David Carter - UK Based Internet Marketing Expert

Preview The New Blog

2009-05-06T13:05:00.002+01:00

I've been putting the finishing touches to my new blog / site.

My intention is to have the entire site, not just the blog, based on Wordpress, now that I've finally mastered some of the more intricate things about how it all works.

But before I formally launch it, I'd like to show you the progress to date. Feel free to add comments, especially since I was unable to import all of the previous comments from this current Blogger version.

I hope to move the entire site this week, but in the meantime, the URL for the new blog is www.david-carter.com/wp - I hope you like it!

Geocities Closing

2009-05-01T12:40:00.002+01:00

Yahoo! announced recently that it is shutting it's Geocities hosting at the end of 2009 and asking users of this free hosting service to move to their yahoo! Hosting service instead.

A number of early domainers and web site pioneers hosted their sites and pointed their names to a free Geocities account.

These sites will likely disappear altogether, since people change their email addresses and will be unaware of the change.

Personally, I've never seen a Geocities hosted site that I liked, so it'll be no great loss.

But of course, some have good search engine ranking and backlinks - which will be wasted unless the owner moves their hosting to a new account.

The moral of the story is avoid free hosting and get yourself a proper hosting account pronto!

Freedom!

2009-04-30T13:14:00.003+01:00

Most of my domain names are on automatic renewal. Having just looked throgh my .co.uk, I have marked another 83 names for automatic deletion once the expiry date is met.

I have been asked in the past why I don't post a list of the names and sell them off cheaply.

The answer to that is simply that I don't want to.

This is just an exercise to teach myself not to register names for the sake of it. I wouldn't want to encourage ohers to do it either.

It is refreshing to have the occasional purge. It frees the mind.

Domainers Cause Swine Flu [.com] Pandemic

2009-04-30T08:17:00.004+01:00

I guess there are hundreds, if not thousands of speculators grabbing up any names with some reference to the current outbreak of Swine Flu.

In fact, I bet there are more swine flu related names being registered at the moment than there are people affected by the illness.

The WHO should be issuing a category 6 warning that domainers have created a pandemic of panic buying useless and worthless domains that will never see the light of day.

This happens every time some big story hits the news, with speculative investors running off to register every name they can think of, in the hope that the story becomes so big, that they can either earn ppc income from it, or can quickly flip it to some village idiot who comes along with a large cheque book.

I wish them luck. They're going to need it.

FindJobs.com at Moniker Auctions

2009-04-28T14:20:00.003+01:00

I was looking through the auction listings for the next live domain auction at Moniker (see http://domainauctions.moniker.com/viewCatalog.php?id=199), when I noticed the name, findjobs.com.

The reason it attracted my attention was because I own the .co.uk version.

It's one that I've had a few enquiries about during the time I've owned it and also one that I've placed quite a high value on, though nobody's ever stumped up the cash of course. They rarely do.

It was nice to see that the .com has an auction guide of $100,000 to $250,000. Personally, I think that this is an ambitious number, which is as good a reason as any why you should never ask me for an appraisal!

If it sells for anything like that guide price, I'd like to invite the buyer to contact me with a view to grabbing the .co.uk too!

I could do with a nice holiday.

Dropping Domains

2009-04-28T08:10:00.002+01:00

For several months now, I have been letting some of my domains drop. These are the lower quality hyphenated domains for which I will have no use myself.

I haven't checked whether any of them have been snapped back up by others, as that's the kind of thing that keeps a domainer hanging on to low value or worthless domains for years, in the hope that somebody will come along to buy them.

As selling has never really formed part of my own domaining strategy, I don't get attached in this way.

The recession we are currently in makes no difference to my stance on this, as I chose the names to drop many months ago and am still registering more to replace them. They are simply better targeted these days.

It made me monder though, whether the registrars are feeling the pinch as people begin to let their own names drop because they cannot afford the renewal fees, or have higher priorities.

Back Online

2009-04-26T14:51:00.002+01:00

I just spent another week working away without a laptop. That's the second time I refused to take one and it's so good to get away from the technology!

Infact, it was so good that I also switched off my mobile phone apart from when I wanted to call home and avoided television.

I think I am becoming a technophobe.

Having just read through most of my emails, I found two domain enquiries, which is always interesting, though I ignore all such emails unless they open with an offer that grabs my attention.

