I have been looking for an easy way to develop some of my product related domain names and I think I have discovered it. Web Developer / Domainer TiaWood.com offers what she calls CJ Product Development.
CJ stands for Commission Junction, which is an advertising affiliate network with massive amount of advertisers. It is free to sign up at CJ.com . You will need an account with CJ.com and apply for some advertisers before hand as that will speed up the process when you contact Tia.
Product Development stands for what it says really. The development works best for Product related domain names. Example: Bikes.com, Paper.com etc.
So what do you get for your money?
For starters, you will get a Really Great Site and even a super person to work with! You will have a site full of function, great looks and tons of great products. Products that you do not have to purchase and then sell like most "stores" and other sites.
Your virtual warehouse is full all the time and updates with new products, prices and content for each product.
Your website will be developed using the Joomla CMS system.
Visit Sedie.com (chairs in Italian) which is the site I had Tia build for me.
Features
- SEO Friendly URLs
- 100% of set up is handled by Tia.
- Scalable: built on a Joomla backend
- Customizable theme + output options.
- Attractive landing page that DOESN’T look like an affiliate site.
- Automatically pulls products from your CJ account
- Products are always up to date
- Visitors can search for any product
_ Each site is different. They are basically an affiliate/custom development hybrid.
_ Each site has custom elements to it (features, design, etc)
_ Sites are SEOed.
_ These are ready to scale, meaning the domainer can add content or other features that Joomla has: http://extensions.joomla.org in which you can either hire Tia to extend, extend it yourself or hire someone else. (Scalability is a freedom other providers don’t have)
_ Freedom from parking (yay!)
If you have used WordPress before, using Joomla is pretty similar. You can login and add content, categories etc. if you would like or again, you can hire Tia if you would like.
Time
Once you purchase the development, it will take 2-3 business days and your site will be up and fully functional.
What do you need?
- Domain Name (product related)
- Hosting
- CJ.com account and approved advertiser with Products
Cost
- 1-4 sites: $350 per site for the full custom development
- 5-9 sites : $250 per site.
- 10-19+ sites : $200 per site
- 20+ sites : $150 per site
If you feel the CJ site isn’t for you, you can visit Tia’s blog and sign up for the "Development Tips Newsletter" where she announces the new products as they come in.
Does your domain name need existing traffic? That surely helps with any website, but if no traffic is in place, a little work promoting will not hurt and is pretty easy now with Twitter.com and Facebook.com etc. SEO is set to work for you, but jump starting that with a little bit of promoting goes a long way.
You can Contact Tia directly with the domain name you wish to build on or any questions you may have. This is a really Great Service and you get a great product at a very fair price that provides you another revenue stream with a fully custom website.
Leonard Britt
The setup looks nice and I’m sure Tia does a nice job. Perhaps someone can share what one needs to do to encourage visitors to buy CJ affiliate products. After several months and 125 thousand impressions I am yet to see one sale. Perhaps as you mentioned with a Joomla interface, the site doesn’t look like an affiliate site.
Available Domains
Can’t something similar be done with WordPress Blogs instead of Joomla?
Also, is integration possible with Amazon products?
wannadevelop.com
The sites are ok, however with wordpress the setup can be 2x more powerful and slicker using certain *premium* plugins that grab datafeeds from a dozen or so other leading affiliate networks aside from CJ..
With wordpress for example each product would have a static page genereated as well as better masking of the affil url’s.
Can’t really expect much for a few hundred bucks but you get what you pay for I guess.
I’d recommend anybody who wants to do-it-yourself to checkout http://www.goldencan.com/
Cheers,
Mike
Acro
Nothing beats custom web development; the push-button cronies that call themselves “developers” when they can’t layout a design unless it’s a …Wordpress template, need to go back to school.
Great monetization tool from Tia Wood – and dynamic to boot. Domainers are de facto “penny pinchers” and quality work comes at a price.
Domain Superstar
The example site is a decent enough looking site but honestly not really worth a whole lot given that anyone that knows how to install WordPress, activate a couple plugins and a theme, and copy and paste from a place like popshops.com (highly recommend) or goldencan.com (semi recommend) can do everything as shown above and much more in under an hour and probably much more reliably long term (and for free).
Domain Superstar
*To clarify my above comment I was just referring to an easier, cheaper, and more robust development method than you mentioned. I didn’t mean for it to sound like I was saying your domain was not worth much. I like the domain name!
Tia Wood
Thanks for the comments, guys. This is initially set up on Joomla because that is what I personally prefer. My clients (not to mention my target clients) are those who need an extra hand with development, do not want to mess with development and want to have something more than the typical cookie cutter type of site. Many of the clients I work with have thousands of domains and simply do not have the time to “do it themselves”.
My services are not for everyone. Yes, there are cheaper alternatives but one has to pick and choose their battles (do you want to spend time or do you want to spend money?). Someone developing on a small scale or a small portfolio could better stand to find solutions more fit to their needs as in the solution Domain Superstar mentioned.
However, I best perform at the point where a domain needs to be developed for business branding or scalability.
This won’t be it, guys. There will be many more products developed that offer an affiliate/custom development hybrid that put more control in the domainer’s hands and offer alternatives to PPC. The best way to get notified is to sign up for my newsletter at my blog.
Thanks all!