Here is another great article written by our guest author, Kabir.

Branding fanatics will surely enjoy this one. It is all about the impression you give to your prospective clients/customers.

Kabir Bedi is a senior web consultant at LeXolution IT Services, a professional web designing company that deals with a variety of web-based solutions like website design & development, internet promotion etc. he has completed many international web design projects in the due course of his career.

7 Things You Need To Include In Your About Us Pages!

The ‘About Us’ page of your website is of prime importance and are often ranked highly on many websites. However, not many realize its crucial importance and just throw in some bland words about the history and mechanics of the company. As the web becomes an integral part of interactions with people, the About Us page on your website is an easy and effective way to engage your audiences in a personal and more friendly manner. This is your chance to impress your prospects and sell yourself. So make sure you make the best out of it.

Here are 7 things that you need to include in your About Us page:

1. Your Brand Name

This is quite obvious! But still there is an alarming number of websites that forget to include their brand name in their About Us pages. However, simply mentioning the name of your company or business is seldom enough. What you need to inform your audiences is why is your company called what it is called. This is a great way to establish a personal connection with your visitors and present them with an interesting story about yourself!

2. Include Images

Images are not only a great way to enhance the visual appeal of pages but also earn the trust of your visitors. People like to see who they are dealing with and that is why you should always include photographs of your company or key business professionals on your website. This will let visitors see the force behind the website and trust you more.

3. Use the First Person

The best way to establish a personal connection with your visitors is to address them directly! So, instead of talking about your company or yourself in third person as it were someone else, use first person and introduce yourself directly. Not only will your content sound more personable, it will also create a stronger impact on visitors.

4. Address the Needs & Requirements of your Users

About Us page is the only place on your website where you can afford to be a little self-promotional and blow your own trumpet. However, it is important to make readers and prospects feel that they will benefit by contacting you. So while talking about yourself, make sure you present your business as the solution for the key concerns of your target audiences.

5. Keep the Content Up-to-Date

The content on About Us pages mainly traces the history of your company and business but don’t let the info become too stagnant. Make sure you update the content of your About Us page now and then. The News Room is a great place to update the recent events and happening pertaining to your business, but any awards or recognitions that you win sure needs to be showcased in your About Us pages too.

6. Use Crisp and Compelling Language

Even though About Us pages are an ideal place to provide detailed information about your company or business, don’t just go on and on lest you turn off your visitors. Instead, write only as mush as they would be interested to read. And use crisp and compelling language that entice visitors and build up their appetite to know more.

7. Place a Call-to-Action Button

So, they have read about your company and now know a little more about your business. What next? Where do you want your visitors to go after they have read your About Us page? Your portfolio? Your Contact Us page? Make sure you place a call-to-action button on your About Us page that will lead visitors to their next destination.

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It’s been hectic and chaotic over the past few weeks, but within all the madness, a lot of things got done.

In the summer I blogged about my intentions to have 2 new brands launched by year-end. I also purposely wanted these 2 new brands to be non-domaining related. Work on the Aeroplanes.com project has justifiably taken up the bulk of our time, and it will be some time still before Aeroplanes.com go live.

Nonetheless, I was determined to launch a new project using one of our top domain names. After much research, strategising, planning, development and hard work, we have now successfully launched Skull.net.

The idea behind Skull.net is simply “What were they thinking?!!” or better yet, “Have you knocked your head (skull)?”

It is a community where users can upload and share their funniest pictures and videos, and even audio. The pictures and videos can contain anything that people witness and manage to capture in their everyday life that is just out of the ordinary.

Users can easily share the pictures and videos that are uploaded in a variety of ways. They can embed videos, share the links and even copy and paste the links to their blogs, forums, websites, via email, etc.

Social bookmarking is also enabled, making it easy for people to share videos and photos on social networking sites such as Twitter, Digg, StumbleUpon, Facebook, etc.

There is also a social networking element built into the site itself, where users can invite their friends to join, make new friends in the community and comment on and rate pictures and videos uploaded by other users.

There are loads of other features. The technology is quite robust. However, this is just the beginning. We are getting ready to start work on phase 2, which will even give users the ability to share more funny stuff. Can’t say what’s coming next. You just have to wait and see.

This brand will play a strategic role going forward. Unfortunately I cannot share in public or private anything else about the technologies or plans, as we cannot afford to lose any competitive edge. This is the real world, where business is as real as it gets.

It’s good to share ideas, but what competitive advantage or benefit would one have if they openly expound their business/operational plan?

Skull.net should set the pace going into 2010. I have preaching from day one about branding. It’s now time to practise what I preach. We have some big and mighty plans for 2010 and beyond. So expect less domaining from me.

As I said before, this is a non-domaining venture. I doubt domainers will find Skull.net useful as it is becoming increasingly obvious that a lot of domainers don’t have a sense of humour. I can imagine as well that a lot of people will not “get” the logic behind this brand. Watch this space.

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I have been writing about business plans for some weeks now, and have mentioned their importance in many blog pots over the past year. In case you missed the latest posts you can read them here:
What Is A Business Plan?
Why Do You Need A Business Plan?
The Contents Of A Business Plan.

The idea of having a business plan fo domain/web development seems to have caught on in the domain industry, and it is really about time this happens.

In the domain industry, domainers focus a lot the domain name, and just the domain name. They can afford to, because as with domain parking, they do not even need to have common sense in order to monetize the domain name.

However, if you are going to develop a business with the domain name, then when the business plan is drawn up, you will realise that the domain name bears less than 5% importance. Any business can be launched on any domain name. The domain name used is only important when one starts looking at branding.

The process of branding can only commence after the execution of a good business plan. Well, you can start the brand awareness process long before launch, but your branding efforts will only be successful if you plan well. Nonetheless, it is wise to secure the perfect domain name as soon as possible.

In case you are a bit confused, lets look at an example. Facebook is one of the biggest Internet brands today. However, when they started, I believe they were using TheFacebook.com. When the concept became successful, they realised the need for a better domain name and acquired Facebook.com. I believe I read somewhere that they paid some $200,000 for Facebook.com. (Please use the comments section to point me to the right data, if you can).

So, yes the domain name is really important, but the business plan is even more important. Without a good business plan, the domain name is absolutely useless, regardless of how much of a premium domain name it is.

Domainers (people selling domain names on the aftermarket) often criticise companies for going public about products or services  before securing the domain name. Well, whereas in today’s world, where cybersquatters are still at large, you can’t really blame these companies for not paying much attention to the domain name. They are doing the right thing. They may work backwards, but at least they spend time focusing on the right thing.

These companies spend time focusing on the product, service or business as a whole. They draw up the plans that will ensure the viability of the business. If it will be an online venture, then the domain name will only bear importance as a means to an end, as they will have to use one in order to be in business. It’s like drawing up the plans for a store, and then hunting for a space to lease in a shopping mall.

No one leases a space in a shopping mall and then go about deciding what kind of business they will put in it.

This is where domainers get it wrong. However, don’t get me wrong, if you are launching an ebusiness, to secure success, you will at some stage need to start thinking about branding. The right domain name will be your perfect weapon. It is in your best interest to secure the domain name at your earliest convenience.

Domain names are only important to eBusiness owners when they are focusing on branding. Domain names are important to domainers because they often caught up in a get-rich-quick mentality.

The more domainers realise that a good business plan supersedes the importance of having the “perfect” domain name, the more we will see domainers setting more realistic prices for their aftermarket domains.

Stay tuned for more.

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Greetings!

It’s Saturday again!!!

Mint.com sold for $170 Million
The big news this week is the sale of Mint.com for $170 million. No, it was NOT the sale of a domain name. Neither was it the sale of a website. It was the sale of a business. Well, in this case, an ebusiness, as it operated solely online (I think).

I was jut really disappointed, to say the least to see a lot of domainers, including prominent bloggers trying to have the domain industry claim this Mint.com sale. This was not a domain sale. It was the sale of an ebusiness.

I even saw people trying to compare the sale to a typical domain sale, by mentioning that the sales price represents 17x the annual revenues of Mint.com ($10 million annual revenue).

Domains are normally priced based on parking revenues where the value is set at a X times monthly/yearly parking revenues.

But quite frankly, that is not how you sell a real business. Far from it.

It was only last week that I blogged about branding. If you do not understand the concept of branding, then you need to look no further than this Mint.com sale. Read the article at TechCrunch.com that is written by Aaron Patzer, the CEO and founder of Mint.com to learn how Mint.com was created and subsequently sold for $170 million in just TWO YEARS.

In my opinion the domain name Mint.com had nothing to do with the $170 million price tag. When I think of “mint”, 2 things come to mind: the place were money is manufactured (literally) and a type of sweet/candy (for example Polo Mint, the mint with the hole in it).

Mint only has 4 letters and passes the domain commercial test with flying colours. However the owner of the domain name would have been extremely lucky if he could sell the domain name by itself for $300,000 in today’s domain aftermarket. Just my opinion.

So how did they manage to get the $170 million price tag? BRANDING.

I have been preaching this gospel for too long now and I now hope people can finally appreciate why I’m so obsessed with branding.

Read the article and take a look at the Mint.com website. It has first class design, great user-experience and great connections to social networking media.

The site also has a very large user-base. I am sure the 36,000+ Facebook fans, 19,000+ Twitter followers and 1.5 million users (as per its Facebook page) played a great deal in the valuation process.

The website is obviously powered by robust technologies. However, in accountancy, you can only value Research and Development at cost (how much you actually spent for wages, experts etc.) and this cost is depreciated over time.

So, when you add up all of the Mint.com assets (at cost less any depreciation, plus any amortisation) I would assume that it would barely surpass $50 million. It is private company so I am just assuming. Don’t quote me. However in my opinion, even that figure is quite generous for the value of Mint.com’s assets at book value.

So that would mean that Intuit, the buyer could have possible spent an extra $120 million more than the book value to acquire Mint.com.

In accountancy, that $120 million is referred to as goodwill. In marketing, it is known as the value of the BRAND.

Now do you really see the true potential of branding?

Branding in this case is all about the potential. I would assume that the $10 million revenue per year played a very minute role in the negotiations. Why? The company is just 2 years old. So the owners could have easily said that they were busy building the brand, user-base and technologies, and weren’t too focused on the revenue side of things. Hence, the bulk of the negotiations would be centered on the potential of the BRAND.

I would give a more in-depth analysis, but I will keep the rest close to my chest. One thing is for sure; this is a brand that I will be studying as a true benchmark of what domain branding can achieve.

So while most domainers are throwing tantrums over declining PPC revenues and Google closing Adsense accounts without warning, they are in reality failing to see the mountains because they are too focused on the foothills. Hey, I am entitled to my opinion.

Big Announcements
I am hoping to make some major announcements next week. So stay tuned. Our newsletter subscribers will be the first to know. You can subscribe here.

Have a great weekend!!

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It’s Saturday, again!!!

Where is the time going?

I have been saying that web development is hard work. But the truth is, web development is damn easy. There is an orgy of tools (even free ones) that you could use to build web pages and even multi-page websites without even writing the opening html tags.

You don’t have to be geeky to build and maintain websites these days. So why do I keep preaching that web development is hard then? I am programmed to think “ebusiness”. Why build a website if it is not going to make you money, or provide supporting services to a branded website?

Now turning a website into a profitable ebusiness is the hard bit. One of the simplest ways to do this is via branding. Nonetheless, I am going to stop preaching the branding message. I now realise that a lot of people don’t get branding. Given that I am now fully engaged in full-scale web development across many niches, it might be in my best interest to keep my branding philosophies close to my heart.

You can’t afford to let the competition learn how you think and/or what you are planning.

Frank Schilling said it perfectly: “I lose a tactical advantage by openly espousing my ideas and beliefs about business. If I tell everyone everything I’m up to, I lose a competitive edge.”

As a matter of fact, when I read that statement I immediately decided to go ahead with my plan to cut blogging to a bare minimum.

Late last year, I blogged about my intentions to launch an affiliate program here at eBusinessDomains.com. Months later, at least 2 big domain industry players launched their affiliate programs. I don’t have any proof that I inspired any of their moves, but I am certain that there businesses out there incorporating every possible ideas floating about in domainer land.

Anyway, back to branding.

Here is a story, I will try to make it short…

I remember, some years ago I was providing consultancy services in the Caribbean to a client that wanted to set up remittance services. The client, who at the time was an ex-banker, shared this story with me about how this very-well known multi-national bank a few years back had tried relentlessly to sell the local banks a software that would enable them to easily and readily provide remittance services.

A remittance is a transfer of money by a foreign worker to his home country. Of course you must have heard about Western Union and MoneyGram. When this US based multinational bank was offering the software the Internet and ebusiness (online) was just about getting popular. The technology would allow the person overseas to send the money, and within minutes, the recipient could collect it from one of many locations, locally.

The banks rejected the software. It was expensive. They didn’t need it. They wouldn’t be able to recoup their costs. They didn’t fully grasp the concept. Blah, blah, blah…

Just a few years later, a private sector company signed up with Western Union and started offering remittance services locally. Now, money sent home by migrants constitutes the second largest financial inflow (foreign currency) to many developing countries, exceeding international aid (the number one financial inflow is tourism).

The local banks suddenly realize that they had had a gold spoon shoved in their mouths but they spat it out. When they tried to get a piece of the action, put their tails between their legs and approached the US multi-national bank, they were simply shown the door.

They had to spend many times over the cost of the US bank’s software to acquire or develop their own technology. This was happening while the private sector (non-banking) company was reaping sweet success and inevitably becoming the market leader.

It’s a long story. But what I am trying to show domainers here is that branding is where the money is. I feel like the US bank relentlessly trying to sell what was obviously a golden spoon. The sooner you understand the concept of branding and learn how to fully analyze the scalability of brands; you will stop wasting money in your domain efforts.

Some domains and niches are fantastic! Great! They are category killers. But you just can’t brand them. Some will need the strongest of end-users to turn them into successful ebusinesses.

I read somewhere earlier this week where BottledWater.com which recently sold for $45,000 is now a blog. $45,000 to start a blog???! The domain name would be worth millions to a company like Evian, but to a normal person/investor, not much. That’s even when they have loads of cash to build any pimped out website.

Some domains are asset rich, but cash poor. They cost a lot to acquire and can be flipped easily. However, developing them successfully will be no easy task! Invest in domains and ebusinesses that can produce revenue.

Anyway, I need to get some sleep. I have a very long day tomorrow, (or later UK time).

Have a great weekend!!

PS. I will fix any spelling or grammatical errors tomorrow .

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