fun one and I look forward to sharing my hosting experiences with you!  Have a great weekened! I’m off to a pool party to spend some quality time with friends!

An Interesting Site ColdplayHollywoodBowl.com

On May 1st I attended a Coldplay concert at the Hollywood Bowl. The concert was amazing! If you are friends with me on facebook then you probably noticed all of the mobile pictures I uploaded that evening. This blog entry isn’t really about attending the concert, it is more so about a website I ended up on while checking to see if tickets were still available.

Earlier on that day, I ended up typing Coldplay Hollywood Bowl into Google. One of the first results presented was a website called ColdplayHollywoodBowl.com. The owner of this site capitalized off of the publicity that the Hollywood Bowl concert was receiving. This would be an example of trend domaining. Although the domain owner is playing with fire, I can see how a site like this would immediately make an impact and generate revenue.

There is a fine line between good and bad domain registrations. For me this domain is a bad registration, which probably performed decently for the owner. When someone wants tickets to a nearly sold out concert, they will most likely do what they have to do to get those tickets.

I also decided check who the owner of the domain name was and of course the domain is hiding behind Domains By Proxy, LLC. It’ll be interesting to see what happens down the line with this domain, especially since it is still up advertising tickets for Coldplay’s next big concert in Philadelphia. I’m sure there are plenty of other sites out there like this. I just feel that the short term profits that a site like this would make are not worth the long-term risks.

Three Domains I Registered For Six Dollars

I took advantage of the $2 domain registration deal the other day at register.com.  The deal is still being offered for up to three domain names. After doing some keyword research I decided to register the following names:

AnkleSurgeryRecovery.com

NeckSurgeryRecovery.com

WristSurgeryRecovery.com

These names speak for themselves and I’m really glad I was able to register all three for only six dollars.  As you can see I love the recovery keyword. That’s exactly what I searched for to find these names!  My goal with domain registrations this year is to build a solid list of keyword domain names.  Whenever deals like this come around I’ll have a list full of keyword domains ready to register.

I’m thinking about publishing a few domain lists in the future, so stay tuned!  I might even publish these lists weekly!

Become a NameJet Verified Bidder

Yesterday I became a NameJet Verified Bidder.  I decided to do this since I’ve been involved in a number of NameJet auctions which surpassed $2,500.  I’ve been a NameJet account holder for several years now and felt it was time to spice things up a bit!  I take domain investing seriously and this just adds to that notion.

When I bid on auctions at NameJet I always set a limit for myself.  Some limits may be higher or lower than others depending on the domain that I am bidding on.  The main rule that I follow when bidding is not to go beyond the limit I have set for myself.  I don’t like competitive bidding and don’t mind bowing out when needed.  There is nothing wrong with surrendering an auction.  Raising a white flag should be part of everyone’s bidding strategy.

By not being a NameJet verified bidder I missed out on several auctions which I could of easily of won.  Some of these names would of been a great addition to my portfolio and others could of been flipped quickly for a healthy profit. I’ve already spotted the next domain that I plan on setting a higher than normal limit on. I bid on the name with the plan of building it out. I might try and flip it at first but my main plan is to develop it.

I am looking forward to being a more active NameJet account holder and can’t wait to win a few premium domain names. To become a verified bidder I had to fill out this form.  After filling the form out, I scanned it along with my driver’s license and opened a ticket with NameJet.  Within a few hours the verified bidding status was added to my account. I couldn’t of asked for this to occur any faster. Now I don’t have to worry about being capped at $2,500. I just have to make sure that I stick to my limits!