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Dot Com Cash Cow
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Dot Com Cash Cow
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Dot Com
Cash Cow The New Way To Make Cash
Buying And Selling Domains!
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Table of Contents
1 INTRODUCTION ................................................................ 6
HOW TO MAKE MONEY BUYING AND SELLING DOMAIN NAMES .... 8 GETTING STARTED: DOMAIN NAMES ............................................. 9 WHAT MAKES FOR A GOOD DOMAIN NAME? ................................... 10 MARKETING YOUR DOMAIN NAME INVENTORY .................................. 11 HOW MUCH CASH CAN YOU MAKE BUYING AND SELLING DOMAIN
NAMES? ............................................................................. 13 INVESTING IN COMPLETED WEBSITES ........................................... 15
2 UNDERSTANDING DOMAIN NAMES ................................. 18
DOMAIN NAME PARKING ........................................................... 18 COMPARING IT TO REAL ESTATE ................................................. 20 TURNING A PROFIT ................................................................. 20 VIRTUAL PROPERTY ................................................................. 21 THREE WAYS TO MAKE MONEY ................................................... 22 FLIPPING ............................................................................. 22 PARK IT .............................................................................. 22 DEVELOP IT .......................................................................... 23 WHERE TO BUY DOMAIN NAMES ................................................. 24
www.DomainAbbey.Com ........................................................... 24 WWW.DYNADOT.COM ............................................................... 25
3 HOW TO CHOOSE A GOOD DOMAIN NAME ....................... 26
DNJOURNAL.COM ................................................................... 26 FIND OUT WHAT'S HOT ......................................................... 27 KEYWORD RESEARCH ............................................................... 28 GETTING CREATIVE ................................................................. 29 DOMAIN NAME TYPOS .............................................................. 30 EXTENSIONS ......................................................................... 31
4 DON'T GET ATTACHED ..................................................... 33
DOMAIN NAME SLANG .............................................................. 34 CELEBRITY TRENDS ................................................................. 35 FOREIGN TERMS .................................................................... 36 THINGS IN THE NEWS ............................................................. 37 ALPHABET SOUP .................................................................... 38 SOME GOOD WORD PREFIXES .................................................... 38 SOME GOOD WORD SUFFIXES .................................................... 39
5 TRY BEFORE YOU BUY ..................................................... 41
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ADSENSE MAKES NONSENSE ..................................................... 41 HIJACKED DOMAIN NAMES ........................................................ 42 COSTS OF DOMAIN TASTING ..................................................... 43 EXPIRED DOMAIN NAMES.......................................................... 43 SITE STATISTICS ................................................................... 44 PARK IT .............................................................................. 45 GET A SECOND OPINION .......................................................... 46
6 FLIPPING, PARKING, AND SITE DEVELOPMENT .............. 48
ADVANTAGES OF BUYING AN EXISTING WEBSITE ............................. 49 HOW TO BUY A WEBSITE ......................................................... 50 FLIPPING ............................................................................. 52 FLIPPA.COM ......................................................................... 53 EBAY.COM ........................................................................... 54 SEDO.COM ........................................................................... 54 GREATDOMAINS.COM .............................................................. 55 OTHER PLACES ...................................................................... 55 PARKING ............................................................................. 56 TRAFFICZ.COM ...................................................................... 57 NAMEDRIVE.COM ................................................................... 57 PARKED.COM ........................................................................ 58 WHYPARK.COM ...................................................................... 58 SITE DEVELOPMENT ................................................................ 59 WHY CHOOSE THIS WEBSITE? ................................................... 60 TARGETED TRAFFIC YOUR OTHER SITES BENEFIT FROM ..................... 60 PURCHASE A WEBSITE TO GET AD REVENUE FROM IT ....................... 61 PURCHASE A WEBSITE WITH AN ESTABLISHED COMMUNITY ................ 61 NICHE SELECTED ................................................................... 62 TAKE THEM OUT .................................................................... 63 TAKE THE DOMAIN NAME .......................................................... 63 FULL SITES WITH LESS WORK ................................................... 65 GETTING INTO THE INNARDS ..................................................... 66 HOW TO MAKE A PURCHASE ...................................................... 67 DOING THE RESEARCH............................................................. 67 PURCHASING THE SITE ............................................................ 69 WHAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN ......................................................... 70
7 BUILDING WEBSITES FROM SCRATCH ............................ 73
DOMAIN NAMES: CHOOSING ..................................................... 73 HOSTING THE WEBSITE ........................................................... 74 INITIAL CONTENT ................................................................... 74 WHAT TO AVOID .................................................................... 75 SOME COURT CASES ............................................................... 76 WHO OWNS THAT DOMAIN NAME? .............................................. 77 UNINTENTIONAL CYBERSQUATTING .............................................. 78
8 SELLING YOUR DOMAIN AND WEBSITE........................... 80
WHERE TO SELL YOUR SITE ...................................................... 80
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GETTING THE MOST OUT OF EBAY .............................................. 81 BE SOMEBODY ...................................................................... 81 SELLING THE CORRECT CATEGORY .............................................. 82 TEMPLATE IT ......................................................................... 82 WRITE GREAT TITLES AND ADDING KILLER CONTENT ........................ 83 PICTURES MATTER .................................................................. 84 PRICING A WEBSITE TO SELL .................................................... 84 ONLINE CALCULATORS ............................................................. 87 MARKET ANALYSIS .................................................................. 88 SETTING UP SHOP................................................................... 89 AVERAGE PRICE POINTS ............................................................ 89 SELLING THROUGH ONLINE FORUMS ........................................... 90 ABOUT GETTING PAID ............................................................. 91
9 TRANSFERRING DOMAIN NAMES .................................... 93
UNLOCKING A DOMAIN ............................................................ 93 TRANSFERRING TO ANOTHER DOMAIN REGISTRAR ......................... 93 TRANSFERRING DOMAIN WITHIN THE SAME REGISTRAR .................. 94 SELLING CONTENT A WITH DOMAIN ............................................ 94 TRANSFERRING REGISTRARS ...................................................... 95 KEEPING TRACK OF THE COST ..................................................... 96 IT'S NOT AS HARD AS YOU THINK ................................................. 97
10 PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER .......................................... 99
WORKING AT HOME ............................................................... 101 STAYING ON SCHEDULE .......................................................... 102 RECORD KEEPING ................................................................. 103 GETTING LEGAL ................................................................... 103 SOCIAL NETWORKING ............................................................ 104 GETTING TECHNICAL ............................................................. 104 PROTECT YOURSELF .............................................................. 104 USE THE TOOLS OF THE TRADE ................................................. 105 THIS IS SERIOUS BUSINESS! .................................................... 106 NOW GET TO WORK! .............................................................. 106
DOMAIN NAME RESOURCES ............................................. 108
DOMAIN NAME MARKET PLACES (BUY/SELL/BOTH) ........................ 108 PARKING SERVICES............................................................... 108 ONLINE RESEARCH TOOLS FOR DOMAIN NAMES ............................. 108 DOMAIN NAME FORUMS ......................................................... 109 ASSESSING WORTH .............................................................. 109 PAYMENT TOOLS .................................................................. 109
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Introduction
What is Domain Name Flipping and How Can You Profit from
it?
Have you ever wanted to build a website? If so, you may
have been met with disappointment when you learned that
your preferred domain name was taken. What did you do?
Most individuals will move on and choose another name. On
the other hand, some will make an offer to purchase their
desired domain name, sometimes this can cost you a fortune.
If you want to make easy money buying and selling domain
names, you need to familiarize yourself with the phrase
“domain name flipping.” Domain name flipping is used to
describe the process of buying and reselling a domain name.
The average internet user thinks nothing of this practice.
This is because most are unaware of the earning potential
that is available in buying and selling domain names.
So, how does domain name flipping translate into an income
cash cow?
Say you live in Los Angeles California. A business owner
decides to start a business selling handmade clothes. They
need a website. Not only can a website drive traffic to a brick
and mortar store, but it can also generate online and phone
orders as well. It is rare for a business owner not to have an
online website these days. The first step in setting up this
website is finding the right domain name.
Most business owners will opt for a name that is their
business name or a slight variation. For example, the above
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mentioned business owner may want the domain name
LAhandmade.com. Since there are millions of websites on the
internet, most good domain names are already in use. This
means that the business owner in question may be unable to
use their business name or a slight variation of it. Unlike an
individual wanting to start a personal website, a business
owner rarely gives up. Most will make a purchase offer on a
domain name owned by somebody else like you.
Since business owners are the ones who are likely to pay the
most money for a domain name, it is important to choose
your name inventory wisely. Don’t just head over to a
website that sells domain names and start blindly making
purchases. Instead, be creative. Think of catchy business
names for plumbers, salon owners, and so forth. A catchy
domain name is one that is likely to sell for a large profit.
In addition to just guessing, use research to your advantage.
Is there a new building being built in your hometown? Why
not stop by for a quick conversation with a construction
worker. Ask what is being built. Business that operate on a
national level typically reserve domain names in advance, but
not small business owner. Get the name and head home.
See if the business name or slight variations of it are available
with a .com address. If so, buy it. You will pay as little as
$10 on average for top-level.com domain names.
A business owner who wants a domain name is likely to
make a purchase offer if you own a domain name that fits
their needs. For that to happen, they need to know how to
find you. Make it easy. Do not hide your association with
your domain name by using a common cloaking service.
Make it easy for potential buyers to find you by listing your e-
mail and address on a landing page with all of the domain
names that you are soon to purchase.
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If you have good customer service and selling skills, approach
the business owner. Let them know you are the name owner
and that you will offer them a discounted price. Of course,
don’t let it be too much of a discount. If you suspect a
business owner is willing to pay $10,000 for a domain name,
don’t offer more than a $500 discount.
In addition to waiting for someone to approach to buy your
domain name, start generating ideas. Did you know that
many people turn to the internet to research business names?
Set up landing pages for all of your domain names and what
potential buyers know that the domain name is available for
sale. Some business owners research domain names before
choosing a name. By knowing they can make the purchase,
many do.
Let’s go over the basics in money management here that you
will need to run a successful domain name business. You will
find out quickly that there are a few things that are needed to
have success with buying and selling domain names: low
inventory needs, good demand, and an understanding of
issues relevant to the niche market you wish to work in.
HOW TO MAKE MONEY BUYING AND SELLING DOMAIN
NAMES
The biggest reason you might be interested in a domain name
business is to make money. Making money buying and selling
domain names is very simple, even though few do it well.
First, you must have a product or service that other people
want. Then, you must learn how to market that product or
service to people who are willing to buy it. And, most
importantly, you want the return on your investment to be
high. If the capital you fronted to start the business returns
less than what a money market account is paying, you are in
the wrong business.
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The whole idea is to make a profit that beats any other forms
of investment while generating sustainable income
opportunities over the long-term. So, whether you like the
business you are in or not, the bottom-line ends up being the
dollar signs. With domain names, you park or buy, trade or
sell, and then profit. Wash, rinse, and then repeat. Ka-ching!
In that respect, domain names are not an incredibly exciting,
feel good, business. However, they are a profitable business.
You can have fun with them and be creative while making a
good living, but they aren’t going to save the world or give
you any extravagant recognition for being the best in your
business. They are a product and they sell well. So, forget the
surveys and emailing programs that don’t generate a good
return on your time investment. Focusing on something like a
domain name business will teach you more about Internet
marketing and provide you with a much more substantial
income. The key is to be persistent, and to follow the example
of those that have gone before you.
GETTING STARTED: DOMAIN NAMES
A domain name is any name you type into the URL address
locator in any web browser. It is usually prefixed with a www
extension to signify that it is used in the World Wide Web
(WWW). While the www prefix is part of the domain name, in
actuality, only the actual domain name after the www and
period are actually registered. No one owns the right to the
www prefix. For instance, if you have a domain name called
www.thisismydomainname.com, the actual registered name is
thisismydomainname.com. There are a number of different
suffixes available for domain name: .com. .net, .org, etc. The
most recognizable are .com suffixes that specify a commercial
enterprise.
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When domain names first came on the scene it, there was a
lot of confusion as to how they would be used in a free
market and what sorts of legal issues might arise from the
use of a domain name. It quickly became clear that a domain
name is very much a trademark and so the types of laws that
could apply for improper registering and use of a domain
name are laws that deal with trademark infringement. So,
even if you register a domain name, if it is someone else’s
trademark, you don’t get to keep it or ransom it to the proper
owner of that trademark.
Initially, there were many opportunists who did try to register
large, brand name, and domain names of multinational
companies and then try to sell the domain name back to the
company for a large sum of money. This is now referred to as
the “cyber-squatting” and is illegal under trademark
infringement laws. We will discuss how to avoid getting into
trouble with trademark laws in Chapter 7 more in-depth.
WHAT MAKES FOR A GOOD DOMAIN NAME?
So, the product you are selling is specifically the name that
you either buy from someone else or create and register on
your own. The best domain names are those that are easy to
remember and highly marketable. Chapter 3 will tell you
exactly how to choose a good domain name, but for now, the
best domain names have the same types of characteristics:
Consist of one or two words
One-word domain names are all pretty much taken, but two
word ones can be a good place to start.
Use search words
People search for particular things on the Internet. Get a
domain name with some of those highly searched terms and
it can be perceived as being more valuable.
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Multiple meanings
Words that have multiple marketing niches or meanings
might be more marketable.
Marketing ring
Those words that have a snappy ring to them are more
easily sold than boring terms.
Take advantage of misspelled words
Typos are your friend in the domain name business. They
can lead to a very profitable site that attracts visitors who
consistently type in the wrong domain name address.
As you can see, getting a good domain name is a simple as
having a bit of flair for marketing terms. Chapter 4 will give
you some fun ways to find or create valuable domain names.
The secondary market for domain names is alive and bustling
with activity. You can use it to buy domain names and flip
them, or you can create your own. But, that’s not the only
way to make money off domain names. Chapter 2 discusses
each of the top three ways to make money from domain
names, which is further expanded in Chapter 6.
MARKETING YOUR DOMAIN NAME INVENTORY
If you are the owner of a produce stand and you are trying to
sell your fruit, you know that you want people who like to eat
fresh fruit. Anyone who eats healthy and likes fresh fruit
would be your customer. How does one market a domain
name? Obviously, this takes a bit more knowledge than just
putting out a stand with a sign that says you have domain
names for sale.
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That’s why this is one of the most important pieces of the
puzzle that you have to understand. This ebook will show you
how to market domain names and find your customers,
something that isn’t readily available to anyone who starts off
on their own. You have to have some inside knowledge as to
where to go to sell your product and how to market it and
close the sale so that you hear the ring of that cash register
in your head. Ka-ching! That’s the type of melody you want to
hear after all your work.
For that reason, we will discuss ways to reduce your expenses
while maximizing your profits. You will be introduced to
tasting domains in Chapter 5. There you learn that you don’t
necessarily have to buy a domain name to resell it and make
a profit. This is important because any good business is
interested in reducing expenses while maximizing profits.
Later, in Chapter 6 we go into the three top strategies for
making money off domain names. You can simply park it and
generate advertising revenue with traffic. The nice part of
parking a domain is that you don’t share the ad revenue with
other people, unlike some other Internet revenue generating
models. You have complete control of the links you put up
and you can see what works and what doesn’t work, helping
you to fine-tune the entire process.
We will also discuss how to flip a domain name, making a
very quick profit. Realize that not all domain names are
winners. You will have some losers and some winners. The
trick is to make the losers eat up the most negligible amount
of your profits and the winners be big enough to generate
maximum profits with minimal effort.
