What a great video to display Google’s evil powers to the world. Too funny .. and if you are a DAD you must watch the second one.

DAD’s -- Ya, we serious rock with style LOL!!

There are well over 100 conferences annually for online development. Whether it’s the Search Marketing Expos, the Affiliate Summit or something else most domainers still only attend domaining conferences which barely breathe any life into domain name development.

Sure – there are lots of domains around which “could” be worth $1 million or more with the right development but for the last decade most domain owners have been living inside the parking closet so when it comes to attending Rob Monster’s EPIK development conference do you even know what questions to ask?

There is no doubt Rob has put a tremendous amount of time, money and energy into building a conference worthy of starting to build a bridge between domain ownership and development for interested parties however does this mean simply by purchasing a conference pass and showing up you will get all the answers?

Sadly no.

The amount of success any conference attendee will have is based on two things.

One is the promoter’s ability to attract a crowd, choice of events and access for attendees to immediate tools which can help improve the goals for which they are attending – Rob has done this!!!

The second is what YOU do.

Yes, quite likely if a conference is deemed great by the majority and you fly home thinking it was just another expensive party then you failed as an attendee. The conference did not fail you.

So next week when domainers gather in hoards to attend a conference produced by one of the most successful people online gather your cheat sheet well in advance and look around for answers to these questions about development:

# 1) Find SMARTER People

Remember the words “If you want to play chess never play someone you can beat”

This is critical to maintaining your seek for knowledge during the EPIK conference or any other. Sure, there are a lot of people around you can have drinks and make new friends with and its ok to do this but don’t stand in the corner talking to another guy who has never developed hoping to find the magic formula for online success. Try to get an attendee list and hit people up who have more experience than you. Chances are you are not going to know their names from the domaining world so don’t be afraid to Google them even if you’re 10 feet away. It’s not considered stalking yet.

# 2) Narrow Your Domains Down

Instead of solving the Mass development issue, identify the most interesting group(s) of your domains and try to speak in more defined discussions. Think about the difference between these 2 conversations “I have 3,000 names – how can you help me develop them” or “I have 200 real estate names – any ideas how to get these online”.

Not only does this show the beginning of a plan vs. needing someone to hold your hand it actually helps people who have experience in that sector want to speak with you more. Most development lessons can be carried over from one sector to another.

# 3) Give Rob a Hug

It would be kinda funny to have 1,000 people give Rob a hug over a couple days so this tip is for my humor more than yours (Please report any hugs given below)

# 4) Expectations

Do you know it can often take six months or a year to fully realize the SEO value of a domain name previously parked? Ask others about general expectations about rankings and when to start seeing traffic results.

# 5) Affiliate Revenue Options

At a developers conference they are bound to be people making money through affiliate programs so ask about what programs are good AND what programs are bad. Get contacts at these companies since direct payouts are a lot more than simply signing up online.

# 6) Mingle and Mix it up

Do not stay in a small circle. When you register its possible to meet a few people right away and simply stay in this group all weekend. Mingle and mix it up. A few minutes of charm will get you a long way and you can always call everybody next week. Meet as many people as you can. Of course, if you meet an incredible sexy blonde probably a wise idea to just leave the conference altogether or stay up in your room for three days – certainly no judging here.

# 7) How Much Money do you need?

Money makes the world go around or does it? Many developers start out with just a few hundred dollars and parlay money earned into thousands and then more. Part of attending a developer’s conference will also be to manage or create cost expectations for development. Ask about the different options for development. You can always upgrade your site design later. Find a balance between your budget and the options available.

# 8 What da heck is Web Development?

Seriously, this is not a joke question.

A lot of domainers think mini-sites are domain development but they are really not to any respectable developer. Inquire about the elements of development including web design, content production, link building, revenue generation and more. Ask questions like “Who writes the content”, “What platform should I use”, “How do I build links” and more. There are many SEO experts who are familiar with every aspect of building out a name attending the EPIK conference.

Buy them a drink and get some answers or buy them a case and maybe get them all.

