Direct Navigation Market

The Best & Most Effective Internet Marketing Strategy

Familiar to just about anyone who's ever surfed the Internet looking for something, but only recently gaining public awareness in financial press, is the Direct Navigation method of maneuvering around the Internet.

Simply put, direct navigation is finding the information you're looking for without using a search engine, a directory of sites, or clicking on a link from another site.

Direct Navigation traffic, also called type-in traffic, refers to traffic generated by a person either typing a URL (a web site address) directly in the browser address bar or going to a site directly from a bookmark.

Direct Navigation traffic is a continual stream of highly targeted traffic that does not rely on search engine placement or paid advertising or links from other web sites.

It is the purest and most targeted form of traffic on the web, and considered by many to be the highest octane virtual fuel that drives the Internet.

How to Determine if a Domain
has Natural Type-in Traffic

The easiest way is to check your statistics or the raw logs on your server. If you have a domain with natural type-in traffic, from the day you activate hosting on a domain, you continually receive visitors with no referrers in your stats and raw logs.

If traffic is from links on other web sites (that your company doesn't control) or from search engines, then what you're getting is temporary traffic. Oh it may be temporary for a few years or longer. But it's still only temporary.

Back in 1999, how many companies were #1 on AltaVista for their industry's top keywords? Are they #1 in the most popular search engines now? Does AltaVista even show up in their referral logs today? How about Excite? Or Lycos?

Don't be fooled into thinking what's working today with search engines is going to work next year or the year after. Certainly not several years down the road. The short history of the Internet has already taught us otherwise.

A Peek Inside an Industry Conference

There's an engaging article by Paul Sloan, a business and technology writer who previously worked at US News & World Report and CNN's Moneyline, from the December 2005 issue of Business 2.0.

Paul traveled to the affluent, oceanfront community of Delray Beach, Florida, in October of that year to cover the TRAFFIC 2005 conference hosted by the Delray Beach Marriott. The conference was a successful follow-up to the historic, inaugural TRAFFIC 2004 conference 12 months earlier at the same hotel.

Paul's article about the conference and the often-misunderstood industry of "domainers", domain revenue streams, and domain portfolios helps explain the inner workings of this specialized industry to a new and expanded audience.

A Misunderstood Industry

Over the past several years, we have watched people's eyes gloss over when we try to explain our business model. Just about every person we've spoken to incorrectly assumes that the bulk of our business entails registering domains and sending the traffic to parked pages (parked domain monetization), designing web sites for clients, registering domains and selling them for a profit, or charging businesses for advertisements on our web sites.

The above activities actually comprise an extremely minute segment of our business, and not one of them is significant to our bottom line.

In our business model we've developed a larger percentage of our portfolio than the pure 100% PPC model Paul writes about. But, just like our colleagues who hold closer to 100%-PPC portfolios, we build multiple, continual, self-sustaining revenue streams, where we control the majority of our traffic; hence, we control our revenue.

Always keep in mind that without type-in traffic, a web site's traffic (or lack of traffic) will be determined by many factors, none of which are within a company's control. Factors like whether or not search engines like the web site; or if a company's PPC advertising budget is adequate to secure the top keywords in their industry; or if a webmaster can get quality web sites to link to their site in a veiled attempt to make their own site appear popular; and so many other factors that are simply outside a company's control.

It seems clear that if a company wants to be the leaders in their industry segment, the easiest--albeit initially costly--method is to control as many natural type-in domains for their particular industry as possible. In the long run, it will likely prove the most economical, as it will assure the continual traffic necessary for profitability.

Building a Domain Portfolio

If you're considering building a solid portfolio of domain names, the first thing to keep in mind is that the majority of domains in your portfolio should have natural, type-in traffic. They should not rely on search engines, paid links, links from other web sites, press releases, or advertisements (print, web, radio, tv) for visitors.

Search engine placement, paid advertising, press releases, and links from other web sites may all be useful for temporary traffic boosts, like during a sale or promotion, or for an announcement to an expanded audience.

However, these methods of traffic generation should never comprise the bulk of traffic to your web site. Unless you have natural type-ins as the bulk of traffic to your web site, you're headed for trouble because you are not the one who controls traffic to your web site. And if your traffic is controlled by another entity, they can cut it off, essentially ending the stream of visitors to your web site. And without those visitors, your web site will be like a jetliner running out of fuel; you'll fall from the sky and so will your profits.

On the other hand, unless the Internet collapses, direct navigation and natural type-in traffic is not going anywhere in the foreseeable future. It will be here tomorrow. It will be here next year. It will continue year after year, even as new search engines rise in popularity and functionality while some of the current search leaders wither and die off. The traffic from natural type-ins increases in numbers and value year after year after year.

The Industry in the Spotlight

It's very likely that with Paul's informative article, as well as the concurrent Wall Street Journal article about the domain industry, a lot more people will start to understand just how solid investing in direct navigation is, as well as the security it provides. Security because you don't have the drain of expensive marketing campaigns, nor do you need the costly expense of paying a SEO for the temporary result of keeping your web site placing well with current search engine algorithms.

Limited Time, Unique Opportunity

Good type-in domains are getting more scarce by the day, so our recommendation is to take the plunge and purchase a few quality domains now, before they're all swallowed up by portfolio buy-outs and investors with the really deep pockets.

Time is running out for the unique opportunity of finding good domains at affordable prices, and if a company doesn't own good domains now, chances are they may never experience the continual flow of natural type-in traffic.

Type-in traffic is highly valued by those who understand it, know how to get it, and know how to use it. But as more businesses become aware of the natural, continual flow and high conversion rates of direct navigation traffic, we believe this type of traffic will increase in value exponentially in a very short time.

Exposure of a little-understood industry is always good, and perhaps Paul and others are opening the eyes of companies who may have previously dismissed the value of type-in traffic. And perhaps another effect from this exposure is looming on the horizon: The more who become aware of the value of good domains with intrinsic targeted traffic, the higher prices will rise; and buying a good domain may soon be beyond the reach of many of us.