Biz Stone, one of the founders of Twitter gave an absolutely incredible keynote at DOMAINfest this year. Honestly, it is one of the most inspiring talks I’ve ever been to and if you missed it, you really did miss-out. However, lucky for you, I decided to take a video during part of the talk so you can get a taste of the keynote and hopefully get inspired yourself!

Enjoy and as always please feel free to share your comments below!

As you all probably know, Braden is a good friend of mine and one of my main mentors in the Domaining and business world. Braden was the driving force that caused me to go .COM in 2011 and he always gives me great advice…now I just need to get a bit better at following it!

It was recently announced that Braden made an investment in ScienceFiction.com and I thought it would be a good idea to pick his brain and find-out a bit more about why he invested and what’s ahead for 2012.

What made you decide to invest in ScienceFiction.com?
Science Fiction has always had a loyal fan base. Add to that a continuous roster of scifi/horror/comic book related movies and you have the recipe to tap into some large ad budgets.

Patrick and Ze work tirelessly on this site and have done an awesome job. When Patrick approached me with the idea, it just felt like a good fit.

What role do you plan on playing within the company?
Other than annoying Patrick with an endless stream of crazy ideas? My plan is to stay out of his way ☺

Can you share any ideas you have for taking the site to the next level in 2012?
Once we get the traffic solidly over 500k monthly visitors, we can reach out to the large advertisers. There are some ideas that we’ve discussed related to co-op memorabilia auctions and other product sales but nothing has been inked yet.

How do the skills you’ve developed in your own business translate to this project?
I’ve helped acquire a small domain portfolio to support the site and various (future) initiatives. My office can help with content writing, linking, SEO, design, etc. My sales dept may be involved in sales as well. We’ll see how everything unfolds going forward.

What is the biggest challenge you see ahead for 2012?
Fighting the Google Monster!

(Photo Credit – Ron Jackson, DNJournal)

This week I asked for feedback on my blog and Facebook and was blown-away by the feedback! Over 50 people provided solid feedback that will help to make one of our new brands have a great logo!

To thank everyone for their feedback I held my first contest of 2012 and will be giving-away a free logo to one of the people who provided feedback. So this morning I put all the names into a hat and recorded the video below of me picking the winner!

On Saturday I did a post about picking logos for two of our brands and I got an incredible response with over 30 comments, so I thought I’d do it again! In February we are launching an innovative new Video Tutorial solution called TutorialsForGeeks.com. I don’t want to give-away all the good stuff quite yet but suffice it to say that this brand is all about tutorials for web geeks or people that are already somewhat tech savvy.

For this brand I felt strongly about having a geeky character as the mascot and LogoNerds offers a great service to do this. Below is the first set of concepts they sent-over. Feel free to give as detailed feedback as you’d like since I can have a number of revisions made to this over time.

Along with ordering the logo itself I also ordered a custom header design and custom banners. When you’re building a brand it’s nice to get all of this together at once so that when you launch your brand you have everything you need to get started. Since we plan on promoting this brand on a handful of blogs and related sites having custom banners ready to rock will really help us make a splash. Of course I’ll share the header and banners with you as soon as they are completed, first step is the logo and character!

Also for all the Domainers like myself that do this part-time, remember, it’s all about running a business, not creating another job for yourself. It takes me a total of 5-10 minutes to put-together the logo request, if I were to do the logo myself it could take me hours, or days, and in the end it probably wouldn’t look half as good as what LogoNerds can whip-out in a day! We build 3-5 brands/month which means 30 – 50 minutes max putting in requests for logos.

To thank you for helping me pick a logo, one of my commentators below will win a FREE logo from LogoNerds ($27 value). This is just my way of saying thanks and returning the favor by helping you get a great logo for one of your own brands!

This year Linton Investments is building 3-5 brands each month. Many of these start-out as basic mini-sites while we are building-up content, creating social media profiles, and building-out the back-end. While I am no longer involved in the development of the sites themselves, I have always enjoyed picking the logos.

Building a brand isn’t a one, two or three month process, you really have to be in it for the long haul. In many cases we spent months working to build our rank in Google before even delving-into Social Media or building the full-scale site. This is true in the case of our Pet Coupon site that we’re building on the exact-match domain PetCoupons.co. Yes, this isn’t a .COM but that doesn’t mean we can’t build a brand on it and rank well for our targeted terms.

With PetCoupons.co we continued to add articles to it until we got onto the first page of Google for “Pet Coupons”. The next step is converting the site from a basic mini-site to a real brand offering Pet Coupons. With Affiliate Summit in January I decided to wait until I could meet with companies in the space and learn my options. Now that the conference is over we’re ready to rock and by the end of this month my team will have transformed the mini-site into a real brand providing the latest pet coupons.

Another brand that we are just breaking-ground on this month is PaydayUS.com, one of our first Payday Loan brands. When I attended Affiliate Summit 2011 last year I found a lot of buzz around how much money was being made in this space. It was a very hot affiliate niche and I pledged to become a part of it…I just had to find the right domain. Now armed with the right name we’re getting ready to make a splash in this space.

Now that you know the back-story behind each of these brands, let’s pick a logo! I use LogoNerds typically for our initial logos as I can get something that is fine out of the gate for under $30. So let me know what you think and I’ll update you as these are finalized and added to the sites, Twitter, and Facebook accounts.

I can’t wait to hear your feedback! Comment and help impact two exciting brands in 2012!

Well I am finally back from Las Vegas after attending both Affiliate Summit and CES 2012. Both of these conferences are an absolute blast and as always I have plenty of reflections to share with all of you. CES ends today but I am back home in Los Angeles and thought I would share some of my observations from the show and some of the trends to look-out for in 2012. This does not mean that you should go-out and register a bunch of domain names based on these trends, however knowing where the Consumer Electronics space is going can only provide you with more data to make better investments.

I have to say that CES this year didn’t wow me nearly as much as it has in the past. Most years have some exciting new technology that (whether it takes off or not) becomes the focal point of the show. At CES 2011 the focus was Tablets and Smart TVs, at CES 2010 the focus was 3D TV, at CES 2012 the focus was…well the same thing as 2011 and 2010.

That’s right, this year I was pretty disappointed to see that there were no major new trends that got me really excited. Tablets are great but as a major Apple fanatic there’s only one tablet in my book. 3D TVs aren’t exciting to me either until they get rid of those pesky glasses, and Smart TV, well I’m all about Smart TV but having Roku‘s all over my house has already solved that problem. Still, there were some relatively interesting things that I wouldn’t say got me excited, but still definitely represent trends in the space. Below is a quick recap of what I saw to really be hot in Consumer Electronics this year, and while it might not excite you (or me) it is what we’ll all be hearing about in advertisements, on the news, and at your local CE retailer for the balance of the year.

OLED
Remember when Plasma and LCD used to be the latest-and-greatest? Well they’re not any more, OLED is coming in like a freight train and is definitely going to take-over as the premier flat-screen TV technology. They televisions are insanely thin and have black levels that make the night sky in the middle of a forest look downright grey. Right now they are damn expensive but expect prices to come down by Q4 of this year making it a great Christmas present if you’re already planning that far in advance!

Robots
Let’s face it – who doesn’t like robots? While this little guy pictured above is not for sale, it’s still pretty darn cool, albeit not very useful for anything outside of entertainment value. Still, the toy industry is a very big space and kids of all ages love robots. There were no shortage of robots this year including a press highlight of Justin Beiber demoing a brand-new dancing robot. You can watch the video below to see Justin and the dancing bot in action:

3D Tablets
What do you get when you combine the hype around 3D TVs and the hype around Tablets? 3D Tablets of course! This one I really don’t get and definitely won’t be getting. I’m still waiting for tablets and phones to have tiny projectors that can allow me to display the screen onto a wall or screen. Since I use my Tablet for checking email and reading blogs doing this in 3D really sounds like more of an annoyance than a convenience.