Double PPC Traffic By Using Generic Domains

2009-04-12T19:21:00.003+01:00

My friend Edwin Hayward of http://www.memorabledomains.co.uk/ has conducted a study to demonstrate the value of generic domain names when marketing using pay per click.

Here's the press release:

http://www.prweb.com/releases/domain/names/prweb2305584.htm

Here's the study:

http://www.memorabledomains.co.uk/ppcanalysis.pdf

It's no surprise to me, as it's always been my experience that having a relevant domain name enhances click throughs both on PPC and on standard search engine listings. Plus you get the odd direct type-in too!

How Not To Enquire About A Domain Name

2009-04-12T13:08:00.004+01:00

I get a few emails each week asking me whether certain of my domain names are for sale. The answer is usually no, though sometimes, I have been tempted with a nice offer.

Yesterday I received an email that appears to make some assumptions so I thought I'd post it here. I've removed any identifying information from the email, otherwise, it's as I received it.

Dear Sirs,

You have registered the top level domain (co.uk) of our registered company name xxxxxxxx. We are incorporated in the United States as xxxxxxxx LLC and have owned the xxxxxxxx.com domain since 1997.
We would like to utilize the co.uk domain for corporate use. Would you please let me know what kind of arrangement we can make for a transfer of the domain?

Sincerely,

I might be wrong about the intention here, but the way I see it, this person is assuming because he has a company based in the USA and owns the .com of the same name, that this gives him automatic rights over a UK name that I have owned for a number of years.

The first line is particularly accusatory in my opinion. It suggests that I deliberately set out to register his company name.

Asking for a transfer of the name is a bloody cheek, but maybe I am being unfair and he's really asking whether the name is for sale.

However, I've dealt with idiots like this before and I know the form.

My reply was simply to state that the domain name in question is not for sale. It won't be the end of the matter though, since people like this really do believe that they have an entitlement to something that's not theirs.

Owning a USA company of the same name as a .co.uk name carries no weight at all in the UK.

Owning the .com version of a name does not imply rights to any other extension.

Sending emails like the one above does nothing to motivate me to even consider selling a domain name. In fact, it just motivates me to point out the error of their ways on my blog.

Kepp it up Mr P and I'll post your URL too.

Attending Domain Shows

2009-04-11T10:43:00.003+01:00

I was asked by reader of this blog if I could present a few tips about a domain conference for the first time.

As I am not really the person to ask, since I don't attend shows, I asked a few people who have been, for their own tips on making the investment pay off. Even the free shows have an investment of time, travel and accommodation.

Here is some advice from those who kindly took the time to answer the question when I passed it on:

Contributor 1

1. Don't be shy

2. Meals are designed to break bread with folks you don't know, sit at tables with new faces at each meal or function.

3. Don't be afraid to ask questions of the panels and introduce yourself to the attendees.

4. You will come away and say it was the best couple of days you ever had in business.

Contributor 2

Don't be intimidated by the long term players and dive right in to the fray.

Seems like yesterday was my first TRAFFIC, but it was 4 years ago.

As someone at the time with almost zero industry knowledge, I was met with open arms.99% of the show attendees are warm, welcoming and more than willing to help out someone new to our industry.In other words' - don't be bashful, and don't be worried about not knowing the industry all that well.

With so many experts in the room it is a perfect place to ask a lot of questions.

Elliot Silver was also asked the same question last week and posted his advice on his blog at http://www.elliotsblog.com/index.php/guide-to-attending-a-domain-conference/ (I think it was the same person asking the question).

To anyone looking to get the best from a domain show, I hope this helps.

Wordpress - The Easy Way

2009-04-05T17:25:00.003+01:00

This blog is published using Blogger, probably the easiest blogging platform there is, but for ages now, I've wanted to learn more about Wordpress.

Other blogs look much nicer than mine and they are almost always published on a Wordpress platform.

I've looked at it a few times in the past and I even had this blog converted to Wordpress a year or more ago, but never actually implemented it. (It's still hidden in a directory just in case though).

The reason I never went through with it, was simply because it looked too complicated for me.

But, the more I've seen, the more I like it. So much more than a blog, I know that it can be used as a mini-CMS (content management system), which is something I'd really like to understand more, so that i can build some niche sites, hopefully with a nice pay model attached.

So, it was nice to find a complete "how to" video course yesterday that promises to teach me everything I want to know about the program.

I've only watched two of the videos so far, but they have taken me further than I've ever really managed on my own previously when I've looked at it.

