Daniel Felice

Sites Down Again!

// March 28th, 2009 // No Comments » // General, Projects

For the third weekend in a row my sites are down – and this time it will be the last time! I have lost countless hours over the past month to server problems which is hampering my efforts of running the BuddyPress Theme Contest, as well as increase traffic to Explore With Me.

I planned to work on Explore With Me v2 this weekend, as I did last weekend and the one before that. It seems that each Friday night the sites go down for the weekend. It has probably cost me over 2000 hits this month and some revenue.

I have decided to setup VPS hosting at FutureHosting. I figure this is the best solution as I can host unlimited domains. Initially I will start with 4 domain names which would be about $200 a year if I got individual hosting packages for each domain.

The VPS is costing me US$39.95 a month, however I can host unlimited domain names so it will work out cheaper once I setup a few more sites. I am using the base package to start with which gives me 10GB of space, 300GB bandwidth and 256MB which I think should be enough to start with.

Hopefully the sites are all up and running by Monday or Tuesday. This site may be down for a few hours as I migrate it to the new server.

How to Start a Blog: Part 2

// September 27th, 2008 // 3 Comments » // How To

So you have decided on the topic of you blog, so the next thing you need to do is find a suitable domain name. There are plenty of free blog hosting websites around on the Internet, but if you want to be taken seriously you are best off registering your own domain name.

Choosing A Domain Name

Your domain name is the most important identifying factor of your online presence. Your domain name should relate to the title and name of your blog and also represent your niche. Choosing a domain name that represents the type of blog you are going to create will also help your potential users find you a lot easier and will also fare better results within the search engines.

Things to consider when choosing a domain name are:

• Keep it short
• Avoid numbers and hyphens
• Avoid trademark words or brands
• Make it easy to remember
• Make it unique
• Register a .com or .net where possible, and even both
• Register it NOW. Don’t procrastinate too long as it might be registered from right under your nose.

There are millions of domain names registered already, so chances are the first attempt you make the name you choose is going to be taken already. It is best to try and have a few different alternatives just in case you are unable to register you first choice.

Registering A Domain Name

Now you have decided on your domain name it is time to register it. There are a number of places where you can register a domain name and every person has their own personal preferences due to factors such as cost, location and service.

If you are registering a .com or .net you shouldn’t pay anymore than about US$10 a year. I use a number of different registrars depending on what kind of name that I am registering.

Whoever you choose, most companies operate the same way when it comes to registering the domain name. You will normally have to type in your desired domain name and search to make sure it is available to register.

Once you find an available domain name you will be prompted to add it to your shopping cart.

Hosting Packages

Once you settle on a domain name you most likely will be prompted to purchase a hosting package. This again varies on the company you are registering with, however they all are basically the same.

There are a few things to consider when choosing a hosting package – such as Windows or Linux based, bandwidth, disk space, e-mail, online tools.

This of course depends on your needs, however as you are starting a blog from scratch is it best to start with the lowest package available and then as your blog grows you can increase your package as you need to. There is no point in spending the money at this stage.

You will also need to make sure the package you choose meets the below requirements if you are going to run WordPress:

• PHP 4.3 or greater
• MySQL 4.0 or greater
• The mod_rewrite Apache module

Once you choose the package you are happy with, and meets the WordPress requirements, add the package to your shopping cart.

It is now time to check out and complete the purchase. You will be prompted to enter some personal details such as name, address, e-mail address and payment method.

Depending on the type of domain extension you registered you will receive confirmation and approval within 24 hours, but if it is a .com or .net address then you should receive the confirmation almost straight away.

Your hosting details will normally be sent in a seperate e-mail and contain your user name and password for the admin control panel and FTP server addresses. This may take 24 hours or so to come through and be setup, depending on your hosting company.

Keep these details in a safe place because next time we will be downloading and installing WordPress!

5000 Premium Expired Domains Per Month

Current NameSeek Showcase Domains

// August 16th, 2008 // No Comments » // Projects

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NameSeek Re-Design

// August 12th, 2008 // No Comments » // Projects

If you have visited NameSeek in the last 12 hours you will have noticed a few changes to the site! I have finally got rid of that orange, designed a new logo and changed a few things around.

The original site was put up over a weekend as I was having issues with the script and did not have much time to design the site the way I wanted it. I really hated looking at it and it needed to be changed so I spent last night designing a few new graphics and adding a feature or two.

What you see now is only phase 1 of the re-design. Phase 2 will be coming in the next week or so if all goes well. I am planning on re-designing the main page as well as adding a few more features to the site that I won’t go into detail too just yet!

The site is performing well this month with over 1500 domains added already in the first 10 days of August and unique traffic is on track to being the best month to date.

There will also be some sort of announcement over the next few days in relation to the site – so stay tuned for that!

July NameSeek Stats

// August 3rd, 2008 // No Comments » // Projects

July was an interesting month for NameSeek. Hits have continued to build on June and there were a lot of very nice high quality domain names added to the listings.

There have been a few sites that have been launched in competition with NameSeek, however this has not seemed to had any effect on hits for the month. If anything hits have improved.

Traffic

There were less unique visitors to the site in July, however the number of visits improved as did the number of page views.

Traffic still is mostly coming from Australia, with about 90% of all hits – which is a good thing as the site is directed at an Australian audience. The rest of the traffic is made up by users visiting from the USA, UK and Asia.

