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The DotSauce Domain Club recently launched and to celebrate we’re giving away free premium memberships and other valuable prizes to a few lucky members.

To take part in this giveaway you simply need to sign up for Domain Club membership. Basic membership is completely free and gives you instant access to a private forum and collection of the best articles on DotSauce Magazine since 2007.

Our premium plans start at just $14 per month and entitle members to exclusive discounts on a select inventory of quality .COM domain names. The DotSauce Domain Club provides many valuable features and services for domain investors of all experience levels. Visit the sign up page for complete details.

Giveaway Prizes

Here’s your chance to win free access to the valuable features and services offered to our premium members. We’re also giving away comprehensive website consultation and professional website development services. Give your website a makeover or launch a brand new business!

• 6 months of free Domain Club Pro membership ($120 value)
• 6 months of free Domain Club Plus membership ($84 value)
• 3 months domain for sale advertising to DotSauce readers (free to Pro members)
• A comprehensive blog or website consultation and review
• Professional WordPress website development with premium design from ThemeForest

Enter the giveaway now for your chance to win!

Earn Giveaway Entries

Complete one or more tasks to earn entries into our giveaway drawing. The more entries you earn, the greater your chances of winning.

20 Points – Sign up for free or premium Domain Club membership (required)
30 Points – Blog about the DotSauce Domain Club
20 Points – Refer at least one member using your affiliate link (free or paid)

10 Points - Like DotSauce on Facebook
10 Points – Follow @DotSauce on Twitter

If you’ve already been following DotSauce for a while, that’s OK too.

Complete Your Entry

Please post a comment here with your Domain Club username, and links to your Facebook and Twitter profiles to complete your entry into the drawing.

Don’t forget to include a link to your blog post if you’re kind enough to write about the Domain Club.

Winners for each prize will be selected at random from the total pool of entries on March 28th 2011. You’ve got one month to accumulate as many entry points as possible for the best chance to win.

Enjoy the Domain Club!

Thank you so much for participating in our giveaway and for becoming one of the first members to join the DotSauce Domain Club. See you on the inside!

[Image: Alyson Hurt, Raffle Tickets, Flickr]

DotSauce Domain Club Prize Giveaway – Sign Up for Free!

We are spending the weekend with some domain industry friends at the Boca Raton Concours d’Eelegance, one of America’s biggest car shows (Jay Leno is hosting). A spectacular collection of exotic and classic cars is on display and we have some photos so you can drool along with us!

Afternic recently shared some insight into the top performing domain sales categories of 2011. Business, Computers and Shopping took the top honors for most domain sales. Credit went to the tremendous growth of eCommerce and Electronics in recent years.

[Image: John Carleton, For The Win, via Flickr Creative Commons]

You should be a happy camper if you have a lot of technology or business related domain names. These are niches that I target when doing expired domain research, though I wouldn’t pass up gems from other niches that have good end-user potential.

Poll Question

In this poll question I’m asking you to share what your portfolio is comprised of. It should prove interesting to have a perspective look at how the industry is investing in domains.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post’s poll.

Thank you for your participation!

Be sure to subscribe to DotSauce so I can let you know when the results are in.

Benefits of Niche Targeting

There are several benefits of targeting a niche over choosing a variety of categories. It’s nice to know ahead of time what you’re getting in to. Targeting niches helps you specialize and grow more knowledgeable about related sales, popular keywords and trends.

Niche targeting saves you from having to dig through the proverbial haystack and can make for more productive research sessions.

While on the hunt for domain names to add to your portfolio, consider your online marketing reach. Ask yourself, “What type of audience can I reach with my present network and web presence?“ It can boost business to target a particular niche that you know your network is already interested in.

To get started, create a list of keywords to target on drop lists and aftermarket listings. Update your keywords regularly. Get additional keyword suggestions with SEO tools and the AdWords Keyword tool.

Niche Challenges

If you are too specific, and I’ve seen this often, some investors will end up with all their eggs in one basket. Categories like 3D or Green domains run the risk of any one industry going southward or being replaced.

It’s nice to be able to offer something for everybody. Consumers like to have choices. If you are targeting a niche, you may want to consider branching out to related industries. It could be as easy as asking your current customers what other topics and industries they have interest in.

Do you have any further suggestions for niche targeting? Please leave a comment; I would love to hear your ideas and how it is working well for you, of course without revealing too much about your prized niche!

Poll: Is Your Domain Portfolio Niche or Diverse?

Mark Cuban-backed 140Fire Lets You Create Real-time Overlay Ads For Your Video Content http://t.co/hG7a2uB #video #micropayments # Some relevant info for app developers – Is Developing a Mobile App Worth the Cost? http://t.co/qkiWABV #mobile #apps # What Marketers Need to Know About Facebook's Switch to iFrames http://t.co/Cvp58PK #facebook #iframes #fb # Another viewpoint – Google

The latest Afternic domain marketplace member’s newsletter included an announcement about a new Domainer’s Advantage insights and trends offering that will début at the end of February.

The Afternic domain name marketplace is one of many free places to list your domain names for sale. This marketplace stands out from the rest because of Afternic DLS, a domain listing network that reaches more than 35 million prospective buyers every month.

In our first glimpse of what is to come for the new Domainer’s Advantage area, Afternic has shared a graphic representation of year to date domain sales volume by category (shown below).

Online Business Boom

Business, Computers and Shopping are the leading categories for sales thus far in 2011.

The Afternic newsletter mentions, “online shopping — including sales of electronics such as laptops — has skyrocketed over the past three years.” And continues with some timely data from Forrester research, ”With 2 in 3 Americans reporting that they have purchased online, the opportunities in these domain categories remain strong”

Recreation, Family Life, Careers, and Financial categories are also faring well with sizeable portions of the sales volume for 2011.

Mystery Category

Curiously the pinkish slice at 10 o’clock on the chart does not seem to be represented in the key. Maybe this is Adult names? The unknown slice is just slightly smaller than the leading Shopping category next to it.

Do you have domains in the top performing categories? Are your private sales showing similar results this year? Please leave a comment below with your thoughts.

In case you missed the big reveal, there are some nice technology and online business domains currently available to DotSauce Domain Club members for just $19 each.

2011 Domain Sales by Category: What’s Hot On Afternic