The 1 minute install was particularly useful. I'm actually building a site as I go along with the videos at the moment and managed to get it up an running in no time.

The parts that really excite me though, are the ones that explain how to turn a Wordpress site into cash.

I won't jump forward and view them now though - I want the site fundamentals right first.

This really is a great video series. See for yourself at http://tinyurl.com/dn544x At $97, it's a great investment, especially for newbies to Wordpress like me.

Prospecting

2009-04-01T16:56:00.003+01:00

I've been having some fun experimenting with a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system today.

It's been a long time since I've picked up a telephone and cold-called people to sell them something, but part of my deal with a client is that I get 50% of what I sell.

Now the Internet is one thing, but I figured that if I could introduce services to people over the telephone, I'd potentially and significantly increase my earnings.

This goes strongly against the concept of not actually working for a living, but to my surprise, I enjoyed calling people today.

It's not something that professional services companies in this particualr market ever do, evidenced by the fact that I managed to get through to the main decision makers 100% of the time.

That's never happened before in my entire selling career!

These prospects were sitting ducks.

The industry I was working in is pretty much in the doldrums at present, though I have to say, Internet enquiries are still coming in to me daily from my various web sites.

But, my task for today was to see if I could catch the competion snoozing.

The answer was an emphatic YES.

Not one person I called threw out my enquiry. Most welcomed it, whilst a couple were luke warm.

It was encouraging to find something useful and potentially profitable to do in my quieter moments.

Nothing happens until somebody sells something - and to my surprise, nobody seems to be selling in the market I went after today. What's wrong with people? Jobs are at stake now more than ever.

I won't identify the niche, but I will tell you that I've been calling some of the biggest companies in the UK and getting straight through.

The CRM system I've been using is from www.salesforce.com. It's very impressive and if I'd had it at my disposal from the start of my selling career, I'd never have lost track of any client, nor would they have lost track of me.

I'm sure there are other solutions out there, but you know, I quite liked the domain name and could remember it. Funny that.

Domain Renewal Invitations

2009-03-30T15:21:00.003+01:00

Domain Renewal Group are at it again, sending out unsolicited domain expiration notices.

I received a couple this morning.

I don't know this outfit and have never dealt with them. I deal with only two registrars exclusively.

Domain Renewal Group offer to renew my names for just £20 for a year, or £35 for two years.

Not bad, except that I only pay somewhere in the region of $7 per year anyway.

By accepting their offer, I'd be transferring away from my preferred registrars and allowing somebody else to charge me almost three times more than I currently pay.

I don't think so.

Who Turned The Traffic On?

2009-03-17T07:26:00.003Z

It was an interesting day for me yesterday as the traffic for one of my domains suddenly went haywire following some nice search engine ranking on Microsoft Live.

Who'd have thought it?

This partcular site always did well with Google, so why should Live suddenly make a difference?

Personally, I have no idea. But I saw traffic go from around 30-40 per day unique visitors to way past the 6000 mark yesterday.

This had a rather positive effect on my normally extremely modest Adsense earnings. To the degree that yesterday evening, I was logging in every half hour to see how much money I'd made.

It was exciting to see a significant amount of money flowing my way from ppc.

I don't know if today will bering the same result, as I really don't know what prompted the surge. The quick addition of Google Analytics to the site might throw some light on the matter. I hope so.

Whether the surge continues today, I just don't know. When good things happen, I have a habit of expecting them to be temporary. I'm rarely disappointed that way.

If it does continue, I'll be very happy of course. Who wouldn't?

And to think, yesterday I was going to post a blog about development over PPC. Thie site I'm talking about has a healthy mix of both as it happens - unique, self-penned content and nicely positioned and blended Adsense.

It also now has a couple of nicely placed affiliate programs too!

So, if you're currently stuck in the rut whereby you're wondering why you're bothering producing content and stressing over the minimal amounts you earn off ppc, just remember that if somebody turns on the traffic tap, you'll suddenly make a lot more money.

Wish I'd bought some of the really premium names all those years ago! The domain I'm talking about is hyphenated. Shock, Horror!

Turning Development Dreams Into Reality

2009-03-16T15:19:00.003Z

How much longer can domainers ignore development?

I have been playing at development to date, yet the sites I've turned into mini-businesses have done spectacularly well for me. I'm not sure whether it's all down to the domain names either, if I'm perfectly honest.

As I mentioned in my last post here, I'm currently working with a team in India that I hope will deliver me a great new site.

