Name Monetizer - Name Monetizer - making money with domain names

Entries in domain development (8)

Sunday

Aug012010

WhyPark Debuts Domain Apps

Sunday, August 1, 2010 at 6:10PM

WhyPark announced in July that they have new "Domain Apps" that can be installed on WhyPark domains. These widgets are automatically installed, either on the home page of the domain or on a separate page.

Domain Apps let you instantly add relevant widgets to your domains, and in some cases you earn money from the app. The comparison shopping feed is one example that lets you earn money. The full list includes:

Comparison Shopping - perfect for product domains
A Hotel Directory for your area, great for geo-domains
Local Business Listings - good for categories or geo-domains
Online Flash Games
A Twitter stream about the topic of your domain
Weather for a given city or region
A Web Directory: "Develop a new revenue stream by including a paid directory on your domain. Customize categories and subcategories and charge a monthly listing fee."
YouTube videos based on keywords related to your domains.

The apps are easy to install, but I have run into problems on some of my domains. The apps are reported to be installed, but they don't show up. It turns out that domain apps don't install if you are using AdSense or another third party monetization mechanism. You need to be using the WhyPark/Parked feed. I find that this feed does not target quite as well based on content as the AdSense feed on many of my domains, and that income is better with AdSense in many cases, Your mileage may vary, of course.

All-in-all, Domain Apps are a great new tool to easily create landing pages with custom content that makes your domains shine. In some cases you may even make some extra money.

Leonard Holmes |

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Wednesday

Jun302010

Epik plans a Monster Conference

Wednesday, June 30, 2010 at 10:25PM

The Edgewater Hotel
I could have just as easily said that Monster plans an Epik conference. Venture Capitalist and Internet entrepreneur Rob Monster is working to build a platform that supplants domain parking.

His Epik platform primarily uses tools from EvoLanding to create a semantic web of sites that feed traffic into one another. He recently announced the first Epic Developer's Conference. The early bird registration for the event is just $595 and ends on July 15. The event itself takes place in Seattle September 15th - 17th at the Edgewater Waterfront Hotel.

For more information visit their site at the Epik blog.

Leonard Holmes |

1 Comment |

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Monday

Mar012010

More on WhyPark Development

Monday, March 1, 2010 at 6:57PM

WhyPark is actually a very sophisticated platform that lets you create almost any type of site you want to. You do this by editing the layout of your site using their editing tools. When you go to edit a layout you will see two windows - one for the stylesheet for your site and one for the HTML content. This gives you the ability to edit your site at a very granular level. Some blocks of content - such ad the main article list and the ads above and below - are not individually editable, but you can choose to omit them entirely if you want to by removing the [[mainbody]] tag. (You will almost never want to do this.) Most normal HTML will work with editing your layout. You can also use a bunch of "placeholders" as short-cuts to special pieces of content.

Site Placeholders:

According to WhyPark placeholders are "used to insert the dynamic pieces of your sites into your layout. They add functionality and provide a simple way to move functionality around within your layout." Use the double square bracket terms listed below when you are editing your WhyPark site's layout:

[[domain]] Inserts your domain name into layout.
[[forsale]] Insert a link to sell your domain. This placeholder is replaced with a link to an inquiry form where buyers can contact you.
[[image]] Insert the default small image for your site's category
[[imgHeader]] Insert the default header image for your site's theme or category
[[imgMedium]] Insert the dynamic 385x261 image
[[mainbody]] The main content for every page which includes the full articles, custom pages, etc.
[[newsletter]] Insert a sign up link for your newsletter. This feature is only available with subscribers to the Managed tier of service.
[[related]] Insert the related articles. Related articles show a title and summary of an article on your site to keep users engaged.
[[rssfeed-in]] If you have an external RSS feed associated with your site, insert this placeholder to indicate where the content from it will be displayed. This feature is only available with subscribers to the Enhanced and Managed tier of service. It may take up to 24 hours to see the first data from these feeds.
[[rssfeed-out]] Insert a link to download your RSS feed. This feature is only available with subscribers to the Managed tier of service.
[[sitename]] Insert the name of your site as defined in your main site settings.
[[textads]] Insert text ads you've setup for this site.

Leonard Holmes |

2 Comments |

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Sunday

Nov292009

Monetizing a Domain Portfolio - Multiple Streams of Income

Sunday, November 29, 2009 at 6:10PM

When monetizing your domain portfolio it is important to adopt the concept of multiple streams of income. Many domain owners got lazy in the last few years as domain parking provided good income for domains that received traffic. Google and Yahoo were the source of most of this income, and both of these companies have been cutting back on the percentage of their revenue that they pay to domain parking companies. The domains you own, on average, need to earn at least enough to pay for their annual registration fees. There are many routes to this goal. You should consider all of the following:

Domain Parking - The major domain parking companies still pay good money for many domains. By all means continue to park the majority of your portfolio while you also pursue these other streams of income.
Quasi-development - Sites such as WhyPark and DevHub create semi-automated mini-sites that can sometimes draw more traffic than parked domains. Experience to date suggests that even though the sites draw more traffic and look nice they do not always make more money.
Mini-sites - Developed mini-sites are one step up the food chain. Often these appear to be templated "made-for-AdSense" sites that usually include some content. The best of these include unique content and may get listed in search engines for this reason. (My plan to get some mini-sites developed was temporarily delayed, but this is still planned.)
Affiliate Advertising - You can use your domains as landing pages for affiliate products, such as those found on ClickBank.
Domain Sales - This will be the focus of an upcoming post. If you sell a few domains a year you can probably pay the registration fees on the remainder of your domains.

Leonard Holmes |

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Monday

Nov022009

How to Monetize Now?

Monday, November 2, 2009 at 8:24PM

Domain parking income is down 40-60% for most domain owners. While parking companies are tweaking their algorithms to squeeze every drop out of parking, there is also a shift toward domain sales as a way to monetize domain names. If you've been in the industry long enough, you've seen this before. This is how many of us monetized before the advent of parking.

Domain sales income has held up better than domain parking income for big companies and small domain investors alike. Sedo recently announced that 31% of it's recent income was from parking, while 69% was from sales. Guess what they will be emphasizing down the road? Despite this disparity, I don't expect to see these companies abandon parking. I do expect to see more parking companies get gobbled-up by the likes of Sedo, Parked & DomainSponsor.

What does threaten domain sales? ICANN's plan to roll-out new TLDs will hurt sales of non .com domains. I've dumped most of my .infos, because I believe that these new TLDs will dilute the market to such an extent that only .com and .org will really be meaningful in the future.

Domain development has even taken a hit lately. Rick Latona recently announced that his company aeiou.com will no longer create mini-sites for people. That leaves companies like Domain Mass Development and MiniSites competing for this market with quasi-development companies like WhyPark and DevHub. Is there money in mini-sites? I haven't seen much there yet. Even full-fledged site development with great SEO does not guarantee an income stream.

My strategy for the future is to get lean and watch for occasional buying opportunities as others get lean too. Forecasters are predicting an economic recovery in 2010, but I don't expect the domain industry to reciver that quickly. Domain parking is in bigger trouble than the economy in general, and many of us have relied on that source of "easy" income for too long. I'll also be cutting some sales prices. Look for more on monetizing through sales in future articles.

Leonard Holmes |

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