Part V

Oct/2006, The "Coolest" Brand!

Go ahead to my "SBI! Adventure" update.

Go back to my June/2006 "more and more" update.

Click here to return to our original story.

Hi Ken,

Remember many years ago when you wrote the first SBI guide, you told us to think about expandability and brand before we registered a domain? I do.

You said that every success story starts small with one good niche and then builds out from there.

I remember one example where you used outlet malls as the theme and Worldsbest-Factory-outlet-stores as the niche. You explained how easy it would be to create other successful niche sites, such as Worldsbest-SportsFactory-outlet-stores.com and Worldsbest-FurnitureFactory-outlet-stores.com, and then tie up all of your sites into one Master domain or big mini-portal.

After that, I remember you wrote something like "So what if it's a year or two down the road...".

Well, it's quite a rare occurrence, but you were a bit mistaken.

It was three years down the road. ;-)

My Master Domain, www.coolest-parties.com, is now live!

I distinctly remember reading the part about Worldsbest back then and thinking to myself, "Wow! Sounds amazing, but can it really happen? Naaaah!"

I didn't really plan it to happen and I don't think I could have seen that far ahead back then. I just focused on my kid party site, and as time went by the cakes section just got too big so we turned it into a self-standing site. And then other sections started to branch off, becoming new sites. It just seemed to happen on its own when there was enough quality content to actually justify a new site.

But every once in a while, the bit about the Master domain gave me a nudge, sort of telling me "You're not there, but that's where you're going." Not any more. I'm now here.

I remember how you described an outlet mini-portal in the guide as "the place to come for all things outlet". My mini-portal is the place to come for the coolest parties! It gives an overview of what I have to offer and then my visitors can link to my other sites.

Actually, at this point, "Coolest Parties" is more of a symbolic tie-together site than a content site. We have plans, though, to make it a self-standing content site. I've been meaning to get it up for quite some time now (I purchased yet another SBI package about 6 months ago), but I put it off until I felt I was ready.

The Master site only took a few hours to actually put up, and suddenly it was alive. It all came together. I just had to tell you about it because it's a very special moment.

Thank you so much for the blueprint, the tools and the vision.

I hope you're well, and warm regards to your family.

Elad

P.S. I just got a personal email from Commission Junction and it was really sort of flattering. I'd like to share it with you:

Hi Elad, My name is Maria Murphy from Commission Junction, and I work with the Performance Optimization team on the publisher side. I am emailing you to see if I can assist you with optimizing some of your affiliations to support your program with revenue development. As a Network Performance Specialist my role is to assist non- managed publishers throughout the entire network with developing their accounts, enhancing affiliate relationships, and providing strategic advice that will help them grow in to CJ Performer accounts. This is a free service that is extended to publishers that show the kind of growth potential your account indicates, and it's a great opportunity to take advantage of the resources CJ offers publishers to maximize merchant relationships and commission earnings.

Cool, huh?

What else - October is a record-breaking month, and already (Oct 21) it's the best month I've ever had. My three main sites (cakes, kids, and costumes) are averaging around 6000 visitors a day each (that's 18,000 visitors per day total), and what's important is that the traffic is divided amongst the sites pretty evenly.

Go ahead to my "SBI! Adventure" update.

Go back to my June/2006 "more, more, more" update.

Click here to return to our original story.