The initial discussions with the designer and the technical project manager have been encouraging.

They are asking the right questions, which is a good start.

Their first question today was, "What are your aims for the site"?

That was a great question and one that every domainer or developer should ask before setting pen to paper.

It saves a lot of money and time!

Outsourcing Domain Development Revisited

2009-03-12T12:45:00.002Z

Although I do most of my site development myself, using XSitePro2 or Dreamweaver, there are times when it's necessary to outsource.

Today I have awarded a $2000 contract to develop one of my sites to an established firm overseas. I'll show the site when it's done. I expect it to take 35 days. We'll see.

In the past, I've had mixed experiences with this approach. One developer (php/MySql) I used originally, probably 5 years ago now, is still in contact and I use him for scripts and site add-ons.

I'd use him more, but he is building some properties at the moment and because he works alone, he doesn't have the capacity he once had. Brilliant guy though - I found him on Elance.com originally.

Other projects I've tried haven't worked out so well, whilst some have been a disaster. I can't think of many that have been outstanding successes.

Part of the problem has been that I've picked individuals rather than teams to do the work.

When people work alone, they over-commit and when they come across something they can't do, they quickly run out of alternative answers.

Looking at my own mistakes, I'd say that I have been to blame for 50% of the failures, either through insufficient specifications at the start, or because of my high expectations.

My approach has changed now.

Here's what I do on the various freelance sites when trying to get a project started:

1) I feature the job. It then stands out from all the wannabe's.

2) I declare a budget and I make it as high as I can in order to attract serious developers.

3) The initial job specification is broad and comprehensive enough to let developers get an understanding of the overall requirement.

4) Only teams are invited to bid. I now search through profiles and old projects on the various freelance sites in order to get an understanding of the freelancer's capabilities.

5) I keep the bids private. (it helps avoid shill bids from multiple account holders)

6) All of the freelance sites have private message boards for each project - I use them extensively at the bid stage by asking lots of questions.

7) A list of previous projects and URL's is no longer satisfactory to me. I ask for email and phone contact information for previous clients and then check this against whois info for the domains in question - just to be sure.

8) I then ask the previous clients a lot of questions about their dealings with the freelancers involved in the project. Some are happy to respond. Others don't - that's just life.

9) Before awarding a project, I throw in a few more questions to the developer, like, "What's the project you're most proud of - and why"? "If you fall sick during a project, what happens"? "What happens if your lead developer resigns tomorrow"?

10) When I award the project, I deposit 100% of the project funds into escrow so that my developer knows that the money is safe.

I don't know if I have it right yet, but I'll continue to work on it.

As it happens, I think I have found a good team for my latest on-line adventure. Time will tell.

Personality Profile - what's that got to do with domains?

2009-03-07T13:02:00.003Z

When I first bought the name personalityprofile.co.uk, it was because I had qualified to conduct personality profiling.

I thought at the time that it would be useful in my recruitment business, but as it transpires, I lost interest in the subject entirely.

It was only when I was browsing through my portfolio this morning, looking for another recruitment oriented name to develop, that I discovered it has been parked for a couple of years.

I'd completely forgotten about it, even though some time ago, I'd had somebody make me a header for a site I was planning.

Well, time's gone by, so although I posted a site at http://www.personalityprofile.co.uk a few minutes ago, I've decided to try and sell it.

If personality profiling is your thing, maybe it will be of interest to you.

Of you are simply wondering what personality profiling is all about and you're just a little bit curious, have a go on the free personality test I've linked to there.

Creating Service For £5.99

2009-03-06T18:41:00.004Z

I've been working away today, so it was nice to get back from a day of travelling and immediately knock out another services web site.

This one is http://www.candidatescreening.com - offering a cut-down recruitment service that concentrates only on the screening of candidates.

Why have I done this? Because I believe that employers will be inundated with applications at the moment and if not, then as soon as they place an advertisement for a job.

I've seen it before. One ad can produce several hundred applications in this economic climate, so I thought I'd offer something that might just be a viable and attractive alternative.

As usual, I have no real idea as to whether the site will attract the right sort of visitor, but it seems like a good idea and as the total outlay was the cost of a domain name (that I've had a few years I think), I might as well give it a try.

Notice the lack of Adsense or any other kind of noise.

This is a pure service site.

Tele Selling A Web Concept Part 1

2009-03-04T12:30:00.002Z

It's been a very long time since I've picked up a phone and cold called somebody, but today I thought I'd test the waters.

As I am about to launch www.windowquote.co.uk formally, I wanted a company to act as a guinea pig and be the first to include their prices on the site.

I know my reaction to people who call me up out of the blue - especially if they are flogging the concept of a web site.

To my surprise, I got straight through to the decision maker of a local window firm who is more than interested in what I'm doing.

I explained that the site goes against everything they teach at sales school, because it aims to give visitors the price before asking for any contact information.

My contact understood why immediately. I didn't have to explain too hard.

I said I'd be giving him several months free - as I will with quite a few companies in different areas, just to test the site and visitor response.

After that, I explained, I'll be charging a monthly fee for inclusion on the site. That fee will include an amount for Google Adwords advertising, specifically for their company's page on my site.

It will be very tightly targeted in order to attract only the most interested people.

I'll be charging £100 per month, with around £50 of that going into Adwords advertising.

There was no price resistance. Interesting!

Now, there are tons of companies offering a similar service, though there weren't when I first thought of the idea. In fact, I could only find one at the time.

However, all ask for contact information up-front and none seem to reinvesting in client-oriented Adwords advertising, so I think I can steal a march there.

My email campaign is set up and ready to go, but I thought it would be best to get a company to test everything first. That way, I can start charging sooner.

The domain industry has gone through many changes in recent years. The reason I am doing this site, is to see if I can start making advertising money directly from my domains.

The advertising networks will only screw our prices lower and lower and of course, we have absolutely no control over that unless we start building to sell space.

That means quality content and something that adds value to both visitors and advertisers in my opinion.

Names Still Available

2009-03-02T07:51:00.002Z

I registered a new domain name this morning. To be honest, I was very surprised that it was available, but that's domaining for you.

The newest addition to my portfolio is SalesRecruiter.co.uk.

Given that there are many specialist sales recruitment firms in the UK, the domain name already has resale value.

Probably not fantastic value, but it's generic and describes an entire recruitment niche, just like all of my other recruitment oriented names.

I'd nominally value it at say, one placement fee. An average placement fee for a good sales recruiter being around £6000.

The recruitment industry will undergo a lot of consolidation during the next 12 to 18 months, just like other industries. There will be a lot of people leaving their recruitment jobs and starting up on their own.

The reason it's caught my attention again is because the costs of entry into the market are so low and there is no requirement for any kind of qualification.

This means that with a good domain name, you can start up in business and begin advertising your services online.

In my case, I'll worry about finding candidates when employers start knocking on the door - and they will, since I have been slowly building out some of my names in recent weeks and I have stumbled upon a unique method of attracting candidates from just about any niche.

I haven't bought the name to resell, I have bought it in order to create a potential income stream in a market I understand completely.

Buying domains in niches that you know a lot about is a winning formula, since you aren't reliant on selling the name in order to make money from it.

In this case, I'll be making a sales recruitment site, adding Adsense advertisements and possibly other things that can generate money.

The names and the opportunities are still out there if you look for them.

Software Revisited

2009-02-19T11:42:00.005Z

I've been putting a few more finishing touches to my windowquote site today and began thinking of ways to attract potential advertisers, which of course, is always going to be the hardest part of any online venture.

There are many ways to promote a web site to a paying audience including:

Telephone Canvassing - not ideal, it means having to sell the concept
Physical Mailshot - Expensive with very low return on investment
Email Shot - Cheap and easy, but requires a mailing list
Search Engines - My site is already attracting visitors from Google & Yahoo
Paid Search - Look for companies who are looking to advertise
Window Trade Press Advertising - Expensive and inefficient

My efforts will be confined to the online world of course, as that's where I am most comfortable at the moment.

So, from the options above, I settled on 3, 4 and 5.

Now for many would-be or first-time online marketers, those options might not seem so easy.

I'm a bit different, because over the many years I have been online, I have collected just about every tool available that allows me to run just about any campaign I wish.

In fact, I was looking through my little software library today and found everything I need to get started right away.

Option 2, Email Marketing can only be done effectively if you have the right tools. This means either sitting and writing hundreds or thousands of emails, or using something that will do the job for you.

But of course, in order to send emails, you first need an email list to send the mails to!

I could search for companies online and try to email them in turn, but that would take a while, so I looked at what I could use. The one that sprang immediately to mind was SEO Elite.

Most commonly used to find linking partners, I see no reason why the same software can't be used to find advertising partners.

