EMD's How much should you offer for a good one?
-
Hi Everyone,
I am launching out into an e-commerce site and I am looking at purchasing an EMD as my brand. The brand of product I am selling is different "brand" but the e-commerce brand I will be building will be for a three word keyword that is competitive and gets great traffic. My questions are these:
1. Is an EMD worth it? The asking price is $42k for a site that is a keyword that gets 60k searches per month.
2. How much should offer without being rude to the seller?
3. The $42k represents a significant portion of my start up cash. Forget converting, (that will be an ongoing tweak that I am committed to perform) will a good EMD help brand the site and drive the traffic? My thinking is that with social media and ppc you could burn through that money and not be any further ahead.
Thanks a ton in advance for the weigh in. Happy Holidays everyone.
Gary
-
The main thing that an exact match does for me is that it provides "mental energy". If I own Baloney.com I am going to be all about baloney and post plenty of baloney every day. Mental energy is the most important weapon that I have.
-
Hi Tom,
I agree. It will be a ton of work and quality content to build and stay competitive. The EMD does not have a site on it right now. It is simple an EMD associated to a very high traffic keyword. This keyword is also very competitive.
The competitors are already established and have decent traffic and DA.
I'll keep digging, asking and researching before I pull the trigger.
Thanks again.
Gary
-
Hi Gary you're more than welcome. I am happy to be of help. I would say the exact match to me is not enough to stand on its own. Meaning if it's an extremely competitive marketplace you will have to put quite a bit into the site in order to keep it competitive.
If you search for the keywords that you want the domain to show up for those keywords already. will the site come up? That is something I was looking to use it to like SEM rush and add words to get your keywords. Run it through every tool check the search visibility of the domain.
You will still have to do a lot of work to stay competitive unless this is something you really spectacular you are still going to have to do a lot of work.
-
Hi Tom,
Thanks for the response. The site itself is sweat equity that I am putting into this. I have SEO experience, not tons but just enough to be dangerous! And I keep learning and expanding my knowledge everyday.
The site itself isn't active. The niche market of this URL is pretty highly competitive and profitable.
What did you mean by hold up the site by itself? Do you mean the value of the EMD and associated keyword would hold up the site? If that's it that's the question I am looking to answer.
I already have a couple of domains that have the keywords in them but I feel like the exact EMD would be stronger. IE keyword "buy great widets" (Google Keyword Planner 60k avg searches per month) coupled with buygreatwidgets.com as the URL.
This is great discussion and helping me work through some of the issues that may be surfacing during this process.
Thanks a ton.
Gary
-
run it through Moz OSE, Ahrefs, majestic & GWT's
that is what you will need to see before purchasing something so expensive.
If it has been sitting waiting for somebody to purchase it I don't think you're going to see anything close to the traffic they're talking about. Their name servers are hosting it changed Google is very smart and they may want to take it from the top. Run the domain through http://who.is see what the NS's are
-
**How would I check the URL for any bad linking or history? Run it through Moz? **
I would use archive.org to see if there has been a site on the domain. If a site has been on it I would use tools to look at the backlinks and sniff the quality and depth and uniqueness of the content.
The three words bother me. I can't think of very many that are pure product categories....
CoffeeMakers.com..... ElectricDrills.com..... (coffee makers is a lot better than electric drills because anyone who buys a coffee maker is going to buy coffee over and over again.. but a lot of people who buy electric drills will not spend much on accessories and will not buy another new drill for a long time. The business value of the domain is really important.
-
EGOL just nailed that answer.
Everybody knows EMD carry a small amount of weight but I think the deciding factor should be what else were you going to spend at capital on? you can create a very good site for $42,000 in less it is literally Huber competitive and you're going to not sacrifice the rest of your website and think your domain is going to hold your site up by itself Then go for it.
I honestly would really investigate that traffic. I would want to see not just traffic but how much money in conversions is that site able to make? WHAT IS THE ROI & if it was making money hand over fist why are they selling it?
