Last week, I took one of my parked domain names and built a very small website, monetized with Adsense. The domain name had received a fair amount of direct navigation traffic, but it wasn’t making much money as a parked page. I figured it couldn’t really make any less with Adsense, so I would see how it does.
I was surprised at how much more revenue was generated during the past few days, granted we’re not talking about a lot of money. While it had a PPC page up for a full month, the domain name generated 42 clicks and made just a couple of dollars. In the few days since I’ve had my “mini site,” the domain name has received just 8 clicks, but more than double the revenue.
Time will tell how the site does during the year, but right now it’s only making money from direct navigation traffic. If and when it gets indexed, it will hopefully generate some search engine traffic and potentially drive more revenue.
Of course, we need to take the time of building it into account. I purchased an article from TextBroker.com for $5.00 and paid about $125 for the logo (I intend to build the site out further, hence the logo expense). Â I also used a free template for the base of the website, and it was fairly easy to modify on my own, even with my limited experience.
All in all, if it makes $500 this year, it will pay for itself and my time.
I am not going to mention the domain name because I don’t want to draw attention to what the site looks like or where it was previously parked.
Anthing is better then parking these days and more over forever maybe!
I new here. I have some basic questions: How do you promote these mini sites if you just launched them. How do you generate revenue? Are these google ads that you put on your sites?
@ Theodor
I haven’t promoted this and may not promote it. The revenue is being generated from direct navigation traffic, which is the same as if it was parked.
Nice work Elliot.
In line with the “simple” idea you explained, here is one of my simple ideas.
If a domain gets traffic…..a simple one page lander with affiliate link(s) work well.
I use an ENTER button, on a one page lander, for some “adult” themed domains…I just tag them as they “enter”.
You can use an offshoot of the “adult” ENTER button and change the button to SALE or SAVINGS and tag the visitor.
Just do a simple graphic and a few simple sentences to move the visitor along; either hit the ENTER/SALE/SAVINGS button or go back..easy enough.
I use parking to mainly count stats on domains, the parking glory days are over.
Paul
Hi Elliot:
Curious, did you use WordPress?
Where did you get a good logo for $125?
Thanks,
Mark
@ Mark
I did not because there are so many more complexities with WordPress. In addition, there are a lot of pages, tags, posts…and other bells and whistles that come with WP. I also don’t know much about WP coding and didn’t want to mess anything up, so I stuck with the basic html. If/when I add more pages to the site, it could present an issue for me not using WP, but I will deal with that issue when the time comes.
Theo Develegas created the logo… It’s a very cool logo (IMO), but sharing it would give away the site. I think the cost was fairly low because I only had him create one version and I liked that one that he first created.
Thanks Elliot. But what if the site does not have direct navigation traffic? What would you suggest?
@ Theodor
I don’t really know… depends on the domain name, search volume for the keywords, competition for search engine rankings, and of course the amount of time/effort/money you want to put in to building it.
I rather spend money to dev. a mini site than park the domain.
I focus on low “search result” keywords as long as they have over 1000 searches a month.
Thanks for sharing, Elliot. I try to develop all of my keyword specific domains on mini sites, one page landers or even squeeze pages. I find the added seo benefits increase revenue and also assist when it comes time to flip. This doesn’t apply to domains that are generating significant revenue parked. I use wordpress as it’s easier to scale–Templatic, woo themes & ithemes are my favorite to use.
I was hoping to see you at DOMAINfest this year. Let me know the next time you’re on the west coast or attending a conference and I’ll make it a point to meet up for dinner/drinks. Keep up the good work and thanks for sharing your wisdom with us. 🙂
That is a nice logo 🙂
The benefit of your mini-site is also that you can put whatever you want on there, as opposed to a parked page which is a bunch of links that pay by an unknown formula – and you have no control of what’s on the page. Pairing the right domain with the right affiliate program can really increase your revenues. Plus, if you use a number of affiliate programs, you are diversifying revenue streams (ie: if one shuts down or crashes, you have two or three others that are still up and working for you). Clickbank has improved quite a bit in the last few years, they have a good variety of digital products and pay a good %. They also have more French and Spanish products now. I just started using them more and will see how it goes.
The logo is indeed nice! It goes to show, if you put reasonable effort to make the site appealing, the visitor feels welcome. Sharp graphics lay the groundwork for trust, because it shows that a real human being is behind the effort, and that the developer really cares!
My artist just supplied the graphics – logo and background image – for another Epik project I did all the writing and labeling for: Sewing–Machines .com It’s an experiment – please don’t denigrate the domain name! It’s meant to be a gift for a cousin, if it works out . . .
It’s a great site, @ Elliot. I tracked it down. Don’t worry – your secret is safe with me! 😉
If you want to create cheap logos for some sites that you don’t plan to expand, I recommend TheLogoCreator.com. It’s software and it’s cheap. I’m no designer, yet I find it really easy.
Elliot – I’ve heard Goggle can ban your Adsense account if you only put it on a one page website?…
I have quite a few unused domains. It would be nice to build miniwebsites and just wait for clicks 😉 but I’m bit scared that my account will be banned… :/
@ Neaxe.com
I wouldn’t build a one page website then 😉
Come on Elliot give us the name of this mini site.
@ Rod
Nope, sorry.
@Rod – do some research 😉
What star rating did you choose when you ordered the article?