Domain Name for sale letters on related domains

For everyone who has multiple domains registered and/or resells domains, have you noticed a huge spike in emails notifying you of “premium domain names” for sale related to your domain name?

Related Domain Names

I used to get several of these a week, but they were for directly related domains in that they were usually the same domain with a different extension.

For example, I would get a notice that someone had caught the .net or .org for one of my .com’s. Now it is often that they want to sell the .me, .mobi, .biz, etc.

Domain Name for sale trend concerns

Even more interesting is that the domains they want to sell now are often one keyword off with the same domain extension or even a different extension.

A slightly disturbing trend and another potential reason our industry gets a bad wrap is that I’ve gotten a lot of emails recently offering related domains for sale for only $199. Not a bad price in some circumstances, but the kicker is that they don’t even own the domain – it is available to be registered!

It usually is a domain that dropped very recently or that has great keywords with a less than desirable extension. Good model for the people trying to “sell” me the domain, but seriously? Come on, man!

Now this has to be an automated tool that someone has running that is just hammering away at valuable keywords. They probably register the best ones and then try to free flip (I just coined that phrase I think) related domains.

Anyway, if you get these emails take a look to see what might be of interest for a very cheap domain registration. I’ll give you one example in case you want to take a shot…

Domain Name available to register

Domain Name available to register

Obviously “RefinanceMortgageRate.com” is already taken, but there are 2 extensions available – both the .me and the .mobi… With over 8,000 exact searches and a CPC around $25 it is a great set of keywords. Ultra competitive, but for the difference in cost you could build a nice site and SEO the crap out of it for the same cost as trying to pick up one of the better extensions on a resale. The .net is for sale over at Sedo.com for $490 so for that amount you could have 25 articles written and several thousand links created and end up with a decent site. Just sayin’

Red Solo Cup

red solo cup domain nameDomain names for trending phrases, even if short lived can bring in a few bucks and I have been looking at a few of these recently especially after Elliot’s post on Tebowing.

Where you find these are usually sports, music, politics – think weiner, then think again :)

Red Solo Cup

I grew up in the 80’s and liked all kinds of music such as rap, metal, hair bands, and pop and I still listen to all kinds of music, but it has been only lately that I have started to listen to country music again (my dad jaded me by making me listen to Hank Williams too many times on that 8-Track)

I REALLY hate to admit this, but I actually like the Red Solo Cup song by Toby Keith. I know I shouldn’t, but when it comes on I crank it up and sing along… to the utter embarassment of my children… what more can you ask from a song?

So I decided to see if I could pick up RedSoloCup.com even though there are obvious TM issues I thought it would be a fun site to build and then if I had to hand it over to the real solo cup company it wouldn’t be much of a loss.

Toby Keith got there first

Evidently somebody at Toby Keith entertainment is pretty web savvy as well and they picked it up first (or possibly bought it, not sure).

It currently redirects to Toby Keiths official home page. It was only registered on November 14 so I only missed it by a couple days. Dang!

Registrant: TKO Artist Management
2303 21st Ave. South 3rd Floor Nashville, Tennessee 37212 United States
Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: REDSOLOCUP.COM
Created on: 14-Nov-11
Expires on: 14-Nov-12
Last Updated on: 14-Nov-11
Administrative Contact:
Kimbrell, TK michael@tkoartistmanagement.com
TKO Artist Management
2303 21st Ave. South
3rd Floor
Nashville, Tennessee 37212
United States
+1.6155157987

Domain Name search for registration

I tried to register the .net, but it was already registered to some guy from Utah who redirected it to his homes for sale site in Salt Lake… don’t get that at all, but whatever… maybe he is trying to flip it, but I’m not going to bother with trying to buy it from him as this is one of those short lived trends that won’t be worth nearly as much later on…

On to the .org and once again Toby Keith entertainment. Doh! How about the .us? Taken and it has a blank page with only the Toby Keith Red Solo Cup video playing which is very odd.

There are still a couple extensions available, but I think it is a little late to the party, forgive the pun, now. If you want to try your hand and fill your cup, then take a look at these:
REDSOLOCUP.CO
REDSOLOCUP.INFO
REDSOLOCUP.ME
REDSOLOCUP.MOBI
REDSOLOCUP.BIZ
REDSOLOCUP.XXX – this would probably the most fun of all sites given the end result of drinking out of a red solo cup, but you’d have some pissed off friends I think.

I attended a Christmas party this last weekend and it came on and at least half the people started singing along – the other half had no clue what the song was so it was pretty entertaining to watch.

