3 Things To Think About Before Developing A Domain

While I was at TRAFFIC this past week I had a chance to talk with a ton of people, many that I knew, and also many new faces that I met for the first time. I think one of the most common questions I was asked was what to think about when it comes to development. Of course with a beer in my hand I could go on with a list much longer than three, but it’s still early here and I don’t think my liver can take any more beer so I’ll stick to three things for this post:

  1. Are You Going To Be The Developer Or Are You Going To Pay A Developer? It’s important to decide whether you’ll be spending your time or your money building out a domain. Time is money so these are one in the same in many cases but I find that many new investors have a lot more time than money in which case you might be spending your nights and weekends on the project.
  2. Know Your Market. Look at who is on the first page of Google for the terms you want to rank well for and make sure you feel like there’s a chance you could outrank them. Sorry but if Best Buy and Amazon dominate the above-the-fold space your site probably isn’t going to stand a chance unless you have a really really big budget, which you don’t.
  3. You Need More Than Just Content. I said this during the panel I was on at TRAFFIC and I think it is a really important point. The whole idea that you can just build a site with a bunch of articles and watch the money come rolling in has pretty much gone away. Do something useful, provide a service, add something unique but do more than just writing general information articles about your subject, Wikipedia has you beat along with eHow and a zillion other sites.

As always feel free to add your own items to the list, comment on any of mine, or just say what’s on your mind!

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton