Drupal for Domain Investors
Domain names are the real estate of the Internet age, and you may not realize it but quite a few people have become multi-millionaires buying and selling domain names. They are often called Domainers but I prefer the title Domain Investor. I am a Domain Investor myself, and have bought and sold premium domains. What surprises me is that Domain Investors will pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for a domain name, but then launch a very basic site that cost less than $500 to build, including content writing, design, and everything. That is like buying a prime piece of real estate in Manhattan and putting up a tiny lemonade stand. Many of these mini-sites are done in Wordpress, and I understand the rationale for getting a site up quickly and building or maintaining good SEO. The organic search results from good SEO boosts the traffic and value of a domain. However I think that for many premium domains, there is a better solution for domain development than the WordPress mini-sites. Often people compare domains and websites to real estate, so let’s consider domains and web properties from that approach. First of all, real estate investors look for asset appreciation and cash flow. Empty land with no development might appreciate over time, and sometimes you might buy an undervalued piece of land in the right location and flip it for a profit, but typically that is not where the real wealth is made in real estate. Real estate asset appreciation comes from developing properties and selling them - basically adding value. Cash flow comes from owning residential or commercial real estate and generating lease revenue. Taking this to domain investing, premium domains - mostly one-word dot-coms - should have premium websites. As Domain Investors turn into Domain Developers, the revenue from the skyscraper websites will far exceed all of the little lemonade stands that bring in a few dollars a month. Don’t get me wrong...WordPress is a good CMS and for certain websites. In fact our 2010 CMS Intelligence Report recommends WordPress as the top choice for getting a blog site up and running quickly. And having a mini-site with some content is better than nothing for building SEO. But to build a content-rich Web 2.0 site, with great SEO and a growing user base - the kind of website that brings in the real money - you need a robust platform. But you also want to own the platform - not pay license fees that proprietary CMS systems charge. For many reasons, I am convinced that Drupal is the ideal solution for Domain Investors. Drupal is Open Source - that means it is free! Drupal is Robust - great for SEO, over 4400 contributed modules, used by big companies like Sony BMG, Fast Company, New York Observer, and WhiteHouse.gov Drupal is Social Publishing - Web 2.0 at the core, designed for user-generated content and the platform of choice for social publishing and community-building Drupal is Global - leverage the world-wide community of Drupal developers and companies, and create sites in any language or for any audience. I joined the LevelTen team partially because LevelTen is the leading Drupal development company in Dallas, and is a “full-service” firm with expertise in on-line marketing as well - all of the pieces that a Domain Investor needs to build success websites and maximize the potential of premium domains. If you are a Domain Investor interested in building out premium websites with Drupal, contact us to find out how LevelTen can help you build some skyscrapers!
