We get tons of emails every week about “how can I be a successful blogger” “how can I make money blogging” and the like.
To be absolutely honest, we didn’t really have a strategy, we just fell into long term travel. However now we have got the bug, and we’re making a decent living whilst we’re away we find ourselves wondering the same questions… How do we do it? What are we doing that makes us a popular blog vs. the hundreds of others out there that write better stuff than us?
Our answer is: Our domain name, teamnomad.co.uk
We found our domain using service called DomCop.com and in this article I’m going to explain exactly why it’s amazing, and also why you should be using it when looking up a new domain to start your travel blog.
Reason 1: Variety of Domains
They have a staggering selection of domains. It goes without saying that a vast selection is a good thing when looking into buying a domain name! Here’s a snapshot of their availability on 23rd July 2015:
That’s over 12.5 million domains you can look up at any given second.
Some services are just linked to godaddy auctions, but Domcop goes one step further and has dropping domains that don’t have a service provider, as well as namejet, snapnames and some other more obscure domain sellers.
For comparison, the last tool I was using (register compass) had less than half of the inventory of Domcop at any given moment.
For you, this means that when you search for terms like “travel blog” – you’re going to get more than double the options that you get from anywhere else.
Reason 2: Domain Metrics
Domain metrics refers to what third party tools think of your domain. So there are tons of companies, like Moz.com, Ahrefs and Majestic that all have their take on your domain. Becky and I found teamnomad when it was a DA 20, but we worked hard and now it’s nearly DA40 (woo go us!).
If you want to get a huge head start with Google, then it’s worth it to take time out to learn what the different metrics mean. You can find bucket loads of information about this online – but domcop do a great job of discussing it in their getting started guide here.
I won’t go into too much detail, but the relationship between Citation / Trust flow from majestic SEO is what I tend to look for, with TF being higher than CF. This used to be a manual reviewing job, but thankfully DomCop stepped up and added it to one of their filters!
Which brings us nicely to…
Reason 3: Advanced Filtering
This is the number one most amazing and obvious features that really sets Domcop apart from any other domain finding tools. Check out these filters:
Then when you click on show filter, it gets interesting!
This probably looks boring to you – but I promise you when you get started this will be where you spend nearly all of your time. You can tweak exactly what you want in each domain. So here’s an example that we used to find teamnomad in the first place:
- Includes Words: “Travel” or “Nomad”
- MajesticSEO Citation Flow over 30
- MajesticSEO Trust Flow over 30
- com Domain Authority over 20
- Must have at least one .EDU referring link
- Over 30 FB Shares
- All Domain Sources
- Under $100 to buy now
Now that might sound like a lot of information for you to get your head round, but this gave us over 100 options to choose from in one week – which is marvellous really. If we wait for another week – there’s another 100.
Your domain name is the most important part of your blog – get the best domain name possible!
Reason 4: Expiring, Expired and Archived Domains
The domain name that you actually want might have expired 8 days ago. If that’s the case then there is only one service online that lets you look it up – and it’s this one.
Basically you’ve got a few options when searching:
Only Expiring Domains – If you’re going for mega competitive terms and you’re searching all the time then this is where you’ll be. It’s really unlikely that a popular domain will expire and go to the ‘expired’ section unless there is something seriously wrong with it.
Only Expired Domains – Particularly useful if you’re on a strict budget. Here you’ve got the list of domains that expired recently and weren’t hoovered up. 99% of the time these can be bought for just the domain fee from your usual registrar (I use TSOHOST.com)
Only Archived Domains – Here you’ve got all of the expired domains that have been saved by Domcop. This is often a goldmine of old treasures if you have the time to go through the lists.
Search all – well, duh – search all!
Reason 5: Fantastic Onboarding
If you’re not familiar with what the purpose of buying expired domains are, or you’re still on the fence about the benefits – just go to the site and signup. You’ll get emails welcoming you and within a few days you’ll start to receive emails advising you on how to use the 7 day free trial. USE THE TRIAL!! Also make sure to ask them questions, as you’ll find the team quite supportive.
So that concludes my quick review of DomCop. As usual shoot me a question if there’s anything I can to help. Good luck and Happy travels!