I think it could be a great investment even with the primary domains being used since they aren’t being optimized. If you pick one up and decide to build a simple site let me know and I’ll link back to you.

New Year’s Eve will probably be the culmination of the Red Solo Cup trend with 99 percent of the world singing along to it right before and after “Auld Lang Syne”, you know, the song everyone hears and sings to at midnight… “Should old acquaintance be forgot…”

I guess it could be one of those songs that lasts a while and bleeds over into spring break and early summer on the beach so it might be a lot of fun.

Now, being a domainer, I had to go see who owned solo.com as well assuming it was solo cup company, but it wasn’t! Whois was erroring out on it, but going to the site it is obviously parked by SEDO, the domain sales company so it is probably a reseller.

Well, anyway – I hope you have a great holiday season, a wonderful Christmas and a full red solo cup on New Year’s Eve!

***************EDIT***************

Domain Name registered and website started

Well, I thought about this post all day and decided to have a little fun so I hand registered RedSoloCup.me and RedSoloCup.info and put a small site on RedSoloCup.me. I am going to put a post on the specifics so follow along – here’s to you! I tip my cup…

Domain Name Website Case Study Number – beta

This is the first Domain Name I will be developing for the 99 Domains in 99 Days challenge I started recently. Take a look back at that post if you are wondering why I am building this site…

This is my test/beta domain so I can get the timing and tasks down plus it will be a bit more extensive than a minisite.

Domain Name Test Beta

The Domain Name…

ClickHereDomains.com is the domain and site I will be building first.

The website and traffic analysis

The reason may not be clear because most of the domains I am doing for this challenge will be some sort of product related domain name where there are lots of exact searches for the keywords in the domain name. In this case I am building it to start a new brand and company so I’m not as concerned about having exact matches as much(I did make sure the word domains was in there though).

Click Here Domains will be a flagship site for a services company that will build sites on domains to get people to “Click Here” :)

Maybe not as funny, ironic or clever to you as it was to me, but when I got the idea for this challenge it was while I was listening to a podcast and they mentioned you should never put the words “Home” on your link back navigation and almost every site you see has that. They also mentioned you should never put “Click Here” on your button links which is another thing you see all the time.

I looked at HomeDomains and the .com was parked and for sale with BuyDomains which is one of the larger players in the domain name reseller arena. I knew they would want a decent amount for the domain so I moved on and I’m really glad I did.

Then I looked at ClickHereDomains.com and it was expiring on GoDaddy THAT DAY! I liked it immediately when I thought of it anyway because it would be easy to make a cool logo and it was simple, memorable and descriptive… everything you would want for a new business name and web brand. Having it available for 16 bucks including expiring auction fee and domain renewal cost made it a no brainer.

Building the site in 99 minutes

Since I bought the domain on auction it never expired which is good since it had been registered on 9/11/09… There are those 9’s and 11’s again… odd isn’t it. I’m not going to count that time on this domain so we’ll start with…

Minute 1
(Don’t worry, I’m not going to bore you with the exact details of each minute – I am tracking it though for those of you who might want to know and I’ll put it on another page at some point)
Change the DNS to point to my HostGator hosting where I’m going to build the site. I already have a couple hosting accounts so I’m not going to count that time either, but I will say I really like two hosts after having tried several and I can recommend them for their stability and ease of site management. Try these hosting companies.

I have to go finish the other 98 minutes now so I’ll update this page when I’m done so you can go take a look! Leave a comment if you like this domain, hate it or have an opinion on what I am doing here…

*** update *** The site is now live, but not quite complete – still ironing out details, but it will never be “done” so go take a look and let me know what you think in the comments below. Here is a quick screenshot of the site as it stands today:
ClickHereDomains.com screenshot

WordPress Theme change

Domain names are way more fun to talk about than what theme your WordPress blog is using, but several people have asked about the makeover of Domain Nitro so bear with me for a second and we’ll get back to the domains…

If you are a regular reader of Domain Nitro then you might have noticed the clean, easier to read, and faster loading theme I changed to recently. The reason I changed is simple – I wanted the focus to be more on the domain names, news, and overall content. I also wanted to make sure I was optimizing the site for loading as well as SEO so it was just the perfect time to change.

In the beginning…

I started off with a free theme and soon swapped to a “free” theme from WooThemes using their framework which I really like especially given the price. WooThemes has some great premium themes, but I just wanted a super clean theme so I’ve been on the lookout for a while.

I also have a subscription to ElegantThemes and their themes truly are elegant :)

I use their themes quite successfully on some of my sites and they are rock solid and very visually appealing… very focused on elegant design and aesthetics – just more than what I wanted for this one site.