However, if you want to really get involved with domain
names that can turn a hefty sum, you might consider
developing a domain name website and selling it as a turn-
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key operation later. There are markets and buyers for all of
these activities, the trick is knowing where to go to sell your
wares. We will not only tell you where, but how to do it in
Chapter 8 so that you spend only the amount of time
necessary to produce a quick profit, while avoiding big traps
like trademark infringement (discussed in Chapter 7). Once
the sale is complete, you will be able to learn in Chapter 9
how to transfer the product, the domain name, without ever
purchasing a stamp or an envelope. That is the full beauty of
an Internet business: no inventory costs and virtual products.
HOW MUCH CASH CAN YOU MAKE BUYING AND SELLING
DOMAIN NAMES?
Now, comes the bottom line. How much money are we talking
about? It all depends on the volume of your domain name
business. The higher the volume, the more likelihood you will
make a bigger profit. That’s because each individual domain
name that you park or buy is not going to be profit leader.
You will have some losers and some big winners. In addition,
you will have a lower volume to work with if you are
developing the sites instead of just flipping them. That’s
because it takes more time, but the profit can be more too. It
all depends on what model you are using.
The simplest way to make money off a domain name is to flip
it. So, say you buy a domain name for $7.50/year. This
pricing is set for volume buyers of domain names. If you are
not a volume buyer, you may end up paying a lot more. But,
for someone who owns their own domain name business, you
can get pricing for $10 or less per year for each domain name
your register. These are the domain names being registered
under the .com, .org, or the .net extensions. You buy the
domain name and then you want to sell it. What’s a
reasonable profit for flipping it? There’s no way to tell,
actually. The sale price is usually determined by the value
buyers perceive the domain name to have. That’s why most
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sales are done in an auction format with multiple bidders. The
price of a domain name is completely arbitrary, and some do
not sell at all.
The average resale value of domains is less than $200 for
those that sell. If you have multiple no-sells then that eats
into that profit. So, you are working a volume business with
some domains selling and others not. You can get rid of any
domains that aren’t selling and try new ones, but you do have
to spend to either taste the domain or register it. For the
most part, if you sell your $6.50 for $13.00, you’ve made
100% profit. And, that’s the way you have to look at your
numbers.
You can buy other domains that are worth more like $200 and
flip those, but there’s not guarantee those sell either.
However, those that do sell, are sure to make a very large
return on your investment when you look at the percentage
of monies made in comparison to what you spent. There is no
other place right now where you can put down money and get
such a large rate of return. So, obviously, the risk is that it
doesn’t sell at all. With a large enough portfolio, those dead
domains don’t really affect your overall earnings. Instead, you
might want to try a different strategy other than flipping for
those to see if they can sell later, or recycle them back into
cyberspace after the year is out.
For instance, say you buy 10 domain names for $10 and only
half sell. Your expense was $100 for the entire year. The half
that sold made a profit of 200% on average or $300. So, now
you have pocketed $200. With the other four you decide to
park and make advertising revenue through campaigns and
affiliate programs. They generate maybe $10 per month each.
So that’s $40 per month or $480 per year of additional
income. So, now your $100 investment has netted an annual
return of $680.
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But, wait, there’s still one domain name left over. It didn’t
flip, you decided to park it, and the traffic skyrocketed. You
decide to develop it into a viable website. You can sell that
website later in the thousands of dollars. Your $100
investment makes several hundred percent for a return on
investment. Try doing that with any other type of product or
service and you will see that domain names are unique in
their ability to generate large sums of money, very quickly.
So, you see, the business model itself is very profitable, but
volume, hard work, and some luck play a role in how much
you actually make. You will not be working with 10 domain
names per month. Your goal is to work with hundreds of
domain names per month. If you bought 10 domain names
every business day that’s 200 domain names you have in
your monthly portfolio. Assuming the rate of return on the
last investment, even without a stellar domain name, you can
end up with about $13,600 per month income.
There is no guarantee, however, that you can manage that
much volume or that you will be as successful as the previous
example demonstrates. One thing is for sure though, by the
end of the year, you will have a portfolio of 2400 domain
names. Considering that many domain name resellers have
portfolios of domain names in the hundreds of thousands, you
can see that volume is the key to a successful domain name
business.
INVESTING IN COMPLETED WEBSITES
Investing in websites is a process that allows any savvy user to
make a sizable profit. The process should be three fold: invest in
flipping, parking and developing websites. The better you can do at
this, the more likely it is for your business to do very well, without
a lot of long term commitment.
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Consider the different ways to invest in domain investing, or
website investing.
1. Invest in website flipping:
Here, you will purchase a domain name and start to develop
the website. Once you have some level of secure footing, you
then sell the website at a profit.
2. Invest in domain name parking:
Here, the website owner registers a domain name. Then,
with very little cost, they do nothing more than sit on it and
try to sell it to those that may be interested in buying it.
3. Invest in website development:
Purchase a domain name, work to establish the website and
then hold on to it and profit from it.
In each of these situations, there is profit to be had. Domain name
parking offers the lowest potential returns unless you have a very
in demand type of domain name that a company feels they must
have. Investing in a website and then flipping it is a great way to
turn a profit, especially if you know how to set up a website fairly
quickly and what it takes to get the Internet marketing going on it.
Finally, owning and developing a website is the largest profit maker
because the long term benefits far outweigh the short term selling
in either of the two prior options. Yet, the profits may be well off
into the future.
Some Internet marketers use all of these methods and they do so
very successfully. As your business grows, you too can make
decisions later about how you use it. For example, you may find
that you purchased a domain name and built a website you planned
to own and run for some time. But, in a few months, the website is
going strong and in turn you have an offer to buy it that you simply
could not refuse.
In all scenarios, the goal is to find and secure a website that will
work for your goals. The development of that website hinges on the
same factors as any other would.
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You'll need to develop a website that offers good information, good
keywords and is a domain name that's attractive. Depending on the
extent of your goals with that domain name, you'll want to build a
successful website that people will want to own.
In this book, we'll take a look at what each of these areas can offer
to you. We'll also talk about how to get started in each one. For
many Internet marketers, even those that are just starting out,
these are the foundations of success in their business. This is how
they make a sizable amount of money month after month.
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2 Understanding Domain Names
Buying and selling domain names is not complicated it's very
similar to another business we are all familiar with: real
estate. That’s right, to understand domain names, all you
really need to be able to do is compare them to real estate
because that’s what they are: virtual real estate. Now, that
we’ve taken this technical concept and grounded it into
something that has a little more substance, you may be
wondering how we got from cyberspace to real estate. It’s
very simple: the URL address represents a location in
cyberspace just like your numerical home address represents
your home. Once you understand that idea, the rest follows
along easily.
Whenever someone looks up an address you own, by typing
into the URL or getting it through a search engine, you have
potential visitors to that house. You can sell a domain name
based on the curb appeal, the name brand alone. However, if
you want to make money on the property you can build it up
or use it in some commercial manner, like renting.
The advantage to virtual property is that you don’t have to
get lawyers involved or a real estate agent to sell your
domain names. You don’t need a license to sell domain names
and you don’t have to put down a whole lot of money as a
downpayment. In addition, the property doesn’t even have to
already exist – you can think it up in your head and create it
just as easily. The transactions are virtual and electronic, with
no inventory and a minimal investment for a fat return.
DOMAIN NAME PARKING
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The first and simplest form of making money from website
investing is through domain name parking. Here, you have the
ability to make an investment for very little, usually just a few
dollars. When you park a domain name, you simply secure the
domain's use for another time's use. It can also be done to redirect
traffic or for resale.
For example, perhaps you have come up with a fantastic website
name and you wish to hold on to it before anyone else can snatch it
from you. To do this, you simply purchase the domain name and it
will sit there, usually with an "Under Construction" page up. The
site may also be, "Coming Soon…" There is no deadline to
developing the website. There is only the cost of renewing the
domain name each year.
Those who determine they want to keep the domain name after the
first year can renew it and start developing the website. This is a
great way to finally get your website up and serving your purpose.
You will then need to pay for hosting of the website at the point
when you will develop it. This will include purchasing enough space
for the site. At the time the website has hosting, it no longer is a
parked website.
On the other hand, you may find it helpful to use as a redirection
page. For example, if you have a Yourname.com domain name, you
may also want to purchase a Yourname.net domain name. Then,
use the second page to direct traffic to the first page, in cases
when people type in the wrong address into their navigation bar.
To make a profit selling a website, you may also want to consider
domain parking. In this instance, you will park the website to
simply hold on to the domain name. For instance, perhaps you
have come up with a fantastic domain name you know a company
may want at some point. You purchase it and park the website
(meaning you don't even pay for website hosting for it.)
Then, you resell the domain name (at a sizable price, of course)
and make a profit from it. It was very common for Internet
marketers to do this type of transaction back in the early years of
domain names, but it still holds true today. Many businesses use
this method as a method of increasing profits solely based on
keywords and niche topics.
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COMPARING IT TO REAL ESTATE
How does domain name parking actually make you money?
Compare how it would work in a general real estate transaction.
With domain name parking, you are simply purchasing the land
that someone may need at some point. For example, there may be
a field out nowhere in particular that is open, filled with grass and
rolling hills. Right now, it does not do much and doesn't have a lot
of value. But, you notice it is just a few miles from a developing
city. By purchasing it now, when the price is low for it, you can
resell it later at a higher price simply because you were in the right
place at the right time.
Domain name parking is quite similar. There is very little to invest,
just in purchasing the domain name. There is also very little to do
with the website once you purchase it except hold on to it. Some
Internet marketers will use it for Adsense, or other advertising, but
unless the site does get a lot of traffic (especially if the traffic is not
consistent) it is likely it won't rack in too much money.
TURNING A PROFIT
How can you turn a profit with domain name parking?
Know who would want to purchase this domain name. Why
would this name be a good choice down the road? Keywords,
similarity to another, larger website, or some other reason?
Determine if the domain name parking is the best recourse.
Would it be better to further develop the website and then
sell it? You'll find more on this in just a bit.
Market the purchase of the domain name, alerting those who
may be on your mailing list or otherwise involved in the
niche that you have the domain name available. Many will
consider it.
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Use keywords and a catchy phrase to attract interested
parties. Think, what would someone in this niche be
interested in?
Hold on to it and watch the value grow. If you aren't in a
rush, you may want to hold on to the domain name in a
developing niche and sell it later when the value may be
higher.
While domain name investing is a good option for many, it is not
necessarily the only option. You should also be considering the
other options you have with website investing, namely how you can
make even more money from the purchase of it.
VIRTUAL PROPERTY
If your domain name is associated with a virtual property,
then it stands to reason that the value of the property
depends on the neighborhood and what the property offers.
Just like you won’t want to spend half a million dollars on a
run-down one-room shack in Nowhere, Alabama, you don’t
want to buy domain names that have very little potential to
resell or are worthless. You want names that attract buyers
and represent a virtual property that appreciates over time.
Just like in real estate there are multiple ways to make
money from a house transaction, there are also multiple ways
to make money off a domain name. In real estate, if you are
looking for a home to call your own then you buy it with the
hopes of staying with it for more than five years. Appreciation
in the neighborhood and the home eventually end up making
your investment worthwhile. However, there are real estate
investors that either buy property to flip them or to rent out
to others. The same thing can be done to domain names, in a
manner of speaking.
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THREE WAYS TO MAKE MONEY
Going back to our real estate analogy, the three most common
ways to make money with housing is to flip it, rent it out, or live in
it while you build it up. These three ways are exactly how you make
money with domain names.
FLIPPING
Flipping real estate is likely to get you in big trouble these
days, but flipping a domain name is much easier. Flipping is
that you buy a domain name for the expressed purpose of
turning around and selling it very quickly. You don’t intend to
hold it to develop it, nor do you intend to park it and use it to
see how much traffic it generates.
You can taste the domain for a period of five day and during
that time you can evaluate whether it’s worth flipping or not.
If you buy a domain name thinking it’s going to be a quick
sale, there’s no guarantee you will attract a buyer at any
time. There are expenses for putting up on auction and for
tasting it now. So, you will make a very small investment on
each domain name when you decide to flip it. You can recoup
it many fold by selling it, but you actually have to do some
work first online to flip it. We’ll show you all the basics of
flipping in Chapter 6.
PARK IT
Parking a domain name is a lot like renting out your property
to make some income. Sure, you had to register it and buy it.
You may even have to fix up the place a bit to make it
presentable to use for rental space. Otherwise, you can park
a page and never do anything to it other than check the stats
on how many visitors it attracts. If you see the parked paged
getting traffic that means you can add a page to it with links
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to see if the traffic can be used to generate revenue. If it has
no traffic, you probably don’t want to waste your time parking
it and then setting up as a rental space. You simply want to
try and flip it.
In this situation, when you park a web page on it, it will most
likely be a page of links that help you to generate advertising
revenues or affiliate referrals from different sources. The time
investment is a bit more for parking a web page, even if the
money investment is the same as for flipping. However, you
have to value your time like money to understand when to try
to flip a domain and when to park it. You can be sure that
most domain names are appreciating over time because this
is the great land rush of cyberspace. Once the good names
are taken, it becomes harder to get something that someone
doesn’t already own. When demand is high and supply is
limited, prices rise. It’s estimated that domain names have
appreciated 22% annually, even when they aren’t developed.
Parking a page isn’t just about the domain name. Now, the
real estate includes the actual visible web pages that a surfer
might see when they land on your site. You want them to
click on links and generate revenue. You want to see what to
do a little market research and figure out what is attracting
visitors to this domain name and exploit that traffic. For that,
you will either have to build your web page of links or let us
tell you how to build them quickly by paying for that service.
This also will be discussed more in-depth in Chapter 6.
DEVELOP IT
Lastly, if you are a home developer, you know that building a
home means taking the time to learn how to properly build
one that someone else is willing to buy. The same is true
when you buy a domain name, and after parking the page,
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realize that you would like to develop it into a full-fledged
site. You want to have the knowledge that will make this
property appreciate in value while not taking too much of
your time.
There are ways to make a quick site using templates and
online tools and services. We will discuss the nuts and bolts of
that information in Chapter 6 as well.
WHERE TO BUY DOMAIN NAMES
There are so many different venues to buy domain names
that we can’t show you all of them. We will show you a couple
here so you get the idea. There will be other sites that we will
discuss throughout the course of this ebook.
www.DomainAbbey.Com
DomainAbbey.com has a discount domain club that can offer you a
way to buy available domain names in bulk for a discounted price.
The discount domain name club costs $89.99 per year. This is on
top of the pricing for each domain name you buy. However, you do
get discounts on the domain names offered by GoDaddy and also
15% off the The Domain Name After Market’s offerings too. You
can park pages with GoDaddy with this club membership and
receive 80% of the revenues generated.
The prices for each domain name sale on GoDaddy differ by the
Top Level Domain (TLD). The .com TLD domain name usually
registers for $9.99 per year, but with the club package, you can
pick domain names in this TLD for $6.85 each. That’s a savings of
31% on each domain name. The savings structure changes for .net
and .org and more. But, mostly you can expect a savings of 10 to
30% off the regular price when you buy the club package.
For domain names that other people own, they will allow you to try
to buy the name their service. The price for that differs depending
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on what the final purchase price ends up being. They charge
$59.99 for the negotiating service plus a commission.
WWW.DYNADOT.COM
Domain name registration with Dynadot.com is $8.99 per
year. There is no membership club available to get a
discounted price. However, you can buy in bulk by spending
at least $500. Then, the prices are discounted more with a
.com domain name being offered for $7.50 per year. The
prices are also subject to the TLD being chosen, whether it is
a .com, .net, .org, or some other extension.
