Geographic Domain Names

After speaking to David Castello and Jess Bookstaff this morning, I made a few changes to the homepage of Burbank.com. First off – thanks again for the calls David and Jess. I think the layout change will drive more advertising revenue for the site with the better placement of advertising.

For those who haven’t visited, I just added 6 advertising blocks above the fold in lieu of the rotating banners on the site. This follows what many other geodomains have successfully done with their websites. I think this is a needed step to help advertisers drive traffic.

Since I only use two nternet browsers, I am asking visitors to my blog to have a quick look at Burbank.com to let me know how it looks in your browser. Please drop me a note or a comment and let me know if it looks okay and what browser you are using.

I am sure there’s an easier way to test this, but I am working overtime right now to continue building my Newburyport website!   I would also love to hear feedback on that site, although I know there are many pages missing. Hopefully many of those will be added tomorrow though.

Conor Neu brought up an interesting discussion about what could possibly happen to the geodomain industry should the federal government offer a bailout. I do my best not to follow political news these days because it’s distracting, but I do know that newspapers are very important to politicians. It’s the local newspapers who provide the most in depth local coverage, allowing an unknown politician to become known and relevant in his district. Newspaper journalists – especially local papers – are politically important, and I don’t think it would be a far stretch to see the government send some financial aid their way.

That said, I can’t ever imagine the US government taking geodomain businesses away from hard working entrepreneurs and giving them to the failing newspapers whose lack of foresight led them to where they are today. Nearly every major .com geodomain name is developed or under development, and almost all of those are either owned by private entrepreneurial companies (or newspapers), and I can’t fathom that the government would step in and take possession of one company’s assets and give them to another company – especially in a failing industry.

That said, I do think it’s possible that we will see newspaper companies receiving federal financial assistance, which could be used to buy geodomain names. One thing which newspapers should note is that geodomains generally have much, much less overhead than the newspaper, yet they receive just about the same (or more traffic) than the competing paper. I am a one man show, and in my local markets, I am most certainly competing online with the local papers’ websites.

I am very happy with my geodomain growth, and I think Conor’s article offers some good insight into the state of the industry and where it’s headed.

I want to follow up on a recent post I made. Based on all of the comments and responses, I am going to publish my Geodomain information as a series on my blog. I think Jon and Dimester’s comments about reading others’ feedback on my posts is very important, as there are a lot of people with more experience in this area. Most of the successful people have owned their names for many years, so I think I can offer a different perspective as a new geodomainer.

I have started writing the series already, and it’s neat to be able to share what I’ve learned. I also hope to read comments that will help all of us learn from others’ experiences.

The series will begin just before the GeoDomain Expo. I am going to be spending next week in Lowell, so I should be able to report more on the sales process.

Thank you all for your feedback. BTW, I wasn’t planning on charging for the book – I was wondering if you thought it was a better way to present my information.

I am in the process of writing a pretty extensive post about buying, developing, and monetizing my geodomain names, since it’s all fresh on my mind once again as I build Newburyport.com. Since it’s fairly comprehensive and will be time consuming to read, I would like to know how my readers would like to see this. Here are the choices:

1) One huge and extensive blog post
2) Three or four medium to large posts covering separate topics such as buying, researching, developing, monetizing…etc
3) eBook with all posts in chapters all in one report posted on my blog
4) eBook given out at the GeoDomain Expo

I prefer not to do #3 because I might feel pressured to write content just so it looks more bookish, and I don’t want to waste your time or my time with fluff. However, I don’t think it’s as effective if people read one post one day and the second part two weeks later – or start with part two.

Anyhow, I am open to suggestions as I have been putting my thoughts together to help aspiring geodomain buyers and developers. I’ve learned a lot (still learning) and happy to help give advice based on what I’ve learned