More brand-newbie parking (and other) questions

[Thenamegame]

I just (this morning) registered several domain names with godaddy and signed up with Bluehost, which according to their site allows you to register unlimited domain names. (I swear, it's like gold rush fever - I found myself wanting to register every domain name I found that wasn't nailed down - it was madness, I tell you!)
So, questions for all you more experienced folk....
domain name parking...I gather it is considered wrong to drive traffic to a "parked" domain name. If I put a Wordpress blog on it or some other type of Web site, put a bunch of useful links on it that relate to the domain name - for instance, Type 1 diabetes - and put a post on there, that's not considered "parked", is it?
And, in theory, is it a good money making strategy to do that with dozens of sites, and try to drive traffic towards those sites? I'm a newspaper reporter, I can write a lot, and quickly.
Is what I've done so far the most effective way to do it - pick domain names in an area where I have some knowledge (for instance, my son has Type 1 diabetes), which I think contain good key words (Type 1 diabetes) - register them with godaddy, and then put them all on bluehost while I work on educating myself and developing the sites?
Do people here use wordpress and do you like it? What's a good Web site or blog program for a total greenhorn like myself?

 

[nielsencl]

Ok, I think BlueHost allows you to "host" unlimited domain, not register them, yes?

So you have registered some domains and set up one or more blogs for them. Are you then putting links on them to other domains that are parked? If so, they may be allowed by your parking service, but you will have to check with them. Some allow more than others, but NONE want junk traffic being sent to the parked domains.

So, from what I gather so far, you are just putting blogs on the domains and then adding content. I'm not sure where parking comes in as we generally understand it. But that's ok. You can put Google or other ads on your blogs and it's the same idea. You add content and links to get traffic, the traffic clicks on ads (we hope) and you earn some money.

You can also do this to send traffic to parked domains, but I think you will do better if you just work on the sites you create and put the ads there.

WordPress is VERY popular and I have two WP blogs. But most of my 30+ blogs are with Blogger.com. WP has more and better features for the most part, but I prefer to email my posts to my blogs, and while I can do this with WP, they don't ever seem to have very good formatting. With Blogger I have it down where I know how to format them and they look good after posting. Almost all of the Blogger blogs I have hosted on domains.

 

[Thenamegame]

Thank you NielsenCL! I think as I read through the forums I'm getting a better idea of what parking is.
Yes, you're right, I meant to say bluehost will host unlimited domain names, not register unlimited domain names.
And I haven't done anything with my names yet - I registered a few with subject-names that I like with godaddy and I'm trying to figure out whether creating and writing for a few blogs or parking a whole bunch of domains is a better money-making strategy. And if I park a domain - if I can at least give it a little value by writing a page of information and posting some links on it, to at least give it the appearance of a Web site. Otherwise it's just an annoying list of ads, and I know when I come on those pages I don't clink on the ads.
Do you actually regularly post to all 30 blogs? And do they bring in decent ad revenue?

 

[nielsencl]

I just counted them and there is about 57 of them. Most are part of a web site, but some are just the blog. I don't actually "post" messages that I write to most of them. I often take press releases and edit them and post those for content. I don't have much time to create real posts like I should. That may be why I don't make a lot of money from the blogs, but they do help to bring traffic to the sites I have.

Parking is great. I have about 270 domains and park about 200 of them now. But most earn very, very little from parking. About 90% of my parking income comes from about 5% of my domains. I need to build sites or sell some of the ones that are not good for parking and buy some that are.

 

[Thenamegame]

Yeah, those are both challenges I imagine I'll face too - picking good domain names that generate traffic even when parked, and having time to keep blogs updated. As I mentioned in another thread - I'm a reporter - if there's one thing I can do it's churn out a lot of copy. Even so...I imagine to run a good blog that actually starts attracting regular traffic, you probably have to put some time into it. That's why I was thinking of domain name parking...and I am getting great info here, including the fact that domain name parking is not the easy, instant path to riches that I would like it to be.

When you say the blogs don't generate much revenue - a few bucks a day? Less?

And when you say build sites - would you be doing something simple, like put up a wordpress theme, add a list of links and an RSS feed, and put some posts on semi-regularly?

