Alice.com is a fun site, although I wish it were a little faster to add items to the cart. I can’t quite get the hang of it asking me every time how often I want to be reminded to order it again. I will be back when I need stuff again…just let me get it for sure into my shopping cart quickly.

Sorry…I’m getting totally off the animal topic…let’s see…I told my kids I wanted a chinchilla when I turn 40 this year…they haven’t forgotten over the years – yikes!

I’m Out!

The domain investment community buys domains just like land speculators. If you can’t afford to buy that acreage just above Santa Barbara, California, for under $1 million an acre, are you going to whine about how someone bought that land years ago, and even though never developed it, they now have the NERVE to ask astronomical prices for it? Is this the logic used by people who don’t or can’t gather the funds to purchase a domain name that is premium priced? And have you thought of the possibility that the reason WHY the domain is priced high is because the domain is making the owner money, lots of it, and gets a lot of purchase enquiries for it?

If you’re starting a business, in todays NEW MEDIA AGE, owning the generic descriptive domain for your product/service is the first KILLER move you make to eliminate your competitors online. This is a fact.

If you are selling used books, it would be great to own “usedbooks.com”. But what if someone else owns it and wants a lot of money for it? If so (and that’s probably the case), that means owning the domain “usedbooks.com” is an INVESTMENT, it’s not an ‘advertising cost’. That means if they sold you that domain for $100k, and you used this domain, your sales would increase, and continue to increase, ALONG WITH YOUR DOMAIN NAME. Try to get that out of your newspaper display ad that lasts for a week.

Domains names are, pure and simple, an appreciable marketing asset. Every company MUST own a generically descriptive domain phrase to define their prodservs. If they don’t, then they lose to their competitors that do. Your best bet is to invest your money in a domain name that describes your prodservs, and build it out, brand it, promote it. THAT DOMAIN NAME WILL DO WHAT EVERY MARKETER DREAMS ABOUT: It will connect your prodserv to directly be identified with your company. If you’re selling “Electric Wheelchairs”, then owning “electricwheelchairs.net” is a great way to start defining your company online. A .com version would be optimum, but the price difference is about 25 to 1 for a dotcom (If the .net is $1000, the dotcom version would be $25k).

Business owners need to stop perceiving aftermarket domains as some sort of ‘ripoff’ for them, and understand that if you can grab the domain that defines your business online, that’s your first step to success. In many cases, the value of your domain name can exceed the value of your actual business. Think about it.

Don’t “shy away” from buying aftermarket domains that have “shocking” prices. Find out WHY they have high prices, consider the value that domain will give your company, deny your competitors, and if the domain will appreciate in value as you use and renew it. LEARN about domain name values. This way, you’ll be confident that if you buy “FinancialWorldReport.com” for $300, you’ll have a domain that defines finance in the world market, and clearly markets a domain that allows you to provide “world financial” news.

Hope this helps…

Stephen Douglas
BLOG: http://www.Successclick.com
Successful Domain Management™
http://www.DomainRelevance.com
“Own Your Competition™”

That being said, you ALL need to learn how apostrophes work. Dinner’s is NOT the plural of dinner. It shows that some quality belongs to ONE dinner. You too, Mr. cool CEO. The plural of kangaroo has no apostrophe in it. You don’t look well-educated and you appear to lack attention to detail when you make simple mistakes like this.