Monte interviews Rick Schwartz & Maurice Tola

[Commercials]

Monte: Hello, everyone. This is Monte Cahn. Welcome to Domain Masters. Another great week. I hope that all my Jewish brothers and sisters out there had a great Happy New Year. I know its still going on and wish everybody Happy New Year. This week's show is going to be pretty exciting. If you remember last week and the week before last, we spoke about the two various ways to monetize your domain names. One, of course, is putting up domain names on PPC landing pages and making money through the direct navigation traffic and advertising links that are on those pages. And the other side was when we spoke to the Internet Real Estate Group guys, Andrew Miller and Zappy, about building out specific brands and identities and they've been spending their time building out specific domain names that have high value into actual websites with content. And right around the corner from our office happens to be one of the best companies in terms of developing content on websites. This company is SWIDigital.com; they have 28,000, 29,000 domain names all live websites, and they monetize their domain names in various ways. One way is the lead generation from the traffic from those websites and we're going to talk to Maurice Tola, their VP of Sales and Marketing and Operations about their business model, what's made them successful and hopefully walk away with a few tips and tricks about how to develop content and be real successful on the web with your domains.

So, we're also going to hook up with Rick Schwartz, Web Father, aka Domain King and talk about the upcoming T.R.A.F.F.I.C. East Convention here in Del Ray Beach, Florida scheduled for October 18th through the 22nd. Moniker is doing a, not only helping to sponsor the event, we're also participating on several panels and sponsoring a live domain auction with a live auctioneer and it'll be the first time in history that domain names are sold in a live auctioneer format with a live authorized auctioneer and buyers and sellers on the floor. So it should be a pretty exciting thing to talk about as well.

So stay tuned. We're going break away for a couple commercials, pay a couple bills, and be right back with Maurice Tola from SWIDigital.

[Commercials]

Monte: Hey, folks, welcome back to the show. As I mentioned before the break, my first guest tonight is Maurice Tola, the VP and Marketing VP and Operations for SWIDigital. As I mentioned SWIDigital has about 30,000 domain names, all of which are built out, developed websites with thousands of content and they specialize more in industry segmentation in the professional areas such as legal, medical professions, accountants, financial planners, health and fitness, education and so forth. And their strategy is very unique and has been very successful for them we're going to learn a little bit more about their business and what's made them successful. Maurice, are you online?

Maurice: Yeah, I'm here.

Monte: Hey, welcome to the show.

Maurice: How you doing today?

Monte: Good, good. So, as I mentioned in my last show, and in the introduction, you guys have taken quite a different approach than most with large portfolios of domain names and it's been very successful for you guys; can you give us a little bit of a background about how SWIDigital got started and a little bit about the strategy.

Maurice: Sure, sure. We actually got started, well, I'm sure you know Anthony McDermott, he's the CEO and founder of the company, back around 1999; and his first act, his first domain names that he got, what he had in mind was really, out there in the legal industry there was only a couple of big companies that were offering advertising for these attorneys. You have Martin Dell Hubble, which is Reeve Ellis who owns lawyers.com; you have Thompson Publications which is WesLaw, who owns FindLaw.com.

Monte: Right.

Maurice: His biggest gripe at that point in time was, you know, how are you going to produce leads or clients to these firms when you have about 100, 150, 200 different firms listed in a certain geographical area that all handle the same area of practice?

Monte: Right; so the problem was putting all these people in a big bucket and trying to get the business as the result of being listed in a portal-type scenario.

Maurice: Same thing. Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's kind of like similar to the Yellow Pages now, if you open up a Yellow Page book, no matter what profession you turn to, I mean, I used to work before I started with the company for BellSouth business and I can tell you that anybody who owns a business gets a free listing in the Yellow Pages . . .

Monte: Right . . .

Maurice: . . . so it was sort of like but on the Internet, and the problem is, Anthony McDermott, he's the type of guy who's really for the people, I mean he didn't grow up with a silver spoon in his mouth, so the thing is that you have the bigger firms out there that are already doing their own PPCs, their already doing their own optimization, and plus, they're on Lawyers.com and Findlaw and these sites, so what it leaves for a full practitioner or a two- or three-man firm, it really leaves them with nothing, because even if they go on these particular directories, they still have no advantage over these other companies that are right above lawyers.com or right underneath lawyers.com.

Monte: Right, right.

Maurice: So, at that time, and this was a long time ago, it wasn't so saturated as it is today with the legal directories; you have a lot of mom & pop operations out there that just go by their domain name, whatever it may be, throw a couple of PPC campaigns up there, whatever, and their off to the races. Uhm, but back then it was a little bit more easier to get into the lawyers and stuff like that but what we found was that with the exclusive listing program that we were offering, and at the time all we had was a PPC campaign, we didn't have an optimization and all this stuff, even with just the pay-per-click program and, excuse me, let me back up, back then it wasn't Google, it was more AOL and that function over there . . .

Monte: Right, and Google, Go To and before Google. . .

Maurice: Right, right. It was just AOL, we had the AOL banners and stuff like that; these guys were producing cases. So that's how we actually started at the [inaudible] and it became, I mean, it was just, even when I first started with the company, I walked in and I said, “Wait a minute. There's got to be some kind of catch here.” But there was no catch. The key to it though, was understanding the industry. There's so many different ways that you can go to gain revenue with the professional industry. Like you were saying before, you have legal, you have medical, you have education, financial; just in the legal industry alone, there are about 30 – 35 different areas of practice. And there are attorney's and law firms out there that specifically handle or try to market to those specific types of cases, like personal injury, medical mal, divorce, real estate, criminal, whatever it may be.

Monte: Right. And Anthony had some foresight, I guess, back in 1999, 2000, by going a little bit geographical back then when most people weren't so he got a, from what I understand, he got a great heads up and a little bit of advantage when people weren't realizing the geographical aspect of the business, he was registering things geographically get more regionalized and [inaudible] geographical at that time and actually paying off big for him.

Maurice: Well, it's paying off big because, believe it or not, I mean, even myself when he told me about it, I kind of stepped to the side a little bit but the direct navigation thing is huge, because we buy everything. It doesn't matter regional. I mean if we own, for example, personalinjurylawyer.com, we also own floridapersonalinjurylawyer.com, miamipersonalinjurylawyer.com, and just by looking at the leads that are generated by these regional sites, people will actually go to their address bar and just type in “www.whatever' without even doing a search. I mean that's how people are getting paid off of these parking programs.

Monte: Right, right. That's the beautiful thing about the direct navigation market, is that that natural type-in traffic, instead of even going to a PPC landing pages, now going to a page filled with content and relevant information about that particular profession.

Maurice: Exactly. And that's the biggest thing between us and a lot of those guys out there that are doing the parking program because even when you go and you type in, you know, there are guys out there that have similar names so when you go there, I mean, you can go to casinos, you can go to this, you can go to that, I mean, its just really a way to you know traffic a client to see where they're clicking at, which is great for Google, also, but we want to be a little bit more for the consumer. We want them to be able to find what they're looking for in one or two clicks, and not only that but we also want to be kind of an informational page so that we can provide pertinent content or information for that particular client is looking for.

Monte: Right, right. So what are the different areas beside legal; I know legal's one of the biggest areas but what are some of the other areas that you guys specialize in and give the audience an idea of how many domain names are in the particular categories, just as an estimate.

Maurice: Okay. Legal, last time I looked, legal is mostly what we have. Let's just say we own 25,000 – 28,000 domain names, off the top of my head, I'd have to say at least 10,000 to 15,000, maybe 15,000 are legal. Then you have some education, you have more financial planner and little here, little bit there of home improvement, plastic surgeons, even accountants and even restaurants, or hair salons, you know; or even personal trainers. You know, these are things that we pick up because we know that in the future, or just like you said, you know, the fitness-type of stuff, this is thing that people are going to be looking for and that we can generate revenue stream from.

Monte: Right. Now, once, okay, so you have all these domain names, so explain the business model a little bit; so now you're actually using an exclusive listing model for your customers so that they get premier advertising space on that particular domain name, is that correct?

Maurice: Exactly. Exactly. Well, what happens is, for example, with the personalinjurylawyer.com, we have one guy that has all of Broward County, so you know, we not only run our PPC program on the personalinjurylawyer.com but we also have our own optimization on that. So if you were to go to Google or AOL and type in “personal injury” you're going to see it come up twice on the first page.

Monte: Right.

Maurice; When a potential client clicks on that and it goes through the home page right away what they're prompted to do is enter in where they're looking for an attorney, whether it be county, city or zip code. We offer an exclusive listing per county, so lets say Jones & Jones is a [inaudible] for Broward County. Right when they type in that city or zip code, in Broward County, whether it be Coral Springs, Summer Pines, Mirramar, Davie or whatever it could be, and hit search, its going right to Jones & Jones' website.

Monte: Right. That's great. So they basically get premier listing, exclusive listing, on that particular page.

Maurice: Correct.

Monte: And you're just driving leads to the business at that point.

Maurice: Correct. Correct. And what also what we've been able to do is create a regional network with all of those different domain names that we discussed about before, that Anthony bought over the years, you know, the regional FloridaPersonalInjuryLawyer.com, so not only will he get an exclusive listing on the national site, but he would also get the exclusive listing on the regional sites as well, for Broward County.

Monte: Right, right. Well, that's great. And something else that's dynamic about your business is that when you have 28,000, 29,000 websites, you have to keep up with content, obviously, when you have them, and I understand, if I understand this correctly, that each of these websites have many, many pages of content and that it is updated on a regular basis. How does that all work?

Maurice; Well, they created (Anthony and the IT and Optimization Team) something called the Global Editing System and kind of like a content manager. We can buy, Monte, 10,000 domain names tomorrow and have them up the next day.

Monte: Yeah, that's what's incredible, this content management system you guys have is very dynamic.

Maurice: . . . .[inaudible], but all, the great thing about it is its not just up with a nice little web page, its all pertinent content, you know, to that state or that city or to the area of practice to the financial planner or whatever it may be.

Monte: Right. And it's updated, how often is that content updated? And how is it automated?

Maurice: Um, I don't really know how it's automated. I don't really get into the system too much like that, but I believe it's updated every other week. Every other week, or every week. I don't really get into the optimization end of it.

Monte: Right, right. So they're updating content on a bi-weekly basis basically, and I know its tapped into some local and state government sites that's updating new and updated information regarding, you know, accident processing and filing and new laws and rules and regulations and that kind of stuff and I saw a demonstration of it in your office where I think it was Alabama Accident Attorneys or Alabama Accidents or something like that . . .

Maurice: . . . Yeah, Alabama Accidents, probably . . .

Monte: Yeah, yeah, so that was pretty cool.

Maurice: Yeah.

Monte: To see it in motion. So really what is happening here is as soon as you get a domain name, you're turning it on, you're filling it with tons of pages of content and its not only general content that looks the same on every site, its SEO driven content so you guys have a full staff of SEO team there?

Maurice: Correct.

Monte: And what's the process once you guys register a domain name and getting it up and running; what, you have 60 or 70 people working at the company, so give us an idea of how that flow works through the office.

Maurice: Once we purchase the domain name, the basic thing is to, we want to get a bunch of domain names in a certain area or what I mean by area, like a bunch of legal or a bunch of financial or, we're not going to just sit down there and buy one or two at a time, unless they're really good domain names and national domain names like PersonalInjuryLawyer.com, which we didn't buy for $7, you know what I mean?

Monte: Right.

Maurice: But, once we get the domain name, it goes back to IT and then IT and Optimization what they do is they work together, because the Optimization Department is what has the actual content. And then, it's kind of like, it's hard to explain the way that they do it. It's like putting certain, they need certain characteristics in order for that content to go there, so it automatically knows, okay, this state is Alabama or this is Florida or this is this and this is TI or this is Ed Mauer or this is this and then we have, like you were saying, state statutes and laws and anything new that comes out. Even news content, current articles of, well, whether it be Martha Stewart on CriminalDefenseLawyer.com or whatever it may be . . .

Monte: Right, right.

Maurice: . . . anything pertinent that can keep it optimization friendly. The most important thing that they don't do, they don't do any of the things that can get your site blacklisted, you know, stuff like that, because it takes a lot longer to get a website optimized by doing it the right way but its more effective, it stays longer and you don't have any problems.

Monte: Right, right. And I guess there's some natural linking going back and forth between the websites, so I assume you guys have several blocks of IPs so that you can do proper linking without having them come out of the same block of IPs so that things rank higher in Google and the other search engines?

Maurice: Yeah, yeah. Correct. Definitely, and also what we do is share links with other people as well.

Monte: Yeah, that's great.

Maurice: People are constantly coming to us wanting our links to be on their site and vice-versa because you know obviously that helps with the optimization as well.

Monte: Right. Now one of the other areas besides the legal that I know, that has a nice portfolio is the medical professions name. Now when I was in the office there one thing I was very impressed with was that many of the customers have written testimonials about how good that this business model has been for them.

Maurice: [inaudible]

Monte: And you guys pride yourselves on those testimonials, I guess.

Maurice: Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, you know, it's like your reputation is everything, you know. Stuff like that, it is. Its really important because not only are the testimonials stating that we are producing cases for them but they mention, these other companies, in these testimonials, you know, how, even though they have a top sponsored link on this certain company, they still don't see the traffic that they do from us. And I don't know if they showed you this, but we also have testimonials from the clients that use our service in Florida to find our clients.

Monte: Right.

Maurice: You understand what I'm saying? So, if somebody's looking for a divorce attorney and we hook them up with one, he writes us a testimonial as well.

Monte: Right, right. That's great, that you guys collect all that.

Maurice: Yes. It's very important, especially when, you know, as a sales and marketing, which is I really control that aspect of the company, it's really good to be able to show, you know, somebody, hey look it works. Now, I mean, the testimonial is just like anything else. You're not going to put somebody that isn't happy with you on your website and let them write a little letter but the thing is is that how do we know the Hair Club for Men works? We see some guy on TV who says he was the president and also the client, who's working for him, so we took his testimonial and went for it. So it's just proof, though, that it can work and it does work for us and for the people who sign up with us.

Monte: Right, right. Now, you run the Sales and Marketing Department for your company. What are some of the things that you do to drive your salespeople to be successful in selling this concept to probably, you know, an audience which is not very, you know, for the most part, they're not typically web enabled, you know, you're talking about attorneys and physicians and professionals; you know, the younger generation, obviously, is online but you must be dealing with a lot of the older generations that don't quite get the concept of a website, having a computer; they probably have their secretaries or their assistants doing most of the web communication back and forth – is that correct?

Maurice: Yeah. You know, to be honest with you, you'd be very surprised how much of attorneys over the past couple of years have raised the bar and how much they know about the internet. Also, how many attorneys now have high-speed internet access in their office. So it's a little bit different than it was back then. I think the biggest hurdle that we jump over as a sales and marketing team is like I was discussing earlier in the conversation, other mom and pop companies out there that will just buy a domain name, you know, put whatever website on it and claim to be able to produce clients for these attorneys. So, you know, when they hear this and when they hear us, sometimes it's hard for them to really make a decision on who's what and what's what. The biggest thing that the salespeople have the advantage of is those overflow cases. That's one thing. I mean, we have tons and tons of leads that are just sitting there because we don't have attorneys in these areas to take these leads. So that's something that we make available to an attorney, like for example, if he does sign up for personal injury in Broward County, he can look at any single case, no matter what area of practice it is, that comes in in the State of Florida and he has the opportunity to pick and choose those cases and call those clients and retain them.

Monte: Right.

Maurice: But again, with the sales and marketing force, it's just really with the lawyers what you have to really sometimes get away, like especially with the older guys that don't understand the internet, one thing that they do understand is producing cases.

Monte: Right, right.

Maurice: And that's what we have to focus on upfront, because its really not about, you know, let me show you this, let me show you that, sir; you want to produce cases, I have overflow cases that I can let you look, I have sample cases coming every day and testimonials. Where else can the conversation go? You know, obviously, we do want to show them where we come up on the search engines and how we do produce cases but at the end of the day, they don't really care about how pretty your website looks, they don't care about how pretty their website looks. They just want clients to call them because of the advertising.

Monte: Right. But the good news is their websites do look good with your system.

Maurice: Yeah, yeah. We actually . . .

Monte: It looks good and its SEO driven and it provides a lot of good information.

Maurice: Yeah, yeah. That's something that we offer, too, because as you know, you've been there, we are a full-service multimedia company so we do have our own web designing department and we offer, you know, to our clients that don't have websites, we'll build them a multimedia package, a website, you know, a basic 5-page website and stuff like that, which is really, really good for the older guys that never, like you said, not really cool with the internet, they don't understand, all they really have to do is write us over a couple of paragraphs about themselves and we'll put a website up for them.

