Darrin has three domains, NO money and wants to try and make a go of things. So, I asked for the three domain names and below you’ll find my ‘off the top of me head’ sugestions as to what he could do with them. Bear in mind that he’s pretty new to Website development but wants to learn.

Domain 1: AffiliatedBlog [dot] com:

OK, as far as i’m concerned this is an easy one. It’s not a bad domain name – you could sell it for a few bucks of course, but the best course of action is to actually develop an Affiliate/PPC/MMO related Blog on it. Learn the Blogging trade, add some good content to it and maybe sell it on as a developed Blog after a few months, you’ll get a far better return than just selling the domain. 

It doesn’t have to cost you a packet, use one of the free hosting companies out there (but make sure it’s an ad-free one). I use 000Webhost for some of my static sites that I play with, I’m sure they’d be fine for Blog hosting as well but there’s a heap of free hosters out there.

Find a decent free theme/template and place your Google Adsense and Analytics code on the Blog. Register at BlogPremiere and DigitalPoint, give away a few sidebar ad slots, do some link exchanging and then use the Blog to learn Content development and SEO/SEM techniques. 

Domain 2: KnookAndCranny [dot] com:

This is the weakest of the three. it’s a decent sounding name but the spelling is wrong for most people (“knook and cranny” returns 1,060 Google results, “Nook and cranny” returns 535,000 so that’s bit of a no-contest).

I don’t think it’s worth parking, as that only gives results when you’ve got a type-in name, a typo or something with residual traffic. The domain itself has little value, particularly as it’s regged at Melbourne IT/Yahoo and last time I checked they didn’t do a free push.

Develop it, put a humour, video or news site on there – or perhaps use a free classified script such as Noah’s to get a service going for people clearing houses, trying to get that ‘hard to find’ item etc. again, use a free hoster. Then flip it once it’s got a bit of history.

Domain 3: GambleGive [dot] com:

I could see this doing VERY nicely but it would need some custom development. I think some kind of site where people could gamble/play games online but give a portion of the proceeds to charities would be a great thing, with a heap of potential for being picked up by Social Networking sites and possibly Merchants who you could tie up deals with.

You would probably need to partner up with someone who could help you develop the concept, and it wouldn’t be an instant earner but I reckon the idea’s got legs.

So – all in all I don’t think there are any instant money-makers in these particular domains, but I’d say:

• put something cheap and quick on KnookandCranny and try to flip it
• Build a Blog on AffiliatedBlog, learn some development/SEO techniques and sell it later (if you need some quick cash, sell the domain on DigitalPoint or NamePros)
• Find a partner to develop the GambleGive concept with

Like I said, these are my initial thoughts on the list. I may come up with some others, but I’d also like anyone reading this to shout out if they have ideas and suggestions to help Darrin out.

Cheers
Dave