It’s all in the name..

 
How many times have you heard that?

Well here’s an inspiring little story which my domainer friend Helen experienced first hand. Helen teamed up with me on theBESTSintheworld.com project some years ago. Before that, we both shared a similar interest in photography.

On the domaining side, we both agree on the fact that just buying a domain and waiting for offers is not good enough! You need a solid plan and work hard, keeping at it everyday to make it happen!

We believe that the future is in development. Users are not stupid.
They know when they’ve landed on a parked page.

What can be more off putting (from a user point of view) than typing in a domain name in your web browser and landing on a page filled with ad links that are,..sometimes,.. irrelevant to the domain name ??

‘Might as well use google next time!’ is what one will think!
Does google return parked pages?
No. They return pages filled with contents, relevant to what the user is looking for. And they’re good at it.

Has anybody noticed that the click conversion rate keeps decreasing (relative to number of visits) on a parked page?

So, back to our story!..Helen’s been down the route of developing a ‘short’ , ‘catchy’, ‘brandable’ domain into a coffee shop style meeting place where visitors would come and chat about various topics of interest but with a main focus on photography.

But doodarz.com failed miserably! While it is short and brandable,. it didn’t mean anything! ..and it was a pain to spread the word!

Brandable is fine, as long as you have the funding to turn your domain into a brand that is.., and are prepared to shell tons of cash on advertising.

Some would simply quit after tasting such a failure, but not perseverant Helen.

During our frequent domaining discussions, I once introduced her to GoDrops.com, where one can see live (well,..with a small delay) domains that are not being renewed. (btw, thanks Jason!) We both started catching domains that previous owners have decided to let go.
And one night, Perfectly Captured.com appeared on the drop list!

Spot on!

No need to tell you what happened next. After a lot of sleepless nights spent coding and tweaking the site,
PerfectlyCaptured.com opened to the public. With word of mouth (easier with such a domain), the website started growing quickly!

Here are some stats as at time of writing:

Members 195
Photos 1,570
Comments 6,923
Views 54,731

Not bad really, for just 3 months of being online and Zero $ spent on advertising!
(and that’s just the start!)

Who would believe that this same domain, that was abandoned by its previous owners, would flower into such a buzzing website! That’s the beauty of domain names!

some lessons from this experience..

-sometimes real gems can be found in the garbage. (the garbage is getting even better in this tough economic climate 😉 )

-Failure is Success ‘disguised’ . You learn!

-While it’s usually better to learn from other’s mistake, there is nothing more enriching than experience!

-Perseverance pays. Keep at it! You never know, the big breakthrough could be just round the corner.

bestS,

Ritz.

PS: If you are into photography, do have a look at PerfectlyCaptured.com ! It’s definitely a perfectly captured domain name 😉