Monte: Right. Well, that's good that you've been able to break those barriers because usually the professional markets are harder markets to sell to because of their schedules. They're a little bit more egotistical in nature and you know, you have to go up a chain. I was in healthcare for 15 years so I had to sell the doctors and hospital administrators and you know, for a long time and had to learn a lot of the tricks that get you in the door because it's a lot harder on average than a general sale of a product or service to, you know, a person.

Maurice; Oh, definitely, and the main thing with talking to the lawyers especially and that profession is just to come and be up front with them. I mean, I think these guys got their secretaries and everybody else really kissing their butt all day long so when they get somebody on the phone to really be stern and say, Listen, and he says, okay, you know, for example, a guy turns around to you and says, alright, well, let me get a free trial. Come on, sir, do you do services for free? I mean, when somebody walks in and wants you to start to do a divorce for them, do you ask for the retainer or do you do it without the money? You know what I mean?

Monte: Right, right.

Maurice: Well, what kind of guarantees can you give me? Sir, it's unethical for you to give somebody a guarantee, why would I give you one? You know, as far as producing cases. And when you hit 'em with these types of rebuttals, they're like, it catches them off guard and they respect you and they want to listen to what you have to offer because they know you understand what they're talking about.

Monte: Right. So give us an example. What does it cost for a typical lawyer or physician to get started on your program?

Maurice: All depending on the area of practice and all depending on the population, for example, Broward County for PI would run around $4,000 or $5,000 for the entire year.

Monte: So, that's not bad. Shit, you pay for that in less than a case.

Maurice: Yeah, oh yeah. One case . . .[inaudible] . . .

Monte: . . . one case referral and you pay for your website.

Maurice: Well, what you really want to look at is if you compare with the other advertising mediums out there, especially, and I hate to go back to the Yellow Pages 'cause for all the internet guys out there, Yellow Pages is not going to be in existence too much longer, but you know these guys are paying $5,000, $6,000, $7,000 a month to have one page in the Yellow Pages and that's just in the Greater Ft. Lauderdale area; that doesn't even reach Hollywood or the other little Yellow Page books that go out, so . . .

Monte: Right.

Maurice: . . . if you look at $60k a year as opposed to $5k a year and you have an exclusive listing with us and the Yellow Pages you're listed with every, you know, Tom, Dick and Harry, it's like there's really no comparison.

Monte: Right, right. Plus you guys are giving some, ah, I understand a lot of the leads are given to, to, besides whets generated on the site, but people actually call in to your into your call center and . . .

Maurice: Yup.

Monte: . . . and you're distributing leads for free . .

Maurice: Yup.

Monte: . . . to your customers . . .

Maurice: Yup.

Monte: . . . just part of being on the network.

Maurice: That is true.

Monte: Yeah, so that's a really good plus.

Maurice: And one thing that I definitely think we have to, as a company, and we've been really successful at generating leads; the biggest sometimes problem that we have is tagging the leads, letting the lawyers know these people are actually coming from us, you know. Because there are a lot of them . . .

Monte: So they can track who's responsible for giving them the business.

Maurice: Exactly. Exactly.

Monte: Right.

Maurice: Because a lot of the attorneys, you know, they're on lawyers.com and findlaw.com already and they don't quit them because they come with us, I mean, Warren Dell Hubble, I don't know how familiar you are with them but they've been around hundreds of hundreds of years. I mean, they write legal books and all that stuff so they're going to stay with them and its hard at the end of the year to make them understand, unless they're doing proper intake on their end, you know, when a client calls up, well, how'd you hear about us? On the internet? Okay, great, what site did you use? You know what I mean? Some people just say, oh, great, on the internet, but you have about three different companies that you're advertising with on the internet.

Monte: Right. Now, if they're clicking through the site, though, on one of the banners, they're being tracked that way and they understand where the leads coming from?

Maurice: Yeah. That way is a really good way to track them because if they click on that banner then it asks them to fill out that Client Intake Form.

Monte: And its tagged with a referral code and everything to see where its coming from?

Maurice: Exactly. Yep, yep.

Monte: Okay, cool.

Maurice: And the thing about it is, its great because it goes right to their email, so right when that client is done filling out that case and it hits the 'net, boom, directly the guy gets an email saying, hey, you got a lead, click here to view the case.

Monte: Right, right. And I guess its important that, especially with legal cases, I would think and with medical cases, that the lead is followed up on almost immediately or else the customer will bolt. . . .

Maurice: Very important.

Monte: . . . you know, to another client, to another lawyer or doctor.

Maurice: One thing that we offer is [inaudible] . . definitely, you're absolutely right, especially in the personal injury field and stuff like that, and criminal, but one thing that we also created for the lawyers is a cell phone notification-type of thing and also I know that we also went wireless on the cell phones, like if you have a Blackberry or something along those lines, it can go to those but what the cell phone notification is is kind of like a text message.

Monte: Right. So as soon as a lead comes in it detects, sends them a message so they can follow up immediately and make a phone call back. Hey, I understand that you're looking for personal injury attorney here in Ft. Lauderdale, here's what I specialize in, and they just follow up right away and your chance of closing that lead is probably a lot greater.

Maurice: Oh yeah, really, they could be in the courthouse waiting to go into court and they get that right away. I mean right now I have it linked to my phone when an attorney, because you know our sites are so greatly optimized that we have attorneys calling us up asking us how to be listed on our site. So when they do do that and they send over an email I get it directly to my cell phone so two seconds later I call the guy up and he's like, wow, that's fast. That's the same thing that's happening for them on their end when a client is looking for representation.

Monte: Right. So what's the future for SWIDigital? Where's the company going and what other avenues are you guys getting into in terms of domain acquisitions?

