Category Archives: Feature

Story: I Once Sold a 12 Character Domain for $500

So many people have been wondering what I have done that makes me worth following online, and that’s really a hard question to answer. I fell into my position with Jacob and Bloggy Network thanks to being in the right place at the right time, and my new job with Splashpress Media is all about the connections and impressions I have made over the last two years.

One thing I will talk about today though is how I sold a twelve character domain that had no keywords for $500 US dollars.

Before I was a teenager, I enjoyed super hero movies, and one of my favourites was Phoenix from Marvel’s X-Men. She was very powerful, and also a very conflicted character. I empathized with her and also thought the alias was very interesting. The myth of the Phoenix was also very powerful and interesting to me.

I took on the name Phoenix as my own personal symbol online, and used it in pretty much everything I did. Even my first websites created on Geocities used my Phoenix code name in one way or another. As I grew up, I finally decided to get my own domain name, and I registered Phoenixrealm.com.

I worked really hard on that blog, and as I continued to grow up, I felt less and less like the “Phoenix” name suited the online persona I wanted to portray. So one day, I decided to sell the domain. Not the content, or anything else. The domain didn’t have any keywords really, nor any other major marketing points. It was a personal blog about my life, and my work online. From time to time I would post a smart article about something I was passionate about, but I was taking that content with me. I figured that I might only get a bit more than the registration fee on the domain, but I tried to talk about all the great things I had done with the site. The traffic I had brought in, the back links, and even my Technorati rank. Anything I could do to make the domain seem valuable.

Thankfully Gary, a great guy, saw the site and what it could be used for and decided to purchase it for $500. He turned the site into a great SEO blog which is still around today. I moved on to DavidCubed.com, and continued to write about my life and everything in it there.

While it might be pretty common place to sell a domain for three figures, I doubt too many domains without keywords usually do so well.

The lesson you can all learn here is that value really depends on the buyer. If you can find a buyer and can convince them of an items value, you will make more money than those that just continue to lower their prices to please buyers.

Originally posted on November 7, 2007 @ 9:51 am

How I Outpaced 20 of My Competitors

Climbing past your competitorsI haven’t yet received a PageRank from Google, I am in a highly saturated niche, and this site is only coming up on its fourth month of being active, yet despite having so many things going against it, the growth of this site has outpaced over twenty of its competitors.

Where am I getting this comparison? Well, earlier this month, I was at the 121st position on the 45n5.com Top 100 Make Money Online Blogs list, and I made it my goal to get into the Top 100. A goal that some friends of mine said was pretty much impossible. Heck, some were surprised that once the list was expanded to over two hundred, that I was still sitting so high, but I was already working hard to build this site, and make it the best it could be.

As of today, I am sitting at a ranking of 101, and while that is still one spot away from my goal, it is still a jump of twenty positions over other blogs working hard to improve their ranks in the same niche.

Competition Doesn’t Matter

One of the biggest complains I hear from bloggers is that the niche they selected is too crowded, or that it has all been done before, and if you are going to go around believing that, then you are setting yourself up for failure.

You can’t concern yourself with your competition. They are great to help you set goals, and think up content ideas, but otherwise, you can’t let them make you feel inferior. If you have something to say, even if it has been said before, it is still worth getting your opinion out there.

Do Something New

With this blog, I added a weekly podcast, showcasing other people’s content and ideas, as well as adding my own thoughts and opinions to the subjects at hand. This lead me to stand out in this niche, and it is not like podcasting is a new idea.

Mark at 45n5.com came out with a Top 100 list, another idea that has been around for ages, but he made it his own by focusing it on a single niche, and promoting it well.

If you are going to really stand out from the crowd, you need to do something different. It doesn’t have to be innovative or new, but it has to set you apart from others in your niche, and help spread your message, and build your popularity.

Promote Your Content

If no one knows about your blog, then no one will read it. Seems to be a simple path of logic for me, but so many people don’t promote their content, and those that do, don’t always give it enough time or effort.

On some of my best articles, I will spend upwards of an hour promoting it. I contact my friends via e-mail that are willing to help me out from time to time. I have found e-mail newsgroups that help each other out with a link or an approving thumbs up if they like the article. I ask friends to submit the link to social bookmarking sites.

I come up with custom, personalized e-mails for a variety of site owners that are in the same niche as me, and ask them to look over the article and send me any for of feedback they have time for.

Sure this might seem laborious and tedious, but done well on your best posts, you can gain a huge influx of links, traffic, and new ideas. A few links, placed on really popular sites, can double all the stats on a new site, over night.

Make Friends

One of the biggest avenues for promotion, and one of the best tips I can give you is to make friends. Network with people both inside and outside your niche. Surrounding yourself with people that understand you can lead to great feedback, the occasional link, and help with every bit of your site, from the design, to the content.

Also, as a side note, friends can open avenues of promotion through their blogs, but allowing you to guest post, and I have said how amazing guest posts can be for your blogs, numerous times. It has been one of my largest sources of traffic this month.

