Blank Czech, using Ask Lord Brar service, asks:

If I have a good domain, do you think it’s worth fooling around with if it’s my first real domain? Or do you think I should try and make a long term (>3 months) development plan for the domain. It currently gets 20-30 hits a month.

Blank, the answer is a Resounding Yes!

There is no reason to be scared of screw-ups. Remember the old saying — “Life is a Lesson You’ll Learn When You are Through“. That is more than true when it comes to domaining or, for that matter, any other business in this world.

I am a proud graduate of the University of Hard-Knocks and I can tell you that the best way to learn something is to go head-on and experiment.

To quote my friend Jon — Being too Careful is Just Plain Gay.

Remember — I may be telling a lot of stuff but do you think I want more competition in my best markets by disclosing those ideas here. I discovered what works by hard-work and hit and trial. You can discover those ideas too if you stop worrying about the results and start experimenting.

I know you are scared because you think that the name you have may lose its value if you develop it. However, if the name has type-in traffic, it is not going to go anywhere just because you have put up a site. It will only grow because now you will also get search-engine traffic.

And in case you don’t do well with the site, you always have an option of switching it back to the parking services — but I am sure you wouldn’t as development always beats parking in terms of traffic and revenue.

What I will recommend to you right now is that you choose a web host, setup a blog, write some articles, setup adsense, add affiliate links, build some links and let it ferment for some months. Mind you — SEO is not instant and takes some time to show results. Patience, my friend, is a virtue.

In summary — Yes, “fool around” with your domains. It doesn’t matter if it is your first one or one thousandth. You will learn something new every time you try out something .

If you don’t try out things because of the fear of breaking things, you will be losing out to those who are out there and discovering what works before anyone else does.

Yes, you can minimize your risk by reading how others do it but that comes with a disclaimer — reading too much can result in “paralysis by analysis” and you don’t ever want that. Whenever you see an idea that you think can work, try it yourself and see if it actually works.

Good Luck with your development effort!

Art Deco — while referring to my Domaining Strategy and Domain Development posts — asks:

Quoting a wise man “I keep an excel file with weekly details of how much traffic did the site get and how much money did it make from various revenue channels. If both don’t increase consistently, I know I need to get moving to grow these figures.”

With some sites it just seems like they plateau at a certain volume – maybe a 100 uniques/ month, maybe a few 1000 uniques/ month, but never enough to actually profit by either affiliates or ad cents clicks – and then they they just don’t grow much more.

It is hard to know whether to put some more time or money into them or sell them and move on. That’s what I was talking about – some way of judging what the potential of a URL is, and how many times to submit it, or add content to it, or let it be.

I assume you have to have enough domains running through your system that you develop some or list some for sale every day or every week, so when do you decide this domain is not worth holding?

That is a pretty good question you have asked. While I hate to say this but there is no “formula” which governs when you should sell a site and when you should hold on to it. It is a judgment call that you have to make.

However, there are certain things that you can indeed consider when making this judgment call. Let me mention a few which I follow –

1. Why Did You Start the Site? The very first question that you have to realize is that why did you get into the niche and start the site in first place? Did you start it just for flipping or did you have any interest in the segment?

What I have personally found is that you hit the no-growth plateau mostly when you are in the niches that you don’t really have an interest in but are there just because you saw someone else do good in it.

If you happen to have any genuine interest in the niche, you usually know what your audience wants and where can you reach them — and you know what direction the market is going in. Which brings us to point #2.

2. Predict the Market. Try to predict which direction is the supply-demand curve for your niche heading in. What will the market situation be like after six months, one year, two years and five years?

What are the opportunities and challenges in the segment? If you think that the market is going to grow and you are in a position to benefit it out it more than you’d make by selling right away, then don’t sell. Do consider the time and effort you’d have to put in.

If you think that you would rather be making more money by exiting now rather than grab the opportunity in future – sell! However, consider the competitive advantage you have over others because of your site.

3. Competition and Saturation. Do an analysis of who your competition is and what their strengths are. Research how saturated is the market within your niche and where do you stand right now.

After you know the realistic situation, decide – are you prepared to put in the effort, time and money required to keep growing within the niche?

4. Your Long-Term Plan. This is perhaps the most critical factor in making the decision — do you have a clarity of goals?

Do you know which keywords you want to rank for, what type of traffic do you want and what you want to do with this traffic? Also, do you have any plans to get into related niches or sub-segments of this niche?

Yes, getting them to buy something using your affiliate / CPA links is indeed clarity of goals. But you have to know what you want them to buy through your links.

If you think you can and want to achieve your goals, then sure work towards it. However, if you want to exit this niche, sell the site and invest towards your other goals. However, consider — will it be worth it to do so?

5. Future Plan of Action. Decide what you are going to do with the money that you will get by selling the site. After you have decided that, research — will you get better returns from what you plan to do than what your site is giving right now?

So, overall, when and whether to sell your website / domain is a completely subjective decision that you need to make depending on your own unique situation. I hope my points above were of some help to you.