Marketing Aside, Behind the Scenes of DomainQuestions.com

Let’s put the marketing of DomainQuestions.com aside for a second. Like I’ve shared with my other web development projects, I want to give you a behind the scenes look at DomainQuestions.com to help you with your own projects.

The reason I felt that a site like this is needed is because of the amount of questions I get on a daily and weekly basis related to domain names. Most people aren’t domain investors and their questions can be answered in a number of ways. I felt that I could help more than just the one person asking the question, but others who might be looking for the same answer. I also hope that friends and colleagues in the business will contribute knowledge as well.

In terms of monetization, I have gone direct to the advertisers in lieu of affiliate banners or Adsense. I will be committing my time to answering questions, and the site’s traffic will grow. As a result, advertising on the site is not expensive now and it should be a very good bargain a few months from now, especially for those companies who lock in longer term deals at today’s rates.

I chose to build DomainQuestions.com on a different website than my blog for a couple of reasons.

I want others to answer questions, and I felt that people might be reluctant to do so on my blog. I didn’t want people to feel that this was an extension of Elliot’s Blog, which although it’s a domain blog, is a personal blog. I felt that the branding of the site gives it more of a community feel than my blog might give.

Secondly, from a business perspective, it’s better to have it on its own website. If I decide that I don’t have the time to run the site in a couple of years, it’s more saleable than my blog. I think my blog’s value is tied in with my personal association with it, and while the content may be valuable to someone, Elliot’s Blog isn’t Elliot’s Blog if Joe Shmoe is running it. DomainQuestions.com could be managed by other domain experts and will still be a community site with many different perspectives.

I chose to advertise on domain blogs because I believe they are a very cost effective way to reach my target audience. Not only will I want other domain investors who read the blogs to answer questions, but it would be great if some of the blog owners refer questions they can’t or don’t want to answer to DomainQuestions.com. The more domain knowledge that contributes to the site, the more beneficial it is to the people seeking answers.

You know me well enough to know that I am generally happy to answer questions and respond to most comments, so feel free to do so. If you’re wondering how it was built or the platform, you can check out a question that was asked.