WordPress Theme evolution…

I read a lot of domain name, marketing and seo type blogs and I have always liked CopyBlogger’s site layout and how easy it is to read their content. Imagine my surprise recently when they posted that they were changing themes and rebranding a bit… NOOOOO!!! Then I saw the site and thought… oh, ok not much really changing from readability. Meh.

The GREAT thing was they were giving their old theme away for free! I’m all over that especially since they had a black Friday deal for the Genesis Framework from StudioPress which is required to run their premium and free themes. Seems crazy to pay for a framework and get a free theme, but it is the best framework I’ve seen and a LOT of people use their themes on some major sites. The setup and configuration, stability and overall usability is unmatched from every theme provider I’ve seen. Check them out if you are looking for a good WordPress theme.
Nitrous Theme - High Energy Theme for WordPress
Let me know what you think of the new design in the comments below!

99 Domain Names, 99 Websites, 99 Days – A case study in why 110% matters

Domain Name questions

Domain Name puzzle

Originally I was going to call this The Domain Name Puzzle because I have found the missing piece to my story, but the 99 kept coming back into my thoughts… hope you enjoy…

Domain Names, Websites, and Minisite development

This is the beginning of a personal challenge/journey to demonstrate how to make money online with Domain Names, mini-sites, full-blown websites, domain flipping and website flipping. Read along if you would like to learn more!

If you’ve been following Domain Nitro for very long then you know my real passion is finding, buying and selling domains and then how domain names can be developed to make money online.

So why would I bother taking 99 domain names and turning them into 99 websites in 99 days? Glad you asked. What follows is a little history, a case study intro, and hopefully a new outlook on making money online.

A little Domain Name background

When I decided to buy my first domain name back in ‘99, I decided I wouldn’t spend more than $99. I had no idea how much it cost to register a name, get hosting or anything else. I spent a ton of time trying to register a domain and for every name I thought up and tried to buy, I met the dreaded “domain is already registered”.

I got really lucky when I just typed one of the domains into the browser and it redirected me to a domain purchase page. I can’t even remember who the reseller site belonged to or which company had it listed, but I immediately paid the money and took ownership of the domain…

…and promptly did absolutely nothing with it. Sound familiar?

Domain name mistakes abound

I held onto that first domain name for 9 years and due to some issues I had to part ways with it. Worst mistake of ’09.

Well, maybe that was the second worst mistake of ’09. Worst mistake was only brewing…

When I got rid of that first domain it got me even more curious about the domain name business. It was then that I found SEDO, GoDaddy auctions and Afternic.

I bought about a hundred domain names in two days and sold one of those within a week that covered the cost of all the others. In retrospect that was probably the worst sale I ever made because it made me believe I was a domain name genius and from that point on I was hooked.

I promptly proceeded to buy about 1200 domain names… WooHoo!!! Wait, how many do I have? WTF?

After buying 1200 domains you’d think I had a plan on what I was going to do with them… and I did… Sell them all for lots of money!

The problem was I had too many plans and not enough action. Classic noob domainer error I’ve come to find out, but that doesn’t make me feel any better and it sure didn’t get my cash back.

I’d spent $15,000 and thought I’d sell them within a year for at least $99,000 or more… surely that will work after taking a look at all the sales over on Ron’s site that documents weekly domain sales.  Right?

Reality sets in…

After my initial early success I only sold a few domains here and there over the next few months… but it was enough to keep me thinking I knew what I was doing. I wasn’t even actively trying to sell domains, just listing them on the bid/auction sites and domaining sites.

Then things started to slow down. I soon realized I had about $10,000 worth of renewal fees staring me in the face in just a couple months. Reality had set in and sheer panic soon followed. I HAD to start selling some of these quick!

Domain Name Extensions

Domain Name Filing

I revised my pricing and listed a lot of domains cheaper and cheaper with mild success, but nowhere near enough. I finally decided to drop 80% of them.  Painful because I still liked most of them and had developed an attachment to them.  

Personal feelings and attachment can hurt you in business and I wasn’t treating it like a business – more like an expensive hobby where I was just collecting.  Kind of like the rusty piles of junk you see on old guys farms on American Pickers or something…

I had started to learn more about domain names on blogs from people like Domain Shane, Chef Patrick and Morgan Linton and I didn’t like what I saw.

If I had read their blogs and ebooks earlier I could have bought one or two domains for a few thousand bucks and would have been much better off… Most people make this same mistake, but it still doesn’t make me or my wallet feel any better.

