As I had hoped, version 1.0 of Bahamas.CO has launched, with a few days to spare. The website was built on WordPress, and I opted to use a heavily modified template due to time constraints (I needed to have the site launched by August 20th) as part of the .CO Registry’s Founders Program.

The template modification was completed by my web designer Mike McAlister of Six One Five Design, who has done the majority of my design work for the last three years. Usually he builds my sites from scratch, but he knew I was under the proverbial gun on this project, and he jumped in to make the necessary template modifications. For those that are curious, I used the Los Angeles template available on ThemeForest.net (affiliate link) for $32 out of the box.

I also previously mentioned that the logo was designed as part of a contest on 99Designs.com, and ironically the winner of the contest was Theo Develegas of Acroplex. Not only was it my favorite logo, it was also voted as the favorite by you guys, which is always a good thing to see.

I had around 40 articles created by a writer I found on eLance. I added all of the articles, found photos on iStockphoto.com and Flickr, and I coordinated the photos and articles. I still need to do a bit of internal page linking in the next few days, to better enable people to find the pages.

For the next couple of months, I will monitor the website, work on SEO, add articles and photographs, and see how it performs in the search engines. With some extra work, the traffic will grow, and I will begin to work on phase two, integrating a hotel and activities booking engine. In a few months, I will update you on traffic stats and the all important search engine stats, which will be interesting to me (and probably you) because of the .CO domain name.

Until then… thanks for reading.

With the deadline for launching Bahamas.CO looming, I have selected the winning entry in a logo competition held on 99 Designs. Not only was the chosen logo my favorite of all submission, but it was also the leading vote getter in the poll I set up with the final designs. I feel like the colors, font, and graphic design elements are perfect for the website.

Although I wasn’t aware of it before determining the winner, the logo designer is a person that the domain investment community knows quite well – Theo Delevegas. Theo and I have not always seen eye to eye on certain things in the past, but I do respect his opinions. I also believe he is a talented designer, and this marks the second logo he has designed for me (ActingCoach.com is the first).

I also selected the template I plan to use as a base for the new website. It’s going to be modified to meet my needs, but I found something I like on ThemeForest.net. It will be a WordPress-based website to make it easier for me to update it, add plugins, and make changes as the site grows (both in content and traffic). Hopefully my designer will be able to make these changes for me, but if not, I will post an RFP on eLance.com.

At first, there will be somewhere around 50 articles, and I plan to continue to add content to the site. Down the road when Google has the site indexed and traffic is at a solid level, I plan to integrate a booking widget using WCTravel or IAN.com. This will help maximize revenue and will create a relationship with visitors, helping to build the Bahamas.CO brand. By no means will this be a mini site.

Anyway, things are progressing quite well, and if all goes as planned, I should be able to launch the site very soon. One of the best parts of this project will be another Bahamas trip.

Just a quick  evening post to let you know where I am at with the development of Bahamas.co and the steps I’ve taken so far. I want to show you how development doesn’t have to be time consuming.

1) Posted a coming soon page on Bahamas.co and submitted it to Google Webmaster Tools. It’s nothing fancy, but I figured that I might as well put up a placeholder for now. As you can see, it’s already been indexed in Google.

2) Held a logo design contest on 99Designs.  I invited some designers I thought did quality work, and others participated as well. Hey – why don’t you take a minute and vote for your favorite logo?

3) Found a few templates I like on ThemeForest.net, which will be modified and customized to my liking. I don’t have much time to get the site live, so the custom option is going to have to wait. I plan to have a travel search function eventually, but for now a template is going to have to suffice.

4) Did some research to see what people are looking to find when looking for information about the Bahamas and wrote down a list of article topics. There are roughly 40 article topics in total.

5) I posted a job listing on eLance asking for writers to create a proposal for the aforementioned articles, which will need to be sent to me within 2 weeks. All articles need to be custom written and come from at least 2+ sources (with citations in the event there’s ever an issue). I then selected the most cost effective proposal.

One I have the articles written for me, the logo chosen, and the template modified, I will begin the time consuming process of loading the articles onto the site. I will then build a XML sitemap, submit it to Yahoo and Bing, and hopefully start gaining some traction.

At the beginning of 2010, I promised myself there wouldn’t be any additional development projects this year. Having the opportunity to build and own Bahamas.co was too good to pass up, and it is going to launch in a couple of weeks.

What a weekend so far. Not such a great goal for the US in yesterday’s World Cup match against England, but we’ll take it. I feel badly for the keeper though since this will surely be a Bill Buckner-esque play that will go down in history, especially if England fails to advance. Tonight is a big Celtics game, and today is a great day to relax and enjoy the weather.

Here are a few things that may be of interest.

• There was a great article about Warren Royal and his Bobbleheads.com venture in the Albany Herald, a local newspaper in Georgia. The article discusses how Warren acquired the domain name and then built the popular website.

• If you have been thinking about applying for a .CO domain name via the .CO Registry’s Founders Program, now is the time to do it. Applications are due no later than June 15, 2010. I am in the process of applying for one, and if I am awarded the domain name, I will chronicle the build out process, as I am required to have the site launched by July 20, 2010. As an alternative, you can try to reserve one at a registrar like Register.com.

• While thinking about the June 15th deadline, I also just remembered that 2nd quarter estimated taxes are also due on the 15th of June. If you need to pay estimated taxes, don’t forget to mail them out tomorrow (note to self).

• Someone emailed me about an adult-ish website that was hosted on Blogger that got taken down. I know it’s been said before, but you really need to consider this type of thing when you use a service like Blogger or even possibly WordPress. I don’t know if the site was removed, or if the owner was able to access his articles/posts, but it’s important that you control your content rather than be reliant on another company.

