Peter Askew is the owner/operator of the website DudeRanch.com, which revolves around the dude ranch vacation industry. He’s also active in the domain name industry, acquiring and monetizing domains from either expiration or end-users. He and his wife are expecting their first child in December 2010, and they love spending time in the Western North Carolina mountains.
Tell us a little background info about yourself. Where are you from? How old are you? How long have you been making money online?
I’m 38, and born and raised in Atlanta, GA (but I’m really a mountain man at heart). I’m an Ole Miss Rebel who graduated with a degree in History (actually called Southern Studies, which essentially is a southern History degree - crazy, I know). Bounced around after college, lived in NYC, LA, and DC, before heading back home to ATL. First career choice was the movie industry, but once I treaded those waters, quickly pulled the ripcord. Jumped into the internet industry in 1998 and never looked back. Been making money online since 2004, and doing it full time since 2009.
Do you have any experience with affiliate marketing? If so, to what extent?
Currently, my monetization methods mainly revolve around Adsense and selling ads direct to end users/businesses. I have exposure, and several sites, which utilize affiliate offers, but it’s less than a third of my total revenue per year. I plan on increasing my exposure in affiliate marketing in the coming months, though.
What accomplishments so far are you the most proud of?
I guess I’m proud of the fact that I’m a self-taught web guy – everything from html, ppc, seo, domaining, graphic design, cms, hosting, analytics, conversion tracking, and content management systems. I’m doing my best to expand my knowledge in other areas, though - mysql, php, and javascript mainly.
What do you think it takes to be successful?
Passion, perseverance, and a natural curiosity. Creativity doesn’t hurt either.
What have been your biggest failures?
Too many to list, but a recent project revolved around restaurant health inspection scores. We attempted to launch a website which centralized health scores across the USA, and normalized the data a bit so it was a bit easier to digest (no pun intended). We knew it’d be a challenge as our main conduit of data was from city, state, and local government municipalities. In the end, after a year of development, the red tape proved too much of an obstacle, so we pulled the plug.
What have you been up to recently? What projects are you working on?
My baby, my heart and soul right now is DudeRanch.com. I acquired the domain last year and launched the site in March of 2010 after 6 months of development. Its main purpose is to help vacationing folks identify and locate dude ranches across the USA. The site also highlights dude ranches for sale as well as job openings.
What problems have you had with those new projects?
I’ve hit a few coding walls during development, but am lucky to have several friends in the industry to lean on when those times arise (w00t to Charles Lumpkin, Ryan MacDonald, and Nick Downey).
You mentioned the domaining industry. Explain what you’re doing there.
I stumbled into the domaining business in 2006, mainly buying domains from the expiration/drop process and monetizing through Sedo parking. From there, I began contacting end users who owned generic domain names, and began buying direct from them. What I didn’t expect was how addictive the process was. Once you get the domaining bug buying, selling, and monetizing, it’s tough to turn back. Like the prolific domainer Kevin Ham said, “If you control all the domains, then you control the internet…” And c’mon, who wouldn’t want to own the internet? .gif){kind=icon}
Outside of DudeRanch.com, what are some other favorite domains in your portfolio?
Hmm. These probably ain’t the most valuable, but ones I like personally. I own a few wedding domain names, like SavannahWedding.com, which are developed and are simple city wedding directories. I also own VaughtHemingway.com, which is the football stadium for the Ole Miss Rebel football team (Hotty Toddy). It’s developed as well and provides a pretty handy photo gallery of seating views from every section (Go to hell LSU).
How do you like to spend your free time?
My wife and I love the outdoors – mountain outdoors that is. Most vacations we head to the western North Carolina mountains to hike and spend time in the wonderful climate.
If you could go back to being 18, what different career choices would you make?
Ha.. not so much a career choice, but.. I’da loaded up on every generic dot com domain name I could lay my hands on .gif){kind=icon}
Do you have a Twitter account or Facebook “Like” page?
Yup.. my personal twitter is @searchbound, and my Twitter account for DudeRanch.com is @DudeRanch.
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