Morgan is one of the most prolific bloggers in the domain space and his blog/s are always great to read and very very informative.

Like myself, Morgan is a lover of WordPress and its power & ease of use. I have close to 100 sites being developed in WordPress at the moment, this scale of development was cost prohibitive even less than ten years ago. Back then before WordPress or other Open Source Content Management Systems became the norm, you had to get pretty much everything done by a web developer which limited most people from developing larger number of websites.

WordPress

Great job Morgan!

Cheers

Ed

I will be doing it myself as I think it is the best out there for what he is teaching.

I am also an affiliate of his so I am letting others know about it in the
domaining community who may not know who he is or what he does.

Here is the promo below for a free webinar Brendon is holding in a few
days time.  (For the sake of transparency, the links below are my affiliate links
and I will make money if you make any purchases from him.)

Here is the info below -

***************************************************************

Brendon is teaching a webinar called the “5 Most Lucrative Paths
to Monetizing Your Advice & How-To Content Online.” It doesn’t
cost anything, and you can register here:

You’ll learn:

– Which marketing strategies work best online TODAY
– Why people would pay you thousands for YOUR advice
– What types of advice and content you should release (and when)
– Five example paths that all lead to $1,000,000

If, and I mean IF, it were possible to make that kind of revenue
online — I mean millions of dollars — leveraging your genius and
life experience, how would you begin?

It’s a tough question and a perplexing problem that Brendon
had to ask himself years ago when he was on the verge of
bankruptcy. Back then, he had nothing but a dream to inspire
and instruct people on how to improve their lives.

Then, as you’ve probably heard, Brendon made $4.6 million
in under 24 months by leveraging his advice through books, speeches,
seminars, coaching, and online training and information marketing.

He told me that money never meant much to him — because he
never had any — but he had to learn how to get revenue coming
in to sustain his message and mission.

So, he put together a plan.

On this one-time only webinar, he’ll share his five favorite paths
to making $1,000,000 online. Of course, not everyone will
be able to do it. But I’m glad Brendon is ambitious enough for you
to teach it anyway.

To register for the webinar, click here:

Personally, I think sharing your voice and advice with the world
is a worthwhile endeavour whether you make money or not, but
as Brendon says, “You might as well be compensated for what
you know, and earn an income for all the impact you can have.”

Take notes. It’s going to be a great webinar.

***************************************************************

Cheers

Ed

I often get asked about what technology I use in my office and how my office desktop is setup, so here is my list of item I use with a photo as well, click on the image to enlarge it if you like.

Apple iMac 27 inch LED (Latest Model) 2.7 Ghz Quad-Core Intel Core i5 Processor, 12 GB RAM, 1 TB Hard Drive, AMD Radeon HD 6770M 512 MB Graphics. Also standard Apple wireless Keyboard & mouse which I love.

2 x ASUS 21 inch LCD Monitors (These are a few years old now and were left over from my old PC Workstation) so not sure of any model numbers but you can get better quality now that these at half the price I am sure!! LOL

You can never have enough screen real estate in my mind, when you are buying and selling domains, developing websites, working on clients projects, talking on Skype etc etc…. Once you have tried it it would be very very difficult to go back to one screen. Perish the thought!

Altec Lansing Speakers (2 x desktop speakers & a sub woofer under the desk) again a few years old now but you can pick up similar quality ones for well under $100 these days.

My second away from home computer is my Apple Macbook Air

Apple Macbook Air 13 inch 1.7 Ghz Dual Core Intel Core i5 Processor, 4 GB RAM, 256 GB Hard Drive, Intel HD Graphics 3000. (this is a great laptop, so dam lite and powers through any work I need it to do but most of all I can get about 7-8 hours of life from the battery compared to max of 2 hours I used to get from my PC Notebook.

iPad (Version 1) WiFi & 3G with 64 GB of storage. Love this little baby and use it way more than the MacBook Air.
Looking forward to the iPad 3 coming out this year as it will be time for an upgrade then.

iPhone 4S, 64 GB storage, I had the iPhone 3GS before upgrading to this one and bypassed the iPhone 4. The iPhone 4s came out on my birthday Oct 14th so I could not say no to that upgrade could I!! LOL

I also have a Wireless Blutooth Headset from Plantronics model 995H which are very good quality sound and very comfortable to wear for hours at a time if you need to. The built in mic is also very good quality.

But the Microphone I use to do all of my podcasts is the Yeti Blue USB Mic which was (and I think still is) the first USB Mic to be THX Certified (THX is a trade name of a high-fidelity audio/visual reproduction standard for movie theaters, screening rooms, home theaters, computer speakers, gaming consoles, and car audio systems.)
This is the best USB Mic I have ever seen or used and has many options of how it cam be used, here is the link to the manufacturers website. http://www.bluemic.com/yeti/ 

So there you have it, the tools I use every day to run my business from my home office in Perth Australia.

What a great business we are in and what a great time to be running a business on the internet.

Please feel free to let me know what you have as your office or home office setup, I would love to see what others are using.

Cheers

Ed

2011 was a very quite time for this blog / podcast due to other projects that I needed to focus on.