Making money online is hard, but should it be?

After I did a fire sale and dropped domains left and right I became very frustrated. I didn’t actively try to sell anything, just told myself that people who claimed success were liars about how much they earned online and that making money online was just too hard.

It was then that I looked back at my parking stats, Google analytics, and Google adsense and was amazed at what I saw. One site that I had built in a few hours for a friend who was sick was getting consistent traffic and had brought in more traffic and money than all the domains I had parked combined.

Wait a minute here – why would this one site with less than a dozen pages be getting that much traffic? I looked a little closer and it was obvious… The site was very focused, all original content that was inadvertently SEO’d by some miracle and was laid out in a clean, easy to navigate format.

The AHA! Moment

That very moment I knew I was onto something…

I decided to build out a couple domains with small sites and focus on them for a few months. I’ve gotten good traction and more traffic on one of those sites than I had ever seen before.
Finally! Something that can make money online. Now I need to focus!

So how do I proceed when I know the following facts:

  1. I love looking for domains, buying them or just seeing what is selling.
  2. I love Internet Marketing, SEO and all things related.
  3. I can get lost for hours browsing new domain listings, new internet marketing products, domaining blogs, internet marketing blogs, domain auctions, etc
  4. I have very little free time considering I have:
    • A normal job
    • An hour commute each way to said normal job
    • Two daughters who participate in competitive sports, student council, math teams, journalism team, GRC, media masters and more
    • A wonderful wife… Hi honey!
    • Tons of emails every day
    • Oh, and I like to work out every day as well. I pick things up and put them down at 5am routinely.
  5. In other words, I have a normal life for the most part. Crazy hectic and busy from 4:30am to 10:30pm.

The PLAN!

I was contemplating how I was going to get more sites built and weakly trying to work out a plan. Looking at the calendar I saw 11/11/11 was here!

Yo 11!!!!
You may have noticed the title and repeating 9’s in this article… Odd, coincidental and yes, purposeful.

I was trying to pick a large number of sites to develop in an aggressive time period and the 99 kept coming up. Pair that with 11 and you get one of the classic motivational numbers of all time – “give it 110%” (99+11 for the mathematically challenged he-he!). So I decided on 99 domains and 11 for the month or day (should have been 11/11/11, but I’m deliberative/procrastinating so what can I say)

Then I saw where Matt Cutts does the 30 day challenges and I was onto something. After a little more research on his site I found the NaNoWriMo which seems crazy hard to me, but the point is knocking it out in small consistent chunks. Plus I have a writer friend who is killing goals left and right with this process!

I knew I couldn’t build 3.3 sites per day to get it all done in 30 days, but I thought about how busy Matt is and what he could do in 30 days so I decided to go after one site per day… thus 99 days.

It’s on, baby! Let the games begin.

So starting on 1/2/12 I will be building a site every day… in 99 minutes or less. (edit, this used to be 11/30/11, but life happened and I got started late)

Everything included from setting up hosting, installing WordPress or an HTML5 template, creating a simple logo, writing content pages, adding analytics and reporting on how each site is doing on a weekly basis.

The challenge will end on 4/10/12 and it should be crazy fun! If you have an idea on what to call this challenge leave me a comment below – I’d really appreciate it!

Most of these will be mini-sites. One site each day usually Monday thru Saturday with additional content and backlinks on Sunday.

A choice few will be more robust sites. One each week that I will build up over time to have something more than just simple sites.

The 80/20 rule.

I fully expect that the 80/20 rule will be in full effect. 20 percent of the sites will provide 80 percent of the revenue.

I also expect 80 percent of my success will come from 20 percent of my efforts – I just don’t know what those are yet, but I will be testing that hypothesis. And vice versa I expect 80 percent of my problems will be in 20 percent of the work. Don’t know what that is yet either, but I expect it will be content, or ads, or both.

I will also write a short post about each of these domains, my plan and thought process, and site development that I will post here on my blog.

Sound interesting? Want to know how the sites perform and how much money they make? Inquiring minds want to know!

I will be posting summaries weekly, but they won’t include the domains or specific site amounts since I don’t want to publicize the domains in that way too much. I’m also going to keep a progress meter prominently featured at the top of the blog so you can see progress at a glance.

I can hear it now… “AHHHH!!!! Please give me the details, I won’t tell anyone, PLEAAASSEEE!”

Ok, I’m a pushover so if you want to know what the specific domains are such as how much traffic they get, and how much money they make, how long they take to make it in Google page results, etc simply sign up for my email list and I’ll give you the details. You can sign up here.

