Omer (00:11.840)
Welcome to another episode of the SaaS Podcast.
I'm your host, Omer Khan, and this is the show where I interview proven founders and industry experts who share their stories, strategies, and insights to help you build, launch, and grow your SaaS business.
All right, today's guest is a serial entrepreneur and former VP of GoDaddy.
He's a prolific domainer with a portfolio of over 30,000 domains.
He sold many of them for seven figures and one for even eight figures.
He owns a number of online businesses, including DN Forum, which is the most popular domain name forum on the Internet with over 500,000 members.
So today I'd like to welcome Adam Dicker.
Adam, welcome to the show.
Guest (00:59.830)
Thank you very much.
It's a pleasure to be here.
Omer (01:02.150)
Okay, so just kind of preparing for this.
I realized that it was really hard for me to describe what you do because you have so many different businesses.
So could you just spend a couple of minutes and just give us some a better insight into all the things that you're involved in?
Guest (01:24.530)
Sure.
I do run a large portfolio of domain names.
I'm constantly buying and selling domain names, but there's obviously a method to my madness, and we'll go through that as we go on.
I run dnforum.com, which is the largest online community, consists of 500,000 people that buy and sell domain names and want to learn about SEO and a whole bunch of other online activities that relate to their business.
I also run a company called ibobble.com which makes custom bobbleheads for people.
We've done a lot with that.
I built a pretty large website design company called nichewebsites.com and that does really well, and we keep that busy.
And then I also set up something called reputationrepair.com which everybody who has kids or have things said about them or have been online probably has a picture or a story or an article or comment that somebody posted that they want to get removed.
We find that's a really huge business.
As more and more people get online, kids post pictures of themselves drinking, and then when they're older and they want to get a job, those things need to come down.
They don't know how to get those down.
So those are just a few of the things that I do.
I do spend a lot of time in domains building sites with niche websites because I can get any site ranked within two weeks on the front page of Google.
So I enjoy that.
I enjoy talking to people and I keep pretty busy.
Omer (02:38.930)
I want the audience to get a sense of the size of your business.
And I think it's easy for anyone to set up a website and have something that looks like a business, but you've got some pretty significant businesses there.
So when we were sort of talking before we started recording, you mentioned that reputation repair alone is a $500,000 a month business.
Guest (03:00.020)
Yeah, that's true.
Obviously it didn't start that way, but it got built up and it became a very successful business on its own.
Now I spend a lot of time on Adamdicker.com, which I set up to pay a lot of this forward and teach people how to build online businesses, how to get them ranked, and how to do the online and offline marketing of their website.
Online is kind of like the SEO stuff and offline could be anything from I supply them with custom flyers and we also do on site and off site SEO, which helps any business that has a website grow and build its customers.
Omer (03:34.110)
Now, before we get started, one of the things I always like to ask my guests is what gets them out of bed every day.
And some people like to share a success quote which is sort of reflects how they think or what inspires them.
Other people just have different reasons.
So what drives and motivates you?
Guest (03:56.330)
So for me, it's about the passion and the drive and having the.
I set every day up as if it's a new day.
It doesn't matter what I did the day before.
I have goals and things that I want to take care of that day and I always have.
Since I started out on an online business and running my own business, I always kept a bell on my desk and I still keep it there.
And every day I try to hit my goals for that specific day.
And when I do, I ring the bell.
It makes me feel good that I've accomplished what I wanted to accomplish that day.
And usually it's monetary.
I think when I started out, I may have been trying to make $50 or $100 a day.
Obviously the goals are a little different as time goes on and as the business grows.
But ideally you want to keep.
You got to have that passion to get up work, stay focused.
Especially if you're working on your own and you're working at home.
You've got to be able to stay in that mindset and not get out of it and focus on getting your goals done for the day.
One of the things I like to tell people is to make sure when in my office, the first thing I do is I focus on the revenue affecting goals first.
So Anything to do with taking care of a customer, sending out a quote, sending out an invoice, answering emails, doing support.
And I have staff obviously that does this, but does this with me.
But I make sure that I get anything that's revenue affecting first.
And I may have 20 things I want to do for myself for some of my own domains or my own businesses, but those things can always wait.
The most important thing is the stuff that affects the revenue and the customers because I want to make sure they're taken care of before anything else.
Omer (05:19.420)
Most of the people listening to this show are software entrepreneurs or people who want to start a software business.
But I think there's so many lessons in what you have done and how you've built all your businesses that I think that the audience can really learn from.
So I want to go back to something that you said earlier about how you can take any domain and get down to the front page of Google within two weeks.
How are you so confident that you're able to do that?
Guest (05:52.280)
Well, I've been able to do it previously for numerous customers of mine.
So it basically takes a lot of different things.
It's doing your on site SEO very well, making sure that your pages are optimized so Google knows what they're looking for and can find them.
And there's some consistency between the page titles and the article.
For example, a lot of people don't know that if you're using WordPress or anything and you use dashes between your page titles, that'll work.
So it could be like the best domain names that'll give you some credibility.
But if you use underbars, it doesn't do anything.
Google ignores the underbars.