2012 will be a very different story as I am very pleased to announce that I have partnered up with Danny Batelic from www.tradingwebsitesblog.com & www.dominiche.com and also the Dominiche Podcast that Danny co-hosts with Ed Dale from Challenge.co

Danny has had great success with developing and flipping websites over the past few years, so not only will we be talking about domain names but also what is involved in developing out your domains to sell on platforms such as Flippa.com

The podcast will now be once a week and run for approx 30 mins or so. We will also have every month an industry expert guest on the show that either Danny or myself will interview. To revisit some of my past interviews with the top domain experts on the planet, please visit my interview archives here www.ozdomainer.com/category/domain-names-podcasts/

So please feel free to suggest any topics that you would like to see covered over the next 12 months and we will do our best to cover them for you.

Thanks for your time and we look forward to bringing you a great podcast in 2012.

Cheers

Ed & Danny

Marc Ostrofsky - Get Rich Click

Here is a piece about Marc from his website -

Check out his latest interview with Frank Schilling where Frank discusses his new domain parking and monetization service www.InternetTraffic.com Keep up the great work Michael.

Optometrist.com.au

This is a major win for this business that is a smaller company competing against the larger ones such as OPSM, Spec Savers etc. As it happens, it appears that Spec Savers were the previous owners of Optometrist.com.au.

So congrats to the folks over at The Eye Practice.

If you have not herd of Flippa.com yet then come out of your cave and have a listen to what they have to offer. They are one of the biggest website sales marketplaces on the web at the moment and are getting very good results for their customers.

I have not used Flippa as yet but will be listing a few of my sites for sale there shortly.

Flippa.com

If you have been contemplating listing a website for sale on Flippa.com but have yet to do so, it would normally cost you US$19 to list a website with them.

Andrew has kindly organized a discount code for OzDomainer Podcast listeners which will give you 15 credits towards your first listing so you will only have to pay the balance of US$4. Just use the discount code “ozdom1” to claim your 15 free credits.

If you have already used Flippa.com in the past please feel free to leave a comment on how you went and what website / domain you listed or sold on Flippa.

I hope you enjoy the podcast.

I think we are in for an amazing year where domain names will reach a whole new audience of end users.

To help with that process, I hope that the interviews I have done in the past and my future podcasts will help to educate the general public and domain investors alike.

Some of my upcoming confirmed podcast guests will be -

Adrian Kinderis, CEO of AusRegistry

Adam Dicker, CEO of DNForum.com

Page Howe, CEO of  SiteHQ.com

Frank Schilling, (Second follow up interview from our first last year)

Also on my list but not spoken to or confirmed -

Michael Berkens, CEO of MostWantedDomains.com & Author of TheDomains.com

Rob Grant, CEO of RealEstateDirectory.com

Michael & David Castello of CCIN Castello Cities Internet Network
This will be a follow up interview with the Castello Brothers from my first podcast interview with them back in 2008

I have many more on my list that I will add at a later date. If you have anyone in particular you would like me to have on my podcast, please drop me a line through the comment section and I will see what I can do to get them on the show.

Have a great day!

A focus on my ccTLD domains mainly in my home country of Australia will take up most of my attention & time.

Here are some of the domains that we will be working on in 2011 -

AudioBooks.com.au, Cardboard.com.au, DslrCameras.com.au, SlrDigitalCamera.com.au & SlrDigitalCameras.com.au, ElectronicDrums.com.au, GpsSoftware.com.au, LedDownlights.com & .com.au, LiquorLicensing.com.au, MiningJobs.net.au & MiningJobsAustralia.com & .com.au, Forex-Trading.com.au, StepLadders.com.au, SuperchargerKits.com.au & ShortCourse.com.au.

So there is enough there to keep my developers busy for 2011 and beyond. I will be keeping you up to date on how these sites are going over the new year and will be happy to accept any constructive criticism and feedback on how they can be improved.

In regards to the podcasts on this site, I will be stepping that up with a target of at least one new podcast every fortnight with a wide range of people in the web industry not just domainers but anything and anyone that is related to developing a successful domain name including Web Development, Content Management Systems,  SEO, Pay Per Click Advertising, Social Media, Content Writing, Business Development & Management, Website Images, Graphic Design and a whole lot more. If you have any particular subject you would like to learn about and hear from experts on the subject, please drop me a line and let me know and I will do my best to accommodate you.

I would just like to thank  all of you who have been guests on my podcast as without you guys it would not be anywhere near as interesting! Also a big thanks to all those who have been reading and listening to my blog / podcast over 2010, I apreciate your support. It is hard to believe that this site will have been running for 4 years come July 2011 so there will be some celebrating going on then I can assure you.

I wish you all a very Happy New Years and very prosperous 2011!

Cheers

Ed

As far as I am concerned, Woolworths picked it up for a song!! It sounds like they intend to take on Bunnings in a pretty big way so it will be interesting to see how they go about it.

Owning the single word category killer domain name should help a to get them going.

Here is the full story in the Herald Sun today http://www.heraldsun.com.au/business/dot-dashed-as-domain-name-lapses/story-e6frfh4f-1225971726800

I had some issues with my emails not getting through to Frank which delayed the process, but I finally got it sorted with some help from my mate Ron Jackson from DNJournal.com who passed on some messages to Frank on my behalf. Thanks a million Ron

Ron did a brilliant cover story article about Frank on his blog back in 2007 which you can read here – http://www.dnjournal.com/cover/2007/december.htm

Frank is a legend in the Domain Name industry and very nice guy to boot.

For someone who achieved so much in a smaller amount of time than most other domain investors, he is a true champion of this business.

Frank’s blog, Seven Mile (named after the beach where he lives on the Grand Cayman Islands) is by far one of the best domain name blogs out there even though he only posts once a month or so but when he does it is true gold. If you have not read it make sure you put on your list of “must do” items.