# 9) Stand Tall – Do Not be Shy?

It’s ok to respect other people because of their accomplishments but at the end of the day we all put socks on and eat breakfast the same way. Do not be afraid to speak to anyone. In fact the best way to approach someone you feel shy about is to comment on a particular project they own or have built, compliment them and then ask a question about web development and that particular project. Trust me, people love to talk about themselves.

# 10) Schedule a Future Call

Ask people if its ok to schedule a longer call after the conference. A lot of people run their lives by blackberry and calendars so if you find someone who seems interesting enough to have a conversation with then politely ask to schedule a chat in the future. Once the meeting is scheduled then you can slowly make your way to next guy and don’t worry – they will do the same.

Conferences are not only fun and practical but one of the reasons why people fly thousands of miles a year to attend conferences is because they have a formula for extracting the information they want from the attendees. You should do the same.

Have any more tips … feel free to post them here.

A very interesting article by a guest blogger at Savings.com today stating that Bloomberg is reporting:

“Some bloggers may be covered for online lawsuits under the personal liability coverage of their homeowners or renters insurance policies”

Worth a read – check it out here

http://www.savings.com/blog/post/The-Hidden-Costs-of-Blogging-for-Money-(or-for-Free).html

Gunnars Optic glasses – Amazing. Seriously I feel like my eyes were just injected with Red Bull.

For anyone who works on a computer this will be the best money ever spent. The glasses were designed to help reduce glare and provide a better overall experience for people working on a computer (among other things).

I never promote stuff unless I use it and let me tell you something – If you have a choice of going on a date tonight or buying these glasses then purchase a pair of these. Unlike a date these will not disappoint you. Seriously amazing.

http://www.gunnars.com

So I got an invite to VaultPress last week and its pretty fair to say this is one service everyone with a WordPress hosted site should get.

In fact, it should be made mandatory as no other service comes close in my opinion.

Imagine the hours put in creating your content, editing images and defining tags when all it takes is some hacker to quickly get in and throw it all away. The Vaultpress backup system is based on the same platform WordPress uses so it was only a logical solution something like this eventually came on the market but thankfully someone did it right.

We have used a couple backup services but NOTHING compares to VaultPress. As I type this post right now VaultPress is backing up our site in an easily downloadable file where I can get our plugins, themes, images, posts, content and everything for the price of a couple lattes a month.

As for customer support – they have a team of people answering emails who are not only knowledgeable but willing to answer almost any question. My own experience has been nothing but positive.

When you talk about companies who will lead markets VaultPress is one for the security of WordPress users.  My bet is this company stand-alone will be worth $100m in the next few years but hey – they already own WordPress

See a screenshot here of the reporting offered through the control panel.

Installation takes about 2 minutes and is the same method as installing any WP plug-in. Prices range from $15-$40 a month with a TBD enterprise package available soon .. and worth every penny.

People buy GEO domains for two reasons. One is the obvious authority factor by having a domain like ChicagoDoctor.com but the other is because of the huge SEO advantage these names give.

However what if Google changed local results one day and stopped displaying ALL organic results. Well, it seems like Google is testing this as reported by Coverseon here:

http://blog.converseon.com/2010/08/13/google-removes-organic-results-in-local-tests/

This is why learning SEO and development is more important each and every day as if you bank your portfolio on things remaining the same – well, you just might need a life belt after all

Have to love this business

I’m on this run posting about development purely because it really kicks me when I see so many wasted domains with parking pages and the general lack of any real SEO / Monetization presence at industry conferences. My personal opinion is DomainSponsor, NameDrive, SmartName and all these companies should be entitled to one booth and be banned from speaking but hey, someone has to got pay for the free drinks I suppose. There is nothing wrong with parking a domain. It really is a great concept but none of the old school parking companies are doing anything much newer today than 5 years ago – just some prettier pictures and some auto generated content waiting to be banned by Google again.

People like Rob Monster of Epik are trying to take this industry to the next level and that is exciting – Fabulous, Domain Sponsor, SmartName .. Man, its like the Culture Club song that stuck in your head throughout the entire 80′s – sounded the same in 1981 as it did in 1989. Someone should consider writing a theme song for the parking companies similar to this.

