Let’s Call It What It Is, Domain Development Is Website Development

Okay, so I’m as guilty as anyone else in perpetuating the term “Domain Development” but I think it’s time to put the term to rest and call it what it is. Domain Development has been used to describe the process of putting a website on a domain, I hate to break it to you (and I guess to myself) but that is web development. Of course for years there has been a lot of discussion about the advantages of exact match domains, those advantages are very real but that doesn’t really have anything to do with domain development, instead it has to do with building a website on an exact match domain.

I know that you may have read online or even heard at a conference or two that domains do not provide any ranking benefit but I can tell you, they do. The issue is you need a lot more than an exact match domain to rank well in Google or Bing. An exact match domain does two things for a website:

  1. Increased CTR – more people click on exact match domains as they carry authority in the mind of the consumer
  2. Lower link-building threshold – in general you don’t need to build as many backlinks as your competitors, but you still need to build them

Some people think that exact match domains carry no weight because they put a simple 10 page mini-site on the domain and expect it to become #1 in the search engines overnight. That’s a pipe dream and if you think that’s how the world works, I want what’s in your pipe! The rules haven’t changed that much, you still need solid backlinks and these can’t be gamed any more, they have to be earned. If you think it’s too hard to build backlinks then SEO might not be your thing but there are tons of great companies that can do it for you.

Now back to the term Domain Development, the definition of this term has been putting a website on a domain name, so let’s put this to rest once and for all, putting a website on a domain is web development. It has been fun to call it Domain Development so it sounds like as Domainers we’re doing something different than web developers but it’s the same. In fact, if you want to learn about development conferences like Affiliate Summit have a lot more to offer than TRAFFIC or DOMAINfest.

Now this is not to put down TRAFFIC or DOMAINfest, I’m a huge fan of both conferences, but I see the value here as a Domainer pertaining to buying and selling domains. I have done over $50K in deals thanks to meetings/conversations I had at DOMAINfest, I plan to see the same results or better from TRAFFIC. Real business gets done at both of these conferences but that business is Domaining, which is buying and selling domains.

The good news for Domainers is that there are far more resources about Web Development, SEO, and Affiliate Marketing out there than there are about Domaining. If you’ve decided to take the web development path, awesome, go for it and make good money, but realize there’s a whole world of resources out there and it doesn’t have to come from this community. That being said, there are some people that do amazing web development work within our community, people like Tia, Theo, and many more. Learn from them but also learn from all the other awesome resources and communities out there, web development has been going on for a long time and there are tons of people, publications, conferences, and meet up groups that can help you take your business to the next level.

Of course I’ll still be talking about development a lot here on MorganLinton.com but I’ll be calling it what it is, and you should too! As always I’d love to hear from you, comment and let your voice be heard!

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton