What price a website address?

What price a website address?

Today’s Conveyancer has been having a look at the value of web domains and what they deliver for conveyancing firms.
American domain expert, Aaron Visaggio of www.buydomains.com, has been talking with us because he is acting for a client who wishes to sell one of the prime conveyancing domains www.conveyancing.com.  His client clearly thinks that this domain has significant value as the asking price is $225,000.
Given that we are in one of the most depressed conveyancing markets that many can recall we thought that we should look a little further into domain name valuations and what value that might add to a conveyancing firm.
Google adwords suggests that there are 131,000 searches for the word “conveyancer” every month in our local market but how far would the domain name get you up the rankings and drive instructions?
Speaking to Elizabeth Mulligan of Domain Giant in the UK she said
“Google’s exact ranking algorithm is a very closely guarded secret but what we do know is that it is extremely biased in favour of keyword rich domain names (i.e. domain names that "do what they say on tin" such as DoubleGlazing.co.uk, British Gas’ gas.co.uk or B&Q’s diy.com) and also tends to rank older domains much higher than brand new ones.
Numerous SEO companies try to "game" the system with cloaked pages and link farms and Google is constantly trying to maintain the integrity of the ranking process and so closes down these "black hat" methods almost as soon as they are tried.
It has come to realise that 99% of quality keyword domains that are a few years old tend to have established websites on them with quality content. Launching a new website with a brand new domain names is almost impossible to get decent search engine rankings for at least a year”
Elizabeth believes that one way of getting good rankings is to use “long tail word” domain names and she presently has for sale :-
ConveyancingBelfast.co.uk, ConveyancingBrighton.co.uk, ConveyancingDevon.co.uk, ConveyancingHampshire.co.uk , ConveyancingHertfordshire.co.uk, ConveyancingsSuffolk.co.uk, ConveyancingWestMidlands.co.uk, ConveyancingWestSussex.co.uk, ConveyancingSolicitorsLiverpool.co.uk, PropertyLawyersLondon.co.uk, DiscountConveyancing.co.uk, CheapestConveyancingSolicitors.co.uk, LandConveyancing.co.uk and CommercialConveyancingSolicitors.co.uk
She went on to say:
“A keyword rich Domain name is not a magic wand for a guaranteed 1st page result on Google and the other major search engines. SEO is very much like a recipe, you need to ensure all of the ingredients, keyword density in content, link building campaigns, new content, Blogs etc in there or there about the right quantity to ensure a sustainable position for your website.
Industry and Location domains are valuable to Businesses because they describe precisely the Businesses products and services in their geographical location.”
Interestingly domains like these long tail word domains can be bought for between £50 and £500 or rented.
Using the google adwords keyword tool we can see that “conveyancing solicitors Liverpool” gets about 260 hits from searches per month.
When considering the ranking algorithm’s biases it would seem that www.conveyancing.com could be a beneficial domain name for firms carrying out conveyancing but would it be beneficial to the tune of $225,000, which is around £137,000?  You would need to complete an awful lot of transactions to get a return on your investment.
For further information or to obtain the details of Aaron or Elizabeth please email info@todaysconveyancer.co.uk
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