• Just a reminder, the cost of .com domain names will be going up very soon (July 1), so now is the time to take proper action. You can renew your domain names for several years in advance or you can transfer them as some companies like Name.com have transfer specials going on right now.

• It looks like Rick Latona is moving into other areas in addition to domain names and watches. His newly re-launched RickLatona.com website has a section for diamonds, timeshares, and loans.

• Francois Carrillo has started his own domain blog at DomainWare.com. His first post discusses why some Domaining.com accounts have been canceled. With all of Francois’ ventures and domain sales, this is going to be an interesting blog to read if he updates it frequently.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the .CO Registry’s Founder’s Program, a program in which web developers with a great plan can be awarded a .CO domain name before others have the opportunity to acquire them. Techcrunch was recently awarded Disrupt.co, and the company has used the domain name for its Disrupt conference currently being held in New York City.

I just learned that Sedo has teamed up with the .CO Registry and together they will be auctioning off the premium, one letter domain name E.co, with the proceeds from this auction going to the charity of the winning bidder’s choice. As you may recall, E.biz was recently auctioned and the bidding ended at over $66,000.

The bidding for E.co will run from June 7 – June 10th, and it will conclude at 4pm. The auction coincides with Internet Week, an event in New York City that celebrates everything related to the Internet, including domain names. To give domain investors and others more of an opportunity to bid, the last hour of the auction “will be conducted live from Internet Week’s broadcast stage and simulcast at both the Internet Retailer (Chicago) and TRAFFIC (Vancouver) shows, allowing conference attendees at all three events and online participants from around the world to be a part of the action.”

With the proceeds of the domain auction going to a charity selected by the winning bidder, I think this is going to exceed the E.biz auction by a wide margin.

The full press release from Sedo is below and you can learn more about this by visiting E.co

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Sedo, the leading online domain marketplace, today announced it will support the highly anticipated introduction of the .CO top level domain name (TLD) by powering an historic charity auction for E.CO.  The auction, which runs from June 7 at 12 pm EDT to June 10 at 4 pm EDT, will be hosted by .CO Internet S.A.S. at  Internet Week, a festival in New York City celebrating all things Internet.  The last hour of bidding – June 10 from 3-4 pm EDT — will be conducted live from Internet Week’s broadcast stage and simulcast at both the Internet Retailer (Chicago) and TRAFFIC (Vancouver) shows, allowing conference attendees at all three events and online participants from around the world to be a part of the action.  All proceeds will go to the charity of the buyer’s choice.

“With the launch of .CO, we are witnessing the introduction of one of the most valuable domain extensions on the market — one that provides so many unique branding opportunities for Internet users across the globe,” said Kathy Nielsen, director of sales at Sedo.com.  “We are excited to be part of this historic event and hope to leverage this unique opportunity to continue educating the market on the critical role a domain name strategy plays in the success of any marketing campaign.”

The .CO extension has been named one of the most highly anticipated domain launches since .COM, because of the infinite opportunities it provides Internet users, and its instant appeal given short, meaningful names are so rare and difficult to obtain. Considered a unique and exciting alternative to the .COM extension, .CO has many potential uses for Internet users looking to build or expand their brand online.

Many different types of organizations will be able to benefit from what .CO has to offer, including companies, communities, corporations and other commercial and/or non-profit endeavors.  Some early adopters that have already started building websites on .CO domains include the popular political website Politico.com, which recently launched a branded url shortener at politi.co; and the popular blog TechCrunch, which is hosting the TechCrunch Disrupt 2010 conference at www.Disrupt.co.

The E.CO auction marks the beginning of a new era online — it is the very first .CO domain auction available, providing Internet users with a limited opportunity to purchase one of the shortest, most meaningful domain names in the world.  Domain names of this nature are highly valuable because they are more memorable and extremely rare, presenting an incredible branding opportunity for marketers to successfully build or extend their web presence.

“Since the dawn of the Internet, the letter “e” has come to signify all things electronic – from email and e-commerce to online exploration, education and entertainment – and everything in between,” said Juan Diego Calle, CEO of .CO Internet S.A.S.  When paired with the .CO domain, the letter “e” takes on an even greater significance – offering buyers “perhaps the shortest, most memorable digital brand in the world – a domain name with endless possibilities.”

“We are very excited to be working with a strong partner like Sedo to help us introduce the .CO domain to the world,” said Calle,  “and we are confident that our work together will raise a lot of money for a very worthy charity – which is simply a fantastic way to celebrate our upcoming launch!”

To learn more about the .CO domain and the E.CO auction, please visit: www.e.co

About .CO
.CO Internet S.A.S. is the Registry Operator for the .CO top-level domain.  .CO Internet was formed by a strategic venture between Arcelandia S.A. and Neustar, Inc. The .CO domain offers individuals and businesses a truly global, recognizable and credible option in branding their online presence. Thanks to leading-edge technology, enhanced security and unprecedented rights protections for trademark owners, the .CO domain is poised to become the world’s next premier web address. For additional information, please visit www.COinternet.co.

About Sedo
Sedo, an acronym for “Search Engine for Domain Offers,” is the leading domain marketplace and monetization provider.  Headquartered in Cambridge, Mass., Sedo has assembled the world’s largest database of domain names for sale, with more than 16 million listings.  The success of Sedo’s model has attracted a global membership base of more than 1 million domain professionals.  Sedo is owned by Sedo Holding AG (ISIN DE0005490155 / German WKN: 549015), which is part of the German United Internet AG (ISIN DE0005089031/ WKN 508903).  Sedo offers regional versions of its site for the UK (Sedo.co.uk), France (Sedo.fr), Germany (Sedo.de), and Spain (Sedo.com).  For additional information, please visit them online at www.Sedo.com or on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/Sedo and on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/Sedo.