Grow Your Registrar Business

As the Internet changes, so does the business of being a registrar. VeriSign manages the registry for more than 90 million domain names and 900 registrars in 61 countries (December 2008). Here are five tips to help you grow your business.

1. Help your customers better manage their domain names.

Registrars worldwide agree that the best way to generate new registrations and renewals is to provide a high level of customer support. VeriSign helps you help your customers with value-add services as well as a 24/7 global support desk with assistance in 150 different languages.

Restore Services and Consolidate are product enhancements to help your customers better manage their domain name renewals and retrieve unexpectedly deleted or expired names.

VeriSign® Internet Profile Service for Registrars reports newly-registered domain names and expiring domain names that do not resolve to a Web site, an early indicator that a registrant may not renew.

VeriSign® Domain Name Zone Alerts help administrators keep pace with the millions of changes made to the .com and .net zone file every day in near real-time and aggregated reports.

2. Target new and existing customers with advertising and promotions.

As the authoritative domain name registry for .com, .net, .name, .tv, and .cc, VeriSign has unique insight into what’s happening around the world on the Internet. We help you understand the domain name industry to find new customers and improve your service to existing customers.

Marketing Resources is a password-protected area for current registrars where they may download banner ads, new campaigns, sample emails, logos, market research and information on targeted promotions.

VeriSign® Registrar Connections, a monthly industry newsletter for certified registrars, provides the latest market research and new product highlights.

Domain Name Industry Briefs are quarterly reports that highlight performance indicators and growth opportunities as well as evolving trends in the domain name industry. Many briefs are available in Spanish, Portuguese, and Chinese as well as English.

3. Find the right domain names for your customers.

Many Web site owners register several domain names to drive traffic to their Web site content and services. Your existing customers may not realize what they are missing. Different domain names for different audiences extend your customer’s brand to other countries or languages, and even to new TLDs.

VeriSign® Domain Name Suggestion Service returns optimized results for domain name searches to help your customers discover all the ways they might describe their Web site or online service.

VeriSign® Internet Profile Service for Registrars ranks domain names under your management according to different attributes to enable efficient cross-sell of .tv, .name, .cc, and .jobs to existing customers.

Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) enable Internet users to navigate and communicate online in their preferred script, transforming the Internet into a truly global and multilingual tool.

4. Become a specialty registrar with a more focused service.

Domain name registrations offer a steady, renewable revenue stream for many Web-related businesses. .name domain names help customers establish an individual identity online and are ideal for social networking and consumer-oriented online services.

.tv domain names are the address for rich and dynamic media on the Web and make an ideal offering for Web hosts or design businesses that specialize in this type of Web site development.

5. Build a network of resellers to reach more customers.

If you are an ICANN-accredited registrar, you know that the process takes time and requires technical expertise. Small and medium-sized businesses with local customers make great partners for accredited registrars by reselling domain name registrations. VeriSign is seeking registrars who can support resellers and become part of our network. For more information, contact: channelpartner@verisign.com.