My Newest Project Launched This Week

Sometimes I come across a domain name for sale and I know I have to buy it to build it out. That happened the other day, and I want to share the newest website/business development project I have undertaken.

If you have any friends or family members who are pregnant or recently gave birth, you’ve likely had to purchase a gift. In the last few years, baby registries have become a popular way for expectant parents to choose gifts and supplies that are needed upon the birth of their baby.  Similar to a wedding registry, a baby registry can be filled out in-store or online, and friends and family can purchase gifts from various gift registries.

A couple of weeks ago, I saw that BabyRegistries.com was for sale, and before even buying the domain name, I had a vision for the site. It would be an affiliate based website where expectant parents could post links to up to 5 baby registries. They could send their friends a link to their page on BabyRegistries.com, and gifts could be purchased from one of the registries. Instead of having to look at several websites for a particular baby registry, the parents could have all of their registries listed in one spot.

There is competition for this particular website. For instance, BabyRegistryLocator.com is owned and operated by The Wedding Channel. TheBump.com is also competition, as are a few other niche websites.

Expectant parents can provide information about their registries and link to all of their registries on one page within BabyRegistries.com. Instead of having to search through a large list of similar names and/or finding the right registries, friends and family can easily find all of the registries for a couple on one page.

Monetization will be done via affiliate links and possibly direct advertising once the site has grown. I am planning to worry about generating revenue once traffic increases.

If you want to check out a sample page, you can check out Mike and Krissy St. John’s baby registry page. Mike’s a domain investor, and he and his wife is expecting in August. If you’re expecting, I hope you’ll add your own baby registries.

The website design was done (almost from scratch) by Theo Develegas of  Acroplex and the coding was completely done by Tia Wood, and I am utilizing the WordPress platform. There was a lot of work involved, and I am sure I am not the perfect client, but Theo and Tia were both very responsive to my needs and requests. There is still some work to be done, but please have a look at the site and feel free to leave some feedback and any errors you see.

The site took about a week to create, and I am pretty happy with how it looks. If I can manage a project like this, I bet you can, too. Comments, criticism, suggestions, errors, questions, and anything else would be appreciated.

BTW… if you are expecting a baby or know someone who is, please let them know they should sign up and post links to their baby registries!

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

40 COMMENTS

  1. @ Joe

    Thanks… hopefully it inspires some people to take on their own project. I know very little about coding or baby registries, but when I saw the name for sale, I was able to envision a site like this and Theo and Tia took my idea and built it out to my specs.

  2. It’s always that way: to 100 people a certain domain may suggest nothing, but when you see it, you instantly imagine it fully developed and feel the urge to make it yours asap!

    Congrats also to the “workers”, Tia and Theo 😉

  3. Great site Elliot. Terrific idea. Great design.

    Curious, I have about two and one half inches of border on each side of the page when I view the site. Is this intentional? I am wondering if because it is a WordPress platform that you are limited in the width of the page.

    Thanks,
    Mark

  4. Theo and Tia did a great job on this. Color scheme represents both genders very well and it look professional and fun and the same time. Great concept and execution on this project.

  5. Elliot,
    This is simply spectacular. In my books this might end up being your best and most profitable site in future.

    May I suggest, If you can, a good advertising budget. If you could bury 600 bucks a month in advertising for the next 6 to 12 months, I think you will amaze yourself even more.
    Well done!!

  6. Congratulations Elliott! Awesome name! Wish you the very best

    Tia is a cool lady and seen a few of her sites. Think you did a wise choice

  7. Elliot-

    Yep, same.

    This could just be my own crazy preference/perspective, but I like when the site covers more of the available area. For example, if I go to Amazon.com…full screen.

  8. Love the idea! another creative niche site like dogwalker, descriptive category domain, genius. Good luck and keep us updated.

    Just to clarify on monetization right now, you affiliate link to the different registries (i.e. amazon) when someone clicks “Add your Baby Registry” and creates a listing so you get a commish ?

  9. Thanks everyone

    @ Frankie

    Once any bugs are worked out and a few things are added/changed, I will be advertising quite a bit. The objective will be to get people to sign up and then get others to look for those registries.