So there's a lot of different little tweaks you can do to make sure that you're giving your website the best possible chance to be listed.
You're making your keywords notice that you want to be linked for.
You're making sure that they're bolded where they need to be and that your images have image tags on them so that Google can see and read those as well.
That's just the on page stuff.
And then there's a ton of off page stuff that we do, whether it be press releases or videos to YouTube.
YouTube is very powerful right now.
It's probably the second most powerful search engine right now behind Google and it's not surprising that it's owned by them.
But their stuff, if you rank it and you, you do your videos and use the right keywords, even in your videos because YouTube converts your videos, it transcribes them for you so your text is there too.
So just knowing how to do all that and get everything organized, it's very easy to get ranked if you know what you're doing.
You don't have to go to companies they'll charge you thousands and thousands of dollars to tell you they'll do it and won't actually do it.
It's something you can learn to do on your own.
Omer (07:25.670)
So let's talk a little bit about your domain portfolio.
Well, first of all, I want to know what's the eight figure domain that you sold?
Guest (07:37.800)
I can't really get into too much details about it because it's under a non disclosure.
I can tell you that it was sold to a company that owns a lot of banks and grocery stores.
So they had the money to spend the domain name and when they actually wanted it.
There was quite a bit of negotiation, but it did sell.
But I have had many other interesting stories that I can talk about.
For example, I'm a big animal lover, so I went out and I bought elephant.com and giraffes.com and worm.com and seals.com and I bought a whole bunch of animals not knowing that the largest insurance company in the UK was elephant.co.uk and eventually they came to me and offered me money for elephant.com and I wouldn't accept their offer.
So they sued me and they lost.
And eventually they had to pay a lot more to get the domain name.
So there's lots of cool stories about domains.
I've had people call me and tell me they want to buy a domain name.
This domain name was megacity.com and then I told them it was like $20,000 I think I said $60,000.
And they said they're going to, they had a trademark and they were going to sue me.
And then they hung up on me.
So I figured, okay.
And then two weeks later they call you and pretend they hadn't talked to you before.
And then eventually the same guy came back and he ended up paying $65,000 for the domain name.
So you get all kinds of characters buying and selling domain names.
It's all in the buying.
If you don't buy the right domain names, you're not going to sell anything.
And then buying and selling is the same as it is in software.
It's the same as in any business.
If you don't understand that 98% of the business is understanding how to negotiate and how to sell, you're not going to do well, because let's face it, any person go out and register a whole bunch of domain names, that doesn't mean they're going to be able to sell anything.
Omer (09:17.770)
Now, I think a lot of people might kind of look at what you do and sort of say, well, you know, I mean, you're buying these domains, you have no intention to use them, you're kind of sitting on them and just, you know, looking for that opportunity to sort of make money out of people.
And I think in some cases you're able to find those big buyers for these domains.
And in other cases, I think you might have the, the small startup who doesn't have a lot of money but could really do with a great domain, but just can't afford to do that.
One, how would you respond to that?
And two, I want to talk a little bit about, in those situations, what a startup can do to find the next best domain.
Guest (10:06.560)
Sure, there's a few points to that.
One is, I wouldn't recommend that people go out.
The type of domains that I get are not the types that would be company names or, or things like that.
I don't go after company names that already exist or things like that and try to profit off of their trademarks or their hard work.
Just so your listeners know, it's a $100,000 fine if you're found profiting off somebody's trademark plus any revenue earned off of it, plus any revenue perceived that the company has lost off of it.
So you don't want to go out and register things like great Coca Cola or Vanilla, Coca Cola or Cherry Pepsi is great, or anything with their, their trademark in it.
You want to stick to domain names that a business could use, but you want to stay fairly generic.
Something like Chicago Landscape or Chicago Drywall or Chicago Painting or Chicago Divorce.
These are just some examples that are very generic and you're not going after somebody's brand.
And let's face it, most domains will not sell in the six, seven and eight figures.
I sell a ton of domain names, but I sell most of them in the four to five figure range.
And those are the types of domain names that you can pick up still today for $10 and sell them for 25 to $3,500 within three weeks to a month.
And I'm pretty sure all of your listeners would be happy if they spent $100 on domain names, sold two for $3,500, and made $7,000 out of their original $100 investment in a month.
Omer (11:27.240)
I think most People would be quite happy with that.
But the question is, how the hell do you actually find any of those domains?
Guest (11:33.600)
Well, and that's the thing.
And people always ask me, is it too late to get into this business?
The answer is no.
There's tons and tons of people and more people getting online now.
It's basically like a pyramid.
When I say my father's age, let's say for example 70 and up, they're about 10% computer literate.
Whereas my age, which is the 40 to 60 range, 49, is about 50% computer literate.
But my kids age is 100% computer literate.
And as far as I know, the population isn't going to stop having kids anytime soon.
So there's going to be more and more and more people getting online and those people are going to eventually be old enough to run businesses.
They're going to need businesses, they're going to need websites, they're going to need social networking, they're going to need domain names, they're going to need websites, they're going to need all this stuff.
So to think it's a bad time to get into this business, it's just getting better and better.
And I could give you there's tons of domain names.
