Interview with Web Developer and Domainer Tia Wood

 

With todays push on web development for domainers and the decrease in PPC revenues hitting the bottom line of most domainers, finding a web development partner that understands the mindset of domainers is more important than ever.  With that in mind I bring you an interview with Web Developer, Writer, AND Domainer Tia Wood.

 

Tia, you have an appealing array of interests, whether it be music, writing, or web development: your passion shines through. Can you tell me a bit about your passion for writing and music?

Art is a very powerful form of expression especially when the subject has no words that can justify its meaning. For instance: how does one describe love? Or envy? Or human suffering? Some things are best shown in some form. That's why I believe every individual has an interesting story we can all learn from best told via some type of art medium: writing, music, graphic design, photography, philosophy, etc.

This is a personal side of me many people do not know but stems back to childhood. Art is in my blood. I remember in 3^rd grade, I wrote a poem about the Gulf War and was made to read it in front of the entire school. I won little awards throughout my school years for my writing. I write for selfish reasons: to relax my mind and relieve stress. Other than that, I do not care to be famous by it.

Music is the other beast. I always have music playing somewhere: on my computer, in my car or singing out loud. Even my daughter cannot fall asleep without it. Me and her both sing. Even my extended family has some sort of musical ability in one form or another.

Photography and philosophy are my other hobbies. Photography is about capturing perspectives. The same as with philosophy.  

They must feel I'm rude at church because I draw in an art book while the preacher is talking instead of looking at him.  The point is: I do these things and I do them ALL THE TIME whether it is through writing, music, art, graphic design, etc.

How are you so sure that your reality is the correct perspective if you don't try to look through someone else's eyes? I guarantee you it is not and if you neglect this side of yourself you are missing out on the vast understanding that one gains ONLY by learning what others already MASTERED.  

 

Tell us a bit about the process of writing a novel, the focus and dedication that it takes is impressive.

Novel writing is an exhausting process that requires constant care. You have to be interested in writing, for one and interested in your subject. But all it requires is one page at a time. If you write three pages a day, you can work yourself to a novel over time. Write first, edit later. The same goes for those interested in eBook writing.  Or anything else you would like to accomplish. To build a house: lay one brick at a time. To build out your domain portfolio: concentrate on one concept at a time, one page at a time.

 

Not only do you have the ability to express yourself with words, you also have musical talent. What instruments do you play? Do you have a good karaoke story?

I play acoustic guitar. Several of my family members do as well. When I was a teenager, I would sit outside in the Florida night and sing songs I wrote that day. I never formally learned to play but I play by ear. Which reminds me: it's time to buy an electric guitar, lol! We haven't had guitars in the house for awhile and my daughter is old enough to learn. That should be fun.

The word "karaoke" is something close to heart. When my grandfather, Terri, was alive he would take me fishing at the Florida lakes when I was a kid. I suck at fishing but we had fun. On some nights, he would take me to karaoke.  He also played guitar and had an exceptional voice. He would sing songs such as "White Sport Coat" and "Teddy Bear". The first time I sang in front of a crowd was with him at age 11. I sang Boys II Men, "On Bended Knee" in a room packed full of adults. I was a nervous wreck! To this day, I still get terrible stage fright even though I have been told I'm not a bad singer.

 

So your creative side obviously leads to a talent for web design and vision of what a site can look like. How do you approach the start of a project?

In web development, I would say there is a good balance between functionality and graphic design required. However, if a site doesn't function properly, it's just a pretty photo album. What keeps me interested in web development even though it can get fairly technical is the creative approach to solving problems and developing solutions for a client.

Some people overlook the scope of work and vision required that goes into the backend of development. The initial approach is focused on what the individual is trying to achieve with their site whether it be for profit, promotion or data capture. Each project is a different challenge in its own unique way. No project is ever the same even if it's just a Wordpress installation.

 

So, tell us a bit about your domain investments, what extensions do you buy, what's your thought process on buying a domain?

I tend to focus mostly on .com. I purchase names based on long term goals and choose those I know I can attack with a business plan. It's too late to buy one word generic domains. Buying for development is how I make up for this handicap.

One of the great things about domaining is you can still choose what niche you want to focus on and succeed. Some may buy for SEO. Others may buy for revenue. It doesn't matter. But focus on something and do that something well.

 

Give us your thoughts on mini sites and mass development.

Mini sites and mass development have their audience but are for a specific type of domain and a specific type of domainer. You should never, ever develop a website you are trying to launch a business with in this method. There are better ways to serve your audience versus slapping together pages so it won't sit empty. For instance, an article I wrote titled "The New Under Construction Page" talks about this. If you want your website to do something other than serve a blank page while waiting for development: COLLECT DATA! Which is more valuable to you: a few dollars from a user you will never see again or a guaranteed contact who is interested in your website? Never sell yourself short for the almighty click through.

 

OK, you gotta give the story behind BulkDevelopment.com. Your focus is obviously on full development. What led to this fun little test?