(For those domainers out there, it's also good at finding potential end-user buyers for your domain names. Think about that).

SEO Elite takes much of the hard work away, by crawling thousands of sites looking for very specific keywords and then reporting back with the site information.

It then allows me to email each of the sites in order to make initial contact. All I have to do is create a standard letter, including certain variables like company name, web site URL etc., and the rest is done for me. It's simply a case of pointing and clicking.

I also have a product called IBP 10 Professional which stands for Internet Business Promoter. In many ways, I prefer this software as it's a little more polished and looks more professional, but for this exercise, I thought SEO Elite would be quicker.

It just occurred to me that job seekers could use something similar... note to self, "don't get distracted".

So that's the emailing part sorted then. But what about if I wanted to automate the responses to people who reply?

SEO Elite won't necessarily do that for me - at least, not in the way I want, which is to send people more information on the site, advertising rates, payment methods etc.

Well, many years ago, it must have been around 1998 or 1999, I bought a product called Mailloop which is a complete email automation system that goes well beyond anything that's on the market even now.

There have been several updates to the product over the years, and luckily, I bought the Pro version, which guaranteed me free updates for life. It was VERY expensive at the time, but now seems quite reasonably priced for what it does.

With Mailloop, I can automate the entire sales cycle for my site.

It's not to be confused with mailing list auto-responder systems like AWeber which I use on other sites I have. It's far more complex than that.

So, between those software packages, I already have everything I need to create a solid campaign and let it run itself.

Option 4 Organic search engine listing is where I normally direct all of my efforts. But again, in order to do that, I need tools. My pages are not presently optimised to attract glazing companies.

So, it will be back to the drawing board to try and create a few pages that are directed at my advertising audience. This will also help enormously with option 5, which is paid search.

Now I don't know about you, but although I can find my way around Google Adwords easily enough and know exactly how to optimise my ads for maximum return on investment, I do find it all a bit cumbersome and time-consuming.

So, back in my tool cupboard, I discovered the SEO Elite companion, it's called KEYWORD ELITE.

With this software, I was able to create a massive list of applicable keywords in minutes.

Now, remember that at this stage, I haven't been looking for people to use my windowquote.co.uk web service, I am looking for potential advertisers.

That's altogether a different audience and a far trickier one to find online, unless of course, you have the right tools.

All web sites looking for the same advertisers as me have a page for advertisers. Those are the pages I sent Keyword Elite looking for.

Not only did I get a huge list of keywords from the web pages and meta tags, I also found the URLs and was able to see what other people are doing to attract the same advertisers as me. Brilliant inside information. It was quite depressing to see others doing it better or more convincing than me, but that's how we learn!

Anyway, having not used Keyword Elite for almost 3 years, I was surprised to see an Adwords function in there. I clicked it and entered some text and it automatically uploaded a new Adwords campaign to my Adwords account, using the keywords it had found earlier.

I'm sure it must have always been able to do this, since I didn't have to enter my Adwords account details. I must have used it before, though I can't remember doing so. How amazing.

When I get back from my business trip to Malta next week, I'll be kicking off my campaign and hopefully attracting lots of new advertisers.

Sitting here now, just looking at the small number of tools I mentioned in this post is quite incredible. I bought these things and virtually forgot about them.

If I were to buy them all again today, it would cost $1171 - and you know what? I haven't even scratched the surface of what's lying on my hard drive.

Where To Concentrate

2009-02-18T15:17:00.002Z

One of the hardest things I find doing as a domainer is to concentrate on one thing at a time.

There's always a name I could be doing something with, or some little project that could do with a bit of attention.

Recently, although I have been publishing a few "made for Adsense" sites, I have actually been quite disciplined and have attempted to stay as focused as possible on those sites that are designed to bring in business.

Today for example, I haven't made anything new as I was working on a couple of asbestos surveys. When I got back home, there was a message from somebody wanting a quote for another survey and two enquiries about getting asbestos tested.

That's why I like building sites where I can sell a service. It's a bit of work but the rewards can be high.

E-Book Update

I mentioned here a while ago that I am writing my own e-book.

That is still in progress, but you know what? After feeling let down by ebook after ebook that I've looked at, I'm taking it slowly so that I can properly deliver on the promise.

I want to create something that combines real business with emarketing, afterall, that's exactly what I do on a daily basis. I know I can show others. I just hope they are looking for it!