We could Register today for $10 and sell for 25 to 3500 within a few weeks.
Omer (12:28.230)
So can you give me an example of maybe some domain that you've done that with recently or you know of somebody who's on that?
Because I think sort of maybe a lot of people's experience, maybe mine as well would be, is you come up with an idea for a domain, you go to godaddy or wherever you look up and obviously the.com is taken in sort of 99% of cases.
You try to do all kinds of variations and it seems like you know everything.
Every time you feel like you've come up with a unique idea that surely no one could have something with that combination, it seems to be taken.
But from what I'm hearing from you, it's like, no, actually there's still a lot of opportunity out there.
Guest (13:10.090)
There definitely are.
And there's certain industries that are more computer literate and more online than other industries.
For example, locksmiths are very big online and they know the value of a client.
So one of the things I do we haven't really talked about yet is called lead generation.
So I set up DallasFences.com for a gentleman in Dallas and I built the website and I started to collect the leads and I ended up sending him so many leads that he couldn't handle and he had to send them out to a competitor.
And I was getting 20% per lead, which is on offense it's about 15k.
That's like $3,000 per lead.
So in that case I still own the asset and I was just sending leads.
Now if he decides he doesn't want to take the leads anymore, I can find somebody else to forward those leads to.
There's tons of people in industries out there that can get leads.
The best place to look for ideas is Angie's List because there's thousands of different occupations that could use leads and they're all services, whether it be electricians, plumbers, could be framers, people that do framing, picture frames, could be people that sell glasses.
Dentists are very good because they'll pay you about 125 to $150 per lead because they may get you, they may get your spouse, they may get your kids, and if they're good, they're going to keep you as a lifetime client.
That's a lot of money for them.
But there's chiropractors.
I mean there's so many different industries that could benefit from them.
And what I like to tell them is you're only going to pay me if you get the customer.
So I don't want, I'm not going to charge you per lead, I only want to charge you per converted lead.
And then you make a lot of money.
And who would you go up to that said that would say, no, I don't want new business if you're guaranteeing they don't have to pay you unless they get a client.
Omer (14:41.720)
How do you approach these businesses and is there some kind of formal agreement you put in place with them?
Guest (14:51.160)
Yeah, you can.
I mean for a lot of them it doesn't really matter because there's a system in place called Twilio Twilio.
You can get a local phone number for a dollar a month and then I am in charge of that phone number.
So if I'm sending you leads and you decide you want to cut it off, you've had enough, then I just un forward that number and I forward it over to somebody else.
All those phone calls, the customer is told they're recorded.
So you know, if the sale was made, you can do your own follow up tracking and you can see exactly what's going on.
It's a good system and it makes a lot of money and you don't have to leave your house and you don't have to do an ounce of building fences or cleaning teeth.
Omer (15:22.830)
So in the example of DallasFences.com, you bought the domain, you built out the site, started driving traffic to that site.
And then every time somebody expressed an interest in buying a fence, whether it was through email or a phone call, you would forward that lead onto.
Guest (15:48.440)
Well, it would automatically be forwarded to whatever company I made the arrangement with.
And I would have tracking in place and I'd be able to see what number called in and how long they were on the phone and when it went.
If it's just a quick phone call, I know it probably didn't go anywhere.
But if it was a longer phone call, I may want to listen to it and see what happened.
The other thing you want to do is follow up, because I could send the lead to three different people and they'll have three different closing results.
I had a company where I was sending leads to and two different people were answering the phone.
I eventually figured out that one person was closing 81%, the other person was closing 12%.
So as soon as we dropped the 12% person, the leads started to get better, the closes started to get higher on both sides.
So lead generation is a great business because you still own the asset and you're making great money off of those leads.
Omer (16:29.580)
How do you track whether a lead becomes a customer?
Don't you lose visibility once you forwarded that phone call onto.
Guest (16:37.420)
No, not at all.
Because there's two things.
One, you can go back and listen to the phone call, or two, you have the originating number that called in.
So it's very easy for me to.
And it's appropriate for me to call in and say, how was your experience with the fenceguy.com?
did it work out for you?
No.
Okay, what was the issue?
Oh, the price was too high.
Let me go back to them and see what I can do for you on the price.
It's good customer follow up and it keeps you in the loop.
But generally you'll find that people are relatively honest when they're getting new business because they don't want to screw over the relationship.
It means too much to them.
But you can certainly do your own follow up as you would in any business.
Omer (17:12.010)
Okay, great.
So let's go back to what we talked about earlier.
So let's say, you know, I'm, I'm, I've got a new tech startup.
The dot com domain that I ideally would want isn't available.
Maybe I've tried to, to acquire that domain by contacting Somebody haven't had a lot of luck or maybe they're asking too much money.
What would be your advice in that situation?
Is there a particular strategy to try and sort of pursue to get that domain at a more affordable price for me, or are there other domains?
And I know that these days there are a lot of these, what are called, I guess, gtlds, the generic top level domains.
And there's a lot of those coming along.
And so how important is it for me to still get a.com versus maybe some other kind of domain?
Guest (18:12.460)
It really depends.
If you're using it for your own business, then it's not so important.
