Nomzo has just finished the design and development of CoreChefs.com, a website from COREcruitment Ltd, a hospitality and leisure recruitment agency in London.

Take a peek at the new site – Chef Jobs & Catering Recruitment

The development spec was clear. Maintain the brand!

We ensured that COREcruitment’s personality shined through with an adaption of their existing business logo, adding a cheeky little chef hat. The fun continued with an interactive banner showing of a baby chef eating flour. Structurally, it was important to produce a completely unique web design, but still deliver a clear message. Next to the logo we included a mini-splurge describing what CoreChefs would offer. Concise and to the point, giving visitors a quick insight to the company.

The branding emphasis continued in the vertical menu with more apples. The cool little CSS hover effects adds some eye candy and stops visitors getting bored. Contrasting colours were important, green to red, green to purple (with the sliding banner), all separating content and drawing a clients eye.

Over the next few days – we’ll be polishing the site to get it absolutely tip-top!

Check it out – CoreChefs.com

There’s a fantastic post on Noupe.com showcasing various geo domain names which have been developed in to tourism websites. The article focuses mostly on design, but if you’re the owner of a geo domain you can gain an insight in to the functionality and structure employed to bring life (and revenue) to the your domain name.

We’d all love to own a category-killer geo domain, the likes of London.com, NewYork.com, Rio.com, Vancouver.com, however that’s not always graspable (unless you have a multi-million dollar budget). But, keep heart, you don’t need a category-killer domain to make a money from a geo domain! Take a look at the post on Noupe, with the exception of a few domains (Baltimore.org, Vancouver.com, Denver.org, Spain.info), the majority use extra keywords such as visit, go, travel.

Development – Where to Start?

So you have a geo domain, now you want to develop. Where to start on the development road?

If you’re on a limited budget, there’s a helpful post on dnforum where domainers share which scripts they are using for their geo developments. WordPress with all its plugins is another sound option.

If you can afford custom web development, then that’s the way to go. It’s expensive but you can look through a site like Sortfolio.com to find a local company with a great portfolio and reputation.

Geo Domain Development – What to Include?

Once you’ve pin-pointed the geo domain name to develop, it’s time to plan what to include. News, weather, hotel room search, a business directory are all great features that a geo website should contain. The main ingredient which turns a good geo website in to a great one is interactivity. People love talking, sharing knowledge and getting involved, especially when it’s their hometown. Listing upcoming local events is a great way to build up a returning visitor base and goes a long way to becoming the main hub for residents and visitors.

Here’s the link to the inspiring article: http://www.noupe.com/showcases/showcase-of-tourism-website-designs.html

So, what are your favourite geo websites?

Browsing through Twitter I stumbled across the sale of an established web design blog. The site has a lot going for it – decent traffic, PageRank 5, and a small amount of revenue. The main thing that stood out was that it is underachieving.

Overview

The site itself is http://www.webdesignerhelp.co.uk. It has strong foundations with a great generic domain name.

Other plus points:

• Existing revenue through multiple channels (advertising and link sales)
• Comes with a Twitter account with 1000+ followers.
• PR5

Bad points:

• Owner has pimped it out before the sale by selling links to unrelated sites. This could drop the PageRank in future updates.
• No proof of traffic or revenue.
• It’s on Digital Point, which has more scammers than most forums.
• Traffic quality is not great, stumble upon, facebook, twitter et al does not convert as well as search engine traffic.

Good Investment?

This is a safe investment. The buyer can improve the design, increase content creation, increase traffic and then flip the domain in a short period for a nice profit. Or sit the site for a while and recoup the initial outlay over a longer period. The one determining factor which stops us from buying the site is the extra workload.

The auction is underway with a high bid of $800, BIN Price is $2,500.

You can visit the auction here on Digital Point.

Developing domains in to full-fledged websites and businesses is one of the most rewarding aspects of domaining. If you’re not familiar with development, head on over to our domain development page, which details the design and development process.

OMG code! Run for your life! — Old school domaining was about buying a quality domain and waiting for a wealthy buyer to knock on the door. Add in some domain parking revenue and there was no real need to develop. However, (dun dun dun) the recent decline in PPC revenue and questionable WIPO decisions becoming all too frequent has changed all that. Domain development is simply necessary today. Plus, it’s good for the domainer – increased targeted traffic. It’s good for the visitor – they find something useful. Win win!

If you have the funds to develop, hire people who are experienced developers. It’s a lot less stressful, time-consuming and the end product is infinitely better. On the other hand if you’re strapped for cash you can always learn a basic coding language like HTML. There are tons of great resources, W3School.com, being one of the best. Heck, you can avoid coding altogether by downloading WordPress or another CMS.

Once you have a functioning website up and running, the emphasis shifts from development to traffic building. SEOChat.com is a good resource to get started with the basics of SEO and gaining natural traffic from search engines. There’s many other methods for gaining traffic like spamming the hell out of twitter.

As traffic starts to increase monetizing should be at the forefront of your plans. There’s plenty of revenue streams to pursue — Adsense, affiliate programs, or selling your own products or services.

That’s a brief idea of what domain development involves – hopefully you’re galvanized in to developing today!

GoDaddy has released a new coupon code to celebrate the upcoming Superbowl. The code can only be used once per customer for new registrations or transfers.

The code is BOWL2010

As with most of these $0.99 GoDaddy promos, payment options are restricted, leaving domainers with a choice between paying by check or credit card. No PayPal option, unfortunately.

Thanks to ProductDomains.com for sharing.

Stepping in to 2010 – it was time to embrace social media and internet trends. If you’re a fan of tag clouds:

We’ve added tags to the Domain Showcase. The newest addition is “Cool Domains“.

What’s a Cool Domain?

