“Assume conservatively that your True Fans will each spend one day’s wages per year in support of what you do. That “one-day-wage” is an average, because of course your truest fans will spend a lot more than that. Let’s peg that per diem each True Fan spends at $100 per year. If you have 1,000 fans that sums up to $100,000 per year, which minus some modest expenses, is a living for most folks.” – Kevin Kelly

My Strategy

Now I don’t sell anything on this blog or even run advertisements but I may sometime in the future. For now, I simply use this blog as a way to tell people how to make money online without the hype. I do this by sharing my experiences as a full time internet entrepreneur who runs a wide range of websites for a comfortable living. And you know what? This strategy works. I have 3 times as many readers as I did in the two years that I ran this blog back in early 2007 to late 2009 before re-branding, re-focusing and moving to my new home here.

I’m building my fans by providing quality content without the spin. I respond to every single blog comment, tweet and email people send my way. My hope is that if I give you solid advice on how to start or improve your online business you will subscribe to my blog and maybe even spread my message. Now of course not every one of my readers would be qualified as a True Fan based on the definition above, but I’d like to think that if I stick to this strategy and continue to add value that I will build my 1,000 True Fans eventually.

What do you think?

I don’t have all the answers but I have been doing this for five years and am willing to offer my advice free of charge. All I ask is that you keep on reading and tell a friend or two

Enjoy the weekend folks! Next week I’m going to continue my series in the Niche Five Figure Network case study. See earlier real life case studies here.

What should you do when all of your primary .com choices are taken and you can’t buy the .com?

Go to your secondary .com domain choice! The only reason you should settle for a .net domain is when there is a chance for search engine traffic based on the quality of the domain.

Unfortunately, I didn’t do that with this blog here. I decided to buy ChrisGuthrie.net and start a blog on it anyway. I had made up my mind that although I would be writing about running an online business I still would like the option to make my blog have a more personal tone. I was mistaken in my decision.

Building a brand on a .net domain is not smart to do unless you own the .com as well.

Are there instances where people have successfully built a .net brand without the .com? Yes, but when you’re starting fresh why not find a .com that isn’t in use instead?

Most .com domains are always for sale and if you have the money I highly recommend you go for the .com instead of settling for one of the TLD’s. A .com can cost ten times as much as a .net but if you look down the road at your exit strategy it will be much more difficult to sell your site to another company if you’ve built your brand on a .net domain and don’t own the .com.

What do you think? Is it worth it to try and build a brand on a .net domain?

As a follow up, I finally acquired ChristopherGuthrie.com my second .com choice from years ago. Should I consider moving my blog via 301 redirect so that I can work to build my brand on a .com instead?

I’m certain that most people that see the advertisements for Jobdango.com or have heard of the website already have likely heard of Fandango.com. They may even go so far as to believe it’s a partner company. What Jobdango.com has done is used the association from another well known brand and applied it towards their Northwest job search engine Jobdango.com

This advertisement on the side of the truck got me thinking about other websites I’ve seen that have used similiar domain names in an effor to build off of some other websites’ branding success. Some other prime examples I’ve seen are dogster.com and catster.com both of which are named after friendster.com. The only difference is that they’re used for pets. However, it’s safe to say that the creators of dogster.com and catster.com knew what they were doing when they choose domain names with ‘ster’ at the end to cash in on the success of friendster.com. Now some of you might be worried that it’s possible you could run into legal trouble for purchasing domain names with this practice in mind; however, as you can see from the above examples they’re different enough that there have been no lawsuits filed yet close enough to cash in off the previously established successful brand.

What are some other examples you’ve seen? Do you believe this is a good way to get a kick start to the branding of your website?