But if you're looking to buy and sell domains, the general public isn't really aware of the new GTLDs yet.
There's things like.lawyer.detist so it could be like Adamdicker.dentist if I was a dentist and so on.
But the general public isn't aware of that as much yet.
It'll take about two to four years before it starts to come mainstream and before we start to see them in ads and things like that.
But as far as you're talking about for your own business, you could use the dot com, but depending what the price is, you can try to negotiate it down.
But the main thing is the buyer sets the price so you could have an unmotivated seller.
And that's the only problem that you may have.
You may have somebody that doesn't really need the money.
I've had people come back to me five years, six years later and say, look, this domain you were trying to buy, I'm willing to sell at the price you offered.
Now, I wasn't back then, but people's financial situations change.
So just because they said no and gave each other $4,500 and your offer was $2,500 or $1,000, doesn't mean that they're not going to look and come back to you within three months or six months.
But in the meantime, what I would do is probably, if it was out of your price range, I would definitely look at one of the new GTLDs that makes sense for the industry that you're in for building up your own business.
They're very good.
Omer (19:28.380)
Is there any, any sort of downside when it comes to SEO and Google or rankings with us?
Guest (19:36.300)
No.
No.
The good thing is invested a lot of money in these as well.
So they're making sure that there's no downside to them.
Omer (19:42.120)
Now these days I often hear that you know, SEO is really kind of dead, right?
You should, you should obviously be doing some of the sort of the, the on page optimization.
And beyond that, it's really about getting, excuse me, beyond that, it's really about getting high quality backlinks.
And the way to do that now is to create lots of high quality content.
Is that also your view or.
When you teach SEO these days, how important is content as part of that strategy?
Guest (20:27.880)
So content is very important.
You can have a thousand cookie cutter sites using the same articles from ezinearticles or something like that, and that's not going to do much for you at all.
It's always important to have new, fresh, original content.
And there's places you can get it from.
I don't own or have any affiliation with this place, but you can get content written for as low as $7.
An article from a place called TheContentAuthority.com it's good, high quality content.
And they'll write the articles on any topic.
You just tell them the keyword and off they go and the subject.
But content is important, but so is doing the on page SEO.
They're all things that help.
But right now one of the biggest things is obviously getting your site and building your reputation on social networking.
That's having your Facebook page, having updates, having contacts that go back to your site, having specials that go back to your site, get a $20 coupon.
Getting on Twitter and getting on Pinterest right now is ahead of Twitter as far as being one of the top sales places to make money as far as selling products.
So you don't want to forget about Pinterest, you don't want to forget about Facebook, and you want to make sure you're spending a lot of time.
It's almost worthwhile hiring somebody just to go and monitor all of your social networking stuff.
So if questions come up, you can answer them.
Even if there's something negative in social networking, it all depends on how you answer that reply that makes people view your company better or worse.
It's important to be heavy into social networking as much as it is to do your website.
You can put a lot of time in to make a really good Facebook page that describes your company and all of your updates and your posts and your content should also be on your social networking sites.
Omer (22:02.430)
So when you launch a new site, how much effort do you put into doing keyword research?
And is there usually one primary keyword that you build the entire site around?
Or do you tend to have multiple pages focused on Multiple keywords.
What's the sort of, the general strategy that you sort of take?
Guest (22:26.840)
So the best thing you can do is if you're going to do a site, let's say on, I don't know, divorce, and I'm just making something up now, divorce.
And that's it.
It's in Chicago, you're better off doing the long tail keywords because everyone's going to advertise for the big ones and those are going to be expensive.
But you can get software tools.
I think there's a free version of something called Traffic Travis, and it allows you to do a lot of keyword research.
You definitely want to target a lot of what we call the long tail keywords, stuff that goes beyond Chicago divorce and can get in there.
Because there's all kinds of different types of divorces.
There's uncontested divorces, which basically just needs anybody to fill in the paperwork and send it in.
There's all kinds of different things you do, but you definitely want to work on those long tail keywords, which are the two, three and forward keywords.
If you're just trying to compete for insurance, you're going to be competing against three quarters of the world.
But if you start to get more specific and you look for Toronto automobile insurance or something, you even break it down even further than that, you can get in there and get something even better.
Omer (23:29.960)
Is there a limit on the number of local searches that you expect a keyword to have to make it interesting enough for you?
Guest (23:40.040)
Oh, yeah.
I mean, local keywords are regular keyword searches.
It should have a lot of important things.
More than the number of searches is the cpc, the cost per click that an advertiser has to pay for that.
And you can look at a site called, you can look at Google, the keyword tool, the keyword planner, or you can look at a site called SpyFu S, P Y, F U.
And it tells you everything that people are actually looking for.
So if there's a keyword like Chicago divorce, it'll tell me everybody's advertising how much they spend and it'll show me even what their ads look like.
So definitely you want to take a look at something like that and just use the free version.
Omer (24:16.050)
Got it.
So the number of, if I just understood this correctly, the number of searches is less important and it's more important to know whether advertisers are spending money there and how much they're spending.