Anyway, that is enough from me! Get stuck into the podcast.

Enjoy

Kajabi Marketing Software

Hi all,

It is not very often that I have been this excited about an online product or service, but Kajabi is a different beast completely.

If you have no idea what Kajabi is and what the heck I am talking about then you can check it out here www.Kajabi.com.au

If you have already watched the first video then the latest video with a look behind Kajabi and what powers it, to its pricing structure are all revealed on the latest video. Just click on the “Get Kajabi” tab at the top of the page.

I have decided that I will be going for the Ultimate package as it just seemed to be the best value for my business model, but there is an option for everyone.

There is a 14 Day Free trial with no strings attached but it is for a very limited time.

Disclaimer: Ed Keay-Smith & OzDomainer.com are affiliates of Kajabi and will make affiliate commissions on products or services purchased through these links.

www.kajabi.com.au

List Control
Product Launch Formula 3.0
Video Boss
Outsource Force

All had a little link at the bottom that said “Powered By
Kajabi” and until now, not too many people knew what that was about. Today, FINALLY, answers!

www.kajabi.com.au

It’s apparently already changed the way John Reese, Andy
Jenkins, Frank Kern, Trey Smith, and Jeff Walker marketed
their biggest products this year.

I think it’s going to change the way EVERYONE markets online
very soon. And after you watch this, it’ll probably make a
convert out of you too.

Kajabi Landing Pages

Ed Keay-Smith

P.S. The only lame part of this video is how long you’ll have
to wait to get your hands on Kajabi after watching. But I guess a few days isn’t so bad. You decide: too long to wait?

www.kajabi.com.au

P.P.S. Oh yeah, there is NO OPT-IN NEEDED to watch this. It’s totally in the open. (Which is kind of shocking, considering.)

Disclaimer: Ed Keay-Smith & OzDomainer.com are affiliates of Kajabi and will make affiliate commissions on products or services purchased through these links.

For those of you who don’t know who George is, he started up the Domain8.com drop service for the .com.au ccTLD which was later sold to Fabulous.com and renamed to Drop.com.au which is its current service. Watch the video to see what George is up to now and his views on the domain industry at the moment.

I have wanted to interview Frank since I began this domain names podcast almost 3 years ago.

It should happen within the next week or so, hopefully in time for my birthday on the 14th October.

If you have anything you would like me to ask Frank on your behalf, then please leave a message in the comments section of this post.

Cheers and have a great day!

Ed

This weeks guest is Jeff Kupietzky from Oversee.net where Jeff talks about some interesting facts regarding Oversee that I have not heard discussed anywhere before.

After talking with Simon this afternoon he told me who will be on his next episode (but has sworn me to secrecy) and I am sure that it will be a great show, don’t miss it.

Well done Simon for getting this show of the ground.

The radio ad was for a new Australian business directory company called Bloo www.Bloo.com.au.

At the end of their ad spousing all of their great features and benefits they gave out the web address just as it sounds BLUE, they did not give the alternate spelling of BLOO to the listeners. Big mistake in my book! If they owned www.Blue.com.au and it redirected to www.bloo.com.au then that would be fine, but they don’t it just goes to a dead page.

So if you are going to run radio ads make sure you have the right combo of domains to cover yourself and if it is a different spelling make sure you let the listeners know how to spell it so they can at least find you.

Domainer Income

Simon has a huge amount of experience in the domain industry and has been flying low under the radar
so far, but that is all about to change with his new domain name management service.

In my opinion Simon has put together one of the best domain name investment tools available
today and I have looked at them all! He does have a limited version free trial so make sure and check it out.

Disclamer:!!! I am an affiliate of Domainer Income and will make a commission if you purchase the Pro version of Domainer Income but if that bothers you then just bypass my links and type the domain in yourself.
The product is that good I just think more people should know about it regardless.

Here is a short Bio on Simon.

Simon Johnson
Co-Founder Domainer Income

* Co-Founded one of Australia’s first ISPs (isp.com.au) and Internet Security companies (shake.net)
* Former writer for Australian Personal Computing Magazine
* Author of best selling book on Internet Safety (Keep Your Kids Safe), published worldwide by McGraw Hill.
* 12+ years working for large multinational companies in the areas of Security, Fraud and Risk.
* Co- Founder of DomainerIncome.com

Enjoy the podcast!

Coincidentally yesterday the domain name www.CaravanParks.com.au sold on Drop.com.au for AU$10,100.00

I did not go after the domain myself but I did say to my wife Lois that I thought it would go for between $8 – $10 thousand dollars.

Anyway that is enough work for 1 week, congrats to Shaun Pilford from DIRECT NAVIGATION DOMAINS for picking up the domain, it is a great one.

Great to hear from you again Frank, In my mind once a month or so is better than not at all.

Here is the link to Frank’s blog http://domainnamesales.com/sevenmile/blog/

Over the last 6 months the traffic to many of my Indian sites .IN & .CO.IN such as WaterPurifiers.in & SolarPanels.in has at least tripled and they are getting thousands more visitors per month than they have been getting in the past.

On average they are both in the Top 5 results on Google.co.in and are competing up there with the multi million / multi Billion dollar companies that are targeting the same premium keywords that I am.

This now opens up some possible opportunities for me to either sell the domains to these companies or enter into some type of JV partnership with them.

One such company is Tata BP Solar India Limited which is one of India’s largest companies comprising a partnership with Tata & BP which are both Billion dollar companies.

