Refining Your Domain & Website Portfolio
How many side project do you have piling up (that you know in the back of your mind you won’t ever complete)?
How many domains and/or websites have you acquired that are just idling, not generating revenue, and eating renewal fees?
If you answered any number other than 0, then you ought to reexamine your website and domain portfolio and take action. You need to look at domains and websites while accounting for their potential future value. For instance, a domain like 3dmovies.net might currently be losing money as a parked page, but I’m certain that in the next few years its value will only increase. Try to anticipate the future and decide what your next move will be from there.
Domain
If a domain has potential or you really do plan on developing it eventually, then at least park it so you make a little something in the meantime, forward it to a related website of yours, or ideally create a minisite. If you leave your domains so that don’t resolve anywhere or are default parked courtesy of you registrar (isn’t it so kind of them to make money off of your domains?), then you are a fool who is failing to capitalize on available opportunities.
Deciding whether to drop, sell, or keep a domain name is an easier decision than for a developed website.
- Do you have any development ideas for this domain name?
- Does the domain name receive any traffic?
- Has the traffic trend been constant, downward, or is it increasing?
- What does the searched keyword traffic look like?
- How competitive are the search term you plan on targeting?
You essentially need to determine whether the developed website’s estimated benefit (revenue) is deserving of your time, effort, and money.
Semi-Developed Website
If the website is a work in process, then stop messing around and finish it up already or just get rid of it. Every day it lingers incomplete, you are missing out on possible revenue, reputation, and respect it could be gaining instead.
You’ll need to look at a semi-developed site as a stepping zone between domain name and developed website. This means that you will need to incorporate information from both of these categories into the decision making process.
Developed Website
If you website is complete, but it is a dud that is just sucking up renewal fees, then you need to do something. Figure out what the issue is, and then decide whether you are going to improve the current website, start again from scratch, sell it, or just let it drop (because you would be embarrassed even to admit you had any part in its existence).
If your website is developed, but it just isn’t converting or getting traffic, decide if it is worth any more of your time.
- How much traffic is is getting for its search terms?
- How much traffic could it be generating at an optimal level?
- Are visitors returning and/or should your visitors be returning?
- Are visitors simply not converting?
- Do you have a large enough sample size to come to accurate conclusions?
You can not overlook any aspect of a website when deciding whether you will continue to develop it. A website’s concept might be valuable to pursue, but the design or implementation of the idea might just suck. If you ignore a certain aspect that is essential for success, then you might end up throwing away websites with incredible potential because you failed to see what needed improvement.
Ask your visitors how you can improve your website, but be sure to give them some incentive to do so. If you don’t give users a reason to give criticism or suggestions, then you will likely hear no feedback. You can even ask your friends for their opinion about a site prior to ditching it.
Once you discover or are told what the issues with your website is, you can then evaluate the situation. Is it profitable to pursue this endeavor or should you hand it off to someone else? Decide whether the potential gain outweighs the effort that is necessary to revive the project.
After you have finished up with the spring cleaning of your portfolio, consider any mistake you might have made. Impulse domain registering is a pretty inefficient method of disposing of money. You’d be better off donating that money to charity all at once, so at least you save some time and help others out at the same time. Prior to buying a website or registering a domain name, ask yourself if it is an impulse or worthwhile purchase.
Learn from the mistake you have made, and cut your losses when need be. Just because a domain name may be 9 years old or have an exact search volume of xx,xxx, it does not mean you need to have it. Pass it onto the next sucker if it doesn’t truly belong in your portfolio. Stop being a hoarding pack rat, and start taking the trash out of your portfolio.