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Where is the Development Magic Bullet?

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For quite some time now I’ve been digging through the different domain development platforms to determine which one is best. Is it Joomla? Wordpress? Or how about Weebly or Wix? What I’ve found is that they all fall short for domain investors.

Escrow.com

Developing a domain into a business is one of the four principle business models that domain investors use to extract value from their assets. The other three are monetising domain traffic, selling domains as stock items and selling domains as high value items.

Each of the development platforms are excellent for building a single website but what I've continued to find is they still fall down is when a person tries to build more than one. Although it’s quite simple to spin up another instance in any of the platforms it takes a long time to set them all up…..and time is money.

Anyone that has embarked down the development path learns that building a single domain into a business is a challenging task…let alone many domains. Once you get over the hurdle of building a few websites you quickly discover that there isn’t a simple way to view how each of them are performing in their various business models.

Although Google Analytics provides some insight into your traffic the cost of using it for domain investors can be prohibitive. What are the costs on this “free” product? Do you honestly think that by providing Google end-to-end visibility on your traffic that they won’t take advantage of the data? Let me give you a hint, at its heart Google is an analytics company….. I think Google has enough of my businesses information without handing over the crown jewels for free.

So let’s imagine there is a magic centralised interface for all of your domains that allows you to manage the analytics the next challenge will be to provide a mechanism for making meaningful decisions in a short space of time. Think about it. With only one hundred domains a full-time manager can spend a maximum of about 20 minutes per website per week. If you scale from there, then the numbers get even worse.

To date, I’m unaware of any platform that is capable of providing the data that I require to manage mass scale developments….let alone the ability to make management decisions. The challenge for domain investors is to keep on plodding along and build one domain into a business and then move on. This will require the one thing that domain investors loathe…..and that’s staff.

If you've found the magic bullet for development then please don't hesitate to let me know. Either that or it's about time I start writing some code. Cheers!

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Comments

Guest - Samit on 20 July 2018

Have you tried WordPress network? It's resource heavy but quite extensible.

We're working on JumboCore, to address exactly this problem, but at the same time to cover SEO correctly, which all the self building systems seem to ignore.

Though revenue through ads will never be enough, to truly develop a website you need to make it a business, as in revenues should be beyond just online ads.

Have you tried WordPress network? It's resource heavy but quite extensible. We're working on JumboCore, to address exactly this problem, but at the same time to cover SEO correctly, which all the self building systems seem to ignore. Though revenue through ads will never be enough, to truly develop a website you need to make it a business, as in revenues should be beyond just online ads.
Guest - Andrew Hyde on 22 July 2018
DotNetNuke is the Gatling Gun of Development

Interesting topic Michael, after evaluating development platforms years ago I came across DotNetNuke, now DNNSoftware, a CMS that welcomes engaging different components. It's really limitless through the SQL Server backend and there are so many modules available in the aftermarket, or you can write your own. It will take a little time to get up to speed as there so much you can do, but well worth the effort.

Not sure what any single magic bullet would be, but DotNetNuke is certainly the gatling gun of development. And, so versatile by comparison it can handle all calibers of ammunition. Over 2 million businesses can't be wrong.

Interesting topic Michael, after evaluating development platforms years ago I came across DotNetNuke, now DNNSoftware, a CMS that welcomes engaging different components. It's really limitless through the SQL Server backend and there are so many modules available in the aftermarket, or you can write your own. It will take a little time to get up to speed as there so much you can do, but well worth the effort. Not sure what any single magic bullet would be, but DotNetNuke is certainly the gatling gun of development. And, so versatile by comparison it can handle all calibers of ammunition. Over 2 million businesses can't be wrong.
Guest on 22 July 2018
Development Magic Bullet?

I think trying to develop a huge number of domains at one is basically impossible and is a pipedream of domains forever. The platform has little to do with it. Whether you use Shopify, WooCommerce (WordPress), Big Commerce, Magento or others it really not the issue, although some are much easier than others, Like Shopify and WooCommerce. Building a successful online business takes so many things to get right. Product/service, platform, design, SEO, content, social media (very important today) and so much more. There is no magic bullet and that's why so many domainers have failed at it and the successes are few. It certainly can be done and can be very financially rewarding.

As for "you quickly discover that there isn’t a simple way to view how each of them are performing in their various business models", that is easy; Is it making a profit? Is it making a profit relative to its costs (time, products costs, expenses etc.)? Are sales and profits increasing? It is just like any business.

I think trying to develop a huge number of domains at one is basically impossible and is a pipedream of domains forever. The platform has little to do with it. Whether you use Shopify, WooCommerce (WordPress), Big Commerce, Magento or others it really not the issue, although some are much easier than others, Like Shopify and WooCommerce. Building a successful online business takes so many things to get right. Product/service, platform, design, SEO, content, social media (very important today) and so much more. There is no magic bullet and that's why so many domainers have failed at it and the successes are few. It certainly can be done and can be very financially rewarding. As for "you quickly discover that there isn’t a simple way to view how each of them are performing in their various business models", that is easy; Is it making a profit? Is it making a profit relative to its costs (time, products costs, expenses etc.)? Are sales and profits increasing? It is just like any business.
mgilmour on 12 August 2018

Couldn't agree with you anymore.....development isn't the challenge....it's the management and business aspects that become increasingly important.

Couldn't agree with you anymore.....development isn't the challenge....it's the management and business aspects that become increasingly important.
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