Although I am at this moment only monetizing these sites with Google AdSense, it will not be that way for much longer as I have always had bigger plans for these websites.

I also own many of Tata / BP’s core product domains such as -

SolarHotWater.in

SolarInverters.co.in

SolarLantern.co.in

SolarLantern.in

SolarLanterns.co.in

SolarLanterns.in

SolarPanel.in

SolarPanels.in

SolarPowerInverters.co.in

SolarPowerInverters.in

SolarStreetLight.co.in

SolarStreetLight.in

SolarStreetLights.co.in

SolarStreetLights.in

SolarWaterHeater.co.in

SolarWaterHeater.in

SolarWaterHeaters.co.in

SolarWaterHeaters.in

SolarWaterHeating.in

With the middle class population of India growing at a rapid rate and expected to be larger the the total population of the US within the next 10+ years, I think there are some very exciting times ahead for the Indian domain name market.

On average their prices are 20% – 50% cheaper than what we pay in Australia and they offer Free Book Delivery Worldwide which is a huge saving alone for us in Oz as the shipping prices we can pay from sites like Amazon are sometimes more than the cost of the books themselves.

I think they are also fairly competitive with Amazon on pricing for customers in the US so check them out.

I have ordered 7 books so far and have saved approx $45.00 and have told many of our friends who have also found it to be a much better deal.

In terms of a well developed website I think they have done a great job and have won some awards for the business in the UK as well.

The Book Depository

She has been a huge part of our family over the past 7 years and will be greatly missed by us all.

As I work from home she was an integral part of my day, feeding, letting outside to do her business and of course to rub her belly while she lay on her back. She was a great forced distraction away from my computer.

We will definitely be getting another dog in the near future but we are undecided on what we will be getting.

R.I.P Sophie Dog

David Lye, CEO Netfleet.com.au

I believe that the .AU market has huge potential and with the help of sites like Netfleet.com.au and partner company Netregistry.com.au that the general publics awareness of the value of quality generic domain names will only get stronger.

I hope you enjoy this podcast.

Cheers

Ed

Ed,

I just returned from Maui Hawaii, 100+ customers from a dozen countries face to face and palm to palm for 3 days. It was immensely energizing to
shake everyone’s hand and hear war stories and spend time together.

In that conference room you heard every kind of story you can imagine. There were people there who literally made a million dollars last month. There was probably somebody who LOST a million dollars last month. I have no doubt.

I know of one guy who was literally down to his last twenty dollars. A trip to a pricey seminar was his last wing and prayer. There were many businesses that have grown 400-500% in the last 12 months.

Welcome to the knife fight, to the rough and tumble world of being an entrepreneur. A universe of extremes. Work hard. Play hard. High highs. Low lows. Humiliation. Exhilaration.

When I moved from Nebraska to Chicago 17 years ago, there was a part of me that somehow just needed to flee safety and comfort. In pursuit of action and adventure.

Nebraska is a safe, genteel, polite, nonthreatening, mannerly place. And… it’s kinda boring there. I don’t have very many customers from Nebraska.
It’s just not a “Planet Perry” kind of place.

Here in Chicago we have the Chicago Bulls and Bears. Michigan Avenue and the Gold Coast. The Hancock Building and Navy Pier and yachts and hi-rise condos. O’Hare airport and tollways and commuter systems and Broadway shows and vast urban sprawl.

And gangs and drugs and hour-long commutes and gapers delays and starving artists and the West Side and the South Side and Joliet Federal Prison and crime and poverty and housing projects.

In Chicago, you get it ALL. From the ridiculous to the sublime. That’s why I love it here. My friend, there are some of us who are just BORN to thrive in extremes. You crave the WHOLE enchilada. You want access to the whole box of chocolates. You want the CHOICE to grab that nugget of mystery out of the box and get whatever you get. And reach for another and another.

It’s hard, but it’s better than the SAFETY of having someone else skim off the gourmet stuff and feed you stale 8-month-old Hershey bars. 150 years ago if you preferred the Wild West to a 3 bedroom condo and 3 square meals everyday, you were surely a little bit INsane.

Today, if you prefer the Wild West to institutional mediocrity, it’s  probably the best possible assurance that you ARE sane… that the world hasn’t yet pounded every last ounce of adventure out of your soul.  That you don’t want to sit in a cube under buzzing fluorescent lights and follow the car ahead of you to oblivion every day. You don’t want to gulp down antidepressants and watch TV from 5pm till bedtime.

If you thirst for greater things, if you dream of accomplishing something really big and daring in your life (and I’m NOT just talking about money by the way) then I’m here to tell you, you’re in good company.

If you’ve failed and failed and failed again…. or if you’ve achieved modest success only to have a monsoon wipe out what was so promising…. if you’re constantly dodging the snakes and arrows…. you’re in splendid company. It’s never too late for a comeback.

It may be lonely in your particular corner of cyberspace on a particular Tuesday afternoon, but I’m here to assure you, you’re not the only one. One more thing:

There is no such thing as a great person in history who was a “perfectly reasonable guy.” We’re all a little bit unreasonable, a little shaky, a little insane. And driven by an inner fire that won’t go out. Passion is the fire that lights itself. If you have that Passion, give thanks for it, honor it, and press into it. Harder. Not everybody has it. But you do. And you know it. So write it in blood. Put it in an obvious place so you never let yourself forget it.