P.S.

As an added incentive, I’m going to have a give away or contest at the end of the 99 days where I give the winners(not sure how many at this point) their choice of a site I’ve built in this challenge (I’ll select about 50-80 of the 99 sites and the winners will get their choice from that pool). You have to be registered on the email list to win.

P.S.S.

As another incentive I might be giving away some bonus swag to chosen commenters, Google+ connections, Twitter followers, Linkedin connections, and FaceBook Friends. So get social with me now… Who knows, I might even have some additional surprises in store during the event!

Hello world!

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

Best post EVARRRRR!!!

For those of you who really know me you’ll agree that I rarely ever become a fanboy or rave about product x or person y, but I just read the best blog post ever – in so many different aspects – from engagement to stickiness to SEO to call to action…  go read it NOW, seriously.  Let me know what you think.  I subscribed even though I’ve sworn off new subscriptions – now who to bump?  Hmmm.

How to Quit Your Job, Move to Paradise, and Get Paid to Change the World

Stop throwing away money! Easy as a, b and better yet, c!

Do you have a website that you want people to visit?  If not, what are you doing reading this blog entry? 

:)

Since you are still reading I assume you do.

Now, when you start getting that magical traffic, are you throwing away money?  Probably!  Most people assume if they do one of the following the traffic will come and they are right…

  • Write great, original content frequently
  • Get links from sites to your site
  • Comment on other blogs hoping people will click back to your site
  • Build a list of visitors emails and email them information and offers
  • Build page rank in results pages so Google will show some love and give your page even higher in their search results
  • Buy traffic with PPC, CPA, etc

Now what if I told you that you had to immediately pay 2X or 3X more in time or money to get the same traffic?  Would you do it – maybe, maybe not!  If you have a good idea of your costs to get a visitor you might find that it wasn’t worth it.  The problem is you are doing EXACTLY that! 

No, you’re not you say?  Ok, if you can answer this question honestly and the answer is yes then you can stop reading this because you are in the vast minority…

Do you run a/b tests on your pages including your home page, sales funnel pages and squeeze pages?

Didn’t think so.  Why not?  Do you enjoy throwing away money?

A/B testing really is simple and it can increase your conversions and thus visitors who stick around by 2x or even more.  Now who doesn’t want twice the page views and potentially revenues?  The first time I did this I couldn’t believe how glaring my results were – literally a background color and position of one squeeze form performed over 300% better than the original one I had put up that came as a template form.  The crazy thing is you can test really quickly and easily with the tools available today – for free even.  Google has a great set of testing tools and there are many more available that add varying degrees of automation to your testing.

Recently I ran across a blog series from Cameron Chapman over at KissMetrics.com that includes the following articles:

Take 15 minutes and read over these great tips on testing and then take 15 minutes more to implement your very first test – if it doesn’t show you any differences then please contact me so I can hire you ASAP for my site!

Make sure you look at the third one on emails that convert as Cameron actually gives some examples of what you might use as a test…  Start with the big impact ones such as the subject line (ie, the headline of an email) – I really like the idea of varying it by something like “Product X on sale – 10% off NOW” vs “10% Discount on Product X – Today ONLY!”.  If you have any examples or anything you want to share please leave a comment below!  Good luck!

Is it a FAQ or something better?

Recently I was trying to find the answer to a question I KNEW I had before that I had researched and resolved. Took a little while to find the answer again so I decided to start my own personal FAQ where I knew I could get to it.

FAQ logo

FAQ site logo - FAAAQ.com

This isn’t just any old FAQ – mainly because FAQ was already taken :). In addition to that little problem I also didn’t want just a traditional FAQ area without the answer to the question so I have started Frequently Asked, And Answered, Questions – FAAAQ.com. Catchy huh?

Initially I will be using it as a repository for my own needs, but I’m sure I’ll expand it later if more people want to use it and have similar interests! Take a look and see if there is anything there you find interesting. If you would like to participate please contact me and we can discuss.

How many hands does Google have?

There is an old saying that sometimes a company or entity is so big that its left hand doesn’t even know what the right hand is doing…

Google Places a spam farm? Nah.

Evidently the Googleplex has a couple of extra appendages since they classified their own places results as spam according to an article on TechCrunch.
Personally, I think they are just blowing it out of proportion, but when a company gets the size and power of Google, there are always power struggles. Matt Cutts seems like he is pretty straight forward – don’t know him, but his blog and videos are generally blunt and honest.

Either way, if you run a content farm you will get punished and this was just a side effect of the spammer purge that is going on with useless content.