As for domain conferences. We need to embrace the fact that owning a domain name is not the end game. Yes, it is for some people and thats OK – but do we continue to cater to ourselves or embrace the world growing around us? After all – we are the people complaining why others do not get it … maybe its because we dont?

I honestly wish the TRAFFIC conference disappeared completely and we all embraced the future rather than trying to sing the same old song again. DomainFest is making headway here while TRAFFIC seems to be dying a slow death. Anyway, thats another story – at the end of the day its only important what I do with my life and not what you or any of the event organizers do.

So where is this incredible list of monetization providers?

You can search for domains right?

By the looks of domain names people bid on at Snap, NameJet and other drop services I do question most peoples ability to even search at all but rather simply follow the herd – clearly evident by the abundance of junk people try to sell (they had to buy these names at some point right?)

However, I do welcome any postcards from never never land when you sell your triple hyphen .info to some for fool for $200,000.

Back to the List..

This is as simple as it gets and the way to find monetization companies outside of Adsense is right in front of you.

Yes. It’s all on one website.

A website that if you spend a day clicking through or highlighting the text of company names (manually searching on Google – its tough, I know – buy a bandaid for the awful pain I am causing your fingertips) you will learn more about who can monetize your domain better than any parking company or TRAFFIC conference will ever tell you.

Its not Rocket Science at all .. the information has been online since the first day you dreamed of developing except no one ever told you.

Here it is …enjoy

List of Sponsors for LeadsCon

List of Exhibitors for LeadsCon

List of Attendees for LeadsCon

Ironically when did any of these people speak at a DOMAIN conference?  Hello organizers ….List of

Speakers for LeadsCon

There are 1,000 +/- companies here. Many have lead offerings and understand the lead generation industry as well as you think you do about domain names.

Making money online is hard but for those serious its a lot more fun than looking at drop lists every day after day after day right round right round day after day.

Bankrate, Inc. announced on June 24 they will acquire CreditCards.com and NetQuote for a combined $350 million. This is a monster deal (and not a domain sale for you blokes who think every company sold with a .com is a domain sale).

According to compete these 2 sites have over 2,000,000 unique visitors a month in the lucrative financial and insurance industries.

The breakdown was:

$205 million for NetQuote

$145 million for CreditCards.com

So – you still want to park your domains?

There is lots of money around if you build. Maybe not $350 million but surely a few if you do it right. This news is a month old – from June 24th – and I totally missed this being reported anywhere. Congrats!

Personally I think creditcards.com is worth a lot more than $145 million

More here:

Bloomberg Article -  WSJ online edition (must be a subscriber)

This could be the post one day…. Are you prepared?

I am not someone who lives under the illusion that my blog is popular or anyone actually wants to read what I have to say.

However I am fully aware of the power that domaining.com has to provide traffic to people.

In fact, I would say out of all the industries online domaining.com is up there for being the largest SINGLE feed provider of traffic to industry blogs within an industry using a percentage scale

Ok that was a mouthful so let me put it this way.

The New York Times probably gets 50% of its traffic from MULTIPLE feed providers who highlight their news.

Smaller sites may get 80% of their traffic from MULTIPLE feed providers who highlight their news.

However in the domaining world ….

Most domain industry blogs I would guess receive 50 to 75% of ALL their traffic from a SINGLE feed source depending on your blog and excluding thedomains.com and that little guy high above Central Park -)

Even if its not 75% – its at least 40% since almost none of these blogs have any kind of substance for minor or highly searched topics, are not indexed in Google news (again, excluding MHB, the likeable guy with the funny bull riding helmet site and of course the news sites like Domain Name Wire)

Whatever the number is its high – drastically high from a single source.

I am sure some people who thought they were “famous” and all of a sudden lost a feed only to be banished to the bowels of Google since their site wasn’t famous at all – just had a link on domaining.com

My point here is have you even optimized your own blog or just rely on the power of some really powerful feeds that you believe just wont go away.

What if they did?

Your voice is only as powerful as your followers.

SEO is not just a way to make a money but its also a way for you be less reliant on single sources for readership and build a following of people who want to find your blog – not stumble across it since you just happened to be the headline of the day.

