Domain names are one of the most important parts of the Internet. They have value in the same way as property does in the real estate industry. Unlike the real estate industry it is less obvious why a particular domain has a value, however, the principles of “Location Location Location” remain broadly the same.
In this case, one can liken the inherent value of a property’s location with the constituent words or characters, being close to an exact match, to a high volume of search queries. In other words, how close or accurate a match is a set of keywords to this large number of search queries?
Let’s put it another way, if a group of people approached a real estate agent with an idea of what their dream house would be (where it was located; what features and characteristics the house would have; how easy it is to find; its unique qualities), the perfect domain name would be the equivalent of the property that best suits all of these requirements. Then the basic law of supply and demand kicks in – the more perfect a property or location is to a larger pool of people, the more these people will barter and fight to make it their own.
The value of a domain is therefore directly correlated with the price a potential buyer is prepared to pay for that domain – the higher the bid, the more valuable the domain.
The harsh reality is that most people hang onto the domains they have purchased for years and never actually achieve any value from them as nobody makes them an offer. As an online real estate owner, it sometimes takes a lot of luck for a buyer to come along and make you an offer. And so your investment in these domains continues to wait for a decent return.
Leaving domains with no content or no website inroads the potential value of your investment in their purchase. This is especially true when you’ve held the domain unutilized for a number of years in the hope at some point you’ll get to capitalise on your ongoing investment in renewals.
You will benefit from this investment in the following circumstances:
- unlikely = somebody comes makes you an offer for the domain
- possible = you find a direct reason to build a website on that domain
- always = you want to use the website to help your other businesses online
The harsh reality is that most people hang onto the domains they purchase for years and never actually achieve any value from them.
The reasons domains have a tangible value are:
- an individual or business has a reason to use that particular domain (luck)
- the domain is an exact match or close match to a high volume of searches in search engine (good buying)
- there are lots of links from other domains pointing to that domain
- the domain has been used continually for a number of years
- the domain ranks well in the search engine results
Yesterday, hopefully I purchased an amazing tool that is going to change my life.
It was thanks to an unknown blog post. I noticed the blogger had remarked that he was using Dragon Dictate and to take his notes on the go. He or she commented that it meant that he was now remembering all his good ideas, rather than forgetting most of them.
That led me to browsing and reading reviews of Dragon Dictate. The consensus was that the tool had improved massively over the last two years. So I gave it a go. I dug into my pocket found the credit card & laid out the money for the application.
Last night when using the tool my productivity accelerated into a place where it had never been. Being quite dyslexic it can take me 15 min to write and be confident to send a two line e-mail. Now imagine how long it takes me to write my blog posts.
We’ll see if the Dragon manages to change my life because I’m sure the amount of blog posts I write will go up massively if it works.
On a PC there is the Print Screen function but it’s not quite so obvious on a Mac.
This is how to take a Mac screenshot of:
- the full screen – Command+Shift+3
- part of the screen – Command+Shift+4
- a window – Command+Shift+4 then space bar then click the window
Hope you find this useful 
I was invited to the Shepherd’s Bush Empire last night by a good friend to see The Lipstick Melodies.
They happened to be supporting Pete Doherty. Pete eventually turned up just after 10pm, more than fashionably late. It was lucky that he actually made it. He had the most awful compere between the acts. The compere can best be described as a fat bloke from Glasgow who told us he could take anything the audience threw at him, which was lucky as he was reduced to being Donkey Kong dodging beer missiles. The crowd was ready to riot when Mr Doherty showed up but after a shaky start he managed to get a singalong started with the audience.
The Lipstick Melodies were are a different cup of tea altogether. It’s very difficult being a support act. They’re an early Rolling Stones, rock / country inspired outfit fronted by Alan Wass. They won over the audience, even the intensely perfumed blond infatuated Dohertyettes rocked out to them.
Websites like TripAdviser can make or break a customer’s decision to book with a certain hotel or eat at a certain restaurant. Hoteliers and restaurateurs often ask me what they can do about negative reviews. I was asked earlier in the week to comment on a Daily Mail article that reported on a Company organising a group defamation action’ against TripAdvisor. May advise is…
Unless these reviews are factually incorrect, there’s not much that can be done. Instead, the brands need to consider how they can respond and engage with the community of people.