Maurice: Well, what we want to do is continue, obviously, to acquiring more domain names. I think we'll definitely cap off after awhile once we have our network completed. One thing that we own is a mother site and that's LawFirms.com. We've never premiered it, we haven't really done much with it, but in the future that's where we're going to go. We're going to kind of link everything to that one site and then go really to battle with FindLaw and Lawyers.com because right now we have these other areas of practice and their own particular site but we want to get one site that we can brand, put it on bus stops and everybody knows about us, just like they know about Lawyers.com and one thing that the Lawyers and FindLaw.com doesn't have are all those regional sites that are just going to continue to produce leads and produce cases. . .

Monte: Right.

Maurice: . . . from that one major site.

Monte: Right. That's cool. So, give the listening audience a couple of pointers in terms of since you come from a different angle here of being the VP of Sales and Marketing for a company that's built out thousands of websites, what are some of the key points that people can walk away with tonight that will help them be better in their business regarding their own domain strategy and their website creation?

Maurice: Well, I think the key really, it all depends on what you're trying to do with your domain, to be honest with you. You know, being with this company as long as I've been, I'm going to be honest with you. Before I came to this company, I really wasn't too inclined to the internet world or domain names; I was more of a salesperson. But I think one thing that you definitely want to do if you are trying to create websites that is going to produce business or as an advertising aspect one thing you want to do is limit the people that are allowed to sign up on your particular site. That may be kind of a difficult task if you only own one domain name and you're trying to hit a certain type of revenue, only allowing one or two people in a certain area but the key definitely is to put content on your site. Very important.

Monte: Right. So put relevant content and try to not make it like a hodge-podge or I guess, like a big basket of the same products and services . . . I guess what you're saying is, the problems with LawFind and Lawyers.com is that they're throwing a bunch of lawyers in a big pot and expecting the consumer to find out where they should go find their lawyer . . .

Maurice: Correct.

Monte: . . . versus having a specialized or specific lawyer or physician on a website that meets that general criteria that they're looking for in that particular area of where they live.

Maurice: That is definitely correct. See, what LawFind and Lawyers.com has more of anything is their name and that's what they live off of, is their name, because right now they're losing so many customers that even, to be honest with you, they call us up and ask how we're doing it [chuckles] because like I said, a lot of the sole practitioners and the two- and three-man firms, those are the guys that are trying to get in the ballgame and they just have not been able to cater to those type of firms and stuff like that.

Monte: Right, right.

Maurice: It is very important, you know, if you're going to start a website, it all depends on what you're trying to do. I've seen a lot of different kinds of websites out there, I've seen a lot of different ways for them to generate money. I've seen people that own 30,000 domain names – good domain names – and they just put it up there with Google and get a parking program going and they try to create revenue that way and hopefully someone will come along and scoop it up for, you know, a ridiculous price like has been happening lately but if you're trying to create a real website or a real company where you can actually feel good at the end of the day and go home and rest your head like you've done a good job, you definitely want to limit the number of people that are signed up with you and that you are trying to produce leads for.

Monte: Right, right. Anything else that you can point out?

Maurice: I think . . . no, that's it. I mean, that's really our main focus and also, to look also at acquiring a lot of regional domain names as well because we feel at SWI that that's where the future's going to go. People are going to be doing more regional searches than anything and you know the better the domain name, for example, if you own FtLauderdaleMovieTheaters.com and you own that domain name, the easier it is to optimize and get it up there on the search engine.

Monte: Right, right. Well, that's great stuff there, Maurice. Hey, how long have you been with the company?

Maurice: I've been there a little over 3 years now.

Monte: 3 years. So, it's a great concept. I was completely impressed when I was there and I thought it would be a great show topic because there's very few companies that have been able to accomplish what you guys have done in terms of the number of sites with the rich content that you guys have created for each one of those particular domain names.

Maurice: Yeah, it is amazing.

Monte: You know, most people have a couple key domain names that they land there, their products and services on, and then they forward all the rest onto their main sites. You've actually been successful in launching 28,000 individual websites with thousands of pages of content on each of these sites, so it's a pretty successful strategy and you've been able to do it pretty efficiently given the content management system that you guys have built.

Maurice: Yes.

Monte: So I thought it was a pretty neat and something that people should hear about. Boy, I really appreciate your time. How would people get in touch with you in case they have needs to use your services and/or ideas and partnership?

Maurice: Well, you guys can go to SWIDigital.com; that is our home page of our main website . . .

Monte: Well, what, do you mind giving out your email?

Maurice: No, not at a problem It's HYPERLINK "mailto:Maurice@swidigital.com" Maurice@swidigital.com. Yeah, feel free to email me; I'm always in the office, I'm there from 7 in the morning till 7 at night so I can definitely get back to you guys.

Monte: Sounds like my working hours. [laughs]

Maurice: Yeah [laughs].

Monte: Alright, Maurice, boy, I really appreciate your time and I wish SWIDigital the best of luck. I know that Moniker and SWI will be working closely together and we're working on moving all your domain names over to us and it should be a great partnership going forward.

Maurice: Yeah, thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

Monte: Hey, it was a pleasure. Alright, guy, thanks a lot for your time.

Maurice: Thank you.

Monte: Alright, stay tuned. We're going to have Rick Schwartz, Web Father, on. We're going to talk about T.R.A.F.F.I.C. East and the upcoming major event for domainers, coming up in Del Ray Beach, Florida. Stay tuned.

[Commercials]

Monte: Hey, folks, welcome back to the show. My next guest . . . first of all, I want to thank Maurice Tola for taking the time today; that SWIDigital concept is pretty unique in nature with all those sites and all that content, that's for sure.