It’s a name which is short and sounds delicious. A cool domain is fresher than Web 2.0, Flickr is so last decade. It has to roll off the tongue and no missing letters for people to forget when typing in the URL.

A cool name must stir a reaction. When you hear Twitter, you think chit chat. When you hear Google, you think God. When you hear Nomzo, you think cool domain

Generic Domain Vs Cool Domain

Generic domains are great. They offer so many extra perks that cool domains do not. With a generic domain you can take over a market like Warren Royal did with Bobbleheads.com. But generic domains are not cool because cool is new. Cool domains are invented in the minds of the creative, in the souls of the lost, or in the input fields of a domain name generator.

Cool domains resonate with an audience. They intrigue. They stimulate passion. They force you to react!

(image source)

Disclaimer i) cool is subjective ii) this was not a guest post by Paris Hilton.

There is nothing more infuriating than wasting valuable time pitching domain names only to find you are communicating with the wrong person. Disappointingly though, it’s a process that is too often repeated by domainers.

Learn domain tips to avoid making this mistake.

When you want to sell your domain you must get through to the decision-maker. This is crucial. Direct contact with the decision-maker saves so much time. On some occasions that’s not always possible though, due to privacy within corporations or lack of information on their website.

Going through other channels such as customer services is a viable option. Just make sure your intentions are clear and they fully understand your proposal, otherwise you’ll be passed from department to department, and eventually to the person who has to put up with 5000 solicitations a day and already begrudges you for the mere fact that you contacted him/her. (If that’s you, I feel for you)

Success Selling Domains? It’s not a Numbers Game

There’s the saying “quality over quantity”. In my opinion this holds true for selling domain names. Of course, some would disagree (would you?), and it largely depends on your pricing points and the size of the company you’re pitching to. My advice – try all approaches and see what works best for you.

We’ve all been spammed by someone in China soliciting the ugliest names seen to man. It sucks and it’s a waste of time. Now, put yourself in the shoes of the CEO (or whoever the decision-maker is). If you’re pitching crap, he/she’s getting the same feeling to when you receive the spam from China. Quality counts. Quality saves time.

Email, Written Letter, Social Media or Telephone

Options are aplenty when it comes to finding an end-user. The protocol to approach a prospective end-user depends on the corporate culture of their organisation. For instance, if there’s a design company who utilises social media such as Twitter or Facebook, then there’s absolutely nothing wrong with approaching them through these means. If it’s a big financial corporation and you find their marketing manager’s personal Facebook profile, it’s not good etiquette to invade their privacy. Most big businesses prefer to receive business proposals by written letter anyway. We’ll go to the formalities of this another time.

Email is the #1 friend for a domainer. It’s quick, it’s cheap and it works. Studies show that email still provides the best ROI of any sales material. Be polite, be concise and be available. Make sure your contact details are accessible.

Pitching domains over the phone is rewarding though a little daunting to domainers who aren’t experienced. Just go for it, do it and gain experience. Talking to someone is more personal than email and you can build a good connection immediately. Conversely, when you’re speaking over the phone it’s also easier to tell if the other party is genuinely interested. Thus, giving the option to end the call and save time.

Strange People (& Accents) in Foreign Countries

At times in a domainer’s career–if proactively selling domains–you might come across the perfect end-user, the only problem is that they are half way around the Globe and speak a completely different language. The language barrier would seem to present an insurmountable obstacle to selling your domains. Take Nomzo, our clients span across the World. We’re perfect for pitching domains to end users in Europe, North America, Australia and Japan (that’s not a curveball, we really can pitch in Japanese). Saying that, if we wanted to sell a domain name to a person in Brazil, as none of us speak Portuguese, we’d have to find a domain broker to approach to the buyer. Domain forums are a priceless asset for connecting with other domain sellers from all parts of the World.

Have domain pitch ideas you want to share? Disagree with this article? Add your comment below.

Want to sell your domains for maximum value?

If that’s an affirmative, Nomzo has exactly what you need!

DNTurbo from Nomzo is the top domain brokerage service geared towards domainers with quality generic domains.

DNWho? DNTurbo!

DNTurbo – it’s accelerated domain brokerage. Liquidate your domains in 7 days or less. No upfront fee and only 15% commission when we successfully sell your domain.

Domain Name Brokers

We market to your domain to end users. You know, the company leaders who make business BOOM!

By email, by telephone, by post, by networking, by climbing through their window (if needs be).

Following on from our earlier blog post about good domainers registering domain names to forward to charity websites in order to support the victims of the Haiti earthquake disaster. Google has registered the domain name HaitiEarthquake.com.

The domain HaitiEarthquake.com now redirects to http://www.google.com/relief/haitiearthquake/, where Google is asking visitors to support to the disaster relief effort in Haiti. With the news that Google is donating $1 million are two prominent links to UNICEF and CARE, two well known charities, and several links to other charities.

For those wanting to donate, here’s a great option that you can do in seconds:

* SMS text “HAITI” to 90999 to donate $10 to Red Cross relief efforts
* SMS text “YELE” to 501501 to Donate $5 to Yele Haiti’s Earthquake Relief efforts

Natural disasters are horrific. No doubt you’ve seen the sad news about the massive earthquake which hit the Caribbean island of Haiti, causing devastation and huge loss of life.

Donating to a charity is definitely one way to help the people of Port au Prince. There’s a fantastic post on DNForum about what domainers can do to help in another way. Member ‘companyone’ suggested the idea of registering domain names related to the disaster in order to forward visitors to charity websites, such as the Red Cross. This is an excellent idea as not only will increase the amount of donations for Haiti, it will stop domainers getting brandished as cyber-squatters or scammers. Saying that, the idea only exists because there are scammers and fraudsters in the World. If you find somebody with a fake charity website, please report it to authorities straight away.