The entire history of your life culminates in the present moment, and all the possibilities that it holds. Right now.

Every hour, every day…. …seize the day.

Perry Marshall

P.S.: You’re awesomer than you think you are.

First up www.CarParts.com.au went at auction on Drop.com.au for AU$18,012 and was picked up by Michael Sojevic from the domain blog www.DNTrade.com.au. Well done Michael, that is a record for Drop.com.au where the biggest previous drop was for www.Printing.com.au that went for AU$9221 last year.

I was bidding on this name but only got to AU$5000 as that was my budget, damm!!

The other big name to go was www.CurrencyTrading.com.au which went for AU$5206 and was also picked up by Michael Sojevic, well done again mate!
I got to AU$2500 for that one!!

ccTLD’s are alive and very well DownUnder.

If you have been keeping an eye on what has been happening in the domain world over the past 18 months or so you will have noticed a significant increase in ccTLD sales across the globe. Most recently the sale of Fly.co.za at Traffic in Vegas for US$65,000.  Now yes of course I hear all the .com crazed domainers yelling “but Fly.com would be worth at least 10 times that price”.  No SHIT!!

But how many of them could pony up and pay the price for the .com?? Very few! So as far as opportunity and price of entry go ccTLD’s are great value are are overlooked by many domainers for reasons that are usually based on ignorance!

Just go and take a look at Ron Jackson’s DN Journal Website and the domain sales list and see how many of the top 10 sales of last week were ccTLD.

ccTLD’s Rock and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise!

I have learned a great deal from him over the years regarding Google AdWords and my AdWords Consulting business would not be where it is today if it were not for his help and guidance.

Using Google AdWords is just another way of getting targeted traffic to your website and I know many domainers are using it as they get more into developing their domains.

If used correctly it can be a brilliant marketing tool that can bring you instant results but if you don’t know what you are doing it can max out your credit card very very quickly.

If you have not already read Perry’s brilliant book The Definitive Guide To Google AdWords then do yourself a favor and grab a copy as it will save you a great deal of pain and expense in learning the tricks of AdWords.

I hope you enjoy the podcast!

I am happy to announce that my business partners & myself have just picked up the domain www.AudioBooks.com.au from the www.drop.com.au (owned by Fabulous.com) auction yesterday. The name up until then had been registered since 1999 but had not been developed for whatever reason.

Audio Books are big business these days and getting bigger as time goes by. I have about 20 books that I have picked up from various places online to listen to on my MP3 player when I walk or exercise or just relaxing.

The plan is to develop the website into the leading authority in Australia for Audio Books and being a book worm both paper & audio this should be a fun project.

So if you know anyone that would like to do a deal and list their Audio Books for sale on our site when its completed please let me know.

Cheers

Ed

Andrew shares his years of experience online and talks about what lead him to where he is today, what he thinks the future of the internet has to offer and his new domain sales platform website Simple Domains.

Enjoy!

His “Clay’s 10 Commandments” are a great read and resonated with me completely. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Just a quick update about a couple of podcasts -

Rick Silver from www.n49.ca

I am also happy to announce that I will be doing a podcast with Rick Silver from www.n49.ca / www.n49.com and we will be talking about his new role with Rick Latona & the Traffic shows as Panel Moderator. I met Rick in Amsterdam in June at the Traffic ccTLD conference. He is a great speaker and has a fantastic portfolio of generic .CA domains that he has developed over the years. So I will keep you posted on that interview when it goes live sometime in the very near future.

If you have yet to listen to my Podcasts with the other 2 Ricks, Rick Latona & Rick Schwartz then please have a listen to them at these links.

http://www.ozdomainer.com/domain-names-podcast-episode-5-with-rick-latona-from-ricklatonacom/

http://www.ozdomainer.com/domain-names-podcast-episode-10-with-rick-schwartz-domain-king/

This was the first time we met in person but we have conversed on the internet many times and he was a guest on my Domain Names Podcast several months back. Here is the link to that podcast for those of you who have not listened to it yet. Morgan Linton Podcast.

We went out for a nice meal and talked about (you guest it) Domain Names! in particular ccTLD domains as we both have a strong interest in that market place. We also talked about the Apple iPhone (doesn’t everyone???) as we both have the latest 3GS which IMHO is just brilliant and a complete game changer in the Smart Phone game!

Morgan is a very switched on young man and has some great plans for his website DomainVestors.tv and will be conducting a series of video interviews with various domain name investors next year so watch out for those!

Thanks for your visit to Perth Morgan, it was great to finally meet you in person. I hope you enjoyed your trip down south to Margaret River and did lots of wine tasting. It is Gods country down there, one of my favorite places on earth.

KickBikes were originally developed as a fitness and cross-training device for elite Nordic Athletes, the KICKBIKE is the original bicycle-scooter hybrid.  Most people on the street would call them Scooters and they do get people talking as they are not a very common sight compared to your normal road bikes that everyone is used to seeing.

Here are some links to the sport – www.footbike.com.au & www.iksaworld.com

Alan just had his 50th Birthday at the start of this year and is fitter than most very fit 30 year olds I know. He is also a brilliant Internet Marketer to boot! Alan is so dedicated to this sport that he will take his KickBike with him where ever he travels so that he will not miss a days training, now that is focus and dedication to your sport.

Alan will be representing Australia next year at the FootBike 2010 World Championships in Italy where I am sure he will do very well.

Well done mate and here’s to another 1000 Consecutive Days!

