I’ve started up a Twitter account about UK domaining. It can be found on :-

http://www.Twitter.com/DomainingUK

Gents Bike and Childs Scooter

Two more Amazon aStore sites to add to the collection…..

Gents Bikes is a popular search phrase. Here is GentsBike.co.uk

Another popular search is ‘Childs scooter’. How about ChildsScooter.co.uk!

Not necessarily money spinners, but probably cover costs and a bit extra.

Birmingham, the UK’s second city

Birmingham is England’s second largest city and is located about 100 miles outside of London, in the north of the UK.

This is why I wanted to get started on developing BirminghamWide.com, the second of my geogeneric domain websites.

I’m hoping that this ‘template’ will enable me to develop other similar sites reasonably quickly. The basis of the site is a free template, one of a range of great free templates produced by website designer, musician and writer, Andreas Viklund.

Radio Electronics and iHorseracing

In an unusually productive week I have been able to add two more sites to the portfolio. Firstly, there is RadioElectronics.co.uk and secondly there is iHorseRacing.co.uk.

Two nice ones that shoud do well over the long run.

If I can keep up this rate of development I can probably build out my portfolio of domains in around 18 months. Thats if I don’t buy any more domains!

I also think that there is a second stage of development where mini sites that are showing strength should be built out into fully fledged sites. SIPTelephony.co.uk is an example of this, where although the visitor numbers are low earnings per click are relatively high.

This brings the number of minisites participating in the challenge to 16, plus Manchester Wide, which is really a fully developed site.

eCRM.org.uk

Its been a while but I have developed another minisite.

eCRM.org.uk is no thing of beauty, but gets the job done, I think. Probably 3 – 4 hours work there, including writing the text.

I still have plans of developing my portfolio myself. There are around 250 potential sites that I could develop.

I will, of course update readers as I go along.

Amazon aStore alternative to domain parking (Update)

I have been watching this project closely.

After around 8 – 10 weeks I am able to get an idea of the potential for this alternative to parking.

There are three domains in this project. Each receives sporadic traffic. Although traffic is infrequent it is all type in traffic (I think). This means that when someone types in PortableFans.co.uk they really are looking for portable fans!

I would say that this experiment over the last 8 – 10 weeks or so was fairly inconclusive but I thing there are grounds for some optimism. Of the three sites, Melodicas.co.uk, PortableFans.co.uk and CountryRock.co.uk there was one sale bringing in £0.84 in revenue.  However, the last 8 – 10 weeks were not the best trading conditions. Additionally, 10 weeks is perhaps too short a period to draw any final conclusions.

Amazon aStore alternative to domain parking

Amazon offer affilliates the option of setting up what they call an ‘aStore’.

Basically, its a series of pages containing Amazon products you select for the store.

Developing a minisite does take time. Although developed minisites have good money-making potential, it is probably an evening’s work for each domain.

I thought I’d explore Amazon aStore minisites as a ‘quick and dirty’ alternative to domain parking. I developed three test sites. Each took about 15 – 20 mins to set up.

The three test sites are:-

Melodicas.co.uk

CountryRock.co.uk

PortableFans.co.uk

Even though people have to buy something before you earn anything, the commission from even a few sales per month is probably enough to cover costs.

I’ll report back once I have some results – good or bad – to report.

Update Jan 2009

Since December 2008 I’ve been developing MancesterWide.com. Initially it was a series of html pages but in early January 2009 I redeveloped the site completely. Now it is powered by WordPress and I have seen a lot more visitors.

Of all my mini-sites only two are ‘doing well’ – subprimlender.co.uk and SIPtelephony.co.uk. The rest are costing me money.

I will update in due course. In the meantime if you are visiting Manchester, England please visit ManchesterWide.com and find out more about domaining at Domaining.org.uk.

SurvivalistStore.com

This is the latest site to join the challenge.

SurvivalistStore.com, and my domains SurvivalistForum.com and SurvivalistForums.com were parked on Sedo and were getting traffic so I developed a basic mini site and pointed the two forum domains to Survivalist Store.com.

Survivalism is a popular niche and I have high hopes for this domain.

My GeoDomain website – ManchesterWide.com

ManchesterWide.com - This is a welcome addition to my minisite portfolio. The difference between this site and most of my other mini sites is

• this is larger (10 pages) than the others
• it is developed using css and therefore looks more professional 
• I plan to promote it a bit

 

and if it takes off, I plan to expand and develop it into a city guide with a view to seeing if I can make serious money with it. However, I am still at the begining of a long journey so my next goal is to get some good one way links and perhaps get some feedback from other developers.

If I decide to go down that route I will write it up here.