Of course there are plenty of other trends but these are the ones that really stuck-out to me. I can tell you that I personally am not buying a single domain name that has to do with the trends listed above. While I may already own a handful of names in this space I can tell you that Domainers have already picked these niches dry leaving only the scraps. So please, please don’t tell me about how you registered 8 trillion domains with “OLED” in them as you’ll probably own those for the rest of your life.

Remember, in most cases there really are only a few solid names in these spaces with “Cloud” being the one with the most options, however 99% of the good options are already long gone. Still – as investors it’s always important to stay on top of trends and CES is the place to find the current trends in the Consumer Electronics world.

Well 2012 is now in full swing which means it’s time to start making deals and putting-together partnerships for the year. One of my absolute favorite conferences to kick-off a new year is Affiliate Summit West in Las Vegas. This will be my third year attending the conference and if you’re interested in Domain Development and Monetization – this is the go-to conference of the year.

Since I know that many of my readers might not be familiar with this conference I wanted to provide a brief introduction to the show and what value it has provided to me. First and foremost, Affiliate Summit is the largest Affiliate show out there which means you get just about every single Affiliate Marketing company on the planet. This means that really no matter what niche your site(s)/domain(s) are in, there are probably one, two, or ten affiliate programs out there with products to sell.

So how could you possibly meet all of these companies? Affiliate Summit has figured that out as well with the Meet Market. This is my favorite part of the show and happens on the opening day. Affiliate Marketing Companies setup tables in a large ballroom where attendees can then go from table to table meeting each company and understanding what they do.

I find the Meet Market is also a great place to get a better feeling for what’s hot in the Affiliate space. After spending an hour walking around the room there’s a good chance you will have met over 50 companies and have some excellent options for monetizing your sites. The great thing about having the Meet Market the first day of the show is that then for the next two days you know a lot more people and you can easily schedule meetings with some of the best companies you met with.

Affiliate Summit has seminars on topics that are incredibly relevant to Domain Developers. Heck – the first talk of the show is called “The Future of Content Monetization and Publishing” and going on simultaneously is a talk on “25 ways you can improve your website.” It doesn’t get much better than that and with three days of seminars you can learn what takes most people a year or two, in a matter of days.

Every year I leave Affiliate Summit with some great new contacts and all my monetization partners set for the year. It’s a great way to start-off 2012 and as always I’ll be bringing all of you along for the ride. Stay-tuned, I leave for Vegas tomorrow night! If you’d like to learn more about Affiliate Summit and why you should be there you can take a look at the video below:

Yesterday I wrote a post reviewing what worked and what didn’t work for me in the Domain Development space in 2011. In this post I referenced my goals for this year coming down to four sites a month in 2012. We I’m excited to say that our first brand is now live and still in it’s very early stages but I thought it would make a great case study to follow. The domain name is TrackCredit.com and I originally purchased this when it expired in late 2010.

So let me first explain a bit about how this site was build and then I’ll tell you what’s ahead for the Track Credit brand. The site itself is 100% hand-coded in HTML/CSS by my team. Most of the graphics were custom-made with the exception of the image (from iStockPhoto) and the banners came from Graphic River. Both of these are great resources for getting high-quality images and web elements for really adding some sparkle to your sites.

We secured TrackCredit on Twitter so we own our brand on Twitter as well as TrackCredit on Facebook. To really own your brand online I think that owning the exact-match Twitter and Facebook handles are important. This is not always possible so as long as you append the word COM, NET, or ORG to it you’ll still get close. That being said, just like there is only one TrackCredit.com, there is also only one Twitter.com/TrackCredit and only one Facebook.com/TrackCredit.

The site went live on Monday and we put-up an ad on Facebook the same day to begin attracting fans. I find that sometimes you have to change your ad a bit to improve your CTR and I made a small adjustment yesterday morning that really made a big difference. In the beginning before a site gets a lot of organic traffic I find that Facebook Fan pages can drive some really nice targeted traffic from people with an interest in the niche. I specifically targeted people on Facebook that listed “Debt” as an interest along with several other related terms.

My team will start managing the Twitter account daily and start by following some of the top people in the space and retweeting and sharing interesting articles. There is no ad on this page as the focus for TrackCredit.com is going to be lead generation. The next step will be to add more content which we’ll be doing in the form of a blog that we’ll start by updating weekly. Building a brand takes time and I have no plans of generating any kind of significant revenue from this name for at least six months.

Some of the domains we develop are in niches that can generate revenue much quicker but credit/debt sites tend to take quite a bit longer due to how competitive the space is. As always I’ll be taking all of you along for the ride. We’re starting with a clean slate, no traffic, no revenue, and not ranked for a single term in Google. Get ready everyone, it’s time to build a brand!

If you want to take a look at some of our other brands you can check-out LintonInvestments.com.

So you’ve put-together a great website, have a solid plan for generating revenue, now all your need is customers. Two of the best ways to get traffic to your brand without spending a fortune in advertising are SEO and Social Media. Ranking well in search engines is absolutely critical to generating a stream of steady visitors to your site. By targeting the keywords that bring your most targeted customer you can build a meaningful business online. The only problem is, you aren’t personally connecting with these visitors and turning some of them into brand ambassadors.

First let’s talk about what I mean by Brand Ambassadors. A Brand Ambassador is someone who loves your brand and tells other people about it. If you’re lucky, you can even find an ambassador that helps to build your brand by adding their own content as well. The most enchanting brands have the most ambassadors and usually acquire these evangelists through the creation of incredible products. Companies like Apple and BMW are talked about consistently across the web from blogs to Tweets to Facebook updates.

In most cases though, you’re not Apple or BMW, instead you are the owner of a new business that most people have never heard of. To find your ambassadors you’ll have to start-out by being proactive and identifying the most influential people in your niche. Twitter is one of the easiest places to get started I’ve put-together a step-by-step guide to finding a great ambassador:

Find Your Brand Ambassadors On Twitter

1. Start by doing a simple Twitter search for the hashtag that is the most relevant to your brand
2. Now make note of the top five people using this hashtag in a given day
3. View the profile of these five people and keep the three with the most number of followers
4. Next eliminate anyone who is following more people then are following them
5. Still have one left? This is your first potential brand ambassador!
6. Follow this person on Twitter and include them in your next #FF
7. RT some of your favorite content that this person Tweets
8. After doing this for a few weeks send this person an email to introduce yourself
9. Get on the phone and get your ambassador passionate about your brand
10. Find a way to include your ambassador in your brand

The time this process takes may vary however in the end the goal is to make a real connection with someone on Twitter who is an authority in your space. If they start writing articles for your site and Tweeting them to their followers you could gain more ambassadors right-away. I know this happened with my Kayaking brand (Kayaking.org), we partnered with a very active paddler in Canada who now writes for our blog (read his most recent post) and with him came his fans as well. It’s a great partnership because he loves Kayaking and really enjoys sharing his adventures with the world. He makes great videos and takes some absolutely stunning photographs that really make me want to get up to BC and hop in a Kayak!

If you are building a brand that you’re truly proud of, enchanting your ambassador should be the easy part. Just think about it, if someone very influential in your niche doesn’t like your brand or see the value in it…don’t you think that’s a problem? When you reach-out to this ambassador they should be excited about what you are doing. If not, ask them what they would get excited about and make it happen! One you have one ambassador it’s only a matter of time before more and more people start to discover your brand and talk about it online. Make sure to connect with every single person that helps to promote your brand, and most importantly, keep innovating and making your brand something worth talking about!

Hello everyone and welcome to my latest case study that I’ll be running on my blog for the next couple of months. The idea for this case study came from DomainFuze! in a comment on my first domain development drop list. Here’s exactly what was said:

Since you’re just starting this series, I know I would profit greatly from following one of these domains through the entire life cycle, from drop list, to planning, to development/change in planning, challenges, etc.

So from great idea to real case study, here we are! The first step in the process is picking the right domain name for development. Below are the three main criteria I look for when buying a domain for development:

1. Search Volume – this is the most important for me, I like to see at least 1,000 exact-match searches with reasonable traffic around related terms as well.
2. CPC – I have a very simple way of looking at this – the higher the CPC the more valuable customers in this niche are to companies. I think of this as getting more bang for your buck or being able to sell your traffic at a higher price. Great example of this is a debt site I run vs. a sports site, they both get roughly the same amount of visitors and clicks but the debt site makes 10x what the sports site makes! If the CPC is below $0.50 I tend to ignore it
3. PR and Backlinks of Competition – last but certainly not least I want to understand what level of SEO the top three sites in Google have done. If they are all PR 6 sites with thousands of backlinks it could take me years to beat them. My goal is to find a niche where the top sites are PR0, PR1, and PR2 if I can.

The first thing to understand about finding expired domains that are a good fit for development is that it can take a lot of searching. There are plenty of expired domains with good search volume and CPC, but finding one in a niche that isn’t overly competitive can be a challenge. On top of these three main conditions there are a few other qualities that I look for when building a brand:

• Are the Twitter and Facebook usernames available? One of the core steps in building a brand is creating an active profile in the social media world. This is how you will engage contributors and build-up deeper connections with your visitors.
• Who owned the domain name before it expired? I’m not a fan of the whole “finders keepers” methodology in the expired domain business. The last thing I want to do is buy a domain name that a company forgot to renew that they had been using for their business.
• .COM, .NET, .ORG, .CO, .ME, or .US – these are the TLDs that I focus on and I give a major preference to .COM. A brand has infinitely more liquidity in .COM and it is much easier to sell direct ad space on a .COM domain since this does truly establish you as the category leader. You can still build a brand on any other TLD but if you want to be seen as the go-to brand for your keywords then go .COM or go home.
• Can I think of at least five monetization options? If I can only think of one or two options to make money in a niche that’s not a good sign. You should be able to think of a zillion different ways to generate revenue. As you’ll see later in this case study, you may have to swap-out ads and try a number of different configurations and permutations until you get it right. This step in the process is definitely more of an art than a science but as with anything, if you put the time in, you’ll get the results.

Okay – so now you understand the specific criteria I’m using to evaluate a domain name for development. Please note that I’m not talking about building a five-page MiniSite and calling it a day. While all my brands start as MiniSites I’ll show you how to go step-by-step from vacant domain to full-scale brand. Now onto the fun part – finding that needle in a haystack!

To find expired domains my go-to tool is Protrada. What I really like about Protrada is their advanced filtering system that can allow me to search for domains that meet my specific criteria. I have made a number of filtersets within Protrada so I can quickly jump to domains that meet a specific criteria. As you can see from the image below, I have quite a good amount of filters which I can easily run anytime.

There is no one filter I can use to find the perfect domain for development, instead I run through the list looking at each set that meets my criteria. As you can see from above, search volume and CPC are both metrics that are very important to me and it’s easy to adjust these values and see the results in realtime.

You can view search volume and CPC data in the datacube by selecting the “Value” tab. One of my favorite things about using Protrada is that you can use the “<” and “>” signs to set a cutoff point. I’ll often augment the search volume and CPC to see how the results change and if I might potentially find a name I would have otherwise missed.

Finding a good domain name with strong development potential is a bit like fishing. You have to be patient and know that you might not find the right domain today, tomorrow, or even the next day. Don’t get trigger happy, save your money for a domain that meets your criteria, not one that is close but happens to be expiring today. I don’t act on emotion, I act on data. When you’re selling domains things like intuiting and gut can make a huge difference, for development and building real brands data is the key.

I look forward to taking all of you along for this adventure. As soon as I identify my next development candidate I’ll post the next article in this series and review why I picked a particular domain and then being going through my process. Remember, I’m not going to just buy a name, throw up a website and call it a day. I’m going to go through step-by-step how to turn an expired domain into much more than a website, I’m going to show you how to rock your niche and build a real online brand.