Conclusion

So there you have it, with a little hard work, a positive attitude, and a lot of promotion, you can push your site up the rankings as well. Don’t let a little hard work scare you away. Pick a niche you are passionate about and enjoy your blogging time.

Originally posted on October 23, 2007 @ 8:00 am

46 Things To Do Before Launching a Blog Network

There are so many things that a potential blog network owner should do before actually showing the world their sites, and I think that most people who decide to start a network, are really unaware of the challenges that they will have to surpass.

Thanks to the prodding of Ahmed Bilal, I have come up with this list of forty-six things you should do before launching a blog network.

Money

1.) Building a network costs money, even if you build the sites from scratch. Get together enough capital to keep the whole thing running for six months. It will take at least that long to get really noticed by the world, and especially by search engines.

2.) Create a list of expenses, and add a fifteen percent buffer zone. Things like hosting costs, business supplies, and business cards all add up quickly.

3.) Are you hiring writers? Designers? Developers? Budget properly for each of these expenses. It can be very hard, especially early on to find people willing to work for you at the rates you can afford, but if you cast a wide net, and work hard at selecting the right people for the job at a price you can afford, you will be more successful.

4.) Spending money on advertising to get the word out there? Make sure you budget for each type of advertising separately. Banner advertising, paid posts or reviews, text links, press releases and even some social media attention can cost a fair bit of money. Don’t over extend yourself early on. Continue reading

Originally posted on October 11, 2007 @ 9:14 am

451 Press Slave Wages

So 451 Press, the self-proclaimed largest blog network, has put up its new payment model, and I can’t say that I am impressed with it. I tried to comment yesterday on their recent post, but my comment is still being held for moderation.

Not only does the post lack information, but when I add up the numbers, compared to the work that you would have to put in, it looks like writers would receive less than minimum wage. This of course is once the whole system is broken down to dollars per hour.

Here is their new payment model:

0 – 2 Month Bloggers
$0.50 Per Post & $1.50 CPM

3 – 5 Month Bloggers
$1.00 Per Post & $1.50 CPM

6 – 11 Month Bloggers
$1.50 Per Post & $1.50 CPM

12 – 17 Month Bloggers
$2.00 Per Post & $1.50 CPM

Raises, Good, Lack of Detail, Bad

The first thing I noticed was missing was an explanation of the time element. If I have blogged for two years with another network, and then came over to 451 Press, would I start at the 0-2 month mark, or at the 12-17 month mark? There is a huge difference in the payment amount, and so this should be described better.

Smart CPM Idea, But Bad Deal

Today, I also talked about what CPM is and how it relates to advertising. 451 Press is using CPM as part of their payment model, which will reward writers for traffic. This is pretty much the only part of their deal that makes sense to me. If 451 Press makes $3 CPM from an advertising position, then they are paying one half of their advertising revenue to their writers. This is great if the blog is getting hundreds of thousands of visitors each day.

The biggest issue I have with this is that I know 451 Press is making more than $3 CPM as they are probably making that from each advertising position, so really the writer is getting one half of the revenue from one advertisement. This is not a good deal for the writer. The rate should be $1.50 CPM per advertisement on the site rather than $1.50 CPM for the site.

Calculating It All Out

So, let’s say 451 Press puts me at their highest rate of $2 per post and $1.50 CPM.

I work really hard and produce 40 posts over the course of a month. That instantly earns me $80 for my efforts.

The site gets 20,000 page views, which earns me another $30.

So for a month of work, I have earned $110. Sounds pretty good for blogging right? What if I told you that it took me on average an hour to research, write and promote every two posts?

I know that is pushing it to the long side of things, but there are very few blogs that easily get 20,000 page views in the first few months, so we have to suspend our disbelief a bit, and this is just to experiment.

So it took me nearly 20 hours to write my 40 posts during the month. With a pay check of $110 from my work, that means I made $5.50 an hour from my work.

While that isn’t lower than the minimum wage in some states, it is much lower than the minimum wage here in Ontario, Canada.

Remember, this is the higher end of the spectrum for 451 Press, and newer bloggers will get paid far less for their efforts.

Does this seem fair?

Originally posted on October 4, 2007 @ 11:20 pm

Blogging Scholarship: My Finalist Choice

Paul Stamatiou, a friend of mine, is a finalist in the College Scholarship’s Blogging Scholarship contest, but he is currently lagging behind a few competitors.

His blog, PaulStamatiou.com, has always been a great informational site, and an inspiration to this WordPress coder.

Here is some about information from his site:

Paul is a 21 year old Computational Media student at Georgia Tech, former Yahoo! intern as well as diehard Mac and flickr user with a penchant for all things high-tech.

While I doubt most sites are picking favourites, I am not like most sites, and I say, Vote Paul! It only takes a second, and I am sure it will mean a lot to him.

Originally posted on October 8, 2007 @ 8:14 pm