Goals are in - What next?

July 17, 2007 | Author: Mark | Filed under: Step by Step

After you have a general set of goals - you have to determine what you are capable of doing yourself. TIME is likely going to be the hardest thing to manage - if you are like me, you are drawn into learning as much as you can, while forgetting that you need to actually APPLY some of that time to the growth plan! :-)

Note: At some point, I will continue working on my list of resources for things written in these short pages…

I have found that there are a few different ways to build a web/domain portfolio… again, I am learning new things every day and even in the short month or so since I began this project, I have already realized that simply buying 1000 domain names and parking them on a partner host will probably not do what we want. In our case, I have enough of a background in website design and search engine positioning to diversify our domains into several categories, which are listed on our monetized domain pages.

For those who have no web design or editing experience - all is not lost - welcome to the blogging world! A blog is what you are reading now. Basically, it is nothing more than a fairly easy to use word editor for the web, that is designed to put the right code in the right places and right out of the box, will give you pretty good exposure!

Below is the short list of ways you can monetize - decide which method you want to use, or use them all (The better choice)

Domain Parking

In a nutshell, the name explains it all! You buy a domain name from GoDaddy or another registrar, and simply point your dns to the parking service. From there, the service takes over and populates monetized text links and some content to your domain. The hosting service will take a percentage of the ad revenue the site generates, as a service fee. An example of straight domain parking can be seen on our GoDaddy Cash parking list. Buy, park, wait! Your not done yet though… read on!

Content Parking

Realistically, this is very similar to domain parking with the exception that you are provided somewhat unique content for your site. If you check out the WhyParked Domains list you will notice that they look a little different. There is much more content as compared to a bunch of links! To me, the benefit of WhyPark is that you still have some control of your domains. For instance, I looked through my traffic logs today for www.meetcharlotte.com and noticed that we have had several visitors to the site searching for brick homes in charlotte nc. Since we are using whypark, I was able to go into the site and add a content article on the very subject. This is a BIG BENEFIT that will pay off in time…

Ultimately WhyPark requires little to no web expertise. You take 5 minutes to post your domain to your account, pick a subject for the website, add some keywords and a basic description of the site… then let it run! Once you see spider or visitor traffic, dedicate 15 minutes once a week, to add a new handwritten article/essay. Buy, park, wait, WRITE! Your not done yet though… read on!

Blogs (web-log, or blog)

You find a place like wordpress that will allow a free hosted blog on their server and just start writing about a very specific subject, preferable something HIGH in demand! Very little expense… Set yourself 15-30 minutes 4-5 times each week and write about your passion! Dont be afraid to visit that new thing called the internet and find other blogs like your own and interact with the author. Eventually, people are going to grasp what you are writing about and begin interacting with you… from that point, the virus spreads and more and more people are coming, your content is building, and you monetize with adsense or affiliate programs! Who knows - if it is a blog that serves to educate people about your passion… you may end up with very lucrative ad space that industry specific advertisers may want to rent from you! All in all, I would suggest having your own domain name though - it is much easier to remember and if you get your own hosted account, you have much more control of layout, appearance etc.

Full-Grown Websites

Well - you know I had to include this in here somewhere! Full websites are likely going to be the way that we go with several of our domains and have actually started several this week! As i said earlier, I want to try all methods I can think of so I have a measurable performance level to see which works the best! A full site is not as hard and technical as it sounds but that is always easy for me to say right, I have a bit of experience with it! If you have never seen html or markup language, there is a bit of a learning curve… most experienced web designers will tell you that the only true way of designing a site is by writing plain code in notepad… blah… why bother when there are so many easy to use point and click applications on the market that make it so much easier! Your not going to be developing the next microsoft.com or apple.com so why bother! As long as you learn a few basic things, there is plenty on the web to get you started! (See resource page soon)

For us - we decided to start several websites about either product reviews, health subjects, or some other subject that is very specific in user searches! We found several niches to explore that should be worthy in the longrun… While searching for a domain to do with quitting smoking (specifically “welplex”) I stumbled on a trend with the word “cure”… cure for smoking, cure for baldness, cure for weight loss, cure for cancer… etc etc… I also found that there was HIGH ppc value in the key phrases and really not alot of competition! I dont have to worry about googles of people finding it tomorrow and jumping on it, since there are only 5-6 regular readers as of today! Essentially, I regged a domain that will house information about products for all these “cures” that people are searching for!

It took me 4 hours to design the site for the product review site - once that layout and backend (database driven) was complete, I began working on 3-5 templates, just to give 1 out of 5 sites a different look. NowI can replicate that layout, design and process 100 times on different sites with ease of integration! I started adding product information to the site on Sunday (July 15th) and it has already been top indexed by google (single page)

I guess I better get working on product additions…

Next Installment: What do I need to monetize a domain?

Until tomorrow - Mark

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