Over 65% of all hits were from direct type-ins or bookmarks, with only 3% coming from search engines and the rest from referrers. Top referrers were Australian broadband based forum Whirlpool and Australian Webmaster. The remainder of referrers were mostly Domain Name based websites such as Domain Informer, Domain News, DNForum.com and DNTrade.com.au.

Site Stats

Domain name listings on the site increase by over 100% in July, which most of them being good quality names that should fetch some good prices.

The number of users registered on the site doubled, with all of them listing domain names for sale.

There are currently a handful of bids, however we are still yet to report our first sale. I am a little disappointed that NameSeek is still yet to complete any sales. I removed any commission charges half way through the month, however while the number of listings increase, there were no interested buyers. Hopefully this will change in the coming month.

Revenue

Now that listings and sales are 100% free of any charges, except adding a domain to the “Showcase”, I have to concentrate a lot more on my advertising programs and affiliate marketing.

I am currently running a few ads on the site, however these are yet to convert into any sales. I clearly have to do a complete overhaul of the advertising programs ont he site and will be doing so in the coming weeks. This will be the only stream of income from the site so it has to be effective.

The ads are getting clicks, however no one is buying anything from the websites they are clicking. The ads on the site at the moment, apart from Google, are sales based, though I am going to look at CPC advertising.

So all up it wasn’t a bad month for NameSeek. While the site is still not making any money, nor has it had any sales, hits remain strong and it is continuing to grow.

I think a lot has to do with the .AU domain name market still being in its early stages. Once the market picks up, so will NameSeek. Until then I think I am going to have to ride it out and not be too discouraged.

In August I will concentrate on promoting the site in the search engines as only 3% of all hits came from search engines, and also look at the advertising programs on the site. I am also planning a refresh of the design of the site which may help improve things a little.

Thanks for all your support!

Competition Heats Up

// July 17th, 2008 // No Comments » // Domaining

In the past few weeks alot more Australian’s are realising the potential in capitalising in on the Australian domain name market and alot more domainers and webmasters are noticed that demand is starting to increase.

Nameseek.com.au was first domain name aftermarket that offered Australian’s a place to trade their domain names. I caught on early and the site was in developing a few weeks before the policy was due to change on June 1.

In the past 7 weeks a number of other websites have come along offering a service that is pretty similar to Nameseek. I think their results have been fairly similar to Nameseek, and their marketing doesn’t seem to be any different either.

Out of the 5 or 6 websites that now exist, I only considering one of them a threat to Nameseek – and for obvious reasons I won’t mention the name of the site here, but if there are any Aussie domainers out there you will know who I am talking about.

I think this website is a bit ahead of Nameseek at the moment. Nameseek relies on users submitting their domains for sale, and users bidding on those domains. This other website came online with 1500 .au domain names, which they own.

Competition is heating up, which I knew it would. There was no way Nameseek was going to be the only website selling .AU domains, and now domain registrars are catching on and are going to start selling their expired and dropped domains. I even was approached by a fairly large Internet company asking if I would help them – due to me being out of the country it wouldn’t work for both of us.

So as competition heats up it will be interesting to see how Nameseek performs. Hits have not been affected since these new websites have come along, though I would like domains listing and more people bidding.

I am not going to let the site run itself just yet. I am looking at ways to market the site and create awareness about the .AU domain market in general. I will be looking at adding a number of features to the site over the coming weeks, so we shall see if that makes any difference.

Nameseek Policy Change

// July 8th, 2008 // No Comments » // Projects

I have decided to remove any commission charges from sales made at Nameseek. I think it is too early in the Australian domain name market to be charging for sales, and I think the site has been suffering a little due to the 10% commission charge on any sales.

The site is now free for users to sell their domains, however I have lowered the cost of a showcase domain to AUD$5. I think that is fairly reasonable is someone wants a little more exposure, and shortly I will be advertising the showcase domains on a few websites as part of the package.

Hits and listings are fairly solid at the moment, so I hope the removal of the commission charge will encourage more users to list their domains for sale.

Any costs for the site such as hosting and advertising will hopefully be covered by the revenue generated by the affiliate ads I have on the site. They have not done much as yet, so I will have to see what I can do to increase revenue. Google Adsense seem to be the better performing ads on the site at the moment.

The current showcase domains are:

It’s been a while…

// April 20th, 2008 // No Comments » // Project Blogger

It has been a few weeks since my last post. I have been flat out with my “real” job and also building a few websites of a night when I get home, so not much time for blogging!

I am actually amazed that my blog is still getting a steady number of daily hits, even though there hasn’t been a post for a few weeks and not much content to read in the first place! Thanks anyway!

I have just kicked off a new project that I will be lauching in the next few months. I won’t go into too much detail yet, though it does involve Domain Names and Australia. I think it is a good idea, but don’t we all think our idea’s are going to make up millions? This one won’t make me millions, but once it is up it will be bring in a bit of income once it gets some good marketing and a few advertising deals.

There will be a market for his “niche” and at the moment no one else is doing it, so it will be interesting to see how it goes.

Once the project is on the air, i’ll let you all know what is it. But I am excited about it and I really do think it is a winner.

I am also still looking at buying a few domain name’s and established websites. There are a few I am looking into at the moment, though it is just a matter of making sure it is worth the money being asked and whether I have the time to do it.

I will make another post this week with some details of the new project I am working on, and hopefully you think it is a good idea too!