Private Members Area Update

Well, a few of you showed interest (enthusiasm even) for a private members area on this site. I keep looking at the idea but to be honest, I don't think it would be useful so I won't be proceeding with that immediately.

Maybe when the book is finished, I'll launch a companion site for it to discuss ideas and to provide some guidance.

I think we have enough Internet marketing and domain forums and I don't think I can add much value there.

Adsense Revisited

2009-02-14T17:30:00.003Z

It's been a while since I took any great notice of non-business domains, those I simply use for Adsense.

Well, that's going to change this week.

Yesterday I logged into my account for the first time in a few weeks and saw that my earnings have started creeping up again.

They'd taken a right tumble in December, probably because most of my domain names are business oriented and traffic usually falters somewhat during holiday periods.

I don't do great on weekends either, which tells me that my visitors are busy at work, playing on the Internet.

Anyway, looking through them, I see that the better performing ones are those where I placed the ads correctly. No surprise really, except that in many of my later sites, I concentrated more the look of the site than I did on ad placement.

Big mistake really.

If you're building a site for Adsense, then ad placement should be top priority.

That means, in most cases, placing the Adsense ads right in front of the visitors. A large rectangle doesn't look pretty, but it's certainly the most effective at pulling clicks.

Though my usually favoured skyscraper ads that I place in margins work ok and can look quite natural when placed with the site navigation, they don't get as many click-throughs.

So, it's back to the drawing board with some of these domains. I can easily double my money just by moving some of the ads.

One of the other things I'm going to be doing, is adding Adsense to some of my business domains, particularly the recruitment oriented ones, since traffic on them is growing quite rapidly at the moment.

Though I am trying to sell services on these sites, I know I won't ever get many calls from them, so I might as well get paid for the visits somehow.

I've even added Adsense to my new advertising site, www.windowquote.co.uk - and spent this afternoon getting rid of all of the competing quotation sites.

Once I've fixed a few navigation and mysql issues, it should be ready to promote to the window companies. I've been turning them away for the best part of a year because I hadn't the inclination to finish the site.

It really is unbelievable how much money I've left lying around in unfinished projects. I might have to start partnering with developers and share the proceeds from the sites. Something to consider I guess.

That's The Wonder of Wellies

2009-02-13T07:48:00.003Z

Almost buried in yesterday's UK newspapers, the story of a lady who had worked at Woolworths for 18 years, starting out as a lowly Saturday girl.

Claire Roberston syas that the particular branch that she was employed at was profitable before Woolworths went under last year. Her branch was one of the last to close.

Most people faced with this situation would do one of three things:

1) Sign on for unemployment.

2) Look for a similar job in another store

3) Perhaps look at starting their own business in a small way.

What Claire did was recognise the superb location of the old Woolworths store. (It's in Dorchester, Dorset).

Because of her belief in the profitablility of the store, she went looking for financial backing and secured the lease on the Woolworths building.

She's employing 22 of her ex-colleagues and will be stocking the more popular items that the old store stocked.

The new business will be called Wellworths. She can't use the name Wooolworths of course, since the rights have been purchased by a catalogue shopping company who will take the brand online.

This is a pretty remarkable story and really ought to have been front page news, instead of the depressing stories of crooked bankers and our deepening financial crisis.

Surely we need good news stories that demonstrate true fighting, entrepreneurial spirit?

Thinking big enough to take on large retail premises in a prime locatoion is fantastic. Having the foresight to register her Wellworths brand as .com and .co.uk domain names in January was a great move too.

If only more people would stop whingeing and start doing, we wouldn't have a recssion. If every small business employed just one extra person this year, we'd have no unemployment either.

Well done Claire Roberston, you cheered me up.

Oh No, It's The Pool Marketplace!

2009-02-10T21:55:00.002Z

It's been a long time since I actually looked at any of the emails I get from Pool.com regarding drops and their "domain marketplace", but tonight, I received their latest offering by email.

Here are their "Yop Domains" for 11 February:

dubaiflight.us
fineresume.com
englishpremierfootball.com
workgroups.mobi
latechbulldogs.com
whowontherace.com
findacollege.net
homelandcash.com
adsenseadvices.com
webcamutube.com

Now really, it's somebody spoke up.

NONE of the above names are worth even the reg fee in my opinion.

AdsenseAdvices?

When does anyone, ever ask for advices?

Advices? I had to look twice - and these are their top domains.

Am I missing something?