Guest (24:31.890)
You definitely want to know the number of advertisers and how much they're spending So a keyword that May be above 3$4 a click but may have less searches is okay because it's got 10 or 11 people.
You want anything that's advertising.
Over six to eight companies are advertising on that keyword.
That's a good one to work on because that's where the money's going to come in.
And that's what you're targeting.
You're targeting getting those visitors without having to pay for those ads.
Omer (24:57.910)
Now the one thing that strikes me is how do you find the time to work on all of these businesses?
Guest (25:04.710)
Well, I have a decent sized staff, but the bottom line is I enjoy it.
I have a passion for it.
I love it.
It's almost like a puzzle for me.
So you know when you love something and you enjoy it, it's not hard to work on it.
I mean, I could spend hours just researching and learning something new every day.
It's very enjoyable.
And if you got that passion for it, you're going to be successful.
Anytime you chase a passion, usually the money will follow and you don't have to worry about it.
Omer (25:27.810)
So if you were starting over today and building a new business, a new online business, where would you be starting today?
Guest (25:37.110)
Well, I mean, I guess the first thing I'd have to do is figure out something that really interested me and then I would have to figure out if I could make money with it.
And then based on those two qualifications, then I can decide whether that's something that I want to go into or not.
I mean, ideally we need to make sure that we have something that we really like and something that we're passionate about so we can put everything we have into it.
If we don't really like it, we're not really going to put much into it, so it's not going to be great.
Omer (26:04.310)
What does that mean for you in terms of putting a lot into it?
And if you were launching a new business today, how much time would you be spending on it?
And how long do you think you would be working on that site before you started generating any revenue from it?
Guest (26:20.950)
So again, you picked the topic.
I'm thinking of a topic now and I would just.
Let's say I wasn't going into domain stuff and I was building a website.
I would pick a topic, I would do the research on it, and I have to treat it like a regular business.
You have to do a marketing plan, business plan.
You have to do a budget and figure out what your cost would be and then figure out if it's feasible.
Usually with an Online business, if you do all that and do your marketing properly, it should be profitable within two or three months.
Omer (26:44.430)
Sounds really easy.
Guest (26:45.710)
Well, you're not having to pay for a business.
I mean, it's not as easy as that.
We all know that.
But when you have the knowledge, it makes it a lot easier.
And that's why when I started in this business and a few others, I went to somebody and I said, look, how much for two hours your time?
They said, $150 an hour.
I said, well, I'll give you $250 an hour, but I really want you to dedicate and listen to me and don't answer your phone and let's get this stuff done.
That $500 that I spent probably saved me about two, two and a half years of learning.
And it's important to stay ahead of the trends.
In any industry.
You don't want to be a follower, you want to be a leader.
So even in software or other industries, you want to make sure you're ahead of the times.
You want to make sure you know what's going on.
But always get the opinion of an expert.
And even in domain names, get the opinion of a buddy.
I have people that bounce ideas off me all the time.
Do you think this is a good price for a domain name?
Am I paying too much?
Am I selling too cheap?
You've got to have that person you can trust that won't try to go out and scoop you on the same domain name just because you told them what it was.
But it's important to be able to talk to other people that are in similar situations to you that can offer you good, sound advice.
Omer (27:45.220)
Okay, so let's spend a little bit of time talking about DM forum, because that was a business that you bought, I guess, over 10 years ago.
Guest (27:55.570)
Yeah, I think it was somewhere around 2002, so about 13 years ago.
Omer (27:59.250)
Yeah.
And I think you told me earlier that when you bought that business, it only had about 30 or 40 members.
And today, as I mentioned at the beginning, it's the most popular domain name forum on the Internet.
It has over 500,000 members.
So let's spend a little bit of time.
I'd love to figure out what you did to build that business to where it is today.
So first of all, the question is, why did you decide to buy that business in the first place?
Guest (28:34.580)
So I had bought a domain name off of somebody and I thought the business.
He told me that there's a whole business around buying domain names.
I thought I was Just buying a name.
So I said, okay, where can I go learn about this business?
And he said, go to dnforum.com so I went there and I liked what I saw and I learned quite a bit.
And then I decided I wanted to be more dominant in this industry than just some guy who was going to read a little bit and play around a bit.
And it was a free forum at the time.
So I called up the owner.
I made an offer to him on the domain and the site, and it was a very high offer and he thought I was ridiculous.
He told me to go F myself and he hung up on me.
This happened a couple times.
Then finally he realized I may be serious.
Eventually he did sell me the site.
We later became friends and we went to a couple of basketball games together.
And he's a great guy.
But I ended up paying, I think it was like $75,000 or $85,000 for the site.
That really wasn't much at the time, but I had a feeling I could make it into a leader in the industry.
And that's pretty much what's happened.
And I've turned down seven figure offers for the domain and the website since then.
I'm not sure he's that happy with me anymore, but I think he probably would be.
So, yeah, now there's over 500,000 members.
It's a great community.
There's always 1,000 to 2,000 people online, 24 hours a day on this site.
And they're just talking about buying and selling domain names or building websites or SEO or anything to do with domains and websites they're always talking about.
To me, it was interesting.
It was a way that I could try to learn to make money as well as learn about the industry.