For those who know me I hold nothing back in my opinions about the lackluster support of development in this industry by some of the people who talk about domains.

When you hear a domain is worth xx and surely with a little development you can make 5 times x on your money … who are you listening to? You be the judge of that here – All I will say is knowledge comes from experience – not sales.

On the other hand there are many people who are legends in the development business but can you name them?  Why not … you own domains and want to develop? Seems like you have been spending too much time reading domain blogs

2010 is not like 1999 when it comes to developing.

People are not hiding as much as they used to. Public information is easier to find and people understand there is so much information available that they are more willing talk (excluding the secrets of course).

In all our industry blogs I can not name one who actually focuses strictly on speaking about people who have developed domains. Not regurgitating domain sales but a one or two article per week success story with articles about people who bought domain names and developed them with success.  Success is defined as a lot more than seeing 6 blocks of Adsense ads and a compete score of 86 visitors a month. Fusible is the closest thing we have to do this and they do a good job but we need something a lot better to attract more outside money and industry street credit.

Instead of a blog with domain sales listings, Adsense ads, hosting ads, auction ads etc.. from all over the place – how about a single site with true stories about development, SEO tips, articles from SEO people etc. Essentially a domain success / SEO blog.

Question:  There is no money in this idea?

There can be if you have a plan and do it right. Quality content and design is rewarded with quality visitors and opportunities (many times outside of just the purchase of an ad).  Plus unless you are MHB or that pretty purple tie guy there is no money in your current domain blog anyway.

Think about …  give up something that’s not making money to do something better … gee, what a conundrum you face.

Question: Why don’t I do it?

Maybe I will when my son goes to college. He is almost 5 now so odds are the opportunity may still be there.

Remember, I’m not a hater – I’m a pure believer that this industry needs to grow by people who understand development and domains. A couple weeks ago I was informed of a meeting next month by a national reporter to talk about “the future of domains”. The invited and confirmed list of this included many of the biggest domain owners out there.

However when I saw the list (and even though some of the people I consider friends and are well known in this industry) I looked at the list and said….. Even if I was invited, I would probably skip the meeting as only one of them had any experience in development.

Just one.

This is a great business for buying and selling domains but most people do not want to be brokers or sellers – they want to do more. So how do we embrace the future of our industry …?

Talk to those people who do more than just buy or sell or any meeting about “the future of domains” is going to end like this …

“Lots of good domains to buy, how much you think I can sell this for?

Let’s do another article while I am stuck waiting to speak with a client overseas. I have always insisted that any domainer serious about development quit reading domaining blogs and spend more time reading SEO blogs so why not give you some homework.

My SEO knowledge is derived from 10 years of experience yet I would be a fool to think I know it all. Many Many people know much more than I do so in the wake of my own advice I realized that chanting this mantra is not doing any good without providing a list of some resources (where I promise you no longer have to listen to people trying to sell you a watch after a list of domains

So with due credit to DailyBlogTips.com for making this list easily accessible (and reminding me about a few forgotten ones) below is a list of 25 valuable resources about SEO development. There are many theories by people who dream and many people that do. Your job is to find common elements by people who have proven projects and that’s where the real SEO knowledge will come.

If you want to dream listen to dreamers – if you want to produce listen to producers.

Enjoy … I added ViperChill.com myself.  It’s a new one for me but lots of good tips from the few emails I’ve read.

• Aaron Wall’s SEOBook
• SEO Moz
• Matt Cutts
• Search Engine Watch
• Search Engine Roundtable
• Search Engine Journal
• Top Rank Blog
• Pronet Advertising
• Marketing Pilgrim
• SEO Chat
• Search Engine Guide
• SEO Blackhat
• Stuntdubl
• Graywolf’s SEO
• SEO by the SEA
• Link Building Blog
• Jim Boykin from We Build Pages
• SEOpedia
• David Naylor
• Bruce Clay
• Blue Hat SEO
• SEO Refugee
• Small Business SEM
• ViperChill.com

Disclaimer – if you find SEO sites boring, would prefer to read about domain sales OTHER people are making or refresh domaining.com every 10 minutes then either (a) enter rehab (b) double check if you even like the internet and (c) realize you’re not a developer