Our next guest has been on the show quite a bit over the last 12 months since we've been broadcasting, is Rick Schwartz aka Web Father and the Domain King. Rick, you on board?

Rick: I am. How ya doin', Monte?

Monte: Pretty good. Welcome back to the show.

Rick: Thank you very much.

Monte: Well, first of all, I've got to congratulate you on a couple things. One, for putting together another great line up for the T.R.A.F.F.I.C. East show which we'll talk about in a little bit and two, for those of you who don't know, who weren't listening, Rick Schwartz was successful in purchasing the domain name “properties.com” just recently for $750,000. Is that correct?

Rick: For “property.com”; we already owned properties.com.

Monte: You already owned properties.com.

Rick: And now I have salt and pepper.

Monte: Yeah, you have salt and pepper, you got yourself covered and that along with your E real estate domain, you've got it made.

Rick: Well, from your lips to God's ears, Monte.

Monte: Yeah, [laughs] definitely. Definitely. So, give us a little bit of the strategy of going out and seeking that name and paying that kind of money and what you feel, given the short time you've had it, it means to you in your portfolio.

Rick: Well, added to the other real estate holdings that I have and where I think that the internet as a whole is going to go, I think it puts me in a very good and very strong position. I do have a pretty good idea for development that's based on something very simple but the dollars that can be brought in from a simple idea can be millions of dollars a month.

Monte: Right. Do you have the ability to share with us just a little bit about what we can see in the future on these particular domains?

Rick: Uh, I can't share too much with you with, ah, it'll just be, like I said, a very simple idea of getting realtors in the significant areas of this country and around the world. We've already put one deal together with a guy from Australia who's going to be paying several thousands of dollars a month for a link and we're going to try to have links from every city and state in the country and have maybe just five realtors from each area listed and when you start thinking of all the thousands of cities there are just in the United States, the multiples are just unbelievable.

Monte: Yeah, definitely. And was that particular name getting a ton of unique type-in traffic?

Rick: It doesn't get a ton. But when you consider that the item that they're searching for can be worth millions and millions of dollars when you have thousands of unique type-ins a day, that can translate into some huge business.

Monte: Yeah, yeah, definitely. Definitely. Well, congratulations on that and you've sold a couple names, you know, in the recent past to help you pay for that, I guess, and that one sounds like its really going to pay off big time for ya.

Rick: We think so. We've already had an offer for more than we paid for it so I guess we didn't go too far off.

Monte: Yeah. Well, I guess that gives you litmus test that you paid a good price for it.

Rick: I think so.

Monte: So let's roll into TRAFFIC East and boy what an exciting line up you have going on this time around. Now, a year ago, I guess, last week was the first event of TRAFFIC. Take us little bit back to last year and how things went and how this whole TRAFFIC conferences evolved through the last 12 months and what we are to expect in the next show.

Rick: Well, I don't know if everyone knows this, but TRAFFIC originally started as a 35 person board, my chat board get-together and that was it and by the time we were done with it, it grew to 130 people last year and people were just thrilled with it and it opened up a lot of eyes and for the first time it brought the sponsors, the registrars and the domainers all together to discuss business.

Monte: Yeah, and a lot of business was done, that's for sure. I mean, we were able to execute on a number of the relationships that we were able to strike from the first conference, and it certainly rolled into the successful TRAFFIC West conference that was successful in Las Vegas and that was a heck of a show, too, huh?

Rick: The TRAFFIC West show was only 90 days, well, 90 days of hard hitting preparation and we started it right after Del Ray; ended being 230 people. And again, a lot of business was done there; it brought the venture capitalists into the equation and now we've parlayed that into, I mean, TRAFFIC East is now sold out and we're trying to squeeze in more seats and we're going to be meeting with the Marriott on Friday to see if there's a way to even reposition some things to even get some more people in but we're going to probably be approaching 300 people.

Monte: Wow, that's great. And major domainers and venture capitalists and domain companies in the industry.

Rick: All major people; there is no dead weight coming at all. I mean, some of these companies like Yahoo and Domain Sponsor and Google are sending armies of people to attend. They only sent a few people last year but they saw what it is. They're unveiling new products and I think it's going to be spectacular, especially with the line up we have of people speaking. Each show we're trying to bring in new elements to keep the show fresh and expanding and important.

Monte: Right. So give us a little bit of information about the line up this year compared to last year. Obviously, there's been a lot of evolution in the domain industry in the last 12 months and your show schedule or your conference schedule, the seminar series part of it is really staying in line with what's going on in the industry which is really important.

Rick: Yes, it is. You know, last year we brought in Ben Stein, who was the celebrity to come and speak to us and that was to try to give us some credibility and show that we're for real and that we want to do big things and the one thing we heard, everyone loved Ben Stein but they sure would rather hear a domainer, so this year we listened to what they had to say and as you know you had Andrew Miller on your show a couple weeks ago and he was big hit so Andrew Miller and Mike “Zappy” Zapolin are the keynote speakers and will have about two hours to speak at TRAFFIC East.

Monte: Yeah and I had the pleasure of having those guys, I already had them scheduled to be on my radio show, it was a couple weeks ago and what a great, what great, what great accomplishments those guys have done.

Rick: They're right on things and they recently had a DM Journal article about them and you know, couldn't be a better set of guys to come and speak to us.

Monte: Right, right. Okay, besides the keynote speaker, what are some of the real important . . . what do you think the top seminar sessions are that will help a lot of the domainers and audience know more about what's going on in today's market?

Rick: Well, as I said, each show we want to bring in a new element to keep expanding the industry and keep things fresh and I think the “sleeper” could be the very last seminar of the entire show, which is we bring the bankers in and you know, with what you're doing with getting IRS to recognize the value of domains and if we could get bankers to start loaning money on domains, it would make domains, everyone's domains, skyrocket. It would basically change the entire face of the industry.

