AftermarketDomains

Direct Navigation

For many years the trend in purchasing domain names has been to simply secure your offline business name. The reason being, if people are looking for your business online and know your business name they would type it in to their browser, adding a .com at the end.

This way of finding a website is called "direct navigation."

As the Internet matures, the number of potential customers online is growing and with it, the number of ways to promote your business online.

Your typical website marketing campaign would involve targetting search engines, directories and gathering links from other sites related to your subject matter. Have you thought about securing generic domains to capture those potential customers who use direct navigation?

While it's a common belief that the majority of people navigate the Internet using search engines, recent data has proved surprising. Recent industry research highlights that in September 2004 more than 67% of daily global Internet users arrived at websites by "direct navigation", defined as typing a URL into a browser address bar or using a bookmark - rather than through search engines and links, up from approximately 53% in February 2002 (Source: WebSideStory, Inc.'s StatMarket division).

Direct Navigation and Generic Domains

A Generic Domain is a domain name that is representative of entire industries, or services. Generic domain names are usually constructed using one or more common words, for example, cheapmanchester.com or tvrepairs.com.

While people are typing business names into the browser bar, they are also typing in generic terms such as summerholiday.com or computermonitor.com.

Type in traffic (when the user who has used direct navigation lands on the website) refers to the visits by people who have typed a domain name into their browser without knowing that the website exists there.

How can I benefit from Direct Navigation?

Direct navigation creates type in traffic for generic domain owners. This type of high quality traffic is extremely valuable for the domain owner.

Savvy marketers and online business owners, who have recognized the value of type in traffic from direct navigation, are purchasing generic domains for alternative marketing strategies.

While search engine marketing and links from other websites will help the branding of your website, the method of direct navigation will ensure that your visitors are actively interested and looking for the product or service related to your domain name, and will find your website without the "middleman".

How can I profit from Direct Navigation?

Purchasing a generic domain can help you dominate your niche and increase sales for your online business.

Currently, the most popular and effective way to profit from direct navigation is to place your website on a generic domain name relevant to your industry with high quantity of type in traffic.

For example, you sell office supplies but your business name is "Quality Office". You own qualityoffice.com and you want to capture direct navigation type in traffic so you purchase officesupplies.com and build a website to place on this domain.

Aligning your business with an entire industry or service by registering generic domain names will result in high quality conversions.