This past week was a game changer. The positivity and the business relationships built at DomainFest were enough that I really think I could do this full time. But I’m not. I love working at the nursery despite the emotion crushing aspects of working with the generation above. The results are that I don’t have the time to do it all. It’s time I quit talking about what everyone else is doing and start doing it myself.
While it doesn’t mean that I am going to stop blogging, it only means that I’m no longer forcing articles and reporting stories. I am not a reporter, I really never have been. Seeing the bloggers at the conference taking notes and photos so they can report stories had exactly zero appeal to me. I don’t want to write the stories anymore, I want to BE the story. But I won’t be the story if I keep wasting my time writing soulless articles that rehash others work that I found on Google News using the keyword “domain name”
I realized its silly to worry about traffic numbers when I should be worry about profit numbers. I do it at the nursery but not in my domain business. At this point, after 2 years, you all know who I am and what I represent and bring to the table. The blog has done its job. It’s now time to stop talking about what I’ve done in the past and start sharing what I’m doing in the present. I will share it in the usual manner I do today, with a slice of humor, sarcasm, and positivity that represents my attitude every day but it will be less often. It will be less often because I need time to get things done. If I put the two hours I spend writing into developing domains, hunting down better domain, and setting up deals, I will make a heck of a lot more money than the petty advertising dollars.
I will continue to do my daily lists and continue to write but no more domain news. I won’t be breaking very many stories from this point. You also won’t see me writing posts in the hope of pushing buttons so I get more traffic. You won’t see twitter size posts in order to keep up my daily quota of posts. You will simply see two guys, Chris and I, talking about how we are getting to our end goal. We’ll help promote others in the industry, talk about things we enjoy, and try and stay on topic but from this point on, DomainShane is a straight up blog.
The first move is to fix this shitty layout. I completely got it wrong with the layout and Tia waited until the last minute so we rushed. I’ll take the blame though and I will fix it. I am going to move to a much much simpler layout and go to white. Bigger text and wider layout. I heard you at the show. Great blog, great personality, terrible site layout. So think of today as the turning point. The day when I shut my mouth and start doing. My voice will continue but with a completely different focus.
The second point is plant name development. I presently have three names making over $1500 a year. I want that to be 10 by the end of the year and move those numbers up by 50%. I also am focusing on domain name flipping and sales. I have a new method that I am going to give a try. A method that quadrupled my sales in January and one that I can’t share because it would take away from what I do. I will do my best to share things that I have done that can improve others success as long as it doesn’t diminish mine. The only thing I am reducing from this point on is the time spent on the blog. I’m hoping you’ll appreciate the quality over quantity approach.
Best of luck Shane! I hear where you are coming from and blogging less is nice.
For the theme, I always do best by shopping around at ThemeForest. Find one I like, but it and fix the little things I don’t like.
Rock on! Go be the news!
I’m cheering for you.
🙂
I am so happy you will quit writing the crap articles and wish you all the best in your future. I feel the domain-news space will be a lot less cluttered without all your ramblings stealing my bandwidth. lol
All the best on your journey and I hope to talk to you again at another domaining function.
Top of the day to you,
Your secret friend
excellent piece Shane
less is more
don’t stop the blogging as you are a niche blogger in domaining blogs anyway. take that a compliment. you speak personally and thats what blogs should be and with humour
spend your time working and doing domain deals and development and work at nursery and just do an hour blogging, somewhere lol
tbh maybe less. I think 1 good article a day is more than enough. look at Rick, when he was blogging
there’ll always be 5 sites reporting afternic wekly sales lol
real deals you do and interesting/funny chats or meets with domainers, people will come for that
talk about the nursery more too, bet many domainers drea of being outdoors more. I do!
just forget those sort of articles
cheers
Shane I can make you a star! Work for me at htp://Stars.fm
Shane, you can’t slow down on cranking out articles. Your advertisers will be mad. You can’t treat your blog like a hobby once you start accepting advertising dollars.
Hobbies don’t usually make you rich, same goes for blogging for fun. Uncle works for fun, but not for free.
Good luck Shane. See you at the finish line. 🙂
I agree, if writing articles for your blog is too much of a chore and taking time away from other more productive things you could be doing, then it’s time to cut back. Only blog when you have something you really want to share.
Interesting.
Blogs are/can be a business and maintaining them do take time. I have always been curious though as to how much ad dollars on average one is making from doing one. If the numbers are in the 4x per month range then not bad if it isn’t taking up much of one’s time.
As for purely flipping of names Rick had a great post on owning and selling names this past week. I tend to agree. They will never be stocks where one can readily and easily flip them. Even then it’ll come down to the 80/20 rule where one kills it on a handful of names while the rest bleed or do nothing great.
I do think your blog has value as well as a handful of others in the industry.
But, nothing wrong with changing things up.
Good Luck Shane, Would love to see a post eventually on your end-user sale methods.
P.S. I didn’t want to mention it but yeah, the new design sucks 🙂 Although I think that logo is kickin!
Have a good one!
Hi Shane,
I enjoyed your old format because it seemed to go perfectly with your personality – keep it simple and keep to the bottom line.
Why not go back to old format or a version of it that allows you to do what you need done?
John,
Tia is going to fix it but she seems to be very busy and I have no idea when she will get to it. Our communication is not all that great. All I know is she is going to fix it, just not sure how soon so in the meantime I am just going to dumb it down.
As usual, I must once again apologize for reading but only posting occasionally. I look forward to see what you have in store for us. Adjusting one’s course in business is a sound practice. Best of luck in all you do.
Hey Shane, thanks for letting us know about your change in focus re: blogging
Please keep us updated on how your sales efforts go – what you tested, what worked and what didnt’. Its’ understandable you don’t want to reveal everything you are doing, but we all want to continue to learn, so anything you can share is always appreciated.
Cheers
Having reliable web people I have found is difficult.
I ended a previous startup because of it and have chosen not to develop other ideas until I find them or figure out how to do it myself
Or … Get Big Dollar Backing and develop a better Rolodex of contacts of people with various skill sets that are reliable
In time …
Shane,
I’m sorry to read that you feel we do not communicate well. Maybe it is my fault for not giving you a specific deadline for the new theme changes. I sent you the information via email.
As always, please feel free to contact me via the information listed in my email signature (phone number and/or email) if you ever have any questions or concerns, I will be glad to answer.
Tia Wood