Put simply, hotels need to get their product right. If they are receiving an abundance of negative reviews, they need to look at why that is, improve their offering and then publicise to people that they have listened and changed. The public understand that if a hotel has ten good reviews and one negative one, the likelihood is that that negative review is a one off.
Dealing with an irate customer successfully, and publicly, can actually improve the reputation of a hotel. The best thing to do is to engage online with customers who have written negative reviews or comments about their experiences in a professional and friendly way. If they are citing a factual inaccuracy then correct them, or if they have had a bad experience then apologise for the mistakes and outline next steps.
People are very tuned in to marketing and spin and thus turn to reviews from real people who have actually experienced the hotel first hand. Positive word-of-mouth like this is a great endorsement for hotels as people are more likely to believe it over fancy advertising.
The hotels and restaurants which will come out on top are the ones willing to allow customers to review them, showing them to be transparent and trustworthy. Banning customer reviews suggests that the other chains have something to hide.
The ECB should be careful not to be too hasty in disciplining or banning its players from Twitter. Although a ban would prevent leaking sensitive information and reduce the risk to its reputation from ill-considered player tweets, it could risk alienating an already distanced fan base.
Particularly in the case of cricket, where international games are no longer covered by terrestrial television, fans have never been more far removed from their heroes. Social media platforms such as Twitter can be a perfect tonic to those disenfranchised, non-Sky subscribers, giving the ECB and individual players a great marketing opportunity to tap into and communicate directly with their most loyal fan bases.
Having personalised twitter feeds means that players are in the position to effectively foster advocacy and promote merchandise and events to a self-selecting and highly engaged fan base.
Given the scandal that has surrounded the sport in the last couple of days, the ECB should be looking to highlight as many good news stories as possible, to de-emphasise the furore and market the sport in a positive light. Shutting down channels which allow players, as brands in their own right, to speak to thousands of enthusiastic fans is bound to generate a negative backlash. We saw this when Manchester United banned its players from personal social networking profiles, earlier this year. Disregarding the positive impact that allowing players to engage with fans can have for the Man United brand.
A far more open and enlightened approach would be to take time to educate players and agents about Twitter and other social media platforms, putting in place common sense guidelines for their usage, harnessing their positive marketing opportunities. In this case, Kevin’s tweet itself reads as if it was meant to be written as a text or direct message rather than a publically available announcement – with a little bit of training mishaps like this could be so easily avoided.
Although Twitter can be an incredibly effective marketing tool for the player and the team when used like this, it would be a mistake to train the personality out of what the player tweets. Where Twitter excels is allowing that personality to come through and it makes fans feel truly connected to their heroes and teams.
The growth of the Chinese tourist is the going to be the biggest change in the tourism industry for a generation.
Britain is on the approved list for China’s tourists. Half a percent of all Chinese tourists already head to the UK for their holidays, that’s over 200,000 people last year, and rising. Two mid market Chinese hotel groups are sniffing around for acquisitions – according to yesterday’s Sunday Times – to take advantage of this demand. That means it’s time to get on with some hotel marketing basics.
When you see a website in your own language you are immediately more likely to trust it. It shouts that the company values you as a client. Search engines are also all about user experience. If you use a local domain name and the local language they are likely to rank your site more highly too.
Your hotel needs to be positioned to take advantage of this new revenue stream. My hotel marketing tips to do this are:
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Make a comprehensive version of your website in Chinese. Ideally, replicate the whole website and all the functionality including the booking engine. From an SEO perspective the more content, the better the site will rank. It’s the same for the user experience and therefore conversions.
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Put the Chinese version of your website on the Chinese URL with your brand name with the .cn domain. If possible get both the English and the best phonetic Chinese character match. Search engines value exact match domain names. Users also get a measure of re-assurance and therefore trust when they see this too.
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Put a link on every page of you English language website to the Chinese version in Mandarin. This will pass along some of the search engine power of your website to the Chinese versions and help Google and other search engines value your site.
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Use two translation sources. When we do multi lingual work it’s always best to use one source to originate and a second source to proof read and sense check.