Monte: Right. It would be more in line with real, true property with asset value.

Rick: That's exactly right, so . . .

Monte: As a matter of fact, we've just struck a deal with the folks from DigiPawn; I'm sure you know Rick Latona . . .

Rick: We do . . .

Monte: . . . and that's kind of the first step in really getting loan value or some sort of loan value on a domain name property. They're willing to put out a portion of the domain value and provide it in a loan format, at high interest rates and a pawn format, but still, it's the first step to a bank saying, hey, here's a domain name with traffic, that's making money every month, its consistent, why not loan against it, why not allow people to borrow against that.

Rick: And not only for the small domainer; but when you're talking about the Fortune 1000 companies, this could be huge for them because, you know, they work on budgets, so if they have something that they can budget for X amount a month, like they're leasing machinery, it changes the entire equation completely. Now they're not trying to buy something for $3 million and they have to get $3 million worth of capital and this and that and the other thing; now they can go and they can budget it in as a monthly expense and that changes the entire dynamics of everything as it relates to domain names.

Monte: Right, right. So who are some of the bankers who are going to be on that panel. I know I'm going to be on that panel, but name some of the folks that will be with me on that panel.

Rick: Oh, let me look it up here. We have Alan Chessler, who's an investment banker out of San Antonio, Texas; and we met him at TRAFFIC West in Las Vegas. And at the time, there wasn't exactly a connection and after we left TRAFFIC West and we started discussing things, we realized that the missing link was the banking industry . .

Monte: Right.

Rick: . . . so Alan Chessler agreed to come; you'll be on the panel, as will . . .

Monte: Steve Surgeon, I see.

Rick: . . . Steve Surgeon, who's an attorney, and Paul Keating, who's also an attorney and there's some other people that are coming to the show from the investment banking world and so, like I said, each show, we need to plug in one more important group and we're already working on TRAFFIC West in Las Vegas because now we want to bring in Madison Avenue into the equation. So if we can keep things fresh and moving and beneficial to all domainers, its going to be great thing for everybody.

Monte: Right, definitely. And what would say would be another really good scheduled event, for the seminar series is, for this particular event?

Rick: Well, Ireit.com, led by Mark Astropski is going to holding a seminar that should be very interesting. Mark has a real handle on what's going on and he looks at things a little bit differently than a lot of domainers in a little bit more realistic way in making money with domains and turning domains and its, uh, uh, when is the time to sell; the name of his seminar is “60 Ways in 60 Minutes.”

Monte: Right [laughs]. That's great.

Rick: So its going to be a pretty dynamic seminar of its own.

Monte: Yeah, yeah; and those guys were, I'm on the panel with those guys as well and those guys were your keynote speaker in Vegas.

Rick: Monte, wait a second; we're going to have to pull you off of something.

Monte: [laughs] I have no time to work my booth.

Rick: [laughs]

Monte: [laughs]

Rick: [laughs] I think you have a few guys who can do that.

Monte: Yeah, yeah, for sure. But Mark was your keynote speaker at the Vegas event and of course Mark was responsible for selling business.com for $7.5 million; that's what made him famous on the map and now they're buying up all kinds of portfolios and really understand the domain business quite well and I had him on the show about a month and a half ago and he was very dynamic as well.

Rick: He was just a big hit at the show and so we're excited to have him back and excited that he's just so interested in helping us out and moving the entire industry forward.

Monte: Right. And you guys, besides some of the seminars, it looks like its going to be a lot of fun, too. I guess some of the big companies have stepped up and going to be sponsor to some big kick-ass parties, too.

Rick: Well, Domain Sponsors are going to have a wild party on Wednesday night and Ireit.com is going to have a chairmen's event on Thursday night and besides that we feed everybody breakfast, we feed everybody lunch, we feed everyone dinner and we have a cocktail party every night so no one, everyone's going to be gaining a few pounds, they're going to think they're on a cruise.

Monte: [laughs] A cruise that's not movin'.

Rick: And the food at the Marriott there is just the best.

Monte: Yeah, yeah, it is very good. They have a really good kitchen at that particular Marriott.

Rick: They've been there, that staff's been there for 13 years and they just, they're like ballet, they're that good.

Monte: Right. Now, given that its sold out, give us an idea, in case some of the listening audience wants to try to get into this event; what are the odds now of trying to squeeze some more people in here?

Rick: Well, we'll know more on Friday; we had 250 seats, we've already sold 264 [laughs] so we may have to hang a few people from the ceiling . . .

Monte: Right and that's not going to count the people who are going to be sitting at the booths, working the booths at the same time, so they're not even included in who's going to be on the show floor.

Rick: There's going to be just a whole lot of people there and if you remember the electricity that was in the air last October, now imagine what it's going to look like with more than 2X as many people in the same space.

Monte: Yeah, that's going to be great. It's going to be great. Well, we're real excited to participate; participate as a sponsor and you know, one of the events that's going to be a first at this show and hopefully will be a continued event is the live domain auction.

Rick: That's right, and again, Moniker, I think that's you guys, are sponsoring that and you're bringing in a live auctioneer and we're going to have some great domains on auction and hopefully that's going to create a lot of excitement and give the people another reason to come to TRAFFIC.

Monte: Yeah, definitely. Well, Rick, we really appreciate the time; we're excited to participate and to sponsor the event. I appreciate your time on the radio show every time that we do have you on; you throw a new dynamic aspect to the business and helping people to be successful, so you know, given your current outlook in the future a little bit, you always seem to have a little bit of foresight and insight into the industry, what do you think is going to be happening with the newest trends with the domain names in terms of their values and where do you see some of the new revenue going and coming in from?