Paul Sloan

My guests today on Domain Names Podcast are Paul Sloan & David Carter from www.PlayingTheAngles.com

David Carter

Paul Sloan is a longtime journalist, who has worked for Fortune Magazine, National Public Radio, CNN and a bunch of other places, on staff and as a freelancer. Paul has interviewed people such as Kevin Ham in that great article that was published in the Business 2.0 Magazine back in May 2007 before the magazine closed down.

Paul has teamed up with David Carter, an Internet Marketing specialist and domain name investor from the UK and together, they plan on building an interactive site, based on interviews and business experiments with some of the world’s finest entrepreneurs.

One of their first guests in Frank Schilling who does not do that many interviews and has some great gems of wisdom in the interview with Paul.

These are two very switched on guys who I am sure will have great success with their new project at Playing The Angles

Thanks to them both for being on my podcast, I hope you enjoy what they have to say.

Chef Patrick

On this episode of Domain Names Podcast my guest is Patrick Ruddell from www.ChefPatrick.com.

Patrick started his Domain Names Blog only 12 months ago and has built it into a fantastic resource for the domain industry. With its unique blend of Video, Comic Strips & Reviews it stands out from the crowd of often same old same old domain blogs.

Patrick has put a great deal of effort into his WordPress based website and I think he has done a great job for a “Non Techie” as he calls himself.

I hope you enjoy the podcast.

Morgan has had various websites relating to the Domain Name industry running over the past few years and has a wealth of knowledge on the buying and selling of domains, development on domains, SEO & domain brokerage.

Morgan kindly offered a discount on his services to Oz Domainer Podcast listeners and by simply quoting “OZ 111″ in an email or over the phone to Morgan he will give a 20% discount on his regular fees. This was not a planned thing and just happened during the podcast and I get NO commissions or kickbacks from Morgan for this referral.

I think Morgan is a very smart young guy who has a great business mind and work ethic and will be one of the domainers to watch out for as he is very focused and doing some great work.

I hope you enjoy this podcast.

I am looking forward to this interview as I have huge respect for what Rick has done in and for the domain industry over the years.

The interview will not happen until after TRAFFIC ccTLD in Amsterdam as Rick has a full schedule and some holidays between now and then so that gives anyone who has specific questions that they would like to ask Rick the time to get them to me.

Funnily Rick and I were both quoted in the same article in the Australian newspaper The Sydney Morning Herald in Jan 2008
I spoke about that in this post http://www.ozdomainer.com/rick-schwartzs-rivers-of-gold-story-from-the-sydney-morning-herald/

Cheers

Ed

The Career Advice website is a long term development project run by my wife Lois who is a Career Advisor and we will also be working on joint ventures with other career practitioners across Australia.

It is only a few weeks old but getting a nice traffic flow and has brought in 2 consulting leads straight off the bat.

This was a domain that was dropped after being registered for 5 years or so by the original owner but for some reason was not renewed.

Just goes to show that you can find some great domains out there at registration fee if you keep your eyes peeled.

Cheers

Ed

I consider Ron to be the top guy when it comes to reporting on whats happening in the Domain world with his great interviews that he does with the who’s who of domainers, his coverage of all the major domain name conferences and his relentless tracking of the sales that are happening in the domain industry.

I hope you enjoy the Podcast.

I then started my consulting business AdWords Marketing in 2004 and have been involved in the PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising industry ever since.

One area of setting up a PPC ad campaign that often gets overlooked is the display URL used at the bottom of the ads.

Google allows a maximum of 35 characters including spaces to be used for the display URL so having the most relevant keyword rich domain name
as a huge benefit when it comes to getting a higher click through rate and quality score for your ads.

I have run tens of thousands of ads on AdWords over the past 5 years and without a doubt a campaign that has the most relevant domain name used as its display URL will kick the ass of the same ad doing an A/B Split test where the only thing that is different in the 2 ads running at a 50/50 split is the display URL.

Let me give you an example where the search term is “Factoring Finance”-

Considering Factoring?
New Free Service Finds the
Right Factoring Finance for You!
FactoringFinance.com.au

vs

Considering Factoring?
New Free Service Finds the
Right Factoring Finance for You!
JohnBrownFinance.com.au

Although the only difference is the display URL, it can make a HUGE difference in the click through rate of the ad just because the URL matches the search.
It has been effective for me 9 times out of 10 over the years. Google has made it much harder in recent times to test different URL’s within the same Ad Group
but I can assure you it is very very effective.

This is another reason to have high quality keyword rich domain name that does not get talked about a great deal by domainers, food for thought!!

Here is what Google has to say in its Google AdWords Guidelines -

Display URL must be accurate.

• Your Display URL must accurately reflect the URL of the website that you’re advertising. It should match the domain of your landing page so that users know which site they will be taken to when they click your ad.
• Where you have keyword URLs, these are considered to be your Destination URLs and the Display URL must accurately reflect them.
• The Display URLs within each ad group must have the same domain.
• The Display URL field cannot be used as another line of ad text.
• Your Display URL must include the domain extension, for example: .co.uk, .net or .org.
• If your actual Destination URL link is too long to use as your Display URL, use a shortened version (such as your homepage) that meets the character limit for this field.
  Example:
  Destination URL: http://www.TravellingDog.net/toys.html
  Display URL: www.TravellingDog.net

Now we all know that owning a domain name like www.palmsprings.com (owned by brothers David & Michael Castello) is the best position to be in buy far, but many people I talk to on a daily basis think that if the don’t have the premium name that its not worth the time or effort to go after a good Google ranking.