If you do get a domain name here and sell it someone else
with a Dynadot account the transfer is free too. Their services
also offer the ability to do bulk editing on multiple domain
names when you transfer them to other buyers.
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3 How To Choose A Good Domain Name
Good domain names aren’t hard to come by. You don’t even
have to have a way with words. That’s because you can get
domain names by simply understanding what people are
searching for on the web. Another great way to determine a
good domain name is to find out what other names have sold
to give you an idea on similar names that might sell as well.
In this chapter, we will discuss where to find names that sell
and how to go about creating ones that might be winners for
your own portfolio.
You won’t be able to really get into single word domain
names, even if you see them selling in hundreds of
thousands. All these names are taken, and that’s why they’re
so valuable. Your job will be to look for domain names with
multiple words that might sell for two to four thousand. From
there, you can get an idea of what might make a good
domain name to start.
DNJOURNAL.COM
This website has a weekly listing of domain name sales.
Under the “Domain Sales” list you will find good information
on current domain name sales, and also where they sold.
Most importantly, you will find out how much they sold for in
dollars. Scroll down the page at
http://www.dnjournal.com/domainsales.htm and you will find
the AfternicDLS sales between $2,000 and $4,000. If you
eventually want to expand into .net sales too, there is also
information on these domain sales at this website.
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FIND OUT WHAT'S HOT
What are people discussing this week? Where’s the buzz and
why are tongues wagging? Well, you can find that sort of
thing out at different areas on the web. Buzz.yahoo.com is
one domain where you find articles on the latest thing people
are discussing on the Internet. It can be a great resource if
you are looking for are riding a time-specific trend. They have
a Top Ten searches that shows you want people coming to
the site are interested in reading about. You will find that gas
prices are top on everyone’s mind. That can give an
enterprising domain name business owner a good
understanding of what might serve as a good niche to
explore.
Blogs are also fabulous areas to find out the latest trends or
what people are interested in discussing. The problem is that
you don’t want to have to go to individual blogs all day just to
see stories. It would take too long. So, you go to some place
like Technorati.com. Bloggers generally add their blogs to this
site and they are compiled for everyone and categorized into
different subjects. It makes it easy to search and see what
people are interested in.
At Blogger Central in Technorati, you can also find a top tags
searches and this can give you some valuable clues on what
the latest trends are on the World Wide Web. If you use the
advanced search feature on Technorati, you can even start
with a specific phrase you are interested in developing into
domain names and see many current postings on your
subject matter. Lastly, if you are thinking of auctioning off
your domain names on e-bay, why not check out what their
users are searching for? Pulse.ebay.com gives you just that
sort of information even though it won’t be too helpful with
fine-tuning your domain name.
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KEYWORD RESEARCH
Another way to determine what might make a good domain
name, is to find out what people are searching for on the
web.
You can do this using Google Keywords located here:
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
This is a tool used by advertisers who are trying to find high-
paying keywords or highly searched keywords that drive
traffic to their site. It doesn’t matter, though, because you
can also use it to help you figure out some good domain
names.
This step should be done after you’ve taken a good look at
what other people are buying and some of the trends being
talked about on the Internet. Once you have a good idea of
some potential niches you might want to target, that’s when
you come to this tool to see what terms are relevant and high
paying. Then, choose to the radial button that says:
“Descriptive words or phrases.” Uncheck the synonyms box
and enter the characters in the capcha image in the space
provided. Click “Get keyword ideas.”
This will pull up an additional box that you can use to filter
your results. The last drop-down choice list that says
“Show/Hide Columns” and can be set to the following:
Show Estimated Ad Position
Show Estimated Avg. CPC
Show Search Volume Trends
Show Highest Volume Occurred In
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It will also have some hide options, but we’re not interested
in those. You want to select Show Estimated Avg. CPC (Cost
Per Click). This will give you an idea of which search terms
are more valuable to Google advertisers because they pay out
more. It will then ask you to put a maximum bid in and you
can say $100 to include everything and hit the “Recalculate”
button. Voila!
If your niche happened to be muscle building then you might
want to try searching for any words associated with muscles.
After doing the above procedure, you find it pays $0.64,
which isn’t as good as building muscles which pays out $1.16
per click. Of course, neither of these terms are really that
valuable, but it gives you an idea of how to create terms that
will be interesting and profitable for people buying domain
names who intend to park a page or develop a site. You can
also use the search volume trends to find out more about
which words or phrases are picking up interest on the
Internet.
This is one of the most practical tools on the Internet for
figuring out what is being search and why. It also gives you
an inside view as to how people are making money on the
Internet using specific words and niches. The tool can be
sorted in ascending order for any of the search criteria and
the terms can be downloaded into a text file for bulk domain
name submissions.
GETTING CREATIVE
Now, if you’ve done some research you can still think up your
own. Or, maybe you have the inside scoop on some very new
trend that has something to do with your interests. This can
be a line of investigation that is quite profitable. The more
you are familiar with a specific industry, the more likelihood
you will be able to create some domain names that appeal to
somebody who wants to buy it.
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Most people have some degree of familiarity with commercial
ventures. If you work in a bank, you probably know what the
popular finance terms are and what products people are most
interested in buying at particular time periods. This is also
important. You want to create the domain name when it has
the strength and fascination to sell. For instance, right now
many people might be more interested in reverse mortgages
as the baby boomers retire.
If you were a mortgage loan officer, you probably know all
the lingo and what products can appeal to these customers.
By default, they will also be the same terms that appeal to
the buyer of a domain name. So, it doesn’t even matter if you
are having trouble making ends meet because of the housing
collapse story, that reservoir of knowledge you built up can
be very valuable in helping you restructure your knowledge
base so it still makes you money.
Use what you know and follow the trends. That’s really all
there is to it. Some weeks some types of domains are hot and
others are not. Not every domain name will sell when you
auction it, so you have to be persistent. It’s a volume game
and you can’t get emotionally attached to finding the
“perfect” name or trying to make a big kill in one area. The
safest way to make money in domain names is to treat it like
a business. The domain names are not your babies; they are
a product used to generate revenue. So, don’t waste too
much time trying to be clever and find that big scoring
domain name. Odds are, if it happens, it will hit you like a
tripped wire as you innocently make toast or something.
DOMAIN NAME TYPOS
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Unlike what your English schoolteacher taught you, in the
domain name business misspellings are your friend. That’s
because we are all human beings who are fallible. When
people go to search for a term or type in a URL directly, they
often misspell it. That’s why catchy, one-word, easy to
remember names are so valuable. The likelihood of them
being misspelled or forgotten is very small. However, for two
words and more, you can easily start to find ways to generate
domain names by just getting sloppy.
There are words that take multiple “s” for instance, like the
word “compressor.” If you find that you are targeting this
area, you could add an extra “s” or remove one “s” and
attempt to sell the domain name that way. This is one way to
figure out how to change an already existing and successful
domain name to capture some of their traffic.
Now, take a look at the computer keyboard. You will see that
some letters are closer to each other on the QWERTY
keyboard than others. These are the letters that might be
punched in accidentally when typing in a URL. So, if you are
typing in a w, you might hit the q or the e instead. See how
that works? That’s another source of potential names.
None of these names are really going to generate a frenzy in
buyer bidding online, unless they’re something very clever.
Instead, these names are for parking pages or developing
sites to get some advertising and affiliate revenue.
EXTENSIONS
The most volume of sales is in the .com domain, although the
.org and .net are starting to show some good sales in the
higher price ranges. The extensions mean the following:
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.com - Commercial
.net – Network
.org – Organization (usually non-profit)
.info – Resource website.
There are many more extensions than these four, but these
are the most popular PC-based Internet domain extensions.
Some domain name business owners do only .com names and
others will try their hand at other types of extensions. It’s a
personal decision, but .com are really the most popular and
highly sought after domain names.
It’s up to you whether you try to expand into other domain
extensions, instead of just the .com one. There are new
extensions coming out every day and it’s wise to keep abreast
of that, particularly now that cell phones are becoming very
common in our society. More and more people are using them
to surf the web and some extensions are coming out like the
.mobi extension. They are like finding a whole new
undiscovered country and you could be the first one to plant
your flag on the surface and stake your claim.
While they may not be extremely profitable now, they could
end up being goldmines in the future. A well-diversified
portfolio will want to take advantage of any new area that
begins to show promise in the domain name business. You
will have to pay more for some of these extensions and the
same rules apply: no trademark infringement. One way to
verify whether something is going to be big is to check out
the adoption rate in other countries. It might give you a
head’s up on the coming wave of the future in your own
country.
Speaking of countries, you can get a .co.uk or .de domain
name. One is for Great Britain and the other for Germany.
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While you might think you have to be a resident to get one of
these names, it’s not true. The different country extensions
have different rules and some of them do require some
residency and others do not.
4
Don't Get Attached
While we do want to generate income and not get too
emotionally attached to the process of generating domain
names, we can still have some fun with the entire process.
Maybe you don’t consider yourself hip or trendy, but that
doesn’t mean you can’t start to learn the slang of the Internet
and figure out ways to combine it into fun domain name
terms.
Having fun with domain names can be like a treasure hunt.
You have to figure out what everyone else thinks is worth
hunting for, and then you have to get there first. Once you
own the treasure, others will pay you to give it to them.
You can create hip and trendy domain names by watching the
people who influence culture. Even if you don’t know what the
trends are in your social circle, you want to get to know who
sets those trends. These people are celebrities and people
who influence the next big thing. Once you know who those
people are, all you have to do is watch them a bit more and
be ready to pounce on a new trend the minute appears to be
taking off.
Another cultural trick is to use anything that you find in your
own background. Are you Hispanic? Why not register a few
Spanish term .com domain names and see how they sell? The
markets are opening up for foreign terms and they might be
very profitable later on.
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Keep your eye on the news for new technologies that are
being developed or news events that are capturing other
people’s attention. You can start to mine the domain names
from these events, although we would suggest to keep away
from any that might be too highly emotionally charged. Those
people that registered Virginia Tech domain names after the
massacre there ended up fielding a lot of hate mail. It’s okay
to profit on top events, just be careful what kind of crowd you
are attracting.
DOMAIN NAME SLANG
Some words are slang abbreviations that everyone is familiar with,
like luv for love or u for you. In an age that is becoming more and
more abbreviated these types of instant message or familiar
abbreviations can make good domain names. If you don’t have a
specific abbreviation in mind or it is already taken, then you can
make up a new one just by using the following four prefixes in your
domain name:
i for Internet, instant
e for Electronic
u for You
v for Virtual
This small list can yield a number of different opportunities. The e
prefix has been done to death, but that doesn’t mean you can’t
think of any new ones that might be attractive to new buyers. The
English language is very versatile and that’s the beauty of
domaining.
Other types of slang are numerical and they also are becoming
more easily sold. Everybody knows what 411 and 911 means.
These are taken, but you get the message. Now there are other
numbers too that mean specific things to people that would attract
a big crowd. It’s perfectly okay to add numbers to your domain
name to help you be creative.
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Lastly, every industry has it’s own set of slang that make good
domain names too. Think of taxes and form 1040-A. It probably
won’t surprise you that 1040.com takes you to an online tax
preparation site. Well, there are many other forms of industrial
slang that have yet to be mined and that can be broadened to
make for creative two word domain names. If you are in a
particular business that uses a lot of abbreviations, you can start to
brainstorm there and see what might pop up.
CELEBRITY TRENDS
When William the Prince of Wales announced his engagement
to Kate Middleton the Prince presented Kate with a famous
blue sapphire and diamond ring once worn by Princess Diana,
what do you think everyone wanted to look up on the Internet
as soon as this happened? They all were searching to get a
glimpse of that famous sapphire ring. It started a huge trend
in people purchasing copies of that ring. Any domain name
that had anything to do with Princess Diana's ring or blue
sapphire rings suddenly got a huge influx of visitors.
Watching trends with famous people and what makes the
news there is one way to spot trends and figure out some
great domain names. Just be careful not to tread too strongly
on any name brands that are protected under trademark law.
A celebrity’s name is considered a trademark, so you can’t
just register PrincessDiana.com and expect to keep it. Even
then, you still might end up in court. So, be careful.
Celebrities aren’t just huge movie stars or royalty; they are
also sports stars and even religious figures. Scandals can also
be interesting fodder for domain names, but try to stay away
from anything that will get you too much hate mail. The key
is to find something interesting and controversial enough to
sell the domain name quickly and for a significant profit. If
you include some derivation of their name, you might get
away with it or you might not. There’s no possible way a
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famous person can register every single derivation of their
famous moniker. However, they do have the right defend
their names as a brand.
If you aren’t aware of who is making the news, you might
want to keep an eye out for celebrity gossip and fashion
shows. They are a great way to expand your understanding of
this particular scene.
FOREIGN TERMS
More and more people are getting on the Internet, and with
that comes some opportunities to add domains in foreign
languages. The same advice still applies here. You want short
words that attract attention. You want something culturally
relevant and that is highly searchable. You can still have fun
with foreign film stars or people of notoriety.
Foreign domain extensions and foreign words are getting
more interest from domainers. You can register them as a
.com or, if that country allows, as a .country extension, or
both.
For the most part, you will want to have some exposure to
the culture or at least choose generic words that get tons of
attention. People often search the web for porn material and
so words associated with the sex industry are popular to use
in English and foreign languages. Otherwise, you will have to
figure out what is of interest to a particular culture. They may
have a great interest in things that Americans aren’t
interested in, and vice-versa.
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THINGS IN THE NEWS
A great resource for new ideas is the news media. You can
get up to the minute news on global events that are of
interest to everyone. You find out about the introduction of
new products on the market and what they foresee to be the
business trends in the future. This can all be valuable
information for someone trying to create domain names that
might be valuable in the future.
For instance, some toys become very popular during
Christmas season and take off. One year, The Apple iPad was
in such great demand that it was almost impossible to get. All
the parents who had promised their kids that they would get
an iPad for Christmas were suddenly desperate to get one
under the tree. You can bet they were scouring the Internet
for an iPad that could have been shipped to their home in
time for Christmas. Whether you actually had one or not, you
could have tried a variation of the name, or the actual name,
and made some sweet traffic or even a domain name sale
during that time.
That’s the problem though with ideas that you get from
current events or fashion trends. They tend to be cyclical and
transient. If you don’t score quickly with them, the crowd
moves on and you’re left with a domain name that is very
brand-able and yet un-sellable. Everyone might recognize it,
but it might be considered passé. So, you have to strike while
the news is hot and try to capitalize during the time when the
domain name will be of interest. Don’t hold onto these
domain names too long, or you may end up dumping them at
the end of the year as the traffic dribbles away.
On the other hand, if you’re clever enough, you can actually
predict a name based on a prior product’s name. Say, for
instance, that you are into cell phones. You know that the
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Razor phone is a very popular product and that Motorola
makes it. You also know they are due to come out with an
enhancement of this product. Now, you have enough
information from the news media to start thinking up names
like: razrv3.com. This one is already taken, but you now get
the message. If a newer version is due to come out that
might give you fodder for a domain name.
ALPHABET SOUP
What about just randomly putting two words together? It kind
of will remind you of when you were little and you had some
alphabet soup. You just dunked your spoon in the broth and
up floated some letters and then you tried to spell something
with them. Well, now you’ve got a bunch of words and you’re
trying to get a good domain name. So, how do you do that
without messing with a huge pot of soup that contains every
word in the dictionary? It would take forever to try out all the
possible combinations.
