Domainers are a Great Group – What a Week

What a week, this past week was basically planned to be a week I focused on marketing more than anything else and things really worked out well. We made a major push to get our sales and marketing materials ready for our first company sales meeting next Tuesday and at the same time began prep work for the nationwide press release that will be going out next week. Although I tend not to give the nuts and bolts of what we are up to out to much we did start to talk more about the true focus of our efforts more than before.

The bido.com chat was great, that was the most I have typed in the shortest amount of time ever I believe, great questions from folks and I gotta say I was a bit nervous going in just simply because as much as I will never bash .com and know that .com "rules" at the end of the day I just as much believe there are times you can build something on a non-com that is just as valuable and successful. We are proving that everyday. I was expecting a bit of a bashing on Bido but it did not happen. I appreciate the open minds people had as it pertains to someone proving that with the proper extension and marketing you can do something unexpected by many.

Then, I also must thank Natasa from the marketing department at the .ME registry, she posted twice this week on their Facebook page about Missouri.me happenings and also posted a story on Exploretheworldof.me . Great stuff, 1800 .ME fans were able to see what we were up too on Facebook alone not even counting the blog post. On the Facebook page topic, we just recently launched the Missouri.me Facebook page and broke 100 fans rather easily and look to be going up daily. I expect to do some marketing just for the Facebook page soon as well. What I really like is that there are quite a few people joining from around Missouri that were not even connected to myself. That likely means they are joining from the Missouri.me site itself. Great!

We also completed our press release and worked with the team at Business Wire to get it ready. I had a very solid source put our release together (he has previous done marketing for companies worth hundreds of millions) and I must say it turned out nice. As much as I like to write in my blog it is still weird to see quotes in a press release from me, and even weirder to think I actually said them:) Its going nationwide Monday, look for it. I have done press releases in the past for some of my sites just for SEO reasons, this is the first time I have done it for any other reason than that. Based on that I spent the money on a top notch release service and distribution. It was more than I was used to doing at PRWeb but all indications from friends of mine that focus in that area are that this is the service to use, get what you pay for type of thing.

Another great note from last week was a partnership I hope to give more info on soon, the dates have been set for a launch of a partnership between ourselves and a technology partner that focuses on delivering Internet and phone service to a large swatch of Missouri and several other states that we are in. This will give us a market penetration that we did not expect to have for several months.

There are quite a few other things that got closer to final stages this week as far as marketing goes, we had great talks with the Tour of Missouri folks and I really am looking forward to combining business and pleasure with that event. We also are close to finalizing some TV commercial production agreements (through a surprising barter that is a blog post and story unto itself someday) to get our brand in front of people.

And then the biggie as far as the domain world is concerned, the DNJournal.com story. Special thanks to Ron Jackson at DNJournal.com for doing a great job of telling our story. I am still a bit in shock and humbled to say the least from the amount of emails and calls from domainer friends and more importantly people that did not know me before the story. It was quite awesome to say the least. I have been in or around the domain community for sometime but never really was to involved socially and actively until this year just due to time/focus on the "day job" but to see the support he community gives to new blood was a great thing. Its appreciated, wow is all I can say. Good people:)

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!

Why Do You Buy Domain Names?

Why do you buy Domain Names?  That is a question I have asked myself before. Now to be clear, I buy them for one reason, to make money online. There are very few domains I buy without a purpose, it should either have keyword potential for minisites or immediate resell potential which is why I probably have always been so adamant against brandables with no immediate keyword value or generic potential. 

After I read the post on Domain Name Wire yesterday concerning making For Sale a larger option on parked pages it made me think a bit about why people domain and the various models they use to make money (or attempt too).  I think in many cases domainers are a mix of the various models below. Which model do you fit?

High End Speculator - This domainer model buys a name based on pure speculation of moving the domain at a higher price, normally at a significantly high ROI. This person does not focus on hand registration of domain names but rather on picking up premium names and moving them.  This is the pure Domainer model as I see it.  This model needs bigger For Sale signs:)

Hand Registration Flipper - This model works well for getting started, picking up domains on the cheap and flipping them for 2, 5, or 10 times the registration cost within a few hours, days or weeks. This is a great way for people to get started and move upmarket on domains. Normally these are sold on the forums.

Minisite Domain Flipper - Domainers doing this buy domains, put minisites on them, and then flip the domain based on revenue/traffic multiples. This works well for people looking to buy revenue names and do not want to necassarily develop them.

Passive Income Domainer - This domainer type buys domains not to sell but to create an income stream from the parking (or affiliate) income generated. This domainer really does not care about for sale signs and is more concerned about creating a stream of income that requires little upkeep or effort per day.  If they happen to get an offer great, but their point is streams of income.

Site Developer - These domainers buy quality domains to develop into fully blown out websites, each domain purchase is for a specific purpose and has a specific business model associated to it.  Some would say that this person is not a domainer although more and more you see people talking on the forums about this site being sold or that sold being sold, but if you look deeper it was not a domain it was as developed site. A crappy name that gets developed into a successful site and gets sold at a high price is not a DOMAIN  being sold it is a BUSINESS being sold.

Domain Collector - This person just likes to pick up domains to acquire items and have them, in many cases they may not realize this (sorry if you realize this is you after reading). They really do not focus so much on the revenue or domain selling aspects as much as acquiring large quantities of domains.

Expired Traffic Domain Flipper - This person buys expired domains that have traffic from sources such as backlinks, may have Google Pagerank, and normally has revenue associated to it. They make money moving these names based on revenue multiples and do flips after a few months. They can use this money to reinvest in more revenue names or invest in quality generics.

What model are you? 

I am sure there are many other models that could be defined.  As much as I think bigger for sale signs are great for many domainers in some cases the focus may not be on getting the name in front of the buyer but may be on finding ways to increase CTR or PPC values.

I just put up a new poll, vote for what type of domainer you are.

On a separate note, I have a buyer looking for Blog name, should be something focused on training bloggers , blog webinars, how to make money with blogs, something that matches those topics.  Needs to be a .COM and price range is in the $100 range. Please use my contact me form if you have something.

 

Sell Your Domain Name For Free

Ok, thought I would give people the chance to try something a little bit different.

There are many different avenues to sell your domains but I hear people complain all the time that their name is buried in the thousands of other names on the various auction sites or forums.

Also, many people want to be able to give a direct pitch to their prospective buyers, really give a sales pitch rather than just typing a few lines of stats but really not being able to verbalize in a forum post why they think their name is something someone should buy. Well now is your chance to change that.

For the first 5 people that are interested in trying this I will give you the chance to showcase your domain name here on BruceMarler.com for free. The video can be up to 2 minutes long, you can have anyone you want do the pitch, the 2 rules outside of that are no nudity (obviously) and no cussing.

There really is no downside. Many people are better in front of people than behind a screen typing, this is your chance to show that (or let someone else show that).

The video will be posted to youtube.com and have an embedded link here on the site. Each post will have its own contact form so all interested buyers will be able to contact the seller directly.

If you are interested in selling you domain here please contact me by selecting contact me in the menu bar above.

I do reserve the right to reject a name depending on content or extreme adult nature.