Well there are many cases to say otherwise, the Palm Springs example is the one I will focus on for this exercise.

Now if  you do a search on Google for “palm springs” you will see that the number one site listed for that phrase  www.palm-springs.org a hyphenated .org name!

Now it only has about 30% of the back links of www.palmsprings.com but is number 1 as apposed to number 2 for www.palmsprings.com so it goes to show that if you want a great Google ranking not having the best category killer name should not stop you from trying.

I still believe that having keyword rich domain with or without hyphens will make the job easier and get clicked on more by the searcher once they do see you on Google, but at the end of the day the premium generic name will get what the hyphenated .org’s or .net’s will never get, TYPE IN TRAFFIC!

So my point is don’t discount other names if you are just looking for good search rankings and traffic because a name you could hand register or pick up cheap in the drops or aftermarket can do a pretty good job if you play your cards right with SEO etc.

If you have any other examples you would like to share please feel free to post them.

Have a great day.

Ron is the main man in the Domain Industry for covering all the major events and is responsible for some of the best domainer interviews I have ever read.

I think it would be great to get some questions for Ron to answer from readers of my blog, so please feel free to submit them to me during February so I can put them to him on the day.

Well it is!

Ron Jackson has just posted this today – The State of the Industry January 2009: 15 Leading Experts Break Down What Went Wrong in 2008 and Predict What Will Happen in 2009 and it would have been worth reading if it had only been the last post by Leading Expert #15 (you will have to read the article to find out who it is)

DO NOT WASTE A SECOND MORE ON MY BLOG! GET YOUR BUTTS OVER TO THE ARTICLE NOW

Now seeing as I am a Pro Reseller of GoDaddy through my website www.DomainNamesJunction.com that makes me a happy camper as I can register them for only $12.99 which over the next year will be a big cost saving exercise when I will transfer my 320+ .IN & .CO.IN domains across to GoDaddy.

Are you ready to grab your share of over 60 million internet users in India?*  *Figure comes from internetworldstats.com

I am in Japan for the last night heading to Malaysia tomorrow for Christmas and home to Perth Australia for New Years.

My family and I have had a fantastic time travelling for the past 7 months and would recommend it to anyone.

I wish you and your families a safe and Merry Christmas & Happy New Years, may 2009 be a great on for you all.

Cheers

Ed
OzDomainer

I like to keep an eye on my domains as often as possible to check their traffic stats which may be as often as every 3-4 days or so for my different accounts and domain TLD’s & ccTLD’s.

It always grabs my attention when there is a large traffic spike in particular when its not just over a day or so which could be news or current event related to cause an increase in searches. But when the increase stays there and does not drop back down again it usually points to one thing, Google!

I have had quite a few domains that this has happened to recently and I don’t think that it is a coincident that all of these domains are parked with the same parking company www.parked.com as I think they have one of the better custom domain setups that seems to be very “SEO friendly”.

One of my domains on the subject of Electrical Switches www.electricalswitches.net is ranked about number twelve on Google’s global search using a broad keyword search which is not to bad at all considering that it is only parked. The exact match phrase “electrical switches” lists about 433,000 websites that have that phrase on their site according to the Google results and www.electricalswitches.net is listed at number 9 on Google.

So needless to say that the ppc income has gone up accordingly from what it was a few months ago of about $2 per month to approx $15 per month now.
Now this is not going to buy my New Nissan GT-R any time soon (the best sports car ever to come out of Japan IMHO and a “super car killer“)

The downside to parked.com is that as yet they don’t have a domain sales after market to handle any enquiries about the domain if you have it listed for sale, just a basic contact form which is ok. I would prefer the best of both worlds but with all of the parking companies I am yet to find it.

Still I am impressed with the rankings of my indexed parked pages and while the domains are waiting to get developed they are paying for themselves then well and good.

My daughter Sasha who is 10 years old has just published her first website called Horse Obsession (www.horseobsession.com)

We registered the domain name back in November 2004 for reasons mentioned here http://www.horseobsession.com/about-this-site/

Sasha wrote all of the content herself other than the “About HO”  page which we helped with and with a bit of help from Daddy (Me) setup the WordPress blog to run it on.

We are hoping that over time the site will help to pay for or at least to lease a horse for her to ride on a regular basis other than her fortnightly riding lessons.

All of the 410 horse related pictures that are and will be on the website are from the trip that we are currently on (see Laptop Nomads)

The banner was created using Banner Maker Pro 7 in about 10 minutes by Sasha and me using her photos.

I think that it is great that we can teach Sasha about websites, affiliate & internet marketing, domain names etc based on her working on a subject that she is “obsessed” with and that it can give her some options of how to generate an income when she gets older rather than having to go and trade hours for dollars (not that there is anything wrong with that!)

Any links back to Sasha’s site would be greatly appreciated, also any comments left on www.horseobsession.com to Sasha would be great as well.

Cheers from Ed in Japan

Perry is one of the best all round marketers that I have ever met and what he has to say in this video is well worth the 15 mins or so it takes to watch it.

Do yourself a favour and check out the video at http://www.perrymarshall.com/bite-the-hand-that-feeds/

Me playing drums at my 40th Birthday Bash

What do drummers have in common with domainers you may ask.

Well the successful drummers (like the ones you will see in a moment in the video below) didn’t take any shortcuts to get as great as they are.
To get where they are and their level of success they work hard, practice and are always looking at improving their chops and perfecting the art of playing the drums.

