Premium domain names: A secret your competition wishes they knew about.

How effective are billboard advertisements in comparison to premium domain names?

Well, that’s a loaded question based on who you ask, where they live, and their perspective on life as well as their habits as a consumer.

From global to national to regional to local search engine marketing, Kickstart Commerce has a plethora of experience in helping customers to find the best media combinations or medium whereby their marketing and advertising spend will achieve the greatest return on investment (ROI).

And what a challenge this is due to the nature of each customer we partner with attaining various business nuances to take into consideration.

In today’s post, we’ll attempt to uncover the advantages and disadvantages of both billboards and premium domain names.

Pros and Cons of Billboard Advertising

Just like people, billboards come in all shapes, colors, and sizes, and each with distinct pricing and purpose, having their pros and cons. 

If one live within a large metropolitan area, say New York City, one is likely to see an assortment of billboard advertisements on display in Times Square.

It is quite the opposite experience for a person living in a city of roughly 50,000 people or less as they their chances of seeing the brightly lit, multi-colored billboards for blocks at a time drastically diminishes.

He or she is apt to see a traditional sheet billboard in passing.

Both advertising opportunities come with their advantages and disadvantages, but all are alike in their effort to put a company in front of thousands, hundreds of thousands or millions of potential customers daily.

Depending on where the billboard is located and how frequent passerbys traffic the area is one of the major determining factors of a billboards cost.

Another determining cost would be the size of the billboard.

Nevertheless, both types of billboards, whether digital or non-digital, serve a purpose in an attempt to drive greater awareness for a company to convert the general passerby into a lifetime customer.

Billboards and Premium Domain Names Share a Common Likeness

Much can be said for a domain name as well.  However, one difference is traffic is determined by the domain name itself. 

The more generic a domain name is in nature in terms of search engine keywords, the greater possibility for traffic. 

Now this doesn’t mean to go out and put 4 or more keywords together to make a domain appear on the front page of all search engines.

It won’t happen. 

The more specialized or focused a domain is, like a brandable domain name, the less of a possibility for increased website traffic.

For example, let’s say Sally own a women’s summer apparel store, SallysSummerWear.com, and operate in the warm state of Florida.

And let’s say Sally has potential customers in search of the latest fashion craze known as the bikini wrap dress.

Sally’s business has signed a six-month agreement for a billboard priced at $800 per month in a highly trafficked area not too far from a beach and not too far off the highway.

It’s been one month and Sally’s business has managed to convert 10 people seeing the billboard advertisement into customers with substantial bikini wrap dress sales.

It’s nice revenue, but Sally’s cost per lead is $80.

• Sally’s impressed with sales, are you?
• Do you know the conversion rate for the billboard advertisement?
• Do you know the total number of people that passed by and saw the billboard advertisement?
• Are they local Floridians or visitors/tourists?
• Are they men, women, boys, girls, young, old?
• Was the billboard seen by 100 or 200,000 or more people per month?
• And out of the traffic that saw Sally’s billboard advertisement, how many were a perfect customer for her business?

Interesting, things that make you go hmmm… Think about it.

It is not to say the billboard was not successful, but it should conjure up questions in regards to how your business can truly define the return on investment for a billboard without all of the necessary facts.  Right?

Meanwhile, on the information highway, known as the Internet to most, there are hundreds of thousands and millions of potential customers to convert.

Even with your business listed in Google local places, and decent first and second page natural search engine rankings for women’s summer apparel in Florida, SallysSummerWear.com manages to receive daily traffic of roughly 50 unique visitors per day and a conversion rate of 2% or one person per day.

What if your business could receive more traffic, or the same amount of traffic and conversion of Sally’s billboard advertisement efforts without the billboard spend?

Well, the good news is you can.  How you ask?  Simple, type-in traffic and generic keyword domains to your rescue.

There is a little unknown secret most business owners don’t know about generic keyword domains and their heavyweight value when considered in search engine optimization and rankings.

Combined with well-written, quality, search engine optimized content and pristine code, SallysSummerWear.com, as well as your business, could move its business presence from a local or regional web presence to a national or even global business with the help of generic domains.

When your potential customers search for your products, the generic keyword domain will boost your seo rankings and position.

Hello first page of major search engines and goodbye competition, we’re moving to another level.

In addition, another little unknown secret most business owners are not informed about is countless potential customers typing in generic products or services they are in search of purchasing and putting .com on the end their phrase in the web browser address bar: type-in traffic.

And this happens on a daily basis in large numbers, depending on the keywords.

For example, SallysSummerWear.com potential customers in search of bikini wrap dresses are entering bikiniwrapdress.com or bikiniwrapdresses.com in the web browser address bar.  In this example, there are 20-30 visits per day to bikiniwrapdresses.com.

What if SallysSummerWear.com owned BikiniWrapDress.com or BikiniWrapDresses.com and redirected both to the section of her current website selling an assortment of bikini wrap dresses, and converted 20-30%, if not greater, of the highly qualified, daily traffic?

What is SallysSummerWear.com’s cost for both domains?

Easy, both domains will cost SallysSummerWear.com a mere total of $16-20 per year.

Yes, for only $20 per year, SallysSummerWear.com owns two additional domains, and now has a global business for those in search of bikini wrap dresses typing it into the web browser address bar.

And if SallysSummerWear.com really cared to capitalize on organic search, she could use the savings in not renewing her billboard agreement for another six months and have search engine optimized websites created and dedicated to nothing but bikini wrap dresses.

Not to mention SallysSummerWear.com could also up sell other summer wear products too.

Again, this is all at a fraction of the billboard cost.

Really put some deep thought into how your business spends its marketing and advertising dollars.

We’re not advocating by any means to abandon billboard advertisements; however, please do the math for your business should your business utilize such medium to market and advertise.

Should your business be able to possess premium domain names pertaining to your related business industry, then why not try test the example mentioned to see how many type-ins yours selected domains would receive?

After all, it’s only $20 per year for two domains should it not work.

What would your competitors do?

In closing, what would you do?

Would you drop or not renew a $9600 annual billboard advertisement if you knew you could convert the same or more business for $20 or less per year?

Do the math, think on it, and make the best decision to generate greater customer growth and revenue using the most appropriate vehicle for your business.

Remember, your competitors wouldn’t mind having this advantage if they knew about it.