What Is the back link profile? when you update the whois Google may take this into account
I don't know enough about your particular niche or what you plan to do with the site to tell you what to do but if it's the better half of your budget I would spend it on making sure my site is the best possible site compared to my competitors.
look for a domain that contains the word or words you want and has enough space for a name or abbreviation. It'll cost you about 12 bucks on most domain registrars. Google's domain registration is awesome at showing alternatives.
See https://domains.google.com/ I would have to know much more about what you're doing to give you any more device than what I have.
https://domains.google.com/about/index.html
Hope this helps,
Tom
-
Awesome response. Thank you. Yes the URL/EMD is not a site and hasn't been. Someone has just been sitting on it. The site itself is built on shopify and yes, I cannot hold the EMD accountable if my images, alt tags, content and pricing are garbage. Garbage in garbage out!
The word "brand" is a reference to the EMD being your brand online not as in the brand "Nike". It's a generic keyword string that gets 60k searches a month in the US based on Google Keywords and seems to be consistent with Marketing Samuri's keyword research.
I definitely want to spend the right amount of time before i spend some serious dough and I also realize that it could be dough well spent considering the other options to drive targeted traffic is paid which can convert lower and cost about the same. $3500/month in adwords isn't too tough to burn through a site early on.
How would I check the URL for any bad linking or history? Run it through Moz?
Thanks for the opinion. I realize that it's just that but I believe in asking people who have already run through this situation.
Gary
-
Most of my websites are on EMDs. Things like coffeemakers.com and widgets.com. I believe that they make your site easy to remember and they give you a slight boost in the SERPs. I also think that they help convert sales. They are not going to make up for bad prices, sloppy content or anything you might be lacking. But given that what you put forward is good, I think that you will get a better conversion rate on an EMD like "coffeemakers.com" if your site is all about coffee makers and you are very competitive in that space. I think that you get a little more credibility than you earn with an EMD.
Lots of people are going to disagree with that. They can have their opinions and I can have mine.
The asking price is $42k for a site that is a keyword that gets 60k searches per month.
You used the word "site". To me that is very different from "domain". Are you getting content, rankings, and a history? Or, are you buying a naked domain? Big difference.
You said it gets 60K searches per month. Where did that data come from? Are those 60K searches pure or is disambiguation needed (such as Java=coffee, Java=island, Java=programming). How pure is this three word keyword.
You used the word "brand". To me that means "trademark". Is the EMD free from any words or phrase that might be infringing?
Also... what is the history of this domain. Have previous owners gotten into panda, penguin, unnatural link, spam, or other types of sin that could hang over your success?
Finally... is this domain in a niche where there is money changing hands and where a real business can be supported. Do you have the ability to pull off #1 rankings without this domain. You don't want to be an old fart like me taking on LeBron. Just like fancy clothes are not going to make you a banker, a fancy domain isn't going to open any doors. You still gotta pull off the rankings.
All of this is nitty-gritty stuff that you want to have straight before you spend serious dough.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Community Discussion: The hardest (& most surprisingly valuable) thing you've gone through for your SEO career?
In the comment discussion for Thursday's blog post, An Essential Training Task List for Junior SEOs, there's been mild debate around some of the items, such as having a Junior SEO build a website by hand. It's a fantastic comment discussion (the kind that makes a blog manager's heart sing), and it's got me thinking. We've all gone through the wringer when it comes to boosting our careers. Heck, I was a poetry major and found myself learning SQL last week. What hurdles have you jumped that have been painful and challenging, but have taken your career to the finish line? Maybe even gotten you the gold?* What would you recommend to newbies just starting out (or warn them about)? *Yeah, I got Olympic about it. I went there. 🙂
Industry News | | FeliciaCrawford6 -
Traffic, rankings and own manual note in one interface, please :)
Hey guys, I really hope that such a tool exists out there. Here's the problem. My boss asked me to create a graph that shows the traffic, rankings and notes on our site updates in one place. Here's what I did I just made a screenshot of my Google analytics and rankings from RankTracker. Then I added it all in one Photoshop file and tried to combine them so that I can see if traffic drops coincided with keyword drops. Also, I added some manual notes about the updates on my site (like text updates on the homepage, etc). So, is there a tool that allows to combine Google traffic data with ranking data. Plus it should allow to add my own comments ? Here's the result of my crazy drawings so that you understand why I'm not happy about doing that in Photoshop 🙂 https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_oX-XIT7OSCRC1jWUcxR3AwdkE/edit?usp=drive_web
Industry News | | VinceWicks0 -
Are you affected by the Gov't shutdown or is it just your .gov links?
