Branding David

What is sure to be an interesting event is being held at my favourite building in Toronto, the MaRS Centre on July 21st from 6pm to 9:30pm called Cross Media TO. Billing itself as a conference that will bridge the gap between the different media sectors in order share information and find new opportunities, the event includes demos, debates, case studies and a panel presentation that is sure to open the eyes of many business executives still working hard to understand the changing landscape of media in North America and the world.

The list of speakers looks rather impressive, and don’t worry if you don’t recognize their names, just look at their titles and the companies they work for. If they don’t have experience in modern media, then who would?

Jacob Blackstock – CEO, Creative Director and Lead Designer, Bitstrips
Richard Bernstein – S.V.P. Managing Director, Arc Worldwide, A Leo Burnett Company
Lisa Charters – SVP Director Digital, Random House of Canada Limited
Colleen DeCourcy – Former Chief Digital Officer for TBWA Worldwide
Douglas Edwards – CEO, ES3
Sabrina Geremia – Head of Agency Relations, Google Canada
Gavin McGarry – President, Jumpwire Media
James Milward – Secret Location
Siobhan O’Flynn – PhD, Transmedia Consultant, Narrative Now
Steve Pratt – Director CBC Radio 3, CBC Radio 3
Chris Van Noy – Chief Strategist, Akamai
Pete Watson – Senior Business Development Manager: Consumer Partners, Research In Motion Limited (RIM) / BlackBerry

I’ve been invited to the event to cover it, and will be publishing posts on a variety of different blogs thanks to the friendships I’ve made over the years. I will hopefully give those unable to attend a good rundown of all that is happening. Check back here the night of the event, as well as the day after.

And if you are interested in attending, you don’t have much time left, so jump over to the Cross Media TO website, and purchase your tickets today!

Here are some of my latest domain purchases, some of which I want to develop, others that just seem decent to me.

• BargainVine.com
• BrandRant.com
• BrandShoppe.com
• CapitalSeed.com
• DomainStumbler.com
• GoThumbs.com
• HireVine.com
• LessonNetwork.com
• LinkedCareers.com
• LogoSpring.com
• MarketingBits.com
• MatchTask.com
• OptimumPPC.com
• PayPerClickEdge.com
• PictureNest.com
• RSStoMobile.com
• TaskMatch.com

I have to stop buying domains, but I really enjoy acquiring new names. They give me ideas, most of which I’ll never find time to utilize, but all are fun to consider.

I have always thought of myself as an idea person. I am good at coming up with ideas for solutions to problems, or to create new sites.

I don’t think of myself as a domainer, but I definitely own more than my fair share of domain names at this point.

Anyone else suffer this exciting, and potentially expensive “disease”?

Sea Winds of Sea Isle is a website that focuses on a very particular business in a very particular geo-locality. It’s not your ordinary website, and therefore requires a very unique approach with branding, online marketing and visitor conversion.

A good friend of mine, Ryan Caldwell, has recently been put in charge of their online marketing efforts. His main concern is that despite higher traffic then their competitors, the site seems to be lagging in conversions. He was looking for someone to bounce some thoughts and ideas off of, and contacted me to give him an in-depth overview of where the site stands, and what changes or ideas I would make.

After some great back and forth, here is what I have come up with.

History

The site, being only six months old,has the disadvantage of not being well-aged. The search engines place a lot of value in the age of a site. In fact, most websites start off with a major search handicap for the first 9-12 months of their existence. The young age is definitely an obstacle that requires extensive work in order to compete against other, older websites in the same real estate and online rental market. Don’t be fooled by the fact that this is a relatively small niche. Sometimes small niches in valuable local markets are the toughest nuts to crack and worth the most long term value.

As the web ages and the barrier for entry decreases, the number of people competing in any given market is going to grow with time. This is especially true in the real estate industry since most everyone now realizes that the web is the perfect tool for real estate agents to market their business.

Local Search and Citations

One of the reasons that small, regional niches can be tough online industries to compete in is that search engines like Google use different methodologies for determining geo-relevance. Rather than simply looking at the raw strength of a website, they look for what are called “citations” – references around the web which contain some or all of the following information

A – Business Name
B – Business Address
C – Business Phone
D – Business Website

By tracking “citations” search engines can then group websites together which belong to the same general geo-location. The most important sites for any location are going to be the ones with the most citations in the most relevant places.

So what are the most relevant places? Read on. (more…)