At the same time, I went out and I added a lot of affiliate products to the site.
I went out and I got a bunch of paid advertisers and then I started to advertise on different blogs to get the site out there.
And then slowly by slowly, the site kept growing and growing and growing to where it is today.
It's a really good site.
I still enjoy going on there and reading and learning, and every day there's something new.
Omer (30:32.300)
So when you say 500,000 members, these are all paying members, Correct?
Guest (30:39.330)
A good portion of them are.
I would say some of them aren't, because originally it was free for a while and then we went pay.
But I would say a huge portion of them are paid members.
Omer (30:49.410)
And I'm just looking at the site now it's what is it, $67.50?
Guest (30:57.410)
It should be $59.95 or something like that.
It's not a month.
It's a one time fee.
Omer (31:03.010)
Oh, it's a one time.
Okay, got it, got it.
Guest (31:05.090)
It's a one time fee.
So I think it's, I think for a platinum membership, it's $89.95 fee, lifetime membership.
And I think the Gold membership is like that one's free.
So Gold allows you to buy domains, it doesn't allow you to sell them.
Platinum allows you to buy and sell domain names.
Omer (31:21.230)
Yeah, I'm seeing platinum at $67.50 and I'm seeing.
Guest (31:26.350)
Well then it's on sale.
Omer (31:28.750)
I'm seeing diamond for 399.9.
Guest (31:31.470)
Yeah, that gives you a bunch of extra features and some one on one calls with me and things like that.
So it really helps you build your business quicker.
Omer (31:39.820)
Got it.
Guest (31:40.460)
There's all kinds of different ones, different memberships.
Omer (31:43.340)
So, Adam, you kind of make this sound so easy.
What were some of the struggles that you had and some of the mistakes that you've made during those early years that you sort of look back now and sort of wish you had known more?
Guest (31:59.180)
Yeah, I mean, there's lots of those.
I mean, we learn from our mistakes, not from our successes.
So when I started taking over this forum, it was a much smaller industry.
Nobody really knew about it and people didn't like me posting tips and tricks and secrets on there because they wanted to find and get all the good names themselves.
So I took quite a bit of heat for that.
And eventually I said, too bad, I'm building a forum on people to come here to find out this information.
And I built the forum and basically I did take a lot of heat for it.
But in the end I'm glad it turned me more into an educator.
Now I spend a lot of time speaking at conferences and educating people, paying it forward because I want to help pay it forward in an industry that's been so good to me and I want to help other people make money and be successful at it.
So I took a little bit of heat for that, but that's okay.
And then other times there's times where I may have overpaid for a domain name because I wanted.
I had a business idea for it and then maybe it didn't work out so well, so maybe I had to decide to sell it for less than I paid for it.
Luckily, that hasn't happened too often, but there's other sites where I've had Tried eight, nine times to try to build out a business on it.
It just didn't work.
And then eventually I just had to sell the domain name.
Omer (33:04.520)
Okay, great.
And then for YouTube, can you maybe share an example of some tactics that you use when it comes to YouTube on how to use that to both help rankings and drive traffic?
Guest (33:21.160)
Sure.
So some good tips for YouTube.
Again, you want to make sure you want to get exactly what you're promoting.
So you want to make sure that your video is pretty top.
It's got your keyword, you're titled it the same as your article or what you're trying to promote.
And you make sure that you're getting some other really cool stuff done on YouTube to make sure that everything matches.
But I'll give you some simple tricks that you can do.
First of all, you want to research your idea, make sure that it's popular, and you want to be original.
You want to be yourself.
People want to get to know you as a unique person.
So you want to make sure that that doesn't.
As far as that goes, there's all kinds of SEO tips that you can use as well to make sure that you're getting what you need to do.
I'm just trying to think of a couple in my head.
But the fact that it does and transcribes the video to audio for you, that helps you a lot too.
It really helps as far as getting things out there.
But some of the other stuff that you may want to do is make sure that you do definitely use the title of your your video.
Use the same keywords.
You want to make sure that in the description or video, the description is about two to three lines to get your ranking in the search engines, and that also has your keyword in it.
You want to make sure that before you upload your file, you name your video file before you upload it.
And you can use those keywords as well Instead of having MOV001AVI, it's yourkeyword MP4.
And then on your YouTube page, you want to use closed caption featured in your YouTube video, because closed caption gives the video a new way to get indexed in the search engines and people won't really know that.
And then you also want to make sure that you're tagging keyword research on YouTube.
Make sure that you tag everything that you can and list specific tags first.
So put your main keyword first.
And doing this puts weight in the YouTube algorithms to get you more exposure.
So use your main keyword and then you can list your general tags and things like that.
Omer (35:24.100)
And then what's the goal here with YouTube?
Are you trying to get the actual video ranked and then hoping that some percentage of people will click through to your site?
Or are you trying to use the YouTube video as sort of another signal to help your own website rank better?
What's the sort of the strategy here?
Guest (35:53.110)
Well, you probably, ideally, you don't want to post everything in your YouTube video.
You want to post enough to get them interested.
And then at the end, you can put a splash screen that says for more information, visit.
