Domain Development Learning from BuildsOut.com

Creating a useful space on the web for your visitors can be a very tedious activity. Since entering the domain space in 2004, I had an eye on development but had novice skills. So, I started by flipping domains, scouring droplists in hopes of snapping up a really good domain to develop. All the while banking so-so domains with the thought of building them out through solid SEO and a little SEM to get the sites jump started.

Fast forward to July 2006. I purchased WiFi.com and put together a small team to help me develop it into a wireless Internet portal. It was hard work, but it paid off within the first few months as I started to benefit from relationships I had built within the WiFi industry. To top it off, I had one thing alot of other domains do not...Traffic!

Fast forward again, its August 2007. My wife and I decide to offer a program for domain name investors, Buildsout.com. The thought being we could put to use our experience developing websites and we could offer something all domainers are looking for; a set of options which best fits there needs. Our options were; 1) A plan for domain name owners in which we build out the initial site and hand it off to them. 2) A second plan where we manage domains with greater than 3,000 unique visitors and share revenue with the domain owner. 3) A flex plan in which traffic is not a factor until we grow the site - we take a larger percentage up front as we expect revenue to be low and as it grows we will decrease our share.

As you can imagine, the flex plan quickly became popular. Why not hand off a subpar domain name (no traffic, less than great keywords) to someone who is going to build a site for free, build traffic, and share revenue on a decreasing basis as traffic grows? No brainer, right? Right.

Well, we have learned there is low value, low return for plans like these. A number of sites we have developed, and developed well I might add, have done little. We have SEO'd the hell out of these domains. We created great content for these sites. We poured a good amount of time and resources into these sites and our return does not look good. Dont get me wrong, creating these spaces for domain owners has been a great experience and we have learned how to streamline our process. But with returns being close to non-existent we began to wonder why we wouldnt just do this for our own portfolio of sub-par domains. We have more than a handful of domains which are parked and we are sharing revenue with the parking company - more like they are sharing with us!

It just makes more sense to develop your own names, unless someone comes along with a very high traffic domain which will pay off immediately.

Considering our learning we have decided to do the following: 1) All current clients of our flex plan will have the opportunity to use their own advertising code on their website. 2) They also can continue to host with us for free. 3) Clients can continue to benefit from the sites we built for them if they choose to move to a new host but keep our link in the footer. 4) If clients choose to use their advertising code, we will immediately square up with the amount of revenue their site has generated to date.

We will still be offering our Builds-Out and Bail plan. We will consider offering the Builds-Out and benefit plan on a case-byc-case basis.

Domain Development Plans at BuildsOut.com

BuildsOut came about because a couple of things fell into place for us. Firstly, we were already actively developing WiFi.com as a wireless Internet technology portal. Secondly, we had a handful of domain names we kept talking about developing but just had not got around to doing so. Lastly, after paneling a session at a domain conference it became evident most domain investors either; lack development skills or get caught up in acquiring and selling (think stock market here) with grandiose ideas of building each and every one of them out into thriving web businesses.

The simple fact is most businesses fail. Even the most experienced entrepreneurs with high degrees of business acumen can attest to this. Granted a premium generic category defining domain name can help bridge the gap between a hard-charging successful monetizer and the remote-wielding couch potato like myself. Regardless, failure is much more common than success and we fully understand the chances of turning our development platform into a thriving business are slim before we even got started.

To strengthen our odds in this world of failure we decided to not only leverage our Internet properties, but also take on other investor domain names into the program. So, as we move forward from this point we will be creating rich content spaces relative to the domain name topic and over time building an "exurb" which will act as a traffic conduit offering a wide-range of products, goods, and services available through our interactive BuildsOut Virtual Property Directory. The idea is; we will have a map mashup with a real property look and feel - I could go into more detail, but do not particularly feel like offering up the idea for the GP at this moment in time.

Anyhow, we are actively taking domains into the program. However, we are being very selective at this point because we are focusing most of our attention on finishing up our client portal.