Anatomy of a Flip: Kayaking(dot)org – Part 1

We started work on Kayaking(dot)org on July 6th, it’s the 13th now and we have 11 more days to go until our planned completion date. As always I want to use this blog to educate. At Linton Investments we purchase domain name that we feel can be turned-into a successful business. Domain investing is a bit like being a venture capitalist – you look for good ideas and put your money into what you think could be a huge success.

Kayaking(dot)org was an easy pick for us given the size of the market online. The best first step to take when creating a web business (or domain flip if you’d like to call it that) is to understand your market. We took a good look at all of the other kayaking sites online and are working to make the first version of our site provides everything and more than some of the most popular kayaking sites online. So how do you do this?

To make a successful web business you have to put on your consumer hat. What would you be looking for if you visited a website called Kayaking(dot)org? Probably something similar to what they would be looking for if they went to Kayaking(dot)com or kayaking(dot)net – these are the first sites to look at. Next, you’ll want to visit Google and search for your domain’s keywords. We simply typed "kayaking" in the search box and there was some of the best market research right in front of us.

It is this simple step that many domainers forget to follow – understanding your market. After you have a good understanding of your market you can build a site that will appeal to visitors, who can then become potential what? Customers.

Today we built-out the "Kayaking Guides" section of the site by going through about 800 books on Amazon and picking-out the best books for our audience. We now have a great selection of the best-quality books about kayaking, available through Amazon so customers get the best price possible. Amazon’s affiliate program is easy to sign-up for and a great way to provide monetization outside of Google Adsense.

You can see the latest version of the site here. You can click "Kayaking Guides" to see the section of the site we just built.

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Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton