DomainSherpa interviews successful domain name investors and entrepreneurs – people we call Sherpas – who share their strategies and tactics to help you be more successful. Hosted by Jonathan Tenenbaum.
Latest Interview
In the midst of a recession and with domain name parking revenue down, what can you do today to maximize your domain name pay-per-click (PPC) income?
Howard Hoffman, president of PPCIncome.com makes a living focused on maximizing the revenue from his portfolio of 9,000 domain names. Actually, that’s only half of his living. The other half is O2Cool Oxygen Water, a company he founded in 1998, which was the catalyst for his domain name career.
Michael Cyger February 20, 2012
How do you take a domain name with a single parked page and turn it into a 10,000-page profitable, local online community guide in three months?
Jennifer Manz of Mannix Marketing shares the content and marketing strategies that made GlensFallsRegion.com – an $8 hand-registered domain name run by three full-time equivalent employees – profitable after only three months of operation.
Michael Cyger February 13, 2012
Whether you are buying a domain name that is $20,000 or $200, using an escrow service to eliminate the risk of fraud and guarantee that you receive the domain name can be money well spent. An escrow account also can be used to spread payments over time – such as with the recent $4.2 million purchase of Marijuana.com, currently being transacted through 69 payments of about $61,000 each at Escrow.com.
These topics and more are discussed with Brandon Abbey, president of Escrow.com. Learn what domain names Abbey owns, and what car he purchased through an escrow account at Escrow.com.
Michael Cyger February 6, 2012
Bill Karamouzis has already hit three home runs in his domaining career. He sold his first two companies in 2005, each for well over seven figures. When it came time to launch his third company, Hallpass Media, he took the lessons he had learned from his past ventures and came up with a simple formula for success, which led to his third sale in 2011.
In this interview, conducted live at the TRAFFIC conference in Fort Lauderdale Beach, Florida, in October 2011, Bill Karamouzis recalls the strategy and tactics that led him to his latest successful business exit.
Michael Cyger January 30, 2012
What are the best domain names to buy for parking, how can you maximize your return on investment when buying such names, and what is an appropriate return on investment for parking? These are but three of the questions answered in this week’s show with Michael Gilmour.
An entrepreneur and investor, Gilmour started his domain name business by placing a big bet: his last $100 on a single domain name that he immediately parked. Learn how Gilmour parlayed his earnings from that single domain into a portfolio that at its peak generated thousands of dollars a day in parking revenue.
Michael Cyger January 23, 2012
Andrew Hazen knows a thing or two about marketing. In fact, he has built and sold two Internet marketing companies, pocketing millions of dollars in the process. And he has written a book using easy-to-understand language about search engine optimization.
In this show, Andrew shares how he turned 90 admittedly marginal hand-registered .com domain names and one .info domain into $56,000 per month. (I have seen the Google Adsense report to verify this impressive figure.) You will be surprised to learn that in addition to search engine optimization, a clever television ad campaign drove the results.
Michael Cyger January 16, 2012
When you purchase a television or a car, you perform due diligence by comparing prices, looking at third-party ratings and searching for recalls. Buying a domain name should be approached in the same way, conducting appropriate research to ensure a sound acquisition.
In this show, Steve Jones walks us through the 11 steps of his process for domain name due diligence, which will keep you from buying a domain name that infringes on someone else’s trademarks, that is stolen, or that was previously used for an unscrupulous purpose and might be on blacklists.
Michael Cyger January 9, 2012
John Ferber wrote an affiliate-tracking software program in 1997. His brother, Scott Ferber, drew a picture of how that software could be used online to pair corporate advertisers and website publishers.
Together, based on John’s software and Scott’s drawing, the Ferber brothers built the largest ad network based on an at-the-time new concept of cost-per-click advertising. When they sold the company to AOL/Time Warner in 2004, Advertising.com reached 90 percent of people on the Internet, an average of 20 times per day.
Michael Cyger January 2, 2012
Some people complain that if you did not buy domains in the mid-1990s you missed the window of opportunity. But what if you could hand register 12,450 domain names today for $7.87 each and build a million-dollar business?
Adam Hawley, president of Zipsurance.com, did exactly that. By leasing insurance-related domain names and providing associated services, Hawley connects insurance agents to clients and is on track to bring in more than $1 million in sales in 2012.
Michael Cyger December 19, 2011
Are you interested in knowing all the inner workings and insider tips for navigating auctions at Go Daddy?
Paul Nicks, the director of Go Daddy Aftermarket, answers questions about Go Daddy Auctions, including how the company sells more than 36,000 domain names per month and how domain name investors can take advantage of its massive customer roster.
Michael Cyger December 5, 2011