With the shutdown came the take down of sites such as http://www.usda.gov/ and even: http://nsa.gov/ (even though http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/nsa.gov says its up UPDATE: now down). Those .gov links might not be worth as much (pun somewhat intended) But here comes an actual question as I was thinking about this, I am really curious... Did your SEO efforts suffer in anyway due to the government shutdown, or is it too early to tell yet? PS Isn't it also interesting that Google's homepage is choosing to celebrate Yosemite's National Park 123rd anniversary when all National Parks are to be closed in our nation? Tfe85nN.jpg
Industry News | | vmialik0 -
100's of versions of the same page. Is rel=canonical the solution???
Hi, I am currently working with an eCommerce site that has a goofy set up for their contact form. Basically, their are hundreds of "contact us" pages that look exactly the same but have different URLs and are used to help the store owner determine which product the user contacted them about. So almost every product has it's own "contact us" URL. The obvious solution is to do away with this set up but if that is not an option, would a rel=canonical tag linked back to the actually "contact us" page be a possible solution? Or is the canonical tag only used to show the difference between www vs non-www? Thanks!
Industry News | | RossFruin0 -
How much margin do you add when estimating client projects?
After you calculate how many hours you need to complete a marketing project for a client, how much extra do you add for project management, communication, all the little things that come up, unexpected problems, client questions, etc.? One resource I read said to add 10% to 20% for project management, then add 25% to 33% more for fluctuations, then state a +/-15% margin of error on the estimate. I was wondering what percentages others use when estimating client projects.
Industry News | | AdamThompson0 -
What's a good host for wordpress?
I've been using A2Hosting.com for a few years and am looking for something more reliable and better tech support. I've looked at WP Engine, but would like something less expensive or someone to convince me that it's worth the cost I have 10 domains using Wordpress (clients sites) that need hosting. What are your recommendations, and what would be the ideal set up?
Industry News | | WilliamCarr0 -
Anyone else know much about the Google Pirate penalty?
The Google 'Pirate' (no official name) seems to have gone largely undiscussed since it was launched last - Fri 10th August http://insidesearch.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/an-update-to-our-search-algorithms.html. The idea of it is to ensure those 'Pirating' content or abusing trademarks e.g. fake ugg boot sites and file sharing sites do not appear higher in the search results than the genuine websites. Google is using DMCA take down requests for labeling sites as Pirate and demote their rankings, Im amazed not even seomoz has covered the subject yet as far as I can see, yet it is a hugely important new update, albeit affecting a relatively small number of sites now, and in some cases (at least one I know first hand) seemingly without justification (the example I know is not a file sharing, fake goods, trademark abusive site at all.) Google updating its search algorithm based on DMCA take down requests seems a bit strong - these are takedown requests, not legal proof that a site is infringing a trademark. A real weapon for negative SEO? Anyone else had experience of the pirate update or know much more about it? Outside Danny Sullivan I dont see many SEO folk covering it. Heres my own insights into it and what ive learned about what (only innocently) affected sites should do to appeal http://www.andy-maclean.net/the-google-pirate-dmca-guidance/
Industry News | | AndyMacLean0 -
Good time to start a niche site?
I am wondering, with all the recent changes in the algorithm, is this a good time to start a niche site? I know this can be fairly subjective, depending on the niche. But, anyone think this is a good opportunity?
Industry News | | inhouseseo0