Hot on the heels of my recent post about the $125,000 sale of investmentproperty.com.au I thought I’d put together some more sales results of Australian domain names that relate to the finance industry.
It may surprise some of you to learn that most of these names have NOT been purchased by insurance companies or large advice firms.
Instead, many of them have been purchased by internet marketers and ‘domainers’ who develop these sites with the aim of generating leads for other financial professionals.
This has proven very lucrative for some internet marketers, many of whom simply work from home with a laptop, an internet connection, and the balls to spend big on domain names knowing that the returns can be even bigger.
$19,000 – HealthInsurer.com.au
$16,223 – PetInsurance.com.au
$15,001 – CreditCard.net.au
$15,000 – Claims.com.au
$12,500 – CreditReport.com.au
$12,001 – LifeInsuranceComparison.com.au
$7,900 – Insurance.net.au
$5,152 – FuneralInsurance.net.au
$3,106 – IncomeProtectionAustralia.net.au
$3,001 – LifeInsuranceComparisons.com.au
$2,050 – LifeInsurancePlans.com.au
Some of those figures are quite impressive, but keep in mind that most of the domains listed above are not premium domains.
Why not? First of all many of them are the ‘.net.au’ version instead of the more commonly used ‘.com.au’ version. Industry research suggests that a .net.au version may be worth as little as 10% of the value of the more fancied .com.au version.
The reason for this is simple. If you went out and marketed funeralinsurance.net.au all over the local radio and billboards, what do you think most people would type into their computer? That’s right, they’d type in funeralinsurance.com.au!
Another reason for many of the domains listed above not being premium name is due to the addition of third words, such as LifeInsuranceComparison.com.au and IncomeProtectionAustralia.net.au.
Even the highest valued domain on the list isn’t quite premium, since it uses the less commonly used term HealthInsurer.com.au. If it was HealthInsurance.com.au you could probably increase the value by a factor of ten.
So why are these domains so valuable?
In the case of PetInsurance.com.au and CreditReport.com.au these are what are known as ‘category killer’ domains. A bit like RealEstate.com.au is the category killer in the real estate industry.
For the rest of the domains, perhaps with the exception of claims.com.au, the reason for their value is due to Google’s love of domain names that match the users exact search term.
For example, if a user searches Google for “life insurance comparison”, the website at LifeInsuranceComparison.com.au is going to have a huge advantage in the rankings over other websites that don’t have those words in the domain name.
Furthmore, a user is more likely to click on one of the search results that contain their search term in the domain name, as they can be quite certain that that website will contain the information they are looking for.
So what can advisers do about this?
For starters, I recommend you start grabbing some domain names for yourself!
Sure some of the names aren’t cheap, but if you picked up LifeInsuranceComparisons.com.au for $3,001, how many cases would you have to write to cover your investment? Makes sense doesn’t it…?
The sales results I’ve used in this post have come from Netfleet and Drop, two Australian companies that specialise in auctioning domain names. If you have a spare moment, it may be worth your time checking out both sites and seeing what’s available.
Those prices are a clear indication of the bubble in domain names. A .net.au domain name is worth no more than $1,000. Good luck to anyone buying at those prices. I’ll wait for the bubble to burst thank you.
Thanks for your comment, but I’d have to disagree.
There are plenty of net.au domains that have sold for big money outside of the finance niche, and it seems that they are becoming easier to rank in Google for competitive terms.
Search Google for ‘life insurance’ and take note of the first result. I’d be surprised if you still think these domains are overvalued and are worth less than $1k.
There are a few good ones in your list, but lifeinsurancecomparison.com.au for $12,000 is a joke. The domain is way too long. It would be a stupid name for a finance advisory.
I know $12,000 may seem like a lot, but consider this – there are around 1,600 people who search Google every month for “life insurance comparison”. That is a lot of potential clients! How many would you have to convert to cover your costs? Not too many I’d say.
Secondly, your company name doesn’t have to match your domain name. Your main business could still be called “Rod’s Financial” and have its own corporate website, whilst the other website (lifeinsurancecomparison.com.au) would be used purely for lead generation.
We need to think outside the box when looking at ways to generate leads online. Believe me, over the next decade or so the financial advice (particularly life insurance) industry in Australia will be completely turned on its head by what’s happening online.
We have a new leader in this category as of today, with homeloancalculator.com.au selling for a massive $33,001! It may seem like a lot, but I’m willing to bet that we’ll look back in a few years time and consider it an absolute bargain.
Think about the type of person who would search Google for “home loan calculator”. This is probably the perfect target market for any mortgage broker or company in the home loan space.
Congratulations to the buyer, and condolences to the person who let it expire (the name was purchased through the expired names auction).