Luckily, human beings are creatures of habit. The attention
span of a human being is probably less than that of a fruit fly
when it comes to surfing the Internet. If they have an
interest, they type it quickly, spot-check it, and move on, if it
doesn’t grab their attention. So, the best way to figure out
how to create a domain name from this huge cauldron of
alphabet soup is to figure out which words are the yummiest
and use those.
SOME GOOD WORD PREFIXES
You can bet that one of the most favorite words for anyone in
our capitalistic system is the word “free.” That’s not too hard
to figure out. Anytime you offer something for free you get a
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lot of attention. So, why not use that word when you are
creating your domain name? Free-Games.com or whatever
niche you are trying to target for that particular week.
Oddly, most of these words are also words that marketing
professionals use in their marketing flyers to try to attract
attention. So, if you’re in that field, you already know what
makes a good prefix word. For the rest of you, the following
list gives out some pretty standard prefixes that you can use
to create your own domain names:
Best
Super
Ultra
1st
Me
Top
Pro
Cyber
SOME GOOD WORD SUFFIXES
In addition, there are words you can tack onto the end of
your domain to give them some attention. Some of these
suffixes are listed below
World
City
House
Portal
Central
Site
Network
Guide
Talk
Zone
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Beat
Today
Club
Story
There are many, many more types of suffixes and prefixes
that you can use to get some good domain names created.
Some are specific to an industry, like aero for the aerospace
industry. If there is some specific prefix or abbreviation that
says it all, it can make a good suffix or prefix for your domain
name. There are no rules about what you can and can’t use to
create you domain name, except that they be alphanumeric
characters and they can include dashes (although it’s not
recommended). The shorter and more memorable the domain
name, the more likelihood that it will be easy to sell later on.
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5
Try Before You Buy
In the business, there is something called “tasting” domains.
Tasting a domain allows you five days grace period to figure
out if you want to pay the full registration fee. It gives
domainers some time to research the probability that this
domain name will generate revenue. During the grace period
is up, the buyer of the domain can actually use the domain
name and park a page full of advertising and affiliate links.
This is a very standard practice because it allows a domainer
the ability to see what traffic shows up spontaneously and
how they get there by checking the site statistics. This gives
the domain buyer some insight into whether they’ve picked a
good name or not.
At first domain tasting was free, so many domain buyers
simply tasted multiple domain names at a time and dropped
any that did not appear to be generating any interest, without
any expense other than their time. In fact, some domains
were continuously tasted and then dropped before the grace
period ended and the registration fee was due. Then, they
were picked up again by the same buyer for another free 5-
day grace period and thus kept in a portfolio of virtual
registrations that were never paid. This practice is called
domain kiting and these domains are being targeted for
blacklisting by Google.
ADSENSE MAKES NONSENSE
One of the outcomes of this practice is that domain tasters
would slap a parked page with adsense advertising links and
get paid, even if they never went on to register the domain.
This encouraged some people to simply taste as many
domains as they could, slap a parked page with Google ads
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on it and then return the domain before the five-day period
was over. GoDaddy.com estimated in 2010 that out of 55.1
million domain names tasted, only 3.6 million domain names
were actually registered that year. The rest were canceled
before the grace period expired. In January of 2008 there is
now some discussion at Google of refusing to allow
monetization of any website domain that is less than five days
old. If they do this, you will see a drop in the number of
tasted domains and more ad revenue going to established
websites.
HIJACKED DOMAIN NAMES
Even more scandalous than the millions of advertising
revenue being hijacked was the case of Network Solutions
tasting domains that were searched in their database that
weren’t registered. They were obviously hoping to hijack the
name from the interested party and then reselling it even
though they did not have an interest in parking a page or
developing a site. It was a case where they used their own
customer base and the five day grace period to effectively
corner the market on searched domain names that were not
yet registered, but tasting them if they were searched to see
if they were available. This practice is called front running,
and it is particularly unethical in that the business provides a
service of domain name lookup for the customer that is used
by the online business to cut in line when registering it.
It was the practice of domain kiting, tasting, and the Network
solutions scandal that eventually caused the ICANN Board of
Directors to remove the five-day grace period and no longer
issue refunds for domain names. They were trying to make
the practice cost prohibitive, and so they now charge to taste
a domain. They are setting non-refundable fees on tasting a
domain and may even consider getting rid of the grace period
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all together later. Either way, the end of volume domain
tasting is over as it won’t be worth the expense.
COSTS OF DOMAIN TASTING
Right now the fee for domain tasting is set to be between
$0.20 and $0.30, which is far less than the $7 to $10 you’ll
pay to register the domain name. So, you can still taste a
domain, but you will pay a small fee and it won’t be refunded
if you choose not to register the domain. The fee is an annual
fee and if you don’t register the domain expires.
The change in the fee structure for domain tasting does add
some expense, but not significant expenses for someone just
starting. The fees are being focused on domain kiters, front
runners, and other would-be domain hogs that aren’t letting
others register their names on the off chance they can make
a fast buck for nothing. Now, they don’t have the same
motivation because it will cost them $1 to taste every five-
domain names. Since the numbers showed they were actively
tasting millions of domain names, the costs begin to
skyrocket for these fraud artists into the hundreds of
thousands. So, the fee structure is a boon to genuine
domainers who aren’t involved in domain kiting or front
running. It leaves more domain names available for them to
taste and gives them more freedom in the market without big
players scooping up untold domain names for nothing.
EXPIRED DOMAIN NAMES
There’s no way to really tell what is going to happen after the
fees take effect, but the hope is that tasters will let their
names expire and not try to taste them again (domain kiting).
That’s because each time they taste it they will have to pay
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$0.20 for every five days. At that rate, it’s much cheaper to
pay the $7 for the year and just register it. So, those names
will fall into the expired domains list.
Next, all the front runners that were blindly tasting domains
will not be willing to put out money on bad names. If they
continue the practice, it’s very probable that irate domainers
would simply log into their services and bomb them with bad
names that cost them $.0.20 per taste, since it is a blind
process. That would quickly teach them to quit usurping the
right of the person searching for a new name that they’ve
taken the time to research and create. Network Solutions has
already stated it would drop the practice once a fee took
effect, but if not, you can bet the Internet community won’t
stand for it. So, once they drop this practice, all those names
will fall into the expired list too.
Justdropped.com is a website that offers a daily deleted
domains list and also a way to search through expired
domains. You do have to sign up to the site even if the
service is free. You can give it a starting and ending suffix
and even choose the extensions you want searched. It can be
a great way to sit on the sidelines and see what domains are
dropping out of the cybersky from all the domain kiting and
front runners that will be dropping out of the game. Their loss
could be your gain.
SITE STATISTICS
Okay, so maybe you won’t get Google adsense revenue in the
first five days after that policy goes through. It doesn’t mean
that you’ve lost some of the advantages of tasting a domain
before registering it. You will still have the site statistics
available to your through your hosting company. You can
taste a domain, put up a web page, and see how much traffic
it receives without any marketing on your part. You may find
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a few winners this way without much effort. Those that show
a very poor return in traffic can be dropped.
Typical site statistics will show you the number of daily hits as
well as the number of unique visitors to the site. You will be
able to see the top search terms that landed someone on
your site. You will find out how a visitor landed on your site
and where they went after that from your log file. By
reviewing the content of your log and the site statistics page
you will get a good feel for whether the domain is worth
registering or not.
PARK IT
In order to really see what kind of revenue a domain name
might bring in, you will have to park the domain but try to
also set up a page. Hopefully, you will have a good idea of
why this domain name is valuable to you and choose relevant
links to affiliates to help bring in some revenue. You won’t
make any Adsense revenue, but they are not the only
advertiser that serves up click ads. You can try to find a
revenue sharing program that will have your domain pointed
to a parked page that still will allow some revenue using their
models during the grace period. However, a parked domain
does not include the domain name server settings of your
specific hosting company.
So, even though you don’t officially own the domain name,
you can still put up a page, after parking the domain and then
go on to get some idea of what kind of traffic and revenues it
might get later. We will discuss this more in-depth in Chapter
6.
There are numerous online parking services with the
expressed idea to generate a quick site with as minimal effort
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as possible. You can expect some revenue sharing, which can
take a share of any profits you see from the traffic on your
site. In return, these sites will offer up canned templates that
make building a web page extremely easy. You will get tools
to help you run your domain business and this can be very
valuable when you are doing a volume business.
Sedo.com is probably the most well known online company
that offers parking services. Other names of possible places
to find domain parking services are: TrafficZ.com,
NameDrive.com, Parked.com, and WhyPark.com. Newer
services are always being added and WhyPark.com offers its
customers the ability to generate a full-content site with their
services. You use your own ads too. So, every parked service
might tweak their services just a little different than other
companies.
GET A SECOND OPINION
You may think you’ve scored the next big domain name, but
it might have an obvious flaw. You will want to write it out
and also type it out and see how likely it is to be used in a
direct navigation from the URL address locator. You don’t
want to end up with something completely silly like Auctions
Hits, only to come out with AuctionShits. There are actually
people who have registered domain names and later realized
their mistake. So, be sure to write it down without the
capitals and see that it really sends out the message that you
want. You don’t want to end up with some of these beauties:
Whorepresents.com
No it’s not a site for presents for prostitutes, it’s a site for
agents who represent celebrities.
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Therapistfinder.com
Why would anyone want to find a rapist, you wonder? Well,
maybe they were looking for a therapist instead…
Speedofart.com
It’s not the silent ones but the quickies that get you! Or
maybe you are speaking about the Speed of Art instead?
These may seem really funny but they don’t make for good
advertising or a good return on your investment. So, don’t
think that just because you are using your own name, a
company name, or even generic words, that it can’t be turned
into something else. Be sure to write it down and see if it
really means what you think it does.
Finally, you should try to find out if other people can easily
remember and write it down without too much fuss. Just have
someone you regularly bounce domain names off of to see if
they grab the name on the first try. How do you like
ABCXYZ.com? If they come back with: ABCYWZ.com? Well,
then you know you need to try again.
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6
Flipping, Parking, And Site Development
We discussed earlier that there are three popular ways to
make money from domain name businesses. You can flip the
domain, park, it or develop it. Obviously, with some of the
changes coming in from Google and the loss of free tasting,
domainers may end up flipping or developing more than
parking. This is a very young industry and there are changes
happening very quickly. One day one business model works
well, and the next you have to shift with the presiding
currents.
Website flipping is the next step up in website investing. In
this instance, you are moving one step forward: investing in a
domain name, hosting the website and getting the website up
and running.
The best way to look at website flipping is to compare it to a
real estate transaction: house flipping. With a home, you
purchase the property at a low price. In this case, the website
is virtually nothing. You may purchase a website already in
place and improve it. Or, you can select a website domain
name and start building from scratch.
The cost is again very small initially. Once you have the
website under your control, you add to it, increasing its value
just as a home investor would invest enough money to get
the house in a higher valued condition. They often modernize
it, changing out any necessary appliances and often times
repair damage. By investing $20,000 to $30,000 into the
home (not the website!) they wind up making a substantially
larger return on their investment, perhaps even doubling the
value of the property.
The same is true with website flipping. You come in with a
very low price, build up the website's value and then sell it to
someone (or a company) that can further carry it to success.
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The profit potential here is unlimited, depending on the niche
and the overall success of the website you design.
Additionally, website flipping is not just about turning a small
profit on getting a website started. It is also the process of
finding underperforming websites, purchase the website and
increase the value of it. Then, you turn around and sell it for
a larger profit. The fact is, many businesses online are still
very new and they are often far less profitable than they
could be.
In order to be successful at website flipping, you simply must
know how to build a website with success. The more traffic it
gets, revenue it brings in and overall high quality of the
website will define if the website is worth more and therefore
if anyone will invest in it.
ADVANTAGES OF BUYING AN EXISTING WEBSITE
There are definitely some advantages to purchasing a website
that already has been established, improving it and then
selling it off. For example, these websites already have an
established audience. This means you do not have to develop
an audience yourself. This could help you turn a real profit
right away, simply by improving the search engine
optimization of it or by installing an improved Adsense
campaign, for example.
In addition to this, the website is likely already indexed in
search engines. This is a fantastic tool because the website's
ability to make a profit is likely to happen much faster. This
can mean getting into the top search results faster. Even
websites with very little attention likely have some type of
back link network already developed for it.
Another benefit of purchasing a website already developed is
as simply as avoiding the Google Sandbox. This is only
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possible if you purchase a website that has made it through
the first 12 months of life.
HOW TO BUY A WEBSITE
Let's assume you will be purchasing a website that you want
to develop and flip. It has already been in place for some
time, and you know it is likely to be a great investment for
your business. First off, you need to realize what the site can
do for you and how it will fit in the strategy you are
developing for your business.
You may wish to purchase a website that is already getting
targeted traffic for the product or service that you are already
promoting. By purchasing a website like this, you can then
take all the traffic that is already going there and funnel it to
your own products and sales pages. In order for this to work
well for your business, do be sure that the traffic coming to
the website is high enough to warrant the purchase and
quality enough to actually help turn a profit. High traffic does
not mean you are getting good traffic. In the next section,
we will talk more about purchasing a website and expanding
and developing it.
On the other hand you may just want to purchase the website
and flip it. In this situation, you definitely have to look for the
right website to purchase. As a house flipper knows, it is
more than just knowing what the actual problems are with
the house. You also need to know the market for the house,
or in this case, the website.
There is risk in purchasing a website for the sole reason of
flipping it. It can be very costly to make a mistake since you
will likely be investing a good amount of money into the flip.
In this situation, you need to insure that you purchase
websites that have the highest potential for profit. You need
to see a large result from the time and money you put into
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the site to make it worthwhile. On top of this, you also need
to be sure that there is a market for purchasing it after you
have created the final, finished copy.
Some of the best websites for this are under performing e-
commerce websites that are selling a product. The product
they are selling should be in a well established market. Look
for a market that may be just starting to take off. In addition
to this, be sure that the website itself has potential. For
example, if it already has great search engine optimization,
chances are good it may not get much better. Of course, the
website's owners have to be willing to sell.
To make a profit from flipping websites, you have to master
the following:
Choose the proper website that is able to provide you
with the likely potential sale you are hoping for.
Implement changes quickly. This usually includes
making a few changes to see a significant increase in
the functioning and profitability of the website, in
multiple areas.
Get a double digit increase in sales for the website, a
sure sign the website is profitable.
Get the work done and working for you before the
general marketplace gets caught up to you.
Do this and you can make a sizable profit on the
website by selling it for a premium.
Don't wait so long that the Internet is saturated with
those who selling the product or service you are.
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It is important to remember that the Internet is one of the
fastest moving marketplaces anywhere. The competitiveness
of the web is also just as fast moving. In order to buy and flip
websites with success, you will need to know what to do, how
to do it and get it done as soon as possible. You should also
be up to date on the movement in the web, including the
strategies helping the web to move fast.
Take into consideration this method of website investing
carefully. It takes the combination of just the right scenario to
make a profit. This method of investing is best for those who
have experience in website development and in profitable
website design.
Most people are finding that domain names as real estate are
more valuable when they are developed sites. However, not
many domainers have the necessary time or skills to build a
site from the ground up. So, there are companies and tools
out there that can help you develop the domains that you
want to keep in your portfolio for a while. The simple truth is
that as your domain gets more visitors and traffic, you will
end up increasing the value of the domain name as a viable
business for someone to take over.
FLIPPING
Like real estate investors, domain name investors will find
stiff competition in a hot domain name market, especially for
the dot com extensions. Most people suggest all the good
names are taken, but that shouldn’t stop you from trying to
be creative or checking out the expired domain list.
You can try to buy many different domain names from $7 to
$10 and quickly flip them. What you will be selling is a
perceived value based on brand name alone. The domain
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name will have very little traffic to encourage the perception
that it is a valuable piece of cyber real estate. If you come up
with some good names the likelihood that they will sell is
good. But, where do you go to find your buyer? Well, you
want to find an auction place that will allow you sell the
domain in a way that will let the buyers set the price. After
all, you don’t want to buy your domain, sell it for a set price
of $100 and find out someone else flipped it later for $300.
Instead, you want the market to determine the right price for
the domain for the time period you are selling within.
This concept is very similar to real estate. When you buy a
house it is due to appreciate about 3 to 5% a year in a stable
economy. So, if you hold the house for two years, you can
expect maybe the price to increase 10% on the market. You
may not get 10% or you may get more, until it’s put on the
market there’s no way to tell other than that it appreciated
somewhat. So, you don’t start by putting your house on the
market for what you bought it for. You try to find out how
much it might have appreciated and then let the buyers figure
out how much they want to offer. For this, an auction site is
perfect. It pressures the buyers to fight over your domain and
helps to drive up the price you sell for.
FLIPPA.COM
One of the hottest new places to buy and sell websites and
domain names is Flippa.com, on any given day there are
hundreds of new domain names and full websites listed for
sale.
You can find some great deals buying domain names on
Flippa this is also a great place to sell your domain names and
full turnkey websites.
They have tons of potential buyers for your hot new Web
properties.
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EBAY.COM
Who doesn’t know that ebay is the largest auction house
online? Their fees are still relatively low and you aren’t
shipping anything, so it makes a good venue for your domain
name auction. If you want to see how others are auctioning
off their domain names, it’s very easy. You don’t even have to
have an account to go take a look. Just go to ebay.com and
their Web Domains & Services category. At this time, there
are 2497 domain names being offered on ebay.
Right now, the hottest items are four letter acronyms that are
being sold at auction. They don’t even have to make sense,
as long as they are easily pronounced. Not every entry has an
image, but if you want to capture a buyer’s attention an
image of something that is of interest can get you noticed.
SEDO.COM
Some of the same places that you went to buy your domain
name are also in business of getting sellers to offer their
domain names through them too. Sedo.com offers domain
names for sale with services that attracts bother sellers and
buyers. While this isn’t an auction place, you still have the
ability to allow the buyer to “Make Offer.” This can keep you
from setting your price to high (and scaring away potential
customers) or setting it too low and hurting yourself
unnecessarily. You want to stay away from “Fixed Price”
options because they generally don’t work well for domain
name sales.
There is no fee to list at Sedo.com but a commission is taken
if a sale is finalized. This commission structure begins at 10%
and so you have to price your domain names to take the
commissions into account. And, the minimum for .com
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extensions is $50. So, you don’t want to fuss around with low
potential domains, if you are trying to sell on Sedo.com. Save
those for eBay.com. Sell your more marketable domain
names through Sedo.com or your premium domain name
through it’s premium service called Greatdomains.com.
GREATDOMAINS.COM
You do have to sign up for a SEDO account to be able to sell
through GreatDomains.com. This site is only for premium
domain names so it is much harder to get your domain listed.
The domain actually has to meet specific criteria, as follows:
Short name,
Real word,
Easy to remember,
Generic,
No typos,
Product-related,
No trademark infringement,
Domain in language relevant to the country domain,
Reserve price is not exorbitant.
You may think it’s an easy thing to come up with names like
these, but the odds are someone already has bought the
name. That’s what makes these names so valuable. It doesn’t
mean you can’t buy one of these names and hold it and later
on down the line see if you can flip it to make a profit. Then,
you know right where to go to sell the domain name.
OTHER PLACES
There are so many different places these days to sell your
domain name. In fact, you may not even have to go
anywhere to sell it, the buyer may come to you. However,
you can also try to sell in multiple venues at one time, as long
as they don’t require an exclusive agreement. Since most
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won’t charge you unless you sell the domain, you have
nothing to lose to try to sell it through various agencies at
one time. Other trusted names to sell your domain name
include snapnames.com and tdnam.com (The Domain Name
After Market).
It used to be that domainers made most of their money
through flipping domains. Then, the model went more
towards parking, and now many are interesting in actually
developing their sites. This is pretty much the trajectory of
real estate investment too, where the land in cyberspace
becomes scarcer, the initial investment to get in becomes
higher. So, instead of going for Park Place or Boardwalk now,
many domainers will pick up a Tennessee Avenue and put up
a canned stored through parking their domain. When that
revenue starts to drop, they start to think about what might
attract the buyers back and they start to develop their
location. So, it’s all part and parcel of a business model that
chases the biggest return for the littlest investment.
Depending on how well you do, you may do a little of
everything or end up concentrating on one way to make
money and becoming an expert in that.
PARKING
So, maybe you tried to flip a few names and some sold. But,
now you’re wondering if you could ever manage to park a
domain and still make money from it. Yes, you can! There are
many online services that want to help you make money from
your domain for a cut of the Internet advertising revenues.
You may have a tougher time now that Google has started to
really buckle down on link farms (blacklisting or moving them
down the search engines), but if you are committed to
learning about the Internet and domaining then you will
eventually get into this area. Why not learn now?
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Parking services will typically ask you to use their name
servers when setting up the account. This makes it easier for
them to serve up parked web pages. It speeds up the process
and makes it more reliable. Any parking service will offer their
customers multiple templates to choose from where you can
choose your niche of advertising. This will serve up relevant
ads and the payment for the service will be taken from the
revenue that you generate. The amount of commission that
the sites make is dependent on their rules and regulations.
Most work on a PPC, or “pay per click” model and some have
a CPM model (cost per thousand). After the pages are set up,
you will have access to some domain statistics through the
parking service.
TRAFFICZ.COM
This is one place that you can get parking services. You
cannot transfer your account to anyone, so it is strictly for
your own use. TrafficZ.com decides whether to allow you to
use their services based on the strength of your portfolio. The
decision is made on a individual basis. You can import
multiple domain names to set up parked pages by using the
mass import feature.
NAMEDRIVE.COM
This is another site popular with domainers. It offers the
same services as TrafficZ.com and many other places, but
they don’t appear to be as restrictive on who can use the
service. They have an option called Park&Sell that also allows
you to sell the domain after you park it with them. This
service displays random domains on the front page that are
up for sale and can be a great way to get your domain some
exposure.
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PARKED.COM
This site requires that you have at least 10 domain names in
your portfolio, which shouldn’t be too hard if you are a
domain business owner. They claim to have the highest
payouts in the business. There is no fee to sign up and the
payment is taken off the revenues that you generate through
advertising. Everyone is approved as long as they meet the
minimum number of domain names in their portfolio. You can
optimize the site manually, instead of just accepting the
automatic settings. They do offer 100’s of templates, but also
give you the ability to create your own. Unlike other parking
services that pay once a month, Parked.com pays twice a
month. They also offer statistics to help you optimize your
site and you can even talk to an account manager when you
have that need.
Whypark.Com
WhyPark.com offers a slightly different parking page concept
that is appealing to more and more domainers. They will not
only serve up parked web pages, but they also will include
new content every day. You get to pick your own keywords
and thus, fine-tune your marketing strategy. This service is
not free. There is a one-time $99.95 fee for 100 domain
names. They do not revenue share, if you don’t request their
own advertising network, and you get to keep all the
revenues from your site. There may be some issues with
duplicate content, but they suggest your content is unique
across your site. That may be good for your site, but Google
has a different way of determining duplicate content and will
penalize a site that shows too much duplicate content across
the web. If you are relying on adwords for most of your
revenue, you will have to be careful to make sure you don’t
trigger the duplicate content blacklisting algorithm. You can
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use WhyPark.com’s own advertising network and they will
then revenue share for that privilege.
SITE DEVELOPMENT
The third method of making a profit from website investing
has to do with developing the website itself. Regardless of if
you take over an existing property on the web or if you start
your own, you can make money developing the website and
managing it.
If you go back to the real estate comparison, here, you are
purchasing a piece of real estate to improve, repair or just
build based on your own goals in the business. Here, your
overall goal may not be to resell the website right away. You
may sell it down the line, but right now your goal is to insure
that the website is making you a profit.
There are many ways to do this but many Internet marketers
will purchase the website of a business that they want to take
over. You may know of a website that has a good product or
service, perhaps one in a market that hasn't reached its
height just yet. When this is the case, you want to purchase
the website, take it over, make improvements and start
making a profit with that website.
In the coming chapters, we will talk about how to enhance a
website to make it profitable. But, before doing that, you
need to understand how to choose the proper website to
purchase and build.
If you take a look at the real estate market one more time,
purchasing just any house is not going to work. You want a
property that has value to it, or the potential for value. You
also need a piece of property that is in the area that is right
for you, one that is located where values are increasing, and
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one that has a low starting price. All of this holds true for the
website developing you will be doing with a website.
You need a low cost initial investment. You need a niche that
works for your web business goals. You need a website that
has potential to excel. When all the right factors come
together (which they easily can do), you will walk away with a
sizable profit.
WHY CHOOSE THIS WEBSITE?
As you consider getting started with website developing, you need
to know which website to purchase. Here are some ways to
consider the website in question.
TARGETED TRAFFIC YOUR OTHER SITES BENEFIT FROM
One reason to start the process of buying a website is to
purchase a website that is already in your niche and may
have a decent amount of targeted traffic coming at it. In this
scenario, look for:
A website that has direct traffic to it that you can direct
to your other websites, your sales pages, or your other
advertising.
This gives you a good customer base to work from right
away.
Do make sure that the website is getting quality traffic;
traffic that makes purchases otherwise you will end up
with a lot of traffic but few sales.
Investigate the website's likelihood of making you a
profit, not becoming more of a problem (such as not
providing you with any good traffic.)
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PURCHASE A WEBSITE TO GET AD REVENUE FROM IT
Another reason to purchase a website may be to use it to
increase advertising revenue. In this situation, you may only
need to purchase the website and make a few tweaks. You
just want to increase the amount of traffic coming in to it.
Add some better search engine optimization for more
targeted traffic
You increase the website's ad performance
In this instance, the best websites to consider are those
with good quality content on them, but those that may
have poor search engine optimization: it makes for a
simple way to get more traffic there.
Use the content on a website like this wisely. With your
copyright on it, you can then turn it into articles to
publish in other forms, or give it away in a free
advertising package.
PURCHASE A WEBSITE WITH AN ESTABLISHED COMMUNITY
Perhaps you are looking for a website that has something
even more tantalizing to offer to you: a solid community. This
is perhaps one of the best opportunities available to the
Internet marketer. After all, the community is already there
and it is flourishing. You just need to turn that traffic into a
profit.
A good example of this is a simple website that has been
designed to be a forum on a niche topic, sometimes a hobby.
For example, you may find a website where there is a solid
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number of people who are talking about budgeting. The
group's owner has not made any attempt to make a profit
from this group, but you can do just that.
There are several things to think about here:
Be sure to consider the niche is something you can
work with and you see is profitable.
A good opportunity to consider is when the website's
following (such as the message board's content) has
grown so large that the owner is unable to continue to
pay for the hosting. They may need more bandwidth
that they cannot afford to pay for.
Offer to purchase the website and monetize the
website. Often, you can purchase the website at just a
low price.
Insure that the website is designed around a niche that
can make a profit for you. Some niches may not be
profitable. Is there a way to get Adsense revenue from
this site? Does it have products and services that you
can market?
When using this method, be sure you have selected the right
website, in which the owner is willing to let go.
NICHE SELECTED
Another option to consider is when a website has been
designed well around a specific niche, around a popular
keyword or a keyword/niche that you believe will grow in
popularity soon. In this situation, you want to choose a
website that definitely has traffic coming in from the search
engine ranking it has. The best bet is to find a niche that is
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likely to become one of the largest in the industry, something
that is just starting to do well.
Purchase a website that gives you the best future outlook.
Then, purchase the website before it becomes a big hit.
TAKE THEM OUT
Perhaps you are already in the niche. You have a website that
is doing well and you want to just take out the competition. If
this sounds good, then purchasing a website that is already
getting traffic just so you can merge with it makes sense.
You may have to negotiate something with the website's
owner to get them to be on board. You may even want to
share revenue with them, depending on what your goals are
for the website.
The key here is to do the following:
Find the websites that are competing within your niche
for your business. Determine if they can be bought out.
Work to incorporate both websites (or as many as there
are) into one company.
Choose this arrangement only when the industry is
likely to require it, such as a fairly well established
industry.
Choose those businesses that complement your own
well enough.
TAKE THE DOMAIN NAME
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Yet another reason you may want to purchase a website is
because you want the domain name. This situation can work
in virtually any circumstance, assuming that having the
domain name is that important. For example, you may be
able to convince the website's owner to sell you the website
but the price may not be worth the move.
When choosing for this reason, the domain name has to be
worth the investment of the purchase of the website. It may
be a keyword rich domain name, for example, and therefore
just what you need.
There are many ways to invest in the right website. The key
is to do it with the right tools and information. You will need
to have the means to develop a website in any situation. No
matter what level the website is at, you need to be able to
take it over, enhance it and better it to make it more
profitable for you.
.There are a number of things that will make a site appreciate
in value. They are:
PageRank
The Google score that influences placement in search
engines. The score is from 1 to 10, with 10 being the best
score.
Content
A site with unique content is worth more than one that is just
serving up garbage or duplicate content.
One-way inbound links
The number of links to your site can impact the value since
they are a way of determining your site’s popularity and
worth. It’s not just a matter of how many inbound links you
have, but also of the quality of the person linking to you.
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Marketable Niche
You will want to be in on a marketing niche that will
appreciate. Selling clothing pins may make you feel light-
headed, but wrack up a big zero in sales.
Site revenue
When a buyer asks about buying a site, they’re interested in
how much revenue it generates each month. If you have no
revenue to speak of, it won’t be as interesting to your buyer
unless they really want the domain name for something.
Developing a site can as easy or as hard as you make it. You
don’t want to spend too much making it pretty as much as
you want to get the above five characteristics to make it
sellable. You can pay freelancers to create unique content for
your site and keep track of PageRank and analytics with the
Google Toolbar.
If you find that you are gathering enough traffic to do some
retail sales or affiliate marketing, you can start to add that
into the equation too. There are many different online
vendors that offer canned website products that include a
shopping cart, if that’s what you are interested in. However,
you don’t necessarily have to develop your site to this level to
get the five characteristics above to be good enough to sell
for a profit.
You can actually just start to develop a marketing pipeline,
with the main aim to capture as many email addresses as you
can and develop an emailing list. This will help you to develop
a mass emailing campaign for specific affiliate offers or even
your own products.
FULL SITES WITH LESS WORK
If you want to develop a full site with less work, you can take
advantage of some third-party vendors like Amazon.com,
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CafePress.com, and anyone that does affiliate programs and
can make it easy to create links to your products. You should
check your affiliate links every now and then to make sure
they are still active. An offer may end up selling out and then
you have a link that is not valid and you’ve lost a customer.
Blogs are also becoming viable full sites and they typically can
be done with templates, although some will not allow you to
add advertising links anymore. Bloggers are getting much
more exposure and advertising opportunities with places like
ReviewMe.com and Blogitive.com. If you want to make
money from the site in this fashion, you have to build up the
blog to get readers and subscribers and then start looking to
see who wants advertising. You can sell links on your site or
add text-link ads.
GETTING INTO THE INNARDS
If you’ve been in a technical position, it’s really not that hard to
learn HTML and some coding, at least enough to do your own
website. You can buy a web editor and start to make your own
pages fairly quickly. You can opt for a shopping cart that your
hosting provider provides and set it up with the offers that you
want.
You will need an HTML editor, an FTP application, and some
knowledge of the directory that you are hosting within. The
nice part is that you can get a better feel for how to
customize other template sites and how to add special
features.
At the very least, if you have a viable site and you want to
develop it with forums or blogs, you can hire a contracting
freelancer at elance.com or rentacoder.com. All you have to
do is find a sample site that appeals to you and then ask for
bids to duplicate the same structure and look and feel for
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your particular project. Obviously, this is a much larger
investment than merely parking a page or flipping a domain,
but it can pay off quite a bit later when you want to sell it.
Right now, the prices for tech experts is particularly low as
the number of outsourced geeks is high.
HOW TO MAKE A PURCHASE
In any of these situations, you will need to make a purchase
of the website or at least the domain name.
If you plan to purchase a domain name, there are plenty of
ways to do that. Simply choose your favorite service, choose
the right domain name (keyword filled is best, of course) and
then purchase it. While about 8 or so years ago a domain
name would cost you $60 or more, today, you can get a
year's worth of domain name ownership for under $10.
For the most part, the purchase of a website to invest in
comes in when you are using one of the two other methods of
investing: flipping the website or buying the website to
develop.
You can find a number of websites called "trading sites"
where you will find websites being bought and sold. These
can work for some investments, but keep in mind that it can
be really difficult to find the low end bargain you are looking
for. Unfortunately, there are too many people using the
websites and many website owners have very high
expectations as to what their website is worth. Use them if
you like, but also consider finding websites to invest in, in
different locations.
DOING THE RESEARCH
A good place to start is just with web research. The best
bargains on the web are those websites that are buried deep
in it. Here are some tips to help you make this successful.
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Use Google and Yahoo! to find great opportunities to
invest in. Choose the industries that you are most
comfortable with. Then, search for websites that rank
well deep within these search engines.
Look for smaller websites for the best profit potential.
The larger sites may be too costly to purchase or to
update.
Look beyond the first two to three pages of search
engine results. Websites that show up in the first pages
are well managed and most likely have an owner
unwilling to sell without a sizable (perhaps even six
figure) dollar amount in mind.
The best websites to invest in are those done by single
webmasters, those that may not be looking for a profit right
off. For example, they may have added regular content to the
website over its lifetime, but they have yet to be passionate
about the website's true potential.
When looking for websites, be sure you are looking for the
right type of website. You do not necessarily want a website
with great ranking and outstanding keyword use. Rather, you
want a website that has the potential for great things. On the
other hand, you may want a website with decent ranking but
without a lot of profit coming in. You may want a really bad,
but ranked website instead.
Taking the time to purchase the right website really does
make a difference in the profit you may see from the
purchase. Website investing is like any other type of
investing: you are still taking a gamble with the investment.
There is no guarantee you will make the profit you are
seeking from it.
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You can reduce many of the risks by investing time in doing
this research into the right websites yourself. Ultimately, you
need the right combination of elements to come together.
The good news is that there are plenty of potentially good
websites to choose from. Since the web is full of websites that
are good intentions never realized, it is up to you to find the
profit in them.
PURCHASING THE SITE
Once you believe you've found the right website to purchase,
do continue looking into the website for the quality it offers.
Here are some areas to consider.
1. Watch the website to see how many changes can be
seen. Does it have a forum? Is it active and on topic?
Does it have a blog being used and commented on?
2. Learn the history of the website, if possible.
3. Find out what back links the website has just by looking
around.
4. Is the website's design structure working for it? Don't
be too critical, just be observant. While it may not be
what you consider to be the right way, it is still may be
working.
5. Look at keywords and search engine optimization. From
your experience, is this website optimized well? Could it
get more traffic if the website was improved in this
way?
The more information you have on the website, the better off
you will be when you talk to the website's owner. Most
websites have some form of contact information on them
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which you can use. If this is not the case, you can look at the
WhoIs.com website where all website information is available.
As you contact the owner, keep two things in mind. Websites
that are just hobbies for the owner are likely to be an easier
sell. Websites that are businesses will take more of a fight,
more negotiation and definitely more cost. Be prepared for
what the owner tells you. It's often a good thing to approach
an owner with just a bit of praise and ask questions just to
get an idea of the owner's willingness to sell.
Prior to making a purchase, you do need to consider the
website's actual facts and details. This includes knowing the
websites:
Statistics
Costs of running it
Revenues the owner is receiving
Information on the website otherwise
Problems with the website
Some of this information the website owner may not be
happy to provide to you. Still, it is crucial in determining the
value of the website. The best way to get this information is
to actually be willing to talk to the website owner as a friend,
someone that wants to do better for the website. Don't be
pushy or over the top in your recommendations.
Once you have gotten them interested in buying from you,
remember that there are several things that need to be taken
into consideration here.
WHAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN
Now that you have the website's owner on board, how does
the transaction happen?
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1. Agree on a price after through negotiation and time
spent researching the value.
2. First, transfer the website's domain name to your own.
This will also include changing the business name and
incorporation information if needed.
3. Transfer the hosting into your name as well.
4. If the website uses any type of software that is in
addition to the above, that software also must be
changed into your name, otherwise you will not be able
to use it. To change this information simply contact the
company and make the request. Generally, both parties
will be involved.
5. Use a contract for the sale of the property (just like you
would in real estate) which outlines the transaction in
detail. For larger websites and more hefty purchases,
use an attorney to help here. You need all involved in
the website to sign the contract. It should include any
and all information on the website and a clause that
ceases the previous owner from accessing the site.
Additionally, most contracts also include a portion
designed to insure the owner does not start a new
website that's competition right away.
6. Gather the information on email lists the website has.
You need to download these and keep them in your
hands throughout the transaction. You don't want
anything to be forgotten and the email lists are perhaps
the most important element for sales growth!
7. If the website has editors, programmers or others
working on it, gather contact information and make
arrangements to fit your current program.
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8. Follow up on everything. Don't count on the website
owner to make any changes promised or to follow
through on their end.
The purchase of a website is a complex process, one requiring
a great deal of time and effort. By taking the time to work
through the process, you'll strengthen your ability to make it
the most profitable transaction possible.
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7 Building Websites From Scratch In the next chapter, we'll outline some steps for creating your
own websites to flip or to develop and hold on to. The steps
are the same throughout. Additionally, you want to insure
that the information provided here is something you consider
for a website you may purchase to improve. By optimizing the
website, you can make a larger profit from it when you sell it.
DOMAIN NAMES: CHOOSING
As you consider the first part of your business, creating a
domain name, you need to focus on key factors that help to
make it successful.
The domain name is the website property's address, a key
important tool to getting people to visit it. Here are some
things to consider when choosing the most effective domain
name for your business.
Short and simple is best: Go for just one to two words
in length. If you need to choose one that's three words
in length, this is okay, too so long as it is a concise,
easy to remember phrase.
Look for the domain name to contain some keyword
having to do with your niche. This gives you the best
opportunity for optimization right from the start.
For resell value, look for a domain name that has
multiple meanings. This may make it more valuable
when the time comes to sell it.
Consider spellings carefully. Choose a domain name not
misspelled easily since website parking owners are
going to seize these up quickly in hopes of banking from
your traffic's misspellings.
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Once you have a few ideas, you can start working on it
through the domain name registrar. You can use services like
GoDaddy.com, Namecheap.com or Name.com, for example.
HOSTING THE WEBSITE
Now that you've selected the proper domain name, think
about hosting the website. A hosting provider has the ability
to keep your website up and running. You are purchasing part
of their massive computer system that's able to house all of
the data you require it to have.
Look for a hosting provider offering a low cost and reseller
hosting plans. This gives you the ability to offer customers a
hosting through you, which simply means you are referring
them to the hosting service you have (and earning something
for doing so.) Good options include HostGator.com and
Asmallorange.com.
Hosting the website is important, of course, but you need to
take into consideration the actual costs. You don’t need to
have a lot of cost in most situations, but you do need
reliability.
INITIAL CONTENT
As you get your website up and running, you'll need to put
content into it. This is not always the easiest process right
from the start, especially if you aren't a writer. Here are some
options to take into consideration.
PLR Content:
This is cheap content that you can often get through
various sources. As the buyer of it, you can edit it or
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change it as you see necessary. You can also claim
ownership of it. Keep in mind that unique content is
important!
Resell Content:
Here, you can purchase the content and keep it the
same. You can't modify it. You can't resell the content
either.
Hire a Professional:
You can find good quality, unique content from a variety
of writers to use on the site. Since part of good search
engine ranking is unique content, this will help you in
that regard. It also gives you content that is your
copyright: you use it as you see fit.
Once you have these elements in place, you can further
optimize your website to get better ranking. You may be
planning to resell it or hold on to it. The goal here is again the
same: make it the most profitable it can be so it makes you a
larger profit.
WHAT TO AVOID
We’ve talked briefly about avoiding any celebrity names that
might be construed as a trademark infringement. There is
now legislation to protect trademark and service mark owners
from a practice called “cybersquatting.” Cybersquatting is
when a person decides to try to appropriate a domain name
that they are using in “bad faith” to profit from later.
The Federal Law is called The AntiCyberSquatting Consumer
Protection Act (ACPA) and is also known as the Truth in
Domain Names Act. It was passed in 2003. It is now being
used to get judgments against domainers who have
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appropriated names to either ransom to the original owner or
profit from despite having no rights to the name. In order for
a domain name to fall under this act, it has to be “identical or
confusingly similar” to some other trademark or service mark
already copyrighted, it has to be a famous or distinctive
mark, and the buyer intended to profit from the domain
name.
Another form of trademark violation is the typosquatter. In
this case, the domain name may be very similar to another
trademark or service mark name except for a misspelling.
Both the cybersquatter and typosquatters are being taken to
court and judgements are being levied against them.
SOME COURT CASES
If you think that people don’t mean serious business, when
they are protecting their trademarks, you would be wrong.
Take the case of John Zuccarini who reportedly held 5500
domain names when he was first arrested. His mistake was
not in domaining, but in taking popular and famous brand
names like Cartoon Network and Hot Wheels and then
registering typosquats of those domains. To add insult, he
then redirected all the people who landed on his sites to
pornographic websites.
The ACPA was a direct result of this man’s efforts and
included a clause that made it illegal to use squatted domain
name for the expressed purpose of deceiving people into
viewing obscene materials. He went to prison for 2 ½ years
and was released in 2005. In addition, his actions falls under
a civil suit that has him requiring to pay back many hundreds
of thousands of dollars, plus attorney’s fees, to the people
who have been harmed by his activities. He was the first
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person to be prosecuted under the ACPA, but he won’t be the
last.
Other court cases center on a celebrity, like Julia Roberts. She
sued the owner, Russell Boyd, after he placed the domain
name up for sale, even though the site was dedicated as a fan
site. While Julia did get rights to the domain name, it opened
a can of worms, as other people may own private names as
domain names that aren’t necessarily famous until later. Boyd
was ordered to transfer the name to Julia Roberts, but no
monies or jail time was awarded. Right now, there are people
holding domain names that might be construed as trademark
infringement but that doesn’t mean they’ll necessarily be
sued for holding it.
WHO OWNS THAT DOMAIN NAME?
If you want to know who owns the name as it is registered,
all you have to do is do a Whois search at whois.net. If you
have any doubts whether a name you are considering is a
trademark infringement, there are ways to check to see what
trademarks are out there. It is up to the registrant to make
sure they don’t infringe on a trademark rather than the other
way around. It’s far too late to figure it out after you’ve
registered the domain name and built up the site. By then,
the loss won’t just be the price you paid for the domain name,
but all the associated traffic and sales that are being attracted
by that domain name too.
So, in point of fact, the owner of a trademark owns the
domain names that are exact or confusingly similar to his
own. It doesn’t matter if you registered it. They can send a
complaint and request that you give it up. At the very least,
you may end up in court and have to pay attorney’s fees to
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keep the domain name. There is no guarantee they will let
you either. There are companies and online services that can
help you figure out if there is a trademark out there exact or
confusingly similar to a domain name that you want to
register. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office offers online
search capabilities located at:
http://www.uspto.gov/main/trademarks.htm
If after searching, you think you are safe, you can also make
sure to keep your domain name by registering it with the
Patent and Trademark office as your own trademark. That will
keep others from cyber squatting on your domain names too.
UNINTENTIONAL CYBERSQUATTING
For the most part, you’re not going to go to jail for cyber-
squatting on someone’s domain unless you do something
stupid like sending him or her to pornographic sites. You may
be asked to relinquish the domain name and it can totally
wreck your business plans. However, the plaintiff has to prove
that you squatted on their trademark in “bad faith.” If the
only reason you ended up with something like their domain
name is that your last name was the same and you wanted
that as a business name, they’ll have difficulty proving you
did it in “bad faith.” But, that won’t keep a court from sending
a judgment to transfer the domain name to some other party.
The laws for cyber-squatting are very new and every day
there is some new twist to the cases coming to court.
Domainers do have be more cautious, but businesses and
celebrities are becoming savvier about domain names.
Recently, when Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt had their baby,
their attorney registered multiple names that were derivatives
of Shiloh, their baby’s name. Many people are finding it is far
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cheaper and easier to register and reserve their own domain
names rather than having to face a costly court battle later.
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8
Selling Your Domain and Website You have done it all: You have selected the right domain
name. You have chosen a niche for the website. You have
built a website that has a good amount of search engine
optimization. You have gotten the website making money and
it is indexed. It has a search engine ranking. Now, think
about how you will sell it.
Website investing is nearly always the process of choosing a
website property to build and then finding a seller who wants
to take over and start earning a profit from your hard work.
People do not like to build their own websites for several
reasons. First, they have to do all the work, which often
entails spending a good deal of time with HTML, research and
design. Second, people do not like to wait for results. It could
take several weeks to months before the website starts
showing any profit at all.
Therefore, it becomes important for your website investing
career to develop good quality websites and then sell them,
for a profit.
WHERE TO SELL YOUR SITE
Now that you know you should be selling your website, after
it has made your some money and is a priced possession that
someone else will want, you have to determine where to sell
it. A good place to start is with eBay. You may know of eBay
as the place where people go to buy and sell their unwanted
junk, but it is a fantastic location for those looking to sell
websites.
EBay offers a special category for those who are selling their
websites. You can also get a decent idea of what people are
looking for by using these websites. Since eBay is an auction
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website, a well created ad and good demand can drive the
price up substantially. You could find yourself making a
sizable amount of money from the auction and winding up
with a solid profit in your pocket.
There are plenty of mistakes that can be made when selling a
website on eBay. By minimizing the risks of making these
mistakes you will actually increase the amount you can get
for your website and therefore profit from the investment
substantially more.
GETTING THE MOST OUT OF EBAY
In order to do well when selling your website on eBay, you
need to keep in mind a few important steps. The following are
some of the most important things you can do to get a larger
return on your profit. Even if you are new to eBay, you can
still see an improved amount of sale profit by following a
proven method for selling there.
The first thing to do is to do some research. Find out what
other websites are going for and know how the ads are set
up. This is the first clue on how you will greatly improve the
success of your eBay auction!
BE SOMEBODY
It sounds simple, but put yourself in the place of someone
making a purchase on eBay. If this is the first sale you will
make, people want to know they can trust you. EBay's rating
system is the key element in knowing if a seller is trustworthy
and virtually everyone uses it on a regular basis to check out
the buyer.
