I bought www.fishingshanty.com approx 2 years ago but never put any content on it. When searching google, I now see that many variations of my name have been taken and the ones with public forums have been getting some action. (www.iceshanty.com, www.icefishingworld.com, www.icefishing.com, www.icefishingshanty.com, etc) On a side note, it looks like www.fishingshanty.net recently died. Now my question is: What should I do with the domain to generate revenue? Or maybe the question is: What's the value of this name? I am not new to webdesign for internal corporate sites, but am very interested in getting into the public domain game. I'm assuming I should load it up with content and strategically place google ads? Please point me in the right direction to conduct my research. Any recommendation for a keyword generator/site worth would be greatly appreciated. Currnetly I'm parking the site on SEDO (as of yesterday) until I decide what to do based on your feedback. Thanks in advance. This site rocks.
How much traffic do you currently get? Depending on your answer will dictate the options available to you. You may just be happy domain parking via Sedo or AdSense for Domains if you receive a lot of traffic and don't want to put any work into it. But, if you have the time to create content... obviously, you'll be able to maximize revenue potential with a combination of content and traffic. A good question to ask yourself is how much work do you want to put into this...
if you are not going to develop it, you may consider selling the domain to some other established "shanty" sites.
I think this is going to be my new hobby. I think the initial plan will be Wordpress and incorporate Google Adsense. Then I'll look into strategic ads through affiliation from some ice fishing product sites. Is there a way to estimate potential traffic based on keywords?
I like the idea. I too have started building a wordpress site, and have found it very easy to install and setup. Still have to incorperate Adsense thou. Good luck with the site.