    @ M

    When someone clicks on any of the registry links on the sidebar where I have an affiliate account and buys a gift (or anything), I will get a commission. Additionally, when someone clicks the logos found on the registry pages created by expectant parents, I will also earn a commission if I have an affiliate relationship and they buy something.

    @ Mark

    More of a personal preference and I think many sites are like that. I don’t want people to have to scroll over on smaller screens.

  10. Elliot
    Thanks for sharing!
    I am curious! When you get an idea for a domain name… is it best to brainstorm with a designer and a coder? Should there be anyone else to consult with before producing the idea?
    Thanks, Mars

  11. @ MarsDavis

    Probably 🙂

    For me though, I am a one man operation and can afford to make errors. If this site doesn’t work out and make money or grow as I expect, I am very confident I could sell the domain name for more than I paid (domain + development).

    I wouldn’t have developed a website on an inferior domain name that couldn’t be sold at a profit. For instance, I wouldn’t spend the time or money building iBabyRegistry.com or BabyRegistry.net 🙂

  12. Congrats Elliot, The site looks nice, Has a good feel.

    Just wondering how much develop costs were on a project like this? $$$ or $,$$$

    Cheers,

    Robbie

  13. Thank you all for your kind words. Elliot is great at defining specifications and the idea was to create something that “pops” and yet prompts the visitor to actually utilize the web site. Tia’s truly a PHP/db wizard and the project was completed very quickly. Looking forward to the affiliate link conversion 😉

  14. @Acro

    Really nice design work.

    For us non-techies, could you elaborate just a bit on what Tia’s PHP/db wizardry did? Where did your design work stop and her work start?

    Thanks,
    Mark

  15. Excellent domain name and website Elliott. Congratulation.

    Love the color images, layout and presentation. Very professional.

    It makes me feel like wanting to buy baby gifts from your website!

    Can you share us what’s your next step? And how you would like to “market “your site.

  16. The site will be popular 9mths from now as lots of babies will be born –people tend to procreate before judgement day.

    Look at 9/11…more babies were born 9mths later.

  17. Elliot – I thought you didn’t have time for another website? 🙂 Nicely done…always enjoy reading all your projects. They all look great. Is it because you have good taste, or you are willing to spend the money to get them to look and work a certain way? I think this project is quite simple…but the idea is brilliant. I get it as soon as I visited the website.

    How will you market the website to get traffic and users to register??

  18. P.S.

    Elliot – can you share with us the process & the interactions you had with your web designer & coder during the course of this project?

    For example…..
    1. Can you share with us the spec (is it verbal, written, wireframe, mockup screen shots, diagrams)??
    2. How did you get your designer & programmer to work together?
    3. Did you install WP, and give them access to build out the site?
    4. How often do you get updates from them?
    5. Did they charge by the hour or piece meal?
    6. Did they make you pay for every little changes?
    7. How do they confirm for you that they did not install any backdoor script to steal your commission? (I am not saying that they would…but is there a verification process)?

    I love these nitty gitty stuff. 🙂

    • @ Poor Uncle and others

      I will do my best to do a follow up post tomorrow covering the nitty gritty development process as well as some of my thoughts on marketing. Might be two posts and might be later on in the week.

  19. Elliot – Mostly a terrific-looking site, congrats!

    One suggestion I’d make (as a long-time print editor): shorten & simplify the text under “Find a Baby Registry”. Seeing that much verbiage might faze some visitors. (There’s also some non-optimal wording & punctuation there.)

    If you’d like specific suggestions/advice about how to improve it, drop me a line at DNF or NP (I’m randomo at both).

    P.S. I’m considering building out a related domain – WelcomeToTheWorldParty dot-com. Now I know where to go for development help. 🙂

  20. I like the website just perfect at first glimpse 🙂 but just wondering, how did you manage to affiliate with the drop shippers, example Baby SuperMall, as they dont offer affiliate programs on their site, tnx and good luck 🙂

  21. I have a minor aesthetic critique regarding your Popular Baby Registries buttons (info bar). That part looks a tad unprofessional and was an immediate turn off for me. I can see that without the grey backgrounds, some of these wouldn’t pop so well… but, hmm… Actually, I’m not sure if I hate the buttons or the info bar background more.

    Everything else looks great though and I admire you going after this opportunity head first – we all could use a little bit more of that attitude sometimes.

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