As you start to sell on eBay, keep in mind that impressing
your clients is very important. You want them to leave you
good feedback as this will provide the next client with even
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more encouragement to purchase from you. High satisfaction
really does make a difference.
Work towards becoming an eBay Power seller. This requires
meeting specific sales goals and also maintaining a feedback
score of at least 98 percent on going. The good news is that it
helps you to get more discounts on the fees you pay to list
items on eBay. You also get some additions to the services
and features you have available to you.
SELLING THE CORRECT CATEGORY
You can sell your website in several categories listed on eBay.
It is important to choose the one that gives the most
description about your product. The main category, at this
writing, is called, "Businesses for sale." Then, navigate to the
"Internet Businesses and Websites" section specifically.
Not only do you want to invest in finding the right category to
post your information, but also to find other website ads to
compare your own to. Nearly all of those who invest in using
eBay as a sales tool realize the importance of researching
past sales and current sales within their area.
TEMPLATE IT
A good tool to have is a template. You can find these
throughout the web, including at Auctiva.com. A template can
help your website to stand out and allows your business to
look more professional. You need to download the template
and modify it to include all the information about the website.
The worst thing you can do when selling the website is to add
a few lines to a generic eBay ad and call it done. You will
need much more than this to really perfect the quality of the
ad and therefore get higher sales.
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WRITE GREAT TITLES AND ADDING KILLER CONTENT
Throughout the ad that you create, you need to make sure
that your website is selling itself. Start with the title of the ad.
You want to b sure that it is something that grabs the
attention of the casual browser and makes them think, "Hey,
this is the kind of thing I need." If you just use a sentence
like "Website for sale" you will get very merger bids. On the
other hand, if you use "Well established business website for
sale" this sounds much more professional. Which would you
rather buy from?
In addition to the title, you also have to word the actual
content of the website around the goals of the would-be
buyer. For example, you need to speak to them where they
are most likely to be hit the most: their dreams and goals.
Often, it is said that you have to speak to the greed or the
emotions of the buyer in order to convince them to buy.
Appeal to their emotions through your wording. Show them
that this is a website that will make them money. Making sure
to stress that the website is a good investment is important,
but you do not want to sound unrealistic either. Whenever a
person thinks they are getting a good deal, they are likely to
be more interested in it.
You should show throughout your description what the
website's potential is. How much is the website making for
you? What have you done to insure that it is profitable? What
are the likely monthly sales for the website going forward?
By doing this, you create enough interest in the website that
people are going to know it is the right decision for them to
buy. You want to appeal to their senses and let them know
why what you are saying is going to benefit them.
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PICTURES MATTER
As you create a website, keep in mind that you also need to
showcase a few pictures of your website in your eBay auction.
In order to know what they are getting, they need to see a
visual picture of it. A good way to do this is through the use
of screenshots. Screenshot software is readily available to
help you make great images on the ads.
Here are some tips to help you with this:
Take screen shots of the most profitable pages of your
website.
Get an evaluation of some third party person of the
website and use a screenshot of it.
Show the layout, design or anything else that shows the
profitability of the website.
Take a screenshot of the Google Keyword Tool for the
search terms your website has been optimized for.
Take a screenshot of the Google Adsense earnings for
the month to show that you have been making the
funds you are claiming (clean up the personal
information on these pages.)
PRICING A WEBSITE TO SELL
Now that you have the website ad on your eBay listing, how
do you know what the right price for the website will be? The
good news is that this is an auction which means you do not
have to have a firm, one price fits all strategy. Even if you
want the website to sell for hundreds of dollars, you don't
want to price the big so high that no one makes the all
important first bid. Start pricing low, even as low as $9.99.
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With eBay, you are able to set a reserve for the website's
sale, so you do not have to sell for too low. This can help you
to set a low limit to the bidding. If the bids end up lower than
the amount that you have as your reserve, the auction ends
with no sale, even if there are many bids for the website.
Setting a reserve helps you to protect the investment you are
making.
In addition to this, you can also use eBay's "Buy It Now"
feature. This allows you to set a price that's firm. If someone
comes along and sees that ad and really wants to buy it, they
can buy it from you at the price you have set it form.
Generally, the price for this should be marked at a level that
is slightly higher than what you would expect to pay for your
website.
The selling of a website on eBay can be one of the easiest
methods you have for turning a profit with the company.
Don't forget just how valuable this can be.
If you are flipping your domain, there are many places
already listed in Chapter 6 under flipping. You can go with an
auction house like eBay or use Sedo.com. In this chapter,
we’re not so much interested in flipping as in figuring out how
to evaluate the worth of a site that has been developed and
then selling it. If you buy a domain, it’s a fairly simple matter
to turn around and just list the name with a provocative or
interesting picture. If you are selling a website, now you have
some leverage to decide what the site might actually be worth
using the five characteristics we talked about in Chapter 6
under site development. To remind you, they were:
PageRank
The Google score that influences placement in search
engines. The score is from 1 to 10, with 10 being the best
score.
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Content
A site with unique content is worth more than one that is just
serving up garbage or duplicate content.
One-way inbound links
The number of links to your site can impact the value since
they are a way of determining your site’s popularity and
worth. It’s not just a matter of how many inbound links you
have, but also of the quality of the person linking to you.
Marketable Niche
You will want to be in on a marketing niche that will
appreciate. Selling clothing pins may make you feel light-
headed, but wrack up a big zero in sales.
Site revenue
When a buyer asks about buying a site, they’re interested in
how much revenue it generates each month. If you have no
revenue to speak of, it won’t be as interesting to your buyer
unless they really want the domain name for something.
We’ll also add to this list the following:
Age of site
The older sites tend to be more valuable, but that’s not
always the case.
Established Traffic
Alexa is the place that keeps track of traffic, but it’s a bit
misleading. The person visiting would have to have the Alexa
toolbar downloaded for their visit to count. That’s why unique
site visitors and pages from your own statistics might be
more relevant.
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ONLINE CALCULATORS
There are a variety of online tools that will give you a value
for your website by plugging in your domain name and some
site statistics. They weight monthly revenue a lot and this has
a huge impact on the value of your website.
Take a look at this calculator at glurk.com/index.php. It gives
you a good idea of what variables some people use to
determine the site’s worth. Here they use the length of the
domain name and the number of words. If you stick to the
advice we gave out before in choosing domain names, you
will already know how to pick good domain names that give
you better value when you go to sell. Then, they also want to
determine your PageRank. A PageRank of 4 or above makes it
more viable to sell. It can take several months to generate a
good PageRank with Google and they do penalize sites that
have duplicate content or link farms on them. So, don’t
expect to get a good PageRank simply because you parked a
page there. The algorithms that Google uses have become
quite a bit more sophisticated over time.
They are interested in the incoming links (inbound) and the
monthly number of unique visitors and pages accessed. The
site revenue is also key to determining how much they
evaluate your site is worth. There are a few more variables
there like Alexa Traffic rank and years the website has been
in existence. In addition, the more unique you make your site
through content or offerings, the less competitors you have
and the higher your website is worth. However, now you have
a good idea how these things impact the value of a website
that has been developed.
Some online calculators aren’t as sophisticated and will just
ask you to plug in your domain name. That’s really not
sufficient to figure out what your site is worth and can be
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very misleading if they aren’t looking at the site revenue.
However, it can be a start. For instance, dnscoop.com can
give you a good basic number before it really figures out the
uniqueness of the site or what kind of revenues you are
making.
MARKET ANALYSIS
Okay, so now we have one number. You will find that this
isn’t automatically what your site is worth. It just helps you
define why your site is worth a particular number, but not
justify the actual value. You may remember that we talked
about domain names being very similar to real estate. When
someone goes to sell a house, the first thing that is done is a
market analysis of the value of the home. They do this by
finding comparable homes on the market with the same or
similar statistics and then comparing your home to them.
From this smart market evaluation, you get a good idea of
what your property is worth.
Whereas real estate people need a license and access to the
Multiple Listing Service (MLS), domainers just hop online to
find comparable sales. You can get information on what
domains sold that are near in name to your own domain most
recently at the following URL address at dnsaleprice.com:
http://dnsaleprice.com/SalePrice.aspx
They not only tell you how much it sold for, but what venue
sold it too. You will see the same information that we talked
about with Sedo.com, DNJournal, Afternic, Moniker, and
TDNAM being popular places to sell domain names
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This search tool is so handy for a very quick market analysis
that you can even limit the search to the Top Level Domain
(TLD) you are using. If you have registered a .com name,
then search the names in that neighborhood. You won’t get
the same value from different TLDs, so always make sure you
set that up correctly.
SETTING UP SHOP
Okay, so now you have a bunch of domain names and
websites, you have a fairly good idea of what you might sell
them for and you know what benefits they offer your buyer.
Well, now you have to either list them as simple domain
name sales or you have to find a place to sell the entire
website. It would be nice if you could just put a sign outside
your door so any relevant traffic that went by and saw your
domain might contact you, right? You sure can do that!
Remember how you could look up who owns a particular
domain name through whois.net? Well, if you own the domain
name you can add some information in the contacts area to
show that your domain name is for sale. This way, when
someone else looks up a domain you hold, they see that you
are interested in selling it.
AVERAGE PRICE POINTS
Okay, so now you probably have a low and a high figure for
what your domain might be worth. After taking into account
all the variables and seeing what other comparable domain
names are selling for, you have to decide what you are willing
to sell your domain name for. If you are including content and
other appreciating assets, then you need to include that in
your estimate.
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As a seller, you may feel some attachment to your domain
names. This rarely works for you as this should be a business,
and not an emotional love affair. Yes, some names are worth
keeping after you’ve developed them and they only
appreciate in value, but your domain name is only worth what
it sells for, and not what you think it’s worth. So, you have to
find the happy medium between what you think it’s worth and
what you think a buyer is willing to pay. The buyer won’t have
any attachment to the domain name and will most likely see
it as a product. If you do get an emotional buyer who simply
has to have your domain name, obviously the price should go
up, not down.
SELLING THROUGH ONLINE FORUMS
Webmasters tend to congregate in online forums.
Sitepoint.com and Forums.DigitalPoint.com offer market
places for people who want to see websites, as well as
domain names or links. Here you can go in and see how other
people evaluate the worth of their sites and how much might
be a good starting bid.
Forums.DigitalPoint.com is set up like a bulletin board but you
can set up an auction within the posts. They do have a great
article that indicates how to sell a website in their forum at:
http://forums.digitalpoint.com
People on this site are not only interested in PageRank, but
also want some income statistics too. What’s nice about
DigitalPoint is that it has an iTrader score for everyone that is
selling on the site. While this isn’t fallible, it’s a good
indication if you are dealing with someone who is reputable or
not. It is very similar to the eBay buyer feedback ratings. To
join the Digital Point forum is free, but you have to be an
active participant to get some of the perks.
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You have to have been a member for at least 14 days and
posted at least 25 posts and not be in the red to use the Buy,
Sell or Trade forum. This keeps the community active and
helps to keep spammers out. So, if you are thinking of using
this forum, you need to sign up ahead of time and start
contributing to the forum with posts. They do have ad
revenue sharing for your posts, but you have to have
contributed at least 50 posts to do that. And, of course, you
have to have your own Google account.
They do advise on getting the monthly revenues in the most
recent months and multiplying it by a factor of 12 to get a
reasonable selling price. The forum is free to join and a great
way to find out how other people are selling full sites. You can
also just sell your domain name there too.
ABOUT GETTING PAID
After the auction ends and the sale is closed, you still have to
collect your money before you transfer the website or domain
name. Many people use PayPal to facilitate online payments.
It is a very good system that can allow you to quickly verify if
payment has been made. The really nice thing about PayPal is
that it can convert monies into other currencies. So, if you
have a foreign buyer then can still pay you in dollars, which is
the denomination of currency that SitePoint lists all its prices
in.
If your site is selling for thousands, you probably want to look
for a reputable escrow service, like escrow.com. This
intermediary service is so that there is no funny business
when the transaction takes place. You won’t want to hand
over your baby to someone who ends up cheating you, and
likewise, the buyer doesn’t want to pay for something they
don’t receive. So, in comes an escrow service. The money is
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sent to them, they hold it until the buyer receives the goods
or services and then releases it when the buyer confirms
receipt.
There are fraudulent escrow services just like there are con
artists who play shell games. You have to try and pick one
that is reputable. Sitepoint.com recommends escrow.com.
The last way you can get paid is good, old-fashioned money
orders and/or checks. If you want to have money wired, you
can do that too. Realize that wiring money, Paypal, and
escrow services are going to cost you fees. You won’t get the
full amount once the transaction is done. As always, try to
verify the person you are dealing with and see if they have
references or a good buyer profile.
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9
Transferring Domain Names
If you are just flipping a domain name, then the transfer can be as
easy or as difficult as your domain registrar makes it. It used to be
that you had to get a notarized document that was reviewed and
signed by both parties to the registrar to change the domain name.
If that is the only way your registrar allows you to change the
domain name, then you have some document handling to do before
you can actual transfer the domain name. However, there are other
ways to do this.
UNLOCKING A DOMAIN
For security purposes, many domain names are locked to keep
unauthorized transfer from happening. You will have to go into your
account manager and see if your domain happens to have a lock or
an active status. Once you find that area, if it is locked, you will
have to unlock it before you can attempt to transfer the domain to
another person. There is usually a check mark or an option that
you can select to unlock the domain.
TRANSFERRING TO ANOTHER DOMAIN REGISTRAR
If you are changing the registrar from one company to another,
you can often authorize a domain name transfer by having the
either the buyer or the seller set up the new DNS information and
request a domain name transfer while also changing the ownership
information at the same time. Then, email notifies the owner of the
domain name that there is a transfer request, which he or she must
authorize. When the authentication goes through, the domain name
is transferred. Other times it can be done online from an account
manager screen.
Your buyer should let you know the DNS server information that
you need to use to transfer the domain name, if you are changing
from one hosting service to another. If not, you can always go to
the hosting service and look it up in their FAQ. One of the biggest
ways for them to make money is to transfer domain names in, so
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of course, it’s the question they want to answer the most from new
owners.
You do want to be careful if you are transferring the domain name
from one host to another. There may be services or email and such
that can be interrupted. The entire process can take about 24 to 36
hours to propagate throughout the entire Internet. You can keep
the registrar as the previous host, but the domain name rights go
to the new owner.
TRANSFERRING DOMAIN WITHIN THE SAME REGISTRAR
The safest way to transfer your domain name and website is to
transfer to another buyer account that uses the same host. So, if
whether you are using GoDaddy, Parked, or Sedo, you will want to
specify in your sales advertisement where it is easiest to transfer
the domain. You can even specify that only buyers with a GoDaddy,
Parked, or Sedo account make bids as this can make the transfer
much quicker and quite seamless.
Depending on which host you are using, you can find out the rules
they have for transferring an account within their own host. You will
find it typically is just a matter of going to an online screen within
your account manager and transferring the domain with a few
clicks. It’s a very simple process to do within the same companies
hosting services, although the services might shift a bit depending
on the package that is chosen to transfer with the domain name.
SELLING CONTENT A WITH DOMAIN
Transferring an entire website with content, is a bit more difficult.
You may have to transfer the website to another host (depending
on if your buyer wants to do that). In that case, you will have to
download the website and zip it into some archive file that they can
unzip onto a new host. If you have scripts or programs that run on
a particular configuration of server than the buyer will have to also
use the same configuration. They will have to FTP up the site
contents and see what’s working and not working.
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If your buyer wants you to transfer affiliate programs they should
set up their own account and put in their own affiliate tracking ID.