Rick: Well, the revenue is probably on the threshold of skyrocketing now that we're coming into the Christmas season and you know every year that passes by, people are taking their money that normally they would be spending on the traditional advertising mediums of TV, magazines and newspaper, where the returns are maybe stagnant or not doing well at all and they're definitely shuffling it to the internet, where they see results that are maybe 10 times what they expect. So each year that comes around, they're earmarking more and more money for our medium and you're going to see in a few weeks, literally in a few weeks, you're going to start seeing payouts just blow up. They're just going to skyrocket. As the payouts skyrocket, that definitely increases the value of domains and now that people are starting to understand the value of really good type-in traffic is, I see only good things. I mean, the first 10 years was to get to this point and the next 10 years we're just going to rock and roll like no one can even imagine right now.

Monte: Right. And as Andrew and Zappy mentioned on the interview a couple weeks ago, its as if we're in the first inning of a very long baseball game. Even though it seems like . . . it seems like its been going on for quite some time, if you look at other forms of media and other forms of advertising, including radio and TV that have been around for 30 and 50 years, respectively, we're in the very early stages and the infancy of our business.

Rick: Well, listen, TV came out in the 40's and it really didn't hit pay dirt until the 70's, so that was a 30 year period and I don't expect the internet to take 30 years, I think it's going to be 20 years, so this next 10 years, like I say, we have 10 years under our belt now, but these next 10 years are going to be, ah, you can't even put it in words. It's basically unimaginable what's about to happen.

Monte: Yeah, definitely. And we're excited. We're excited to be a foundation company in that business. Hey, one of the other things I noticed that you're doing at this conference is that you're going to provide kind of an approval of, uh, um, uh, an approval process for those registrars and those domain companies that actually go out of their way to protect domain-related assets, is that correct?

Rick: You bet. World Association of Domain Name Developers, Inc. is going to award three registrars their seal of approval, and we're going to shame – listen to my words – we are going to shame the other registrars into doing their business in the correct way. There is no authority who's going to look out for hi-jacked domains – not the local police, not the state police, not the FBI, none. That means registrars are going to have to be self-policing and they're going to have to cooperate with each other and we're going to make sure that that happens and it's already started and the ones that aren't on board now, they will be on board when they leave TRAFFIC; they will be shamed into getting their act together. They will be shamed into taking hi-jacking seriously. This is something that they're going to be putting front and center as the most important single thing that they're going to do in the next 12 months.

Monte: Well, that's really important and I'm glad that we focus so much on that particular aspect of the business because when you lose an asset, when you have to go back and try to get a domain name back once its been taken from you from a lack of technical responsibility or customer service responsibility at the registrar, it should be paid for.

Rick: And there's a sense of urgency – they can't just sit on it. They have to act immediately before they send it to that registrar in France that seems to be a haven for hijacked domains and I think most of us know who I'm talking about . . .

Monte: Gandhi, Gandhi . . .

Rick: You got it.

Monte: Yep. I'll name it.

Rick: Good, 'cause they are a haven for hijacked domains.

Monte: Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Well, that's great. It sounds like a great show line up and I'm excited to come and we're going to have our crew there and we look forward to working with you in a couple weeks, Rick.

Rick: Thanks. It should be very exciting and I hope you're listeners are coming and even if they're not coming, every single one of them is going to benefit from what we do.

Monte: So I posted on the chat room already make sure that everyone listening goes to targetedtraffic.com for the latest itinerary; click on the “TRAFFIC East Show,” and you can see the line up and what's going on and I'm sure that there will be announcements on that site, is that correct, Rick, on whether there'll be more space available for people who are wanting to sign up?

Rick: Yeah. As long as we have a button to register, we're going to try to get people in. Of course, they have to have an invitation, its an invitational, so they have to email us first so we know who they are and that they fit in and you know, we don't want to have just 500 registrars show up; that doesn't do anybody any good, so we have to have a little bit of balance of exactly who comes and who [inaudible]

Monte: Now, who should people email, just so they know.

Rick: It's HYPERLINK "mailto:admin@targetedtraffic.com" admin@targetedtraffic.com, but there is a link on the site and if they check the registration area and the itinerary (it changes all the time), so it keeps up with the developments as they come in.

Monte: Okay, great, Rick. Well, we really appreciate your time and we look forward to a great conference.

Rick: Great. Thanks for having me. Take care.

Monte: Alright, take care. Well, my special thanks again to Maurice Tola from SWIDigital and also Rick Schwartz, who's the founder or co-founder of the Targeted Traffic Conference and if anyone needs to see where all the domainers are going to be in a couple of weeks they're going to be right here in town. We're going to do a live broadcast from the show, maybe even two, and get a lot of interviews, onsite interviews with some of the top domainers, investment bankers, venture capitalists, top guys in the industry and it should be a great listen for all.

Next week, we may have to run a rerun; it is a Jewish Holiday, it's Yom Kippur; I know I will not be in but I might get a stand in host so that the show's continued and the content stays active. All the previous shows are archived, up to date now, on Moniker.com and also on this network at WebMasterRadio.fm, so please go there. I think that we have 10 or 12 or 13 shows transcribed in text as well so things are moving along quite a bit in that area and so we're pretty excited that the shows are being listened to. There's a lot of downloads going on on the PodCast and everything so I know people are listening to the shows on the archives and getting a lot of benefit out of it, so again, if you have any feedback, recommendations on who what guests should be, what format should be, please email me. Monte (M-O-N-T-E)@.moniker.com. Go to our website, put in some information in the feedback forum or just email me directly; I'll be happy to respond.

Have a great week, and hopefully we'll see you, if not next week, in two weeks. Be the master of your domain until then.

[Commercials]

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