Archive for the ‘Developing Domains’ Category
Past and Future Projects
I’ve been working on building a membership base for my Hapkido website, http://www.HapkidoNet.com. Hapkido is a Korean martial art that is a mix of hard and soft, with joint locks and circular movements, but also hard strikes. It’s got high Google rankings for “Hapkido network” and “Hapkido forum”, but so far I’ve had trouble building a membership base. 220 is not bad, but my goal is 1,000 by the end of the year. Ads on forums have notoriously low CTRs, so it will take a combination of high traffic and diverse revenue streams to make a significant profit.
VenezuelaReport.com is an online magazine/blog about life in Venezuela. I’m working on adding a discussion forum to it. The site is already ranked in the first page of Google results for the keywords “Venezuela report” and “life in Venezuela.” The domain and website are available for sale, so if you are interested, contact me.
My house in Panama is for sale, so I made use of a nice domain I had sitting around - CasaPanama.com - to build a website to showcase the house. That’s one good thing about buying reams of domain names in areas that interest you: whenever you need a good domain name for a project, there it is.
I happen to own Greenport.org - Greenport is a “historic village” and summer getaway on Long Island, New York. Rather than waste such a promising domain name on parking, I thought I would develop it into a resource and guide for the town of Greenport. I’ll be doing that soon.
I also plan to build a website about developing solar energy technologies. That field is already big and will only get bigger. I own several relevant domains and it’s just a matter of choosing one, doing the work, and doing the research.
More and more, however, I’m realizing that it would be more profitable to build an online application. Blogs are fun and inexpensive to build, but the real traffic magnets are useful interactive applications that allow people to do something. I know this is rather an obvious point, but I think many domainers miss it. I have some ideas in this area but it’s too soon to share them. I’ll keep you posted.
Tags: Domaining
Happy New Year
Happy new year and may this year bring you continued health, increased wealth and blessings in all areas of your lives.
I read recently on TheConceptualist.com that Bido.com domain name auctions will be returning soon. I will definitely have to submit some of my better domain names for inclusion.
The auction of PuntaPacifica.com went reasonably well, with the domain selling for $4,000.
I own a few good geo names with .org and .net extensions, and I’ve been thinking of developing these.
My social network for martial artists, HapkidoNet.com, is progressing nicely. Thank you to those who helped me choose the best domain name for that site.
My new year’s advice to my readers: keep your head up, breathe deep, and discover the sources of your own strength.
Tags: Domaining
Which of These Domains Would You Develop?
I’ve decided to build a social networking website focused on the Korean martial art of Hapkido. I have ten good domain names to choose from and I cannot decide. Can you help? I’d really appreciate any suggestions.
Half of my Hapkido-related domain names are parked at Sedo, and the other half at WhyPark.com where they display Adsense ads. Here are the stats from the last 12 months, except for Hapkido.info which has only been parked 10 months or so.
| Stats for Hapkido domain names March 1st 2007 to March 1st 2008 |
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| SEDO.COM | ||||||
| Domain | Uniques | Clicks | CTR | Earnings | ||
| Hapkido.info | 102 | 5 | 4.90% | $1.33 | ||
| HapkidoNet.com | 89 | 4 | 4.49% | $0.34 | ||
| HapkidoStyles.com | 33 | 1 | 3.03% | $0.15 | ||
| HapkidoWest.net | 65 | 1 | 1.54% | $0.05 | ||
| HapkidoNet.net | 67 | 0 | 0.00% | $0.00 | ||
| HapkidoWest.info | 8 | 0 | 0.00% | $0.00 | ||
| ADSENSE (WHYPARK.COM) |
||||||
| HapkidoArts.com | 25 | 1 | 4.00% | $0.10 | ||
| HapkidoBoard.com | 166 | 8 | 4.82% | $0.78 | ||
| HapkidoDojang.com | 148 | 4 | 2.70% | $0.96 | ||
| HapkidoFighting.com | 78 | 2 | 2.56% | $0.23 | ||
| HapkidoVideos.com | 131 | 24 | 18.32% | $3.32 | ||
I’m going to create a website where Hapkidoists and other Korean martial arts practitioners can discuss, share photos, share videos and make friends. I will most likely use Ning, though I am considering Drupal. Ning is so much less work, but doesn’t offer the same degree of control.
I have narrowed it down to the four in red. Out of those, HapkidoVideos.com cries out to be developed into a video sales site, perhaps an Amazon affiliate site. So that leaves the other three: Hapkido.info, HapkidoBoard.com, and HapkidoDojang.com.
- Hapkido.info – nice and short, and will look awfully good up there in a website header. I worry, however, that many people are not familiar with the .info extension and may not remember it.
- HapkidoBoard.com – gets the most traffic of all my choices, and it’s precise and relevant. Only problem is, well, it’s kind of boring. I feel “board” already, ha ha.
- HapkidoDojang.com – “dojang” is the Korean word for dojo. This is what the Korean arts call their training place. I think this domain has a nice ring to it, but I’m concerned that it might be too long or that the spelling might be challenging for some.
So, what do you think? Which of these would you choose to develop? Which is the easiest to spell and most memorable?
Are These Domain Names Dogs?
As you can see, none of these domain names are profitable on a purely parking basis. Several have made nothing at all, or very little. On the other hand, they get some traffic, and I never got around to optimizing them. I parked them and forgot about them, until I decided to tackle this social network project. Still, even if I were to optimize the parked pages they would probably do no better than break even.
Does that mean these domains are a waste of money and should be dropped? I don’t think so (ok, I might drop HapkidoWest.info. But not the others). Once I choose a domain to use for my social networking website, I will build the site, then forward all the other domains to that destination.
Adding them all up, these domains get almost 1,000 unique visitors per year. Build a website, use some Facebook-style viral marketing tactics to grow the membership, some linkbait, maybe a low-key Adwords campaign, and within a year I could see significant traffic. And that means profit.
Tags: Domaining