Domaining.com is the best news source in the Domaining industry, it features all the big websites that cover domaining news, insights and tips. What’s great about it is that it expands the industry by actively reaching out (through their news aggregator) to other people to engage in the domain game. I was personally hooked into domaining thanks to the website. Now Domaining is finding a way to monetize its website and here are my recommendations.

Domaining was at one point put up for sale by Francois, it was I believe $3 million dollars that he’s put it up for. What I noticed is that Francois has been trying out many different monetization techniques to increase Domaining.com’s revenues, however just like every web 2.0 website, there are struggles to really make it big.

How Domaining could Monetize:

What I’ve seen so far is that Domaining seems to be monetizing in these ways: Google Adsense, Direct Ad Sales, Sponsored Headlines (Appearing on top of domaining each time) and Affiliate Marketing (Through their own tools and referring people to other domaining sites). Now, Francois still believes that it is not enough and so he’s put up a contest for it (here). I won’t be joining the contest but I’d love to be able to give back to what Domaining has taught me and do a blog post. Here are some of my (out of the box) Recommendations:

• Consultation - A lot of people like me, when I first started, ended up in the Domaining website to find tips and insights in Domaining. However, not all domaining posts are understandable by newbies out there. I had to read and absorb so much in a few months before I even got to understand what Domaining is all about. What would be great is that Francois could put up a consultation feature where a newbie can be mentored by an expert domainer.
• Portal – When I go to Domaining, all I see are the news and blog posts. What could potentially help is that Francois could make it more of a Portal than a news aggregator, integrating the features on the header navigation more into the content part of the website . Just look at Yahoo.com’s homepage and think Domaining. This means more revenues through Ads and Affiliate marketing.
• Leasing – Domaining seems to be just about buying and selling domains. A lot of domainers and web developers can’t afford getting the domains that are being talked about online. It would be an interesting feature to add leasing into the model and allow people to lease those premium account through them (for a fee or a % cut monthly) just like what they do with their for sale listings. Think of it like Real Estate agents in real life, when they rent out a place to someone, they take care of the payments and maintenance of the tenants.
• Information Sales – Have you seen the reports that are being sold online? In Domaining, it’s hard to find just one or a trusted source of a gathered yearly report on the industry. It would interesting to have a more official and formal report that is published yearly to be sold to really serious domainers. (Take a look at TechCrunch’s industry reports for sale)
• Horizontal Services – By adding other services that could benefit Domainers, Francois can leverage their service through their reputation and make money off it. Just like Mocus.com, I’d recommend adding others like content writing (great for minisite owners), web designing etc. It could be more tedious to start this up but the rewards are big.

I’m a huge fan of domaining.com and will continue to support it. I hope I was able to give back a little to Domaining.com, it’s been a pleasure having it on my daily reading list.