I want to share a tip to help you drive free, targeted traffic to your developed websites. It’s something I’ve been using on DogWalker.com and DogGroomers.com, and it works pretty well at not only getting local traffic to my sites for free, but also at getting companies to sign up for paid listings.

Craigslist has hundreds of local sites like ranging from large city sites like newyork.craigslist.org to smaller city sites like greatfalls.craigslist.org. Each site offers similar forums where users can post listings and visitors can find those listings. For my two sites, I like to use the pet services category, but there is everything from car services to marine services.

I had to create an account and verify it by phone to post in the pet section, and I am allowed to post three listings a day throughout the Craigslist network. I target cities in which I have several dog walkers, and I keep my listing fairly simple. You can have a look at a Ft. Lauderdale listing I created a few days ago.

There are a few things to note:

• Call to action is to go to DogWalker.com, and I include a link for tracking and to make it easy to navigate
• Message is to the point and doesn’t have much fluff
• Have a call to action for dog walkers who might be scoping out competitors’ listings
• It’s easy to replicate this message for various cities

It takes about 3 minutes to create a listing from start to finish, including navigating to the correct  Craigslist  page and customizing the listing for the city. From a dollars perspective, I am paying Google between $.75 and $1.50 per click with Adwords, so if a free listing sends just a few visits, it’s well worth the time and effort.

On average, I would say that each post drives anywhere from 5-20 visits, depending on the city. I also notice an increase in sign ups when I post Craigslist ads.

I had dinner with a friend last night who is also involved in the domain industry. He is involved in a different vertical than I, but we share a number of friends and colleagues in common. Coincidentally, his wife and my wife have been pursuing the same psychology doctoral degree, so while our wives talk psych, he and I can talk business.

One of the topics that came up was the fact that there are a number of shady individuals and business practices happening all over the place in the domain business. Most of these people and companies aren’t well known and try to stay under the radar to avoid troubles. My friend and I attributed this to the “easy money” reputation of the domain business and of course the low barriers of entry. You really need nothing more than a computer and internet connection to get involved.

It seems that some people think there is easy money to be made in the business, and because it’s done virtually completely online, shady people can do things they likely wouldn’t be able to do in a more highly regulated industry. People lie, cheat, and steal in every type of business, but it seems to be a more common occurrence in domain investing. I don’t want to say it is common, but I’ve come across and heard about a number of shady people and shady dealings.

IMO, forums and blogs have helped regulate some of this shadiness because criminals like to act “in the dark.” Forums and blogs allow people to bring issues to light, and that is just what shady people want to avoid. It certainly hasn’t eliminated shady activity, but I think it helps keep it down.

Before you do business with anyone or any company, you should always do your due diligence. A person or company that made mistakes in the past may not make them in the future (most people deserve a second chance in life), but always keep vigilant and be aware. I tend to trust people at their word, but it’s not something that should be done regularly. There’s a LOT of money to be made in this business, but the most valuable asset is your reputation.

As with every post, but especially with this one, make sure your comments aren’t libelous in any way. I don’t edit comments, so posters are responsible and liable for what they write.

If you follow politics (or the news in general), you’ve probably heard about the crotch photo that appeared on New York Congessman Anthony Weiner’s Twitter account. Dubbed “Weinergate,” this news story seems to have legs and will likely continue to stay in the news for at least the next few days.

I was curious about whether someone had jumped on the bandwagon and registered Weinergate.com. Not surprisingly, the domain name was registered, but it wasn’t a recent registration. The domain name was created in May of 2010, and it’s been owned by “Oversee Domain Management, LLC,” which I believe is an entity of Oversee.net.

The domain name appears to have expired a year after it was created, and surprisingly on June 3, while Weinergate was all over the news, the domain name changed ownership to “NameKing Expired Domain.” It’s likely that this is the status of names that aren’t renewed by the company.

At the present time, the domain name doesn’t even resolve.

It seems like a great idea. A domain owner has “only” parked his domain name (or has minimal development), and you have a killer idea for a website or business on that particular domain name. You reach out to the domain owner, and you either receive no reply at all or you receive a “no.”

Here are some reasons why domain owners don’t want to partner (with you):

• The domain name earns enough money parked that it’s not worth taking it off of the PPC model.
• Domain owner doesn’t want to encumber the domain name if someone else wants to purchase it.
• It’s too much effort and expense to do due diligence on your background.
• The owner doesn’t think the idea has a chance at success.
• You don’t have a successful track record, or your track record is unknown.
• Your idea isn’t interesting or the owned doesn’t think it will make enough money.
• The domain owner doesn’t want to be involved with partnerships.
• The cost of getting your idea launched is more than the owner is willing to contribute.
• It’s the domain owner’s best domain name, and he doesn’t want to take any chances with it.
• The domain owner has an idea for his own website or business but hasn’t had the opportunity to build it.

There are plenty of companies that do permit partnerships on their domain names if the right offer from the right company comes around. In fact, most of the larger portfolio holders do have pretty public partnerships on at least one domain name that I know about. I also have a marketing partnership on Burbank.com because the conditions were right.

Don’t take it too personally if the domain owner says no, but there are plenty of good reasons why someone might not be interested in a partnership.