Successclick, Domain Monetization

WHAT DOMAINS SHOULD YOU BUILD OUT? – A QUICK LESSON

Don’t we all wish we owned popular one word dotcom domains? Of course. Those domains are no-brainers for selling, parking, or building out to very valuable websites. Zappy can attest to the power of a good domain, good programmers and a focused marketing direction. Your life would be vastly different if you owned Chocolate.com… ahhh you can dream, and it’s not just about the chocolate.

Lately I’ve been getting requests from more of my clients about building out their domains, as in; how to proceed, how much will it cost, which domains to choose, what revenue paths to take, etc.

I’m going to give everyone a boost this weekend because I’m feeling really good. That means… Yay! Free advice!!

HOW TO DECIDE WHAT DOMAINS TO BUILD OUT:

It’s not hard to figure this out, although there are two camps to consider, the branding camp, or the generic descriptive camp. Of course, both these camps can be combined easily (only if the domain is generic descriptive and no more than three words and 20 characters, although there are exceptions to the character count).

If you have a clear descriptive domain phrase that identifies a niche of products or services, this is an easy choice for deciding to build the domain out. In fact, it’s a simple process to find out how prominent your site could become by doing an quick SE search on your domain phrase (in quotes) to see how many other websites cover your niche. I would check to see how many ad links turn up too… you might think the more the better, but maybe not… maybe fewer ads on your search result pages means you can capture this niche in the advertising medium of ad links. Simply put, look through your list of domains, find one that defines a more esoteric field of products and services and then choose that domain to build out a website because you have little competition.

There are several other reasons to choose a domain for consideration, but that information is saved for Successclick clients. (Contact us now to get the next available slot.) Each consideration for why you want to build out a particular domain can pay off big for you. For this article, we’re just choosing a reason that your domain “reference” doesn’t have a lot of competition.

HOW TO PROCEED:

Here’s the touchy part: Do you want to spend $1000 or more in creating a decent website from a good generic domain you own? What if you don’t have the money? Can you do it yourself? Do you know website design programming? You like Dreamweaver or Freeway or Site Pro? Are you a DIY person? If not, and you don’t have the time, how can you get your domain built out into a great website without spending money? Should you buy a template or go completely custom?

There is a way. Really. You can submit your domains to companies who do this for a share of profits made from the built-out website of your domain. There are actually a lot of companies who will do this for you (Successclick.com is one). You just have to agree to giving a part of the profits to the website producers of your domain. Some very capable companies you can hook up with (if you have a decent domain) are BuildsOut.com (run by a smart and nice guy, Stuart Wood of WIFI.com) and NoParking.com, run by another nice guy, Brian Benko. There are at least five other companies that provide this service. Be prepared to have your domains turned down, though.

All domain buildout companies only accept domains they feel will be successful after investing their time and money into it for you. These successful domainers are smart enough to consider what their ROI will be too, so don’t send them “so-so” domains… send only two or three of your best domains. Most of the companies will ask what your unique traffic is monthly before they accept your domain. If you have a domain that they think will burst out, even if doing poorly at the moment, they might consider it. If they turn those domains down, look again at your portfolio and try again. If you don’t have a domain in your portfolio that these two prominent domain buildout companies will accept, contact us for some good advice on domain purchasing.

WHAT SOURCES OF REVENUE CAN I EXPLOIT?

This is your most important question to have answered. I’d like to reveal all right here for free, but then I’d have to get another job. I am not doing that (you can click on any of the Domainer ebook links to the right of this article and find a lot of answers there for cheap). What I will tell you is that you have at least three ways to monetize your domain’s website (there are quite a few more, but that comes with a Successclick consulting agreement):

1) Search engine advertising links. Believe it or not, there are more ad link revenue sources than just the two you hear about constantly, Yahoo and Google. There are literally a hundred or more companies that offer advertising links you can place on your website to collect Pay Per Click (PPC) revenue. This is a fascinating area to research. (If you are currently using a little-known search engine ad link source that you feel is very beneficial, please share it with us in the COMMENT section of our blog.)

2) Affliliate revenue. Don’t be distracted by PPC revenue when some of the highest payouts you can receive on your traffic can come from affliliates or “Cost Per Action” (CPA) revenue. An affiliate program signs you up as a “producer” or “member” and your website directs people to companies who are willing to share a percentage of their sales with you for the lead you brought them. There are a lot of products and services that have such a high price, that even a 5% partner share could make you $500 or more on one sale! Just think… your website receives 100 uniques a month, and three of them buy your affiliate partner’s product or service. You will make $1500 a month on a 3% conversion rate. As comedian Chris Farley (RIP) would say, “Holy Schneikies!” I implement services that do this for my own domains and so do many other domainers (quietly). Some of the domainer ebooks featured at the right will tell you how to set up successful affiliate programs.

3) Your own products or ebooks. Hey! You know you have good knowledge in some area that you think others may be interested in learning. So, write a quick ebook and offer it on your website. Got a hobby? A fetish? Are you a fanatic about something? If so, write yourself a little 30+ page booklet on your expertise and create an ebook. Sell it for $4.99 – $99 on your website. What if you have a hit on your hands? Sell 300 copies of a piece of digital presence (a file) for $19.95 and you’ve made yourself about $6,000. It’s easier to do than you think. I sold over 15,000 copies of a book I wrote, turning down offers from big publishing houses because I already had the market and I didn’t need to give them 90% profits of my sales. You can do the same…

My message to you is that your solid domains can really work well for you if you focus on them, study their market, create a nice looking site, include your valuable content, follow the basics I state above, and lastly, if you have the funds, hire an SEO expert (Search Engine Optimization Expert) to wrap it all up.

If you don’t want to tiptoe through the minefields of mistakes and misdirections, you can contact us at Successclick and we can get you to the finish line for less than you expect. Just to whet your profit appetite, I can tell you that there are thousands of domainers and entrepreneurs making $10,000 a month and more from domains they’ve built out without going broke first. You can do it too.

Comments are welcome.