Here is part two of the “Developing A Geo Domain” article taken right from October’s edition of Domainer’s Magazine. You can catch the first part of the series here if you missed it.

Developing a Geo Domain

As mentioned earlier, Geo domains usually receive less direct navigation traffic than generic domains. Thus, extensive development is necessary to capture a wider traffic base. It’s important to focus on every aspect of development from appropriate branding to SEO. A thousand pages of content posted with no regard to keyword analytics will cost a lot of money but bring little discernible benefit. Neglecting to research competition and market value before development can also mean thousands of dollars down the drain.

Just choosing where to start requires careful study and analysis of a number of factors.

Geo Domain Name Selection

The selection of a Geo domain or Geo domains to develop is crucial. An intuitive Geo domain name is valuable as it will save you a lot of SEO dollars. Although most of the pure Geo domains are already taken, chances are, you’ll still be able to find a lot of non-pure combos relating to industries and service. Don’t get carried away though. Remember that without development, Geo domains generally don‘t pay for themselves. While the right combination of a place’s name and keyword will contribute to your success, the relevance you build with content you put on it matter more in the long run.

For Geo domain-industry type considerations, take the time to do research. Determine if there’s big enough potential in the region you’re targeting.

Your Geo domain should be memorable like ChicagoEvents.com or CaliforniaDoctors.com. As with other domain properties, the shorter the name, the better. Try to avoid domains with hyphens and dashes. As always, go for the .com variant.

Ideally, Geo domains should reflect the character of the region. The most popular and profitable businesses in a state, country or city are also the most profitable niche for Geo domains. Hawaii.com, naturally, is a tourism-oriented site. If you can’t get the pure Geo domain, go for a relevant non-pure Geo domain like HawaiiBeaches.com, HawaiiHotels.com, HawaiiResorts.com, etc.

A good way to find some Geo domain variations is to perform an internet search on the city, state or country. The top-ranking search results will most likely reflect the most sought-after information about the place. If the city government site is on the top result, check it out and see what it says about the city. If a university site is on the top of the search result, then most likely a Geo domain focused on colleges and universities in that area will yield great traffic.

You can also use other tools such as the Google keyword tool to determine the type of searches being done according to a particular country, state or city. This will give you an idea on the niche industry to target in your place of choice, and it will yield great keywords to use for optimization.

Content Selection
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NO, they are not renaming the show!

Rick Latona has announced Rick Silver as the new moderator for T.R.A.F.F.I.C., taking the place of Howard Neu. Rick had the following to say on RickLatona.com earlier today.

“As my first major change to the basic concept that is the industries original and premier trade show, I’d like to officially announce our new moderator. I wanted to find a person that would have the skills to represent all of us, keep the show engaging, entertaining and sophisticated. Deep thought and deliberation was put into the matter.

Fortunately, I’ve been a fan of public speaking for some time. While I’m not that great at it, I’ve read enough books about it, watched enough pros and paid attention to be able to recognize real skills when I saw it. Rick Silver has skills.

My first meeting with him was at T.R.A.F.F.I.C. ccTLDs in Amsterdam. He got on stage to represent and promote .ca names, a sector that he dominates. I was blown away. I thought his stage presence was a skill that transcended his domain portfolio. Seriously, he’s the best public speaker in the industry. He’s a clean-cut, intelligent, professional, industry growth focused, honest, family man that can captivate an audience.”

Rick Silver has been in the domain space since 2000 and is the founder & CEO of n49 Interactive Inc, a leading Canadian web development agency and online directory publisher. n49 holds the lions share of premium generic .ca domains such as dining.ca, limos.ca, and kitchens.ca. The company has developed a platform for generating vertical market portals that feature user reviews, video and tools to help small businesses establish, manage, and optimize their online presence.

Rick is active in the domain community and serves as president of the Domain Owners Association of Canada. He is a strong proponent of the development of generic domain names into useful websites through effective journalism, social media and mass collaboration.

Previously Rick was the president of Marconi Medical Systems Canada, a global leader in medical imaging technology. He is a graduate of the University of Windsor and resides in Toronto, Canada with his wife Debbie and their 2 children.

Bio provided by: RickLatona.com

My message to Rick Silver – Congratulations, good luck and I’ll see you in Las Vegas.

Which reminds me. If you haven’t purchased your T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Las Vegas tickets yet, do not wait until the last minute. Until the end of November they are $1,495, once December comes they will be $1,795. Save the $300 and buy a domain name during the shows auction.

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For those of you who don’t subscribe to Domainer’s Magazine, I wanted to share a great article I read about Geo domaining. Most of you know that I recently found an interest in geo domaining myself, so of course this article peaked my curiosity when I read the title, “Developing a Geo Domain”. There is a lot of great information in the article. It discusses a range of topics having to do with developing a Geo domain, including suggestions on how to market your Geo domain and what are advantages to developing a Geo domain. It references all that and more.

The original article is very long. I received permission to use the article on my blog and so I decided to break it up into a 5 part series over the course of this week. Today’s first part in the series is basically an introduction into Geo domaining to help give a better understanding of what it is and how a domainer can make a lot of money from it. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did.

Developing a Geo Domain

Geo domains differ from other premium domains in one very important aspect: development. Unlike generic premium domains like flowers.com, baby.com or books.com, which can be easily monetized using the Pay-per-Click model, Geo domains typically have little to no type-in traffic. As such, domain development is standard operating procedure for Geo domains if they are to earn their keep.

Regardless of this drawback, Geo domains–notably country, city, or state Geo domains–are some of the most valuable domain properties on the internet. One of the most notable sales included a package of England.com, Britain.com and London.com, which sold for $2 Million in 1999. That may have been a decade ago, but that spectacular figure is followed by the $700K paid for Melbourne.com in 2007, $550K for Macau.com in 2006 and $500K for NewZealand.com in 2003. Even LasVegas.com, which was only leased to the Greenspun family for 100 years, sold at a whooping price of $12M in 2005.

Geo domains have a high market and resale value, mainly due to the fact that premium pure Geo domains (“pure” label explained below,) seldom change hands and are very limited in number. There’s also the so-called trend of “going local”, and these regional target markets further enhance the value of Geo domains. In a nutshell, people are now using the internet more to search for local services, locally available products and local information.

As internet searches become more useful in the local scope, we can expect the prices of lesser-known Geo domains to become higher still. They will become even higher as more and more Geo domainers develop their properties; the rise of online local advertising almost assures it.

Definition and Uses of a Geo Domain
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This is definitely going to be a popular tool for IDN domain name investors.

Click on the image to enlarge.

In case you missed my last comic strip, it was “iPhone App To Register Domain Names“.

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If you remember, on Tuesday I posted “Off To Teach The World About Domain Name Investing“, because I was going to be speaking publicly for the first time later that evening. I spoke to an audience of right around 25 online entrepreneurs about buying and selling domain names. I was able to video record myself and have decided to share a few clips from the engagement.

I would like to personally thank Chris Krimitsos of The Wealth Building Annex for the opportunity to speak and Andrew Douglas of UtterDomain.com for coming to listen to me speak on Thursday. Andrew already knew the information but came to show his support for myself and the industry. At the end of the evening I was bombarded with individual questions. I was unable to get to them all, but Andrew helped out.

I had a lot of fun and can definitely see myself doing this often. In fact, I have already spoken again on Thursday evening and have been invited back to speak some more. I think that means I did ok.

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