discuss Domain Development Levels and Valuations?

[ThatNameGuy]

I'm not sure how many of you reading this have developed any of your domains, but since I'm in the beginning stages of developing two different domains, I thought I'd pose a few questions?

1. Are you developing them for yourself or your business?

2. If so, are you doing this yourself or have you hired a developer?

3. How do you compensate your developer? Don't need numbers here, but would be nice to know how they're compensated?

4. If you're not developing it for a business for yourself, how developed will it be before you'll try to sell it? How will you "value" it for resale purposes?

5. Might you just sell a percentage of it? Something I can share, while I've sold a few businesses over the years, I didn't keep even a small percentage of the business for which I regret

6. How would you rate/grade the experience so far? Would you do it again? Is it what you expected?

7. One last question...have you trade marked the name? Have you considered it?

Thanks, and I hope this will stimulate conversation about developing domains.

 

[garptrader]

In 2009 and 2010 I tried developing some fitness, pet, local geo and wedding domains as well as a site using my wife's name in .TV. It was easier to rank sites back then and I was able to get a two-word pet domain to rank on page one of Google and Yahoo for the exact match phrase which had decent search volume. A developer of pet sites bought the domain through SEDO I believe but apparently had scraped my site and copied it verbatim. Since all I sold at Sedo was the domain my plan had been to relaunch the site with my original content. Most sites I would spend a few weeks on and then left static so while they did get some traffic they never became authoritative in Google's eyes. Depending on Adwords for revenue sucks as click through rates are horrible. Affiliate links were a waste of time.

Wit one local geo site I tried to garner ad revenue from local advertisers but the attempt was unsuccessful. It was kind of frustrating to see companies waste money on what I viewed as ineffective ad campaigns yet I got no response from the same advertisers. Strangely there was a local publication which only published quarterly and merely put together a calendar of events and general city info yet they had many paying advertisers.

It probably makes more sense to focus on one site / concept which truly interests you rather than have time divided between many smaller sites. There is a big difference between a website and an online business and the skills to manage an online business are very different than what is required to acquire a domain portfolio.

 

[ThatNameGuy]

In 2009 and 2010 I tried developing some fitness, pet, local geo and wedding domains as well as a site using my wife's name in .TV. It was easier to rank sites back then and I was able to get a two-word pet domain to rank on page one of Google and Yahoo for the exact match phrase which had decent search volume. A developer of pet sites bought the domain through SEDO I believe but apparently had scraped my site and copied it verbatim. Since all I sold at Sedo was the domain my plan had been to relaunch the site with my original content. Most sites I would spend a few weeks on and then left static so while they did get some traffic they never became authoritative in Google's eyes. Depending on Adwords for revenue sucks as click through rates are horrible. Affiliate links were a waste of time.

Wit one local geo site I tried to garner ad revenue from local advertisers but the attempt was unsuccessful. It was kind of frustrating to see companies waste money on what I viewed as ineffective ad campaigns yet I got no response from the same advertisers. Strangely there was a local publication which only published quarterly and merely put together a calendar of events and general city info yet they had many paying advertisers.

It probably makes more sense to focus on one site / concept which truly interests you rather than have time divided between many smaller sites. There is a big difference between a website and an online business and the skills to manage an online business are very different than what is required to acquire a domain portfolio.

Thanks for the input, especially your experience with the geo site. My region that has a population of about 2M people has rebranded to be know as "757". One particular resort destination within the "757" has a few sites developed to attract vacationers, and they appear to be successful. I believe I own a few good domains representing the "757" area that includes the resort/beach area, so I may try to partner with someone who's already doing this, and maybe piggyback on their success. Does that make sense? Thanks again

 

[NickB]

1. Are you developing them for yourself or your business?

Business

2. If so, are you doing this yourself or have you hired a developer?

Using Squarespace designer/developer

3. How do you compensate your developer? Don't need numbers here, but would be nice to know how they're compensated?

Paying them with money?

4. If you're not developing it for a business for yourself, how developed will it be before you'll try to sell it? How will you "value" it for resale purposes?

Not for resale

5. Might you just sell a percentage of it? Something I can share, while I've sold a few businesses over the years, I didn't keep even a small percentage of the business for which I regret

No

6. How would you rate/grade the experience so far? Would you do it again? Is it what you expected?

Not finished yet, but so far so good. I am currently waiting for website content to be finalised, have a good content writer in place for 8 x 1000 word blogs/articles per month and have a good SEO strategy lined up

7. One last question...have you trade marked the name? Have you considered it?

Can't trademark it as it is a country

 

[ThatNameGuy]

1. Are you developing them for yourself or your business?

Business

2. If so, are you doing this yourself or have you hired a developer?

Using Squarespace designer/developer

3. How do you compensate your developer? Don't need numbers here, but would be nice to know how they're compensated?

Paying them with money?

4. If you're not developing it for a business for yourself, how developed will it be before you'll try to sell it? How will you "value" it for resale purposes?

Not for resale

5. Might you just sell a percentage of it? Something I can share, while I've sold a few businesses over the years, I didn't keep even a small percentage of the business for which I regret

No

6. How would you rate/grade the experience so far? Would you do it again? Is it what you expected?

Not finished yet, but so far so good. I am currently waiting for website content to be finalised, have a good content writer in place for 8 x 1000 word blogs/articles per month and have a good SEO strategy lined up

7. One last question...have you trade marked the name? Have you considered it?

Can't trademark it as it is a country

Good Stuff Nick....my problem with actually paying someone to develop my sites is I don't know enough about the development side to understand what I'm paying for? Any app's involved with your development?

 

[NickB]

Good Stuff Nick....my problem with actually paying someone to develop my sites is I don't know enough about the development side to understand what I'm paying for? Any app's involved with your development?

No I am not going down the app route, I can't justify the cost at this stage.

If the site does well and builds up some good traffic and in turn a good revenue stream it might be something to look at.

 

[ThatNameGuy]

No I am not going down the app route, I can't justify the cost at this stage.

If the site does well and builds up some good traffic and in turn a good revenue stream it might be something to look at.

I initially didn't intend to involve APP's with either development, but one of my projects involves a game (golf) that requires an app to be competitive. Good luck with your project

I'm a little surprised more members haven't shared starter or partial development projects that would add value to their domains. It's not for everyone, but it makes sense to me.