When you are building a website, one thing I think you can do to help build your brand and readership is to share personal stories with your readers. If they have a vested interest in getting to know more about you, they will also probably be more interested in visiting your website and referring it to friends.

This morning I was checking out Kennel.com, a CCIN website. I read the story about David’s first experience with a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. Although I couldn’t relate to the death of a dog, I immediately thought about my dog, Lucy.

Yesterday, when my wife and I were walking her off leash in Central Park, she decided to check out an area that was under construction and cordoned off. The area has thick brush, and we couldn’t find her for close to 10 minutes, but it felt like much longer. Eventually, my wife saw a construction worker sitting under a veranda and called down to him to ask if he had seen a dog. He looked behind him, and said, “you mean this one right here?”

Anyhow, if you can write an article or story on your site where readers can relate, they will probably return – and/or comment, which could stimulate further conversation. This is one reason why it’s good to focus on developing websites on domain names with topics of interest to you.

The Castello Brothers of the Castello Cities Internet Network (CCIN) have been added as guest speakers at the 2010 Local Interactive Advertising: The ‘Business of Making Money’ Conference to be held February 8th and 9th, 2010 at the Grand Hyatt New York in Manhattan, a conference I plan to attend. With large companies (like ESPN) continuing to focus on hyperlocal media, now is a great time for David and Michael to get in front of this audience and talk about city .com domain names.

“If legacy media companies were conservative parents, Michael and David Castello would be the beguiled rock stars leading the kids astray,” said Gordon Borrell, CEO of Borrell Associates, the producer of the 2010 Local Interactive Advertising: The ‘Business of Making Money’ Conference. “These guys bear watching. One of their sites makes more money than any locally owned media site in that market.”

This is good news for geodomain development companies like mine because David and Michael have a way of energizing people, and they will be speaking directly to other local media companies, including newspapers, television and radio station owners, local magazines, Internet executives, advertising agencies, and a host of other companies that operate within the local media space.

From a pure advertising perspective, I don’t believe CCIN would be  as successful in the local markets if they owned names like PalmSpringsCA.com or PalmSprings.info instead of PalmSprings.com. Sure, they could have hired the best journalists, editors, photographers, designers…etc and become a local news organization on a lesser quality domain name and the content would make up for the lesser domain name, but that isn’t their business model.

Owning city .com domain names has opened many doors for David, Michael, and the all-star CCIN marketing team, and they are perfect representatives for the geodomain vertical at this high powered conference.

If you read my blog frequently, you are probably well aware that David Castello from CCIN has given me great geodomain development advice on Lowell.com and Burbank.com. As I mentioned in a previous article, David’s advice led me to add banners across the top row of the home page on my geodomains, whereas before I only had the 6 spots on the bottom right.

Not only did one advertiser just renew a six month advertising deal adter nearly backing out after 3 months, but I analyzed my hotel affiliate revenue, and much of it is coming from clicks on the rotating banners on the top row. In addition, I have been receiving many inquiries for advertising from people clicking on the “Advertise on Burbank/Lowell.com” banner in the top row. This is a marked improvement from the side rotating banners.

Without David’s advice, I don’t think the results would be as good. As revenue begins to ramp up, I am realizing that all of the effort I’ve put in is beginning to pay off, and by treating my advertisers well, they are happy to continue advertising on the site.

One thing you can take away from this is that when you develop, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. Look at successful websites and see how they monetize. For geodomain names, you can look at other Associated Cities member websites and adapt some of the commonly seen strategies. You can also look at the local news and newspaper websites, too. Not only can you gleen strategy, but you can also see who is advertising locally!