 

[nielsencl]

For the most part, it's very hard these days to register new domains that are going to get traffic on their own, as in type-in traffic where people are just typeing in the address to see what site is there. There are a lot of things you can do if you have a site hosted, but the options for domain parking are limited by the rules of the service you use. I work at adding some links on keywords that point to some of my domains, because the service I use allows that. But links by themselves don't generate a lot of traffic and it's slow to start seeing much.

Churning out copy is good. Churning out good copy is great. You should get a copy of the free program from www.GoodKeywords.com. Using that you can enter in a keyword or phrase like "diabetes" and see what the top 100 things that people are using to search with. That will provide you with things you work into your copy. It's refered to as SEO (Search Engine Optimization) copywriting, where the copy is optimized to contain things that search engines will show to people. Do that on your blogs and have good ad placements like with AdSense and you can earn some money that way. In general, more traffic = more money, but it can vary. If you have the same amount of traffic and one blog on diabetes and one blog on Avandia, the blog on Avandia should make more because of all the lawyer ads that will show up on that site with high bid prices. That may not be the best example, but the idea is that topics where the keyword prices are higher are going to tend to earn more per click, but those topics may have less traffic.

I would do both I think. Pick some topics where you can write a lot - post at least once a day, even if it's just because you did a search in Google and found some site that was interesting. Write a short note about it and post a link to the site. If you have more time, post a couple of pages if you have that much to say. Just keep it real and try to make it interesting.

A reporter blog could be the main site that ties all the others together and then you have your own blog network. I just took a look and my top blog has earned 99 cents so far this month. So none of them are making very much, but I have not done more than post at least a few messages every month.

One thing that you can consider is creating some blogs on good topics. Post regularly and do some site promotion like submitting to search engines and directories, and while you are earning some money you can be working towrds the time when your site is indexed and getting some traffic, and then you can sell it.

I don't consider blogs "sites" although the lines can easily blur. I consider sites to be things that aren't blogs I guess. I have business sites, directories, small search engines, file share sites, phone card affiliate sites, and odds and ends.

 

[clocker24]

Hello TheNameGame. Restrain yourself with the domain name registrations. Remember that you'll have to pay renewal fees on all those domains a year from now. Most beginners make the mistake of registering a lot of useless domain names that just become a burden. So take it slow, slow, when it comes to registering domains. Wait until you've learned more about what makes domains valuable.

Creating a website or blog using Blogger or Wordpress is not parking. Creating a blog, writing content for it and placing Adsense or other advertising links on it is a perfectly legitimate way to earn revenue. A topic like diabetes is a great one to blog about, since it's a growing problem, affects a large number of people and most likely the clicks pay fairly well.

Blogger is much easier to use, but Wordpress is more powerful, especially with the many free themes and plugins available from third parties. I use Wordpress for my blogs, like DomainerPro.com, IslamicBanking.info, and BestArabicMusic.net. I'd suggest starting your first blog with Blogger, then as you learn more about blogging you can create a second blog with Wordpress when you're ready.

Some people make a good living blogging. There's a lot to learn to achieve that. You have to learn about search engine optimization, keyword research, driving traffic via Adwords/Adcenter/Miva, using social media sites, RSS and more. Some good places to start are doshdosh.com, tony-hill.net and tropicalseo.com. You also have to acquire some technical skills, like cropping & optimizing images using Photoshop or similar programs, uploading files by FTP, basic HTML, etc.

But most important of all is quality content. Editing press releases and slapping them up might generate a trickle of traffic, but if you really want to build readership and make your blog popular, offer people a useful resource. Research your content and write quality articles. Submit your articles to the right social media sites (stumbleupon, digg, technorati, etc), leave relevant comments on related blogs with a link back to yours, and watch your traffic grow.

On the internet, as in any other kind of business, offer people a quality service and you will make money.

Ok, back to parking. Parking is something completely different. Parking really only works for domain names that receive type-in traffic. You are not allowed to promote or advertise parked pages. Parked pages consist of those "annoying lists of ads" that you referred to. Some people do click on those ads. Some of my parked pages have a 50% CTR. It is possible to make money with parking if you have good generic domain names. I make $20 to $30 a day from parking. Some people make much, much more. But you won't get there with domains that you hand-registered off the top of your head. The domains that earn most of my parking revenue are domains that I paid good money for.

Best of luck to you. Rep is appreciated if you find my comments useful.