I am always fascinated how a lot of domainer’s perspective is really narrow. If you ask them if they had $100k to start an online business, in most cases they will tell you that they would start by buying a great domain and say, spend $90k on it. Then use the remaining $10k to build a site by a freelancer and maybe spend some money on Google advertising to get it running. Then you get websites like property.com as a result of this approach.
On the contrary I would spend a maximum of 20% on a domain, more probably even 10%. I would plough the rest into developing a great user experince, great content and at least 50% into various forms of online marketing. When we’ve been developing sites, this approach just brings a better ROI for us.
It’s sad to say, but I don’t think an absolutely great domain is a prerequisite to success online. In some cases I can actually even see it as being detrimental. Because you quickly get the mindset that you have the best domain in the niche and your competitor’s don’t, hence you supposedly have an edge. But that’s the reason why your competitors work even harder to get ahead of you. It’s a little bit like dutch disease, in which natural resources become more of a curse than an advantage. It’s just that here your curse may be a great domain.
And now hate me!