I'm normally a private, quiet person. But lately I see individuals attempting to provide glorified MFA (made for adsense) sites and trying to claim this method is "web development". While technically it is: these types of websites have already been proven a failure when they were branded as MFA sites. I'm not referring to real solutions that attempt to provide alternatives to domain parking such as MiniSites.com, WhyPark.com and AEIOU.com. I'm speaking about individuals who promote these glorified MFA sites but yet cannot provide real examples of their success.

I realize this was partially my fault because I choose not to educate people for so long. It's my fault and the domain developers like me. BulkDevelopment.com was the silence breaker. Since then, I restructured my main blog at TiaWood.com to further educate domainers on the differences. The response has been fantastic. I want domainers to know the difference between mini sites, mass development and full scale development.

There are great consequences if you don't know what you are working with. What if you under develop a domain? You will miss out on how powerful the domain can perform. What if you over develop a name? You lose money and time. There is no "one size fits all" to development.

 

dnRehab.com and BulkDevelopment.com are both fun domainer spoofs, any other sites of your own that may be of interest to domainers?

In addition to those, DomainIdeaBox.com was created for my personal use but I wanted to share this tool with domainers.  The tool sorts keywords into "data sets" or categories and allows you to generate ideas based on keywords before or after the data keywords. I use this all the time, especially for Geo names. Search results are not saved as I highly value domainer privacy. It's a neat little tool that makes hand registrations easier.

 

Who do you admire in the domain industry and why?

Whew! Too many to name. There are a lot of domainers worth respecting for many different reasons. But Sahar Sarid and Frank Schilling always are at the top of my list of people I admire. How they both entered domaining is inspiring and shows their dedication as individuals.

 

My daughter took a particular liking to one of your client sites: LittleSantaClaus.com. How do your sites perform in search engines? Can you give some examples of results?

It's funny you say that because I actually had my eight year old daughter help me with that site.  She was my critic.

For LittleSantaClaus.com, we targeted particular keywords that were commonly searched: santa books, santa claus wallpaper, etc and have already been indexed for those terms. The site is appearing on the 1^st page under multiple targeted keywords. The development is not complete at the time of this interview. We plan to target the keyword "santa claus" by Christmas of this year.

By the way, those of you with kids should check out the site. It's about a book series called "The Little Santa Book Series: The Childhood Adventures of Santa Claus" written by Sergio R. Rodriguez.  The first book available is called "Little Santa and Snowboy" which is beautifully illustrated by Simon Scales. I'm personally excited about these books because it presents a different aspect about Santa Claus and the character designs are amazing.

 

 

You recently learned you had Hashimoto's Disease.  Can you tell us more about Hashimoto's and how it affects you?

Hashimoto's Disease is an autoimmune chronic illness that attacks the thyroid gland and causes thyroid disease. For six months, I knew I had thyroid disease but recently discovered the underlying cause: Hashimoto's Disease. So basically, one disease caused the other. I have had Hashimoto's all my life without knowing it. It attacked my thyroid over the years until it was no longer functional.

The thyroid gland controls many functions in your body: weight, metabolism, mentality, emotions, etc and produces hormones that control and throttle these functions. With thyroid disease, these hormones are either produced too much or too little (in my case too little) and affect a person in so many negative ways.

I am outspoken about having this illness because of my initial misdiagnosis. This illness causes symptoms very close to bipolar disease. Therefore, I initially went to a psychiatrist instead of a doctor. I was diagnosed and treated for a mental illness instead of a physical illness. I was put on lithium and suffered a month of hell from the wrong diagnosis. It is important for people with these symptoms to seek not only multiple tests but multiple opinions from different doctors.

More information about that story here: Tia's Story

Hashimoto's Disease information here: Hashimoto's Disease Info

 

What projects are you currently working on: personal or for clients?

One project is DrugReform.com that debates the topic of drug reform. This site has an interesting social presentation that allows people to present both sides of the opinion spectrum uncensored. We are focusing on social marketing. It will be interesting to see how this format shapes itself.

Another client project is popular.ME; the first in a series of the .me domain extension I'm developing for a client. This, too, has a social marketing aspect and I can't wait to launch it.

For my personal work, I have a couple sites next in queue: NameHoney.com and HashimotosDisease.us. I don't want to mention the development focus for NameHoney.com yet but it will benefit domainers. HashimotosDisease.us will be an awareness and support site for individuals suffering with Hashimoto's Disease.

 

What do you have planned for the future?

Ah, the future is bright and full of possibilities. Last year, I discovered the power of social marketing. Therefore, I have been focusing more and more on using this type of promotion in combination with development. The projects that solely use this method are almost complete and I'm very excited to explore this further. I have discovered new mediums that even domainers aren't fully aware of yet. I'm terribly excited about it but I plan to take my time to explore them fully. All I can say is: watch what happens next! There will be major contributions to the domain industry coming in the future.

 

Thanks to Tia for taking the time to give her views on Web Development and Domaining!