When I set out to write this blog I did it for one reason. I enjoy writing. It gives me a voice, inspires thoughts, and generates creativity. I was a domain investor and felt that the domain investing community would enjoy my style of thinking and writing. While I’m no domain expert nor have I ever claimed to be, I do feel the community has accepted me and “gets me”. I’m pretty simple. I have a few goals in life. One, enjoy it. Two, make a little money along the way. I don’t take myself very seriously and although I’m human and attack the attackers, in general I am very easy going. I am not afraid to ask questions because that’s how you learn. Yesterday was the end of the month and I am proud to say it was my highest trafficked month ever with a little over 24,000 uniques and double my income level at over $1000 a month. Traffic numbers were almost 400% higher that one year ago.
I’m obviously not the best writer nor the best researcher. But I do feel I engage the reader and make them want to come back. I write straight from my mind and try and present it in a way that makes it entertaining. You want breaking news or inside info you can go somewhere else. I’m going to merely write what I’m thinking, what I’ve learned, and hopefully it will resonate with someone in similar situations. It seems to be working. You know how I can tell the blog is getting more popular? Not the stats, the criticism. I’ve learned from the past that you aren’t a popular site until the haters come in and attack. It’s part of being popular. It’s human nature to try and knock someone down to make yourself feel higher. Ask Michael Berkens. He asked me at DomainFest why I always smile. I always smile when I’m happy and when I am talking about domains I am happy. You know what else I’m enjoying?
The fact that I do make a little extra money doing this. I don’t blog for the money but I do appreciate the financial support that enables me to continue to increase my domain portfolio. My purchase of civilunions.com looks to be a decent buy with my home state of Illinois just approving them yesterday. That was paid for by this blog. The month before the blog money bought puddles.com. It also has allowed me to upgrade.
I upgraded to a dedicated server yesterday and will be moving this site and man of my other sites over to a faster platform. (thank you Anthony for moving them for me). It is nice to be paid for your hard work but as the old saying goes, I would do it for free. And I did for the first year.
I don’t mind sharing the stats and financials for this blog because it shows what can be accomplished with some hard work. And it is hard work. Despite what appears to be sloppy writing and poor spell checking, it still takes me a few hours a day. There are many articles I write that never get published. I spend hours putting together things that just don’t turn out to be worth publishing. I spend at least an hour going through drop lists each night. I spend a half hour to an hour trying answering emails and going through comments. Any blog owner knows it is difficult coming up with new article each and every day so I just write about my domain investing life. And that includes stats from my endeavours. I’m always curious about how many uniques this site gets or how much that site makes and that’s why I share mine. For the most part I don’t mind sharing. I’m not doing something any one else can’t pull off. There’s no proprietary method I’m using. Giving it out doesn’t hurt my chance for further advancement, so why not? Maybe it will inspire someone else to give it a shot.
Again, I’m not a domain expert but I am getting closer with every year that passes. I know more than many and less than many more. I’m sure Adam Strong gets tired of my constant phone calls but he knows this business inside and out and he’s become my mentor. Rather than call me out for not being an expert he merely picks up the phone and fills me in. An email with two sentences of advice. It’s what more domain investors should do for each other. Help, guide. There’s plenty of money in this for everyone. There are skills we all possess and can bring to the table regardless if you’ve been doing this a year or a decade.
So thank you. Thank you for reading. Thank you for forgiving all the spelling and grammar mistakes. And most of all thanks for teaching ME about domain investing. It’s a hell of a community and I’m proud you’ve let me be a part of it. And this was supposed to be a little fun side gig.
Your passion for domains shows in your writing and makes for worthwhile reading.
Passion is good it energizes and helps others find real meaning and experience too.
I love your blog. It’s one of my favorite ones to read. You seem just like a regular guy who’s not cocky about being a domainer. By the way, when is YOUR interview with The Domain Sherpa? Lol.
Just got into domaining recently… much more of an SEO & developer, but a good domain is still a good domain.
Have spent hours learning on your site. Thanks for being such a great voice in this community, Shane!
Owen’s blog is better.
(j/k!)
Thanks all for the kind words. Except you SL. 🙂
I think you’re very driven. You’re a competitor, even if you compete with yourself. It’s great you made a success out of this – it’s hard! And kudos to your blog. Not every post I read, but it’s one of very few I read occasionally, and I don’t read DNForums.
Are you managing the dedicated server? If not, did you hire someone?
I ended up sticking and upgrading with MediaTemple.net They have had problems but always made it right. They have given me a great price break for being a long term customer and I don’t worry about problems as much as how they are handled. Especially when it comes to servers. All hosts have issues.
Any person that can blog like you, put these domain lists together, buy/sell domains like you, get up and run 12 miles at 5:00 A.M, and also run a farm has my respect. I’m not sure how you have time for anything else, much less what you already do.
Domain investing takes almost all my time alone. I don’t think I could do all that you do. Actually, I know I can’t do the running ! 🙂
Thanks
As my wife said “You know how you can tell you’re talking to a triathlete? They’ll tell you”
You rock Shane… In the words of the great Ali G, you sir “keep it real.” Love the fact you don’t take yourself too seriously, while bringing some humor and clarity along with a direct, regular guy’s perspective to the industry! Thanks for taking the time to break it down in easy to follow terms – so that your points are crystal clear. I can’t tell you how difficult it is to understand what half the folks in this industry are trying to communicate half of the time with all of the couched statements, veiled references, industry rhetoric and vague writing styles. Not all of us are Frank, Kevin, Michael, or Rick and while i respect each of them, i am fine with that.
Great post Shane. Keep up the good work. The time you steal from your family is greatly appreciated by us. I wish you continued strengh; so you can keep up with the crazy pace you most likely have to deal with.