EMD's How much should you offer for a good one?

[gdavey]

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

[EGOL]

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.

[gdavey]

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

[BlueprintMarketing]

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

[EGOL]

**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.

[BlueprintMarketing]

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

[gdavey]

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

[BlueprintMarketing]

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.

[gdavey]

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

[EGOL]

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.