Domain Development is Web Development is Business Development
OK, first off let me say I am guilty as much as the rest of us domain investors when it comes to calling the development of a domain "Domain Development". My question is why do we continue to do that, can I ask why is it any different for a domainer to develop a business on a domain name than it is for any other business owner to buy a domain name and build their business on their name? I can say for sure they do not call it domain development.
Short answer. There is no difference. We in the domain industry coined the term domain development when in reality there really is not a difference between a domain investor with a vision of growing a business on their key properties. The only difference is now you have become the end user of the property, you just got the name at wholesale value rather than end user value.
I am sure we as an industry will continue to call it domain development, but do not fool yourself. It will benefit us all to realize that we are just like anyone else with a domain name and realize that we move into business development (instead of domain development) as soon as a business plan is put in place and web development is complete on our properties.
I am sure I will slip up and call it domain development at times but I myself am going to make a conscious effort to move past the term domain development and start to use web development or more accurately business development when describing the building of a business on my own properties.
Also, we in the domain crowd need to start realizing the selling of a business that happened to have a great name is not the selling of a domain name, it is the selling of a business that happens to have a great domain name. Kudos to that business for having the vision to acquire a great name, but a company like Mint.com did not sell for the price they did purely on their name, it was done based on a business model.
Last thought, I watched with much interest all the discussions around minisites, their value, good or bad, etc during the past month. I have had success with minisites and will continue to use them in some cases. I know alot of people like to talk about the lack of value to the end user in them. I am a believer it is not the amount of pages on a site that matters, its the quality of the content. I am not saying all my minisites are the best of quality when it comes to content but my point is I believe their are times someone could have a one page site and if it has the data someone is looking for does it really matter to the end user if it does not have 100 more pages to look at. Now, I will say though that the real business model to make real money on one domain is not a minisite. To make real money on a domain it needs to have a business plan and full blown development behind it, but each business can have a different level of development required on the site, some one page, some one hundred pages, some just a form to take info. Every business is different.
All that said it is impossible to have a full plan on each an every name you own if you own one thousand names, it takes capital, time, and a lot of effort to get a business off the ground. Rick Schwartz got it write in this blog post. It is impossible to build one thousand businesses all at the same time. This is why I do think its unrealistic when every time people show support minisites people start to bash them and say the only answer is full development, it is just not realistic to think people can build a full business on everyone of their names.
Domain development just sounds more like a term that was born when domainers realized that ppc was crashing and that they needed another way to monetize domains and build traffic naturally. Most domainers aren’t web developers, but just by learning the basics of domaining they naturally delve into some web development.
Domain development is simply used to attract domainers. This article reminded me of somebody’s article about how Mini-Sites is just a term to lure in domainers like ourselves, and this is a similar concept. Whoever made it up was smart because now everyone in the industry is using it, but nonetheless, it’s a made-up phrase to attract us
I think it’s about time people really understand what it is all about.More people should build businesses on their domain name and not just the other way around.
I beleive this will be the next big move in the industry. A new kind of domain investors are coming into the scene. Ok, there has always been domainers that have kept development as a part of their investment model (Eric Borgos is a good example), but with PPC starting to be a part of history, the industry will need to grow out of the easy profits model . New domain investors are already arriving into the industry looking at ways to find those hot topic, long tail domains to develop them into full blown businesses. I know that because I’m one of them. I never had the luxury of knowing what it is like to park a domain and profit. SO I’m forced at looking at a domain from a different perspective.
There are lots of ways of duplicating a business model, just like a franchise that is built on a business platform, and placed in areas where it can grow, there are web platforms that with a little bit of tweaking can deliver on a variety of different business models. I’ve built my own, and it beats the hell out of ANY minisite, quick site or whatever the industry is calling it these days. There is no better way to have FULL control of what, how and when you deliver on your site. Use affiliate programs, show video, have forums, blogs, messaging boards, social networking, sell your own stuff if you want. The possibilities are endless on these platforms. I’ve found a way of cloning these platforms and making them available to start any business.
A new era of domaining is here. Ultimately the ones benefiting from all this will be internet users, who will find the web more and more full of interesting stuff and results delivered exactly on their search.
In the future if you don’t know about web development you will be a domainer standing on one leg…
Good job Bruce!!
You have to agree with Rick Schwartz. Try and get yourself in a position where you tap the power of other professionals who specialize in things you can’t or don’t have time to do. Sharing in some aspect of 1000 business’s is entirely more possible than trying to do it all yourself.
Because of this post I decide to put up DevelopMinisites.com and DevelopedMinisites.com for sale- at Snapnames for $429. and $349. Go steal these names today.
Really good post here. I have been developing (domainer definition of development LOL) chunks of my portfolio, started about a year ago. Beats parking for sure.
@Trendsighter, those are really nice domains. I wish I had the cash right now. If you haven’t already, you should drop an email to every ‘minisite’ development service out there as you could get a nice bidding war happening.
@ze, good comment, you are spot on, there are so many angles to focus on. I am curious on your purpose built platform, you care to share an example?
All,
Great comments, not much for me to add:)
@DNUnderground – You are right about the minisite term. I see alot of corporate sites all the time that have less content than many minisites but no one calls them a minisite, they call them a corporate presence:)
Bruce
Bruce,
You have a great looking site and blog platform. How is the Snapname plugin working for you?
You can PM me at my email if you wish.
Thanks,
Dale
I have 9000 parked domains and several hundred websites, but to me my websites are not “developed domains”. They are almost all real websites that I created not because I owned the domain, but because I had a good idea for a website. In fact many times I bought new domains for the sites I created because I did not want to “waste” using one of my valuable domains that I might be able to sell at some point.
But, with the recent decline in domain parking revenues, I might start trying to develop some of my parked domains by putting content on them. Not automated minisites or made for adsense type sites, but not real high quality sites like all of my other ones. An example would be that on my JokePages.com domain, I would put a few hundred jokes. Not a real fancy big joke site, and not one of those template type scripts that comes with a big joke database, because there are already too many copies of that in the search engines. I would just make a very simple site in a few hours that would probably not be something that users would bookmark or ever come back to, and would not be something I ever update again, but would be good for SEO and would not be something that Google would ever consider the type of minisite that violates its content terms (lack of good content).
You have to agree with Rick Schwartz. Try and get yourself in a position where you tap the power of other professionals who specialize in things you can’t or don’t have time to do. Sharing in some aspect of 1000 business’s is entirely more possible than trying to do it all yourself.
Because of this post I decide to put up DevelopMinisites.com and DevelopedMinisites.com for sale- at Snapnames for $429. and $349. Go steal these names today.