Being a drummer myself I know how hard it can be and just when you think you are are getting somewhere you watch a video like this one and realise that it is a life long learning process.

I think the the domain business is the same. I am a bit over hearing people complaining in forums etc about how hard it is and that they are not making any money. When they have only been in the game for 5 minutes! Stop whining and start learing from people that have walked the path before you. Stop looking for the quick buck and focus. As my good mate James Martell always says “No Hocus Pocus, Just Focus”.

The drummers in the video (Dave Weckl, Vinnie Colaiuta & Steve Gadd) are some of the very best in the business and they did not get that way buy accident, they have invested tens on thousands of hours practising just like successful domainers can spend thousands of hours looking over domain lists to find a great domain or developing websites.

Master you art people!  Drummer or Domainer its all the same principals.

I hope you enjoy the video as much as I do as it keeps getting better as it goes along ( it is quite a few years old so please forgive Dave Weckl for his hairstyle LOL)

I have spoken about my mini-site www.waterpurifiers.in which is being slowly developed over time and is starting to get some great results on Google.

It now ranked number 10 on Google India for the search term “water purifiers“  and is number 1 for many more longer tail phrases such as “home water purifiers“.

The AdSense revenue is picking up and in the near future I should be putting some advertising on the site as well.

So after only 3 months or so being live it is coming along nicely and should only get stronger over time as more content gets added to the site.

I have also launched about 2 weeks ago my site www.solarpanels.in with which I am following the same principals as www.waterpurifiers.in
There is only a few pages of content on Solar Panels as I am drip feeding the content over time.

My goal with these sites is to have JV partners and advertisers as the main revenue source rather than PPC and more than likely get rid of PPC all together, but for now if they make a few dollars a day it helps to cover the cost of development.

My answer to that is it depends on a few things.

I would NOT recommend putting a great deal of time into developing non dot coms other that ccTLD’s such as .com.au, .co.uk or .in etc as the owners of the .com version of your domain will gain a fair bit of the benefits of your hard work.

I would (and do myself) recommend building mini-sites around .net, .org etc but not a fully developed site. Min sites in my experience produce a much higher rate of return than having the domains parked.

I have no problem in spending time and money building sites on my ccTLD domains as they are usually targeted at the local markets and have a strong domain extention recognition in their respective countries such the .com.au for the Australian market.

I also think that your chances of ranking well in the search engines with ccTLD,s is much better when targeting a local market but you can rank well with almost any name if your Search Engine Optimization is done well.

I have travelled on many Hi Speed strains on this trip and I thought that it would be hard to top the European trains like the TGV & Renfe Hi Speed in Spain but the Japanese are the masters of this form of travel and it has given me some great content for a site I will be developing called www.travelbytrain.net

The train was 16 cars long and seemed to go forever. When the train pulled into the station there was a whole line of cleaners waiting to get on after the passengers were all off so they could clean the train for the next lot of passengers. I counted on average 4 cleaners (all women) per car x 16 cars WOW! They do a great job as the trains were the cleanest we have seen in 6 months except for maybe Switzerland and as for running on time, we are talking to the seconds in departure timing from the trains I was watching, very very impressive.

The Japanese also will the “Fastest Internet Connection Known To Mankind” award (well at least the fastest we havw had on this trip anyway) with an average download speed of 24 megabytes per second and an average upload speed of 14 megabytes per second. NICE!! (Stats taken from www.speedtest.net)

We have had some fast connections in other countries but this just makes life much easier when you are working on the road building websites, buying & selling domains, talking on skype etc.

Looking at most of the dropped domain names these days is its blatantly obvious that most people registering domain names don’t have a clue as to what constitutes a good or great domain name. Yes there can be exceptions to the rule but they are few and far between.

If the people registering these very poor, nonsensical domains had only read Ron Jackson’s great website Domain Newbie first, they may have thought twice about registering them and done some research before hand.

Name Newbie

Ron’s other site that he is much better known for is DN Journal which as MUST read also for all domainers / developers.

I have chatted to Ron via email many months ago (before I left for my 7 month trip) about him being the subject of one of my future podcasts but we have both been very busy so it is on the to do list!

It is a spoof video from “Domain Name Dollar Store”

Take a look you should get a laugh, even if you have watched it before!

The funny (& sad) thing is that most of the names in the video are better than most of the drop lists these days.

Cheers

Ed

Rick Latona had this to say after the Traffic DownUnder show had finished “Clearly the .au names were popular which shouldn’t have been a surprise considering we were in Australia. This only confirms my theory and supports my decision to focus solely on ccTLDs during my own show in Amsterdam this coming June. More on that coming soon.”

I look forward to seeing what Rick has planned for the ccTLD market place next year.

Also Ron Jackson from DN Journal headlined one of his latest posts with this “Year’s Biggest Country Code Sale Takes a Spot Among the First Three on Our YTD Top 100 Domain Sales Chart” read his report on recent ccTLD sales here

To get an idea of just how big the ccTLD market is, take a look at this map of all ccTLD,s made up by John Yunker from Byte Level Research

You can even order prints of the map to put on your wall if you so desire!

Please note this info about the map below-

Each ccTLD is sized relative to the population of the country or territory, with the exception of China and India, which were restrained by 30% to fit the layout. At the other end of the spectrum, the smallest type size used reflects those countries with fewer than 10 million residents.

(Click on the image below to maximise)

ccTLD Map