And then you post your website and you also have that link in your description as well.
And that way you'll get some feedback traffic.
And the goal is obviously to take them to your site and have them purchase whatever it is the video is promoting.
A lot of people do this for affiliate products.
They do reviews of other products and then they give them a link where they can go through, and it's using the person's affiliate ID that did the review.
And that gives you a lot of revenue.
So the main goal is to get.
It gives you two things.
It gives you exposure on YouTube and hopefully it gives you some traffic back to your website where you can actually sell your product or your service.
Omer (36:32.890)
Got it.
Okay, that makes sense.
While we're on the subject of affiliate marketing, you know, I kind of.
One of the things that I often hear in that world is that, you know, things have changed a lot.
It was much easier for people to be able to sort of build an affiliate marketing business five years ago.
And these days it's much tougher and much harder.
And most people who try to do that fall flat on their face.
So what's kind of your view on sort of the state of things with affiliate marketing in 2015 and beyond?
Guest (37:15.750)
So at the beginning, Google would allow you to create AdWords campaigns for affiliate products.
So I could type something in like, get the best sitemap creator for your website and have a link directly to an affiliate program.
Then Google said no for some reason, and I'm not really sure why.
I guess their advertisers weren't getting the target they wanted or something like that.
Or the customers are complaining their affiliate links, but I don't understand why they cut it out.
And that made it much more difficult.
So then you had to create pages or mini sites and then advertise those on AdWords and then have the links on those sites go to the affiliates.
So it made it a lot harder.
It made an extra step in the process.
But if you're already running a business and you've already got some traffic and you've already got related products on your website, it's easier to sell them.
But you can still get ranked for something like affiliate marketing tips for beginners on a five tail, five word, long tail keyword and still get ranked for something like that.
Or you could do things like diet for gout sufferers or something like that, and then you'll get indexed.
But those keywords that you pick for your domain name should match whatever people are searching for in the Google Keyword Planner to make sure that you're looking for what they're doing searching for.
And that way you can have a website that's titled the same thing and then when it pops up in the search engines, you've got a more likelihood of getting those people over and converting to your site.
But there's still lots of money in affiliate marketing, there's no question about it.
Omer (38:40.040)
Okay, let's talk a little bit about you and how you sort of manage your time and all of these things that these businesses that you're working on.
So what does, what is it sort of, you know, how do you structure your week?
What does a typical day look like for you?
Guest (38:58.420)
A lot of times it doesn't look like I expect it to look when I get started.
Because when you're in any customer focused business, there's issues and there's things that need attention.
But how I structure it is basically like I said, I do all the revenue effect and stuff first.
Then every day I meet with my project managers.
So I'll have a project director who runs each one of my websites or one of my businesses.
We'll take everything up, we'll discuss everything, we'll discuss direction and move on.
But every day is really unique and different.
I definitely take time off to spend with my family.
And that's the other thing.
If you're going to be a really successful entrepreneur, you have to learn how to balance work and family.
Because really the only thing that you're doing this for hopefully is for your family and not just for your ego.
So you want to make sure that you spend enough time with the right people.
Because we know of nobody who died and said I wish I would have spent more time at work.
Omer (39:46.720)
Right.
Guest (39:49.330)
But I mean, typically the days they change.
There's lots of meetings.
Like for example, I've got like three interviews and four other meetings today and I'm going to be working probably right till 9, 10 o' clock tonight because I've got Big sites I'm working on for customers, some stuff for me and it's interesting.
Every day is different, that's for sure.
Omer (40:06.690)
How many hours do you work in a typical week?
Guest (40:09.410)
Oh, well, I tend to work sometimes when you're running your own business, as you know, sometimes you don't get to dictate your own hours when stuff needs to get done, you just have to do it.
So sometimes I end up putting in a few hours on the quite a few hours on the weekend, at least till football season starts and then forget about me on Sundays.
But no, I end up putting in quite a few hours.
If I had to guess, It'd probably be 60 plus in that area.
But you also have the freedom to take off time when you need to and prioritize what you need to do.
That's one of the good things about escaping out of a cubicle or out of an office or routine and working for yourself is that you know when you have to get things done and there's a time to relax and go for a massage and there's a time to get something done and make sure that you're focused and work till it's done, regardless of whatever hours it is.
Omer (40:51.630)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, I left a 14 year career at Microsoft and you know, started my own thing.
And I think the thing that I struggled with the most was exactly as you said, is you kind of, it's very easy to start working all of the time because things just need to get done so you just do them.
And also when you work from home, I think one of the things that I found really hard was that it's very easy or the lines get blurred quite easily.
And so I've heard from some people who'll say, no, I actually go and still work in an office or I separate where I work and you know, where sort of family time because otherwise everything gets so blurred and you find yourself working all the time as well.
Guest (41:41.230)
Well, and a lot of people have a lot of trouble getting that work out of their head.
Like you have a problem.
Like I used to remember when I was running a computer company and my server would die or something would happen, my server, I couldn't focus on anything else but that there was no way I could relax.
My websites were down.
I couldn't go out for dinner, I couldn't go to a movie because I knew everything was down and I felt like the world was ending.
But eventually I grew out of that and I realized that, okay, so it's just down for an hour or Two hours and life will continue.
But you still want to make sure you mitigate those kind of times.
But you've got to make sure you spend time with the family, because that's the important time.
Like I said, I mean, the work stuff has to get done, obviously, but it is really important to manage your time and manage it properly.
And I think that's one of the biggest problems that people have when they're working at home or they're working on their own or running your own business is making sure that you learn how to manage your time rather than spinning your wheels for four hours.
Spend an hour, really work hard, and then take the rest of the time and do whatever you need to do.
Omer (42:36.650)
Yeah, that's great.
All right, Adam, it's time for lightning round.
I'm going to ask you a series of questions, and I'd like you to answer them as quickly as you can.
Are you ready?
Guest (42:45.770)
I guess just go easy on me because I'm not sure what they're going to be, but go ahead.
Omer (42:49.610)
All right, good.
What's the best piece of business advice that you ever received?
Guest (42:55.860)
The best piece of business advice I ever received.
Just to work hard and the money will follow.
Just make sure you work as hard as you can, have passion, have drive, and away you go, and you'll be great.
Omer (43:08.580)
What book would you recommend to our audience and why?
Guest (43:12.980)
So when I was younger, I read a book called Body Language by Julius Fast.
And I read it when I was about 13.
I've read it a few times since.
And what it does is it teaches you everything about how to read people, how to manage relationships, how to tell in a situation when business is going well, how to see when you've lost somebody in a conversation, in a business meeting, how you need to bring them back.
It teaches you all kinds of things about posture, and it's good for not only business, it's good for any relationship that you have, dating, whatever it is, marriage.
It's a great book and it really helps you in life and something you can use in everything, because there's not a time in our lives when we're not having to figure out what somebody's thinking or.
Or how many times has your spouse or somebody said, what are you thinking now?
They'll be able to tell if they read this book.
Omer (43:57.170)
All right, what's one attribute or characteristic in your mind of a successful entrepreneur?
Guest (44:02.930)
Charisma.
I think you have to have a lot of charisma, and you also have to be confident but not cocky.
You have to be well, I'm giving you a couple.
But you also have to be approachable.
Don't think you're better than anybody else.
You're not.
Omer (44:16.210)
What's your favorite personal productivity tool or habit?
Guest (44:21.630)
Habit would definitely be setting daily goals.
You have to have daily goals for yourself.
Things that you want to accomplish and goals that you want to achieve.
And never forget that every day before that.
Doesn't matter how well you did.
Set goals for yourself every day and reach them.
Omer (44:36.350)
What's a new business idea or some crazy idea in your head that you wish you had time to pursue?
Guest (44:44.590)
Hmm, crazy.
And there's probably lots of crazy ideas in my head.
What would I like to pursue?
Honestly, I don't really know that one.
I don't know what I would pursue.
I mean, there's all kinds of problems in industries and things like that, but maybe I would have done my own trade show, my own conference.
I probably would have done that.
Omer (45:03.990)
Well, I think you get an extra pass on that anyway, given that you have so many businesses sort of already.
Guest (45:10.470)
Yeah.
Omer (45:11.190)
All right.
What's an interesting or fun fact about you that most people don't know?
Guest (45:17.640)
So, to relax, I either watch Animal Planet or I watch sports.
But my wife always yells at me and shakes her head when she walks in the room and says, I can't believe you're watching animals.
But listen, after as good as elephants were to me and all my other domain names, I can't give them up.
I love them.
Omer (45:32.600)
Well, your passion for elephants worked out quite well financially, I guess.
Guest (45:36.360)
It did, it did.
And now I love them even more.
Omer (45:40.360)
And finally, what is one of your most important passions outside of your work?
Guest (45:44.440)
Definitely sports.
I find it relaxes me.
It pulls me out sports and comedy, But I find sports just relaxes me.
My mind can just enjoy whatever I'm watching and I don't really have to think about work at all.
Omer (45:55.720)
That's great, Adam.
It's been a pleasure having you on the show.
Thank you for taking the time to share your experience and wisdom with us.
If folks want to find out more about you and your what you teach wiz, what's the best place for them to go?
Guest (46:16.350)
So you can go to AdamDicker.com and you can just fill in the contact form or you can email me@meadamdicker.com youm can also feel free to add me to Skype@adam.dicker and because I do like to pay it forward, I always give out my cell phone number and people are surprised that they actually reach me when they call, so don't be surprised.
I'll actually answer the phone.
It's 416-884-0535.
Love to work with you guys.
Love to help you out, and I'm there for you.
So.
Wow.
Omer (46:44.770)
Do you get a lot of calls?
Guest (46:46.930)
Surprisingly, no.
Like I said, I get a couple where people are surprised it's really me.
But surprisingly, I don't get that many.
I mean, I get calls, yes, but not a ton.
No.
Omer (46:56.610)
That's amazing.
Adam, thank you very much for that, and I wish you all the best.
Guest (47:01.250)
Thank you.
It's been a pleasure and an honor being here, and I really enjoyed the interview.
Omer (47:05.010)
Take care.
