I never thought I would do this but I guess there is a first for everything. Luke Webster — SVP Operations at Epik, and President of the DevRich business unit — convinced me that we should buy SEO.mobi. I trust Luke’s instincts and am rolling with him on this one.
The logic of owning SEO.mobi
The business logic here is in three parts:
- Mobile SEO will likely emerge as a category: There is little debate that SEO is a strategic keyword. The SEO profession is far from done growing. We also anticipate the mobile search will have its own unique challenges with regards to SEO. So, the logic here is that SEO for mobile search will be a somewhat unique competency for which a generation of service providers will emerge.
- The SEO keyword is competitive and worth owning: We already provide SEO services for our own fast-growing content network, and for which we are buying a lot of outside SEO services. As such, we could even trade SEO.mobi for a bundle of future SEO services from someone who needs to own this name. For us, it is nice to have.
- The price was right: The deal included a package of 4 other telecom-related names: PhoneAccessories.com, RFShields.com, Cell-Accessories.com, and PhoneWholesaler.com. The combined price was fair with appropriate discounting for the longevity risk for the .MOBI TLD.
All that said, worst case, I am going to plead temporary insanity on this one. So, save the below “Certificate of Insanity” for later. It might come in handy!
