Ever since I discovered the value of ‘exact match’ domain names I have been trying to snap them up for my business.
What is an exact match domain name? Basically it’s a domain name that matches your product or service perfectly. For example if you were selling life insurance, the perfect domain name would be lifeinsurance.com.au
The problem is that a lot of other people have caught the exact match bug too, and prices are starting to get fairly high. Today though, they reached new heights…
The domain name www.investmentproperty.com.au sold for a whopping $125,000 on Netfleet.
This may seem like a ridiculous amount for something as basic as a domain name, but stop and think for a moment about the number of people who would search for the term “investment property”…
Need some help? Well I can tell you that according to Google, there are 49,500 people who type the phrase “investment property” into Google Australia every month. That’s over 1,500 people every single day!
Now think about the dollar figures involved in property investment, and all of a sudden $125k actually seems quite cheap.
I would encourage all financial advisers and planners to snap up any exact match name they can get their hands on, as this is really the way of the future. Something like lifeinsurance.com.au is probably going to be way out of the ballpark for most firms, but keep your eye out as you never know what might pop up for a reasonable price.
People in the finance industry are finally getting the value of domain names! Prices will keep going up, so grab them while you can people.
Hi Peter, thanks for your comment.
I think there is still a long way to go, but yes there are a few people out there who are seeing the value in these domain names.
Unfortunately though, most of the people seeing the value and putting down the big bucks are not financial advisers, and instead are smart website operators who can see there is big money to be made.
The end result is that many financial advisers will spend their lives paying others for leads instead of generating leads for themselves.
Google is placing less emphasis on exact match domain names now, as they are commonly used by spammers to get better rankings in Google.
They may work well now, but it’s a bad investment as they won’t work forever. It is better to invest in solid SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) that will give you long term results.
I recommend that financial advsiers create a brand and use that for their domain address, then use SEO to rank highly for life insurance and other big terms.
Hi David,
There are rumours around that Google are giving less value to exact match domains (EMDs), however most people will agree that they still provide a great boost.
The other thing to remember is the brandability of a generic term.
If you want to check out some real estate, where do you go? Realestate.com.au of course.
Yes they have done plenty of branding around the name, but would they be so dominant without such an easy to remember and industry defining domain name?
If you had the domain lifeinsurance.com.au and were competing with others in television or print advertising, I can guarantee that yours is the website they would remembers.
I agree with you that SEO is important, but do you know how much it costs? For a term such as ‘life insurance’ you would be looking at a minimum monthly spend in the thousands with no guarantee of even reaching the first page.
So I do agree that EMDs are very slowly become less important, and I do agree that SEO is also important, but I still believe very strongly that good domain names can have a major impact on an advice business.
Thanks for your comments David, I do appreciate them.
Overpaid. No question.
Moron. No question.
Shane knows what he is talking about!!!