However, if that’s not possible, you might want to notify the
affiliate program owner that the ownership has changed, and
change the account details that way. Remember that revenue
producing websites may contain a lot of your own financially
sensitive information. Be careful what you transfer over and get rid
of any information that might include social security numbers or
personal contact numbers.
If you are leaving the website at the same hosting company, you
will have to send the buyer the login information for control panel
that issues the statistics for the site and manages emails and
databases. You should change out the password to something
generic and ask the new buyer to change the password when they
first log in. This will keep you from being liable for anything that
changes after the transfer has been made.
Don’t rely on information from the buyer that they will be
responsible for changing the hosting account to their name. Contact
the host company and explain that you sold the domain and that
they want to continue hosting and you need to change the name on
the accounts. They will tell you how to do that so that there is no
mix-up later and you are asked to pay for months of hosting on a
domain you already sold.
TRANSFERRING REGISTRARS
This is a different process than transferring a domain name. You
can transfer the ownership of a domain name, but still hold the
registrar as a separate company. The registrars are the people
involved in taking care to register your domain name annually,
billing you, or canceling it when it’s time to do so. They don’t own
the domain name, they just register it. Most companies that host
the domain name are also the registrar of the domain name.
However, if you find that you have multiple hosting companies and
it’s becoming difficult to keep track of the paperwork, you might
want to consolidate your registrations under one company. Another
reason might be that the new owner wants the registrar to be the
same as the hosting company, so they may request that you also
change the registrar for the domain name. This is an easy enough
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process that the new hosting company can take care of while
you’re changing the host of the domain name. After all, they will
want to be the domain name registrar as well as the host. They
may not charge to transfer the domain registrar rights but they
may ask you to pay for an additional year of registration to solidify
their relationship with you.
Finally, there are some basic requirements you must meet to be
able to transfer to another registrar. The domain name has to be
older than 60 days. You can’t have any outstanding bills due. So, if
you just parked a page and then turned around and flipped the
domain, you will want to look for a buyer that has an account on
the same hosting service that you are on. Otherwise, they may get
the domain name transferred, but they will have to wait to get the
registrar transferred.
KEEPING TRACK OF THE COST
Transferring a domain name should be free, however, there
are some places that put transfer fees in the fine print. This
might be if you are transferring out of their domain hosting
service or just because they’re trying to make a fast buck.
Either way, you should check the term of your agreements to
see if there is a charge for transferring your domain name out
of their host server. Hopefully, you won’t end up finding out
that you can’t transfer without having massive fees tacked
on. There are some unscrupulous companies that are even
charging two or three times the original registration fee to
transfer a domain out. Obviously, not cool.
Some exceptions to the above scenarios are top level
domains from foreign countries. As we discussed earlier,
every country has their own set of rules as to who can
register a domain name. Some require residency and others
do not. In addition, the pricing is different and in different
currencies. Many of the foreign country names may still be
relying on the fax document procedure to actually change the
domain name ownership. In addition, they may also require
proof that the new owner meets the terms of the original
ownership registration requirements. You can usually expect
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to pay a transfer fee too, unlike the .com, .net, and .org top
level domain names.
IT'S NOT AS HARD AS YOU THINK
As you can see the process is really not very hard. About the
hardest element is figuring out what the new DNS server
settings are and typing that in. You don’t have to be a
technical wizard to transfer a domain name and it generally is
not too lengthy a process. That may vary from one domain
host to another. Network Solutions claim they take up to
seven days to transfer a domain even within their own
network. So, it really does vary from one company to
another.
Not all transfers will be smooth. You may end up typing the
wrong server information. You may not fulfill all the
requirements necessary to transfer the domain or the
registrar. However, you can always contact customer support
from your host and ask them what might be the problem. You
shouldn’t just assume that once you type everything in that
everything is working okay. You should check your email for
any messages that the registration did not go through, for
whatever reason, and try to verify the settings with your
buyer and the hosting company.
The most problems can happen when you are 1) Transferring
out of your domain host completely to another host or, 2) You
are including content, scripts, images, revenue programs, in
the sale of your domain too. If you can keep the domain
name sale simple, that’s the best option for reducing
problems. You can request that the buyers have an account
that allow you to push the domain name within the same host
service without the possibility of interrupting email or other
tied in services.
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While problems can and do occur, the majority of your
transfers will be seamless and easy. So, don’t let a few DNS
server names intimidate you. They are just settings that you
need to get right and you don’t even have to understand what
they mean or how they work to get the transfer completed.
Pretty soon you will be so quick at this that you might even
attempt to sell multiple domain names at one shot, increasing
the volume of your business exponentially. Then, you might
find there are tools available for bulk transfers that make
even that process incredibly simple.
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10
Putting It All Together Website investing can be one of the most lucrative methods
for the Internet Marketer. Remember that if you sell a website
at $400, and have put into that website a few hours of work
and some minimal investing in hosting the website and the
domain name, you are making a profit. But, it is not just one
$400 transaction you are after. In fact, it is a continuous
cycle you are looking for.
You can and should be investing in websites like this over and
over again. You can have five, ten or more websites going at
one time, each building value as they age and therefore
becoming more profitable with each day. Selling them
becomes a process which feeds continuous profit to your web
business.
The three methods of building a website investing business
include:
Website parking:
Simple, low investment and with good keywords, a
decent profit.
Website flipping:
Great opportunity for the marketer to make a decent
amount of money quickly, especially when he knows
how to get a website set up and moving fast.
Website developing:
Long or short term, develop a website that offers you a
profit as it grows. Down the road, you may want to sell
it, or you may want to keep it and profit from the long
term benefits it has to offer to you.
Key points to remember when it comes to website investing
include these:
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1. The key here is to get investing. Website investing is
something you learn by doing, too. Don't spend too
much time learning, just jump in.
2. Keep connected with forums, blogs and services out
there on the latest strategies. You can learn a lot from
just networking with other professionals.
3. Always monitor the competition. What are they doing
that is working that you are not doing yet? Should you
be?
4. Notice your mistakes and correct them. This will give
you the best long term benefit because it will allow you
to learn quickly what works and what does not.
5. Realize that your profit potential with website investing
is limitless. There is no telling how many websites you
can flip in a year or how much you will earn from the
site you are holding on to.
Developing a website business is one of the best ways to
grow your overall abilities, too. You can often do this process
in your spare time, without actually having to invest too much
of your time in your business as it is. The good news: you'll
make a good profit even working in your spare time with
website investing.
So, ask yourself. Is website investing the right type of
investing for you? Could it be part of your web business?
There's no end in sight for this type of business, therefore the
profits can be long term.
By now you have a very clear idea of how to go about getting
your own domain name business going. The investment to
start is not prohibitive, as it is in other types of businesses.
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The return on the investment can be quite large. Another
aspect of the business that can make it attractive is that it
can be done from the privacy of your own home. There’s no
need to get up and go somewhere to buy, sell, or develop a
site. As long as you have the right type of home office, you
can easily do plenty of sales in your own home.
So, now we come to the prospect of not just doing a sale here
and there, but actually making this a business. The way to
make money in domain name sales is through volume. So, we
are going to talk a little about some of the support you might
need to start a volume domain name sales business and how
to run it so that it becomes a profitable part of your life.
WORKING AT HOME
This is very important for any home business. You should
think of this activity as a business, not as a hobby. The goal is
to make so much money you have to quit your day job.
Wouldn’t that be terrible? Not! So, despite the fact that you
can do this all online and anywhere you choose, you want to
set up some boundaries in your home to separate your work
space from your living space. Trust us, this will come in handy
when you’re endeavoring to make the killing in the last few
minutes of a hot auction for a domain name and your home
life begins to intrude. This is a business, treat it like one.
For a home office, it’s best if you have a clear boundary like a
separate room. When you are in your home office, your
family should know not to disturb you because you are
working. This includes taking calls or running errands while
you are trying to work.
Your office should have a computer with a highspeed
connection to the Internet. You should have a dedicated
phone so that you can deduct phone business expenses at the
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end of the year for all the networking, sales, or issues that
you resolved related to your domain name business. You
should have a comfortable working area. Buy an old-fashion
rolodex, you will need it. You want to use it for all the
username and passwords you will need to keep track of as
you do your business online. Just put the URL address at the
top, and file them alphabetically according the domain name.
Add the username and password and any extra information
on the card before re-inserting it into the rolodex. This goes
for all your email addresses too.
You will need to sign up for multiple commerce sites. You will
need a PayPal account. You will want an eBay account. You
may want to set up accounts with escrow services. You might
need to sign up to affiliate accounts. You may have multiple
hosts for your domain name. You may have multiple
registrars. Each one of these may have different email
addresses, usernames, and passwords. In order to do
business online, you want to have the information at your
fingertips and not online in an electronic file where it can
disappear one day or be hijacked by a hacker.
STAYING ON SCHEDULE
Working at home requires that you be self-motivated. If you
have a daytime full-time job then you probably will have to
schedule your home business working hours on the weekend
or after hours. If you work only part-time, you will have a
greater degree of flexibility to fix your work into day hours. If
you know that you work best between 10 PM and midnight,
don’t think you have to only work day hours. Many people
who work at home find that they are night owls and
appreciate the fact that the house is quiet during these hours.
It can be very productive to set a schedule that makes it easy
to concentrate on your side business.
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RECORD KEEPING
Accounting is part of being your own boss. You will have to
pay taxes on your profits. Don’t think that because the
business is online that no one is watching over your shoulder.
You don’t want to make a ton of money and yet end up in
prison. So, it’s up to you to track how much money you
make, what expenses you paid to run the business, and to fill
out the appropriate forms.
As a business owner, you will undoubtedly have to file
quarterly taxes. This can be a whole new learning experience.
You should keep track of your expenses and income on a
spreadsheet and use separate bank accounts than your
personal accounts to differentiate income that comes from
other pursuits, like a regular job or hobby.
If you start to get very profitable, you can hire an accountant
to help you keep track of everything and file the appropriate
tax forms on time. However, you want to know what is
involved and be able to review the filed forms because
ultimately you are the one responsible for them.
GETTING LEGAL
The domain name area can be full of people suing each other.
However, if you stick to the rules we suggested, you should
have very little problem. If you feel you need representation,
don’t wait until the last minute to find a relationship with a
good trademark lawyer or someone who understands domain
names. There are many programs that allow you to prepay to
get legal advice when you need it for a small monthly sum.
One such program is Prepaid Legal, and you can check to see
if they have someone available who can help in a trademark
dispute before you actually need them.
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SOCIAL NETWORKING
A business is a learning process. You will want to start
networking in the forums and with other professionals who
can support you in your ability to establish a solid business.
There are even people willing now to offer financing for
people who want to buy and sell domain names, just like we
have banks who want to help people with mortgages.
Besides an accountant, a tax professional, and a lawyer, you
may decide to look up successful people in the domain name
business. By understanding how they made their money and
how some lost big time, you can start to fine tune your
chances without having to make the same mistakes.
GETTING TECHNICAL
Eventually, you will have to contact technical support from
one person or another. This can take quite a bit of time. So,
try to find companies that offer you good customer service
support. Some options that will help you determine how fast
you can contact someone are the tools they make available to
their customers. Do they have a phone number you can call?
Do they have a web contact support form? What is their
estimated reply time? Can you log online and chat with
someone should you have problems with a particular issue?
PROTECT YOURSELF
Be sure to check the reputation of all the people you decide to
do business with. If you are doing an escrow service, in
particular, take the time to make sure they aren’t fraudulent.
It can save you thousands of dollars. All it takes is to check
the Better Business Bureau to see if they have any complaints
listed under their name.
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Other times, you won’t find them in the BBB, but by putting
their name in and words “fraud” or “scam” you can often
bring up some information that was hidden deep in the search
engine. Another good term to add after a name you a
checking is the word “complaints.” This little bit of extra
legwork is well worth it in some cases.
For buyers, you can ask for references from other domainers
who have worked with them. Often, their profile contains
information on how reputable the buyer is because it includes
feedback. Eventually, you will start to get a feel for when a
transaction doesn’t seem to be on the up and up. As always,
make sure you don’t give up the domain name before the
check has cleared.
USE THE TOOLS OF THE TRADE
Don’t try to do every transaction one at a time. There are
multiple tools and resources available to make your job
easier. Don’t be shy to try some tool that others are using
with great success. The little bit of time you spend learning a
new tool or forum can help you to build a volume business
faster. For instance, you may be able to create domain names
in bulk, download them to a text editor, and then upload the
entire file to your new hosting server. You can also find ways
to sell domain names in bulk and have only one Paypal
transaction for numerous names.
Once you start getting familiar with tools that create parked
pages or mini-websites with a few clicks, it will speed up the
development of your business and help you to generate
profits more easily. Online tools are your friend, use them. At
the end of this section, we’ve included a listing of the domain
names for many of the marketplaces and tools that you will
need as you start this journey. Be aware that more and better
tools become available every year as people begin to
understand the needs of people doing business on the
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Internet. So, keep an eye open for any tool that can make
your life easier and don’t be afraid to try it and see how it
works for you.
THIS IS SERIOUS BUSINESS!
While this is a serious business, don’t forget that it is optional
and should be fun! The more fun you have at learning the ins
and outs of an Internet business like domaining, the more
likely it is you will persist into the big money. Have fun
creating domain names out of thin air! Just doing your own
business has a way to bring new confidence and opportunities
into your life. Pat yourself on the back when you find a way to
shorten the cycle from domain name registration to the final
ka-ching of the cash register! You can be happy when you
realize that you are in control of your own destiny. Whatever
you learn here, you can take into any other online business
you decide to investigate later. So, even though there is some
work to do in learning the systems and tools, you can be
happy creating a sustainable source of wealth that should
evolve as the Internet evolves.
NOW GET TO WORK!
You’ve completed this ebook and now have enough
information to get started on your own. This will be a journey
of self-discovery as well as way to become financially
independent. There is always something to learn when you
own your own business, and this can’t be any more true for
domain names. This is a very young area that is evolving at a
very quick pace. What works one day may be replaced with a
whole new set of dynamics from big players like Google or
ICANN. Your best bet is to keep connected, keep your nose to
the grindstone, and be persistent.
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Once you make the first sale, you’ll be hooked! The domain
name sale business is by far one of the most profitable
ventures that can be embarked on during this time period
when all other investment vehicles are collapsing. What you
learn here, will only serve to position you to become highly
successful in further ventures as the Internet continues to
expand and grow, not just in the United States, but
worldwide. You can start with only .com domains in a
particular industry and then as you get more confident, you
can expand to include other TLDs, countries, or industries.
The Internet is really is an undiscovered country of wealth,
and you are the person who now has the tools to become a
worthy prospector of gold.
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Domain Name Resources
DOMAIN NAME MARKET PLACES (BUY/SELL/BOTH)
Flippa.com
Dynadot.com
GoDaddy.com
Afternic.com
Moniker.com
Snapnames.com
TDNAM.com
GreatDomains.com
Sedo.com
PARKING SERVICES
TrafficZ.com
NameDrive.com
Parked.com
WhyPark.com
ONLINE RESEARCH TOOLS FOR DOMAIN NAMES
DNJournal.com
Buzz.yahoo.com
Technorati.com
Pulse.ebay.com
Justdropped.com
Uspto.gov
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DOMAIN NAME FORUMS
Forums.digitalpoint.com
Sitepoint.com
ASSESSING WORTH
Glurk.com/index.php
Dnsaleprice.com
PAYMENT TOOLS
Paypal.com
Escrow.com
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Internet marketing resources
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