Here are ten things I’d do if I were just joining the domain name industry.
I’ve been in the domain industry for a decade, so I’m stuck with my legacy portfolio to build from. But if I were just entering the industry, here are 10 things I’d do:
1. Focus on quality, not quantity. It used to be everyone had a pissing contest about how many domains they owned. “You only have 5,000? Well I have 10,000”. But the guy or gal holding 1,000 domains may be better off than either of these people. Focus on quality domains that might be developed one day, rather than thousands of money losing domains.
2. Don’t doubt yourself. Many times I’ve passed on a domain name acquisition because I was afraid I was overpaying, only to see the domain sell for twice as much 6 months later.
3. Stay away from the message boards. OK, I say this somewhat in jest, but if you find yourself on the domain message boards 4 hours a day, ask yourself if there’s something better you could be doing with your time. Like developing domains.
4. Go to a domain conference. If you’re just starting out I wouldn’t go to all of the conferences, but I’d go to at least one a year. It’s not for the panels, but to meet other people, and make connections.
5. Optimize the important stuff. If you’re making $10 a day on domain parking, does it really make sense to tweak all of the keywords on your domains or keep switching between parking companies? Probably not. Just put them on auto-pilot for now.
6. Use a domain management tool — from the start. Like many people, I didn’t keep track of the domains I owned when I started. Then I migrated to a clunky spreadsheet before finding Watch My Domains Pro. Go ahead and track your domains the right way from the start.
7. Negotiate for lower registration fees. Consolidate your domains at one registrar, and ask them for price breaks if you hit certain volume.
8. List domains on both Sedo and Afternic. Both offer bulk uploading tools. You won’t get an offer everyday, but you will get them over time. Some people balk at paying Afternic a measly $19.95 membership fee to list domains. That’s like jumping over a quarter to pick up a dime. You’ll make your money back on one domain sale.
9. Get to know domain brokers. Make the effort. You’ll often meet them at domain conferences (see #4). They’ll call you when they have interested buyers on the line and you’ll be thankful.
10. Read Domain Name Wire everyday 🙂
thanks good blog and post
I this, it is quantity to a certanin degree, since its hard to learn what is good and whats bad on someone elses skin. I think reading and hand reging is important as long as you know youyr nitch, if guy tries to register general then yet, better not register anything, since most of it is taken. But if you know your nitch, hand reg, Thats how i got it, i was reading blogs on domains like crazy, and registering even crazier. Given, i probably shouldn’t have gone as far as i did with amount of domains i got, but i certainly learned my stuff and got whole bunch of great domains in my nitch in the process.
Art, personally if I had $10k to invest, I’d put $9500 of it into buying existing domains in the $1k-$3k range, and about $500 in thoughtful new regs.
Great advice, Andrew. Nothing against the message boards, but I find so little information of value for all the time wasted sifting through all the threads. And I couldn’t agree more about attending the conferences and actually meeting your fellow domainers face to face. Some people complain about the cost of these conferences, but the networking and new business contacts you make are well worth the time and travel.
Andrew,
Couldn’t have written 1-10 better myself.
If you don’t mind, I’ll add one.
11. Find a couple niches that interest you.
Buy what you domains that you think you might develop some day. Buy domains with keywords that interest you.
If not keywords then focus on geodomains, generics, traffic and revenue (if experienced) and maybe even particular extensions like .tv, .mobi .us or the like but this strategy is speculative and should only be part of your portfolio.
12. Diversify. It’s good to have a couple niches. The 80/20 rule says that you will make 80% of your money from 20% of your domains. The problem is we usually don’t know what that 20% is going to be.
Nice additions, Rob.
Regarding #7, which registrars that you know of have given price breaks?
Spike – Moniker has several tiers depending on how much business you will give them. GoDaddy offers discounts over the phone, and also has a club you can join for under $100/year that drastically reduces your fees.
All excellent points, particulary #1-#4.
well, the points above have led me to belive that domain watching is akin to bird watching. Everybody is same in one specices, but you recognize a better specimen by the length of its beak. So go the domains
“10. Read Domain Name Wire everyday”
Cute. Made me smile.
This is along the line of Rob’s suggested #11 but should be stated more specifically because I can verify that it works.
Go Vertical!
To score quality virgin names I recommend a narrow and deep approach.
Pick an industry/niche and attack it with focused obsession. Add a new user account to your computer with a seperate email address for your research. When you login under this account your chosen market is all you work on.
Identify publications and subscribe to them – preferably the digital edition. Find and bookmark the websites of companies and organizations in the space. Do the same for blogs, forums, etc. Add RSS feeds. Setup Google news and other alerts.
Identify thought leaders and contact them with intelligent questions about the trends that will soon become apparent to you. Build a list of keywords, track search traffic, and work to expand the list. Monitor domains for sale in the space. And so on.
At some point you’ll be so tuned in to emerging trends, ideas, new products, and emerging technologies, etc. that ideas for fresh domains will begin flooding your mind.
As an added bonus you’ll be at the point where you can easily generate original content and other components to develop your new names as parked properties and/or websites. In many cases, if you enjoy writing, you’ll be able to fund your acquisitions through freelancing work for other site owners and such.
The big challenge is resisting ADD tendencies and staying focused long enough to make this pay off. Good luck with that.
Very good list – #10 is my favorite 🙂
I would agree with #1 strongly also.
Thanks for the great post.
I have been in the domain industry since 1996 but have always concentrated on quantity like you mentioned.
I’m entering the stage now where I’m going to start developing a lot of these domains I have been paying for for years.
J.R.
Hey “The Christopher”! Nice post, that really expanded my mind on how to mine for new domains! Everyone should pay attention to that idea.
Saw this on http://www.SubliminalMessages.Com and would add one more item to the list if I were to do it all over. Stay away from anything that does not end in .COM
I am directing some of my friends to your post. Good and straight forward. I for one do not hang out at forums more than usually an hour a week.
I am a newbie about to register my first domain.
I wish to request your mentorship pls.
What do you think about 3 word domain names?Is there any value in them?
Thanks for the good work.
A three letter .com URL? Rubbish, Jude. Who would possibly want a short, easy to spell, easy to remember URL that fits easily on a license plate? :-}
Great info and a great list….thank you!
I believe in focusing in niches names but sometimes get sidetracked when a good domain from another genre is available and I pick it up…which categories/genres would you suggest focusing on?
thanks
Andrew
InternetIdeas.net
Quoting a comment a mate made earlier tonight.
“seriously, forums are like… wading through the tropical forests of one’s crotch..”
Nice article, Andrew. (as usual, you — you —dagblasted… ahhh, forget it).
Okay, I’ll put my 2 cents in (and you’re all thinking how far my 2 cents can go).
-Best domain pricing registrar with best customer service: Fabulous.com
-Best domain pricing with follow-up domain sales service: Moniker > Snapnames
-J.R. Jackson — contact me for helping build out your domains! (gimme this one, Andrew)
-#3 “Message boards” – I’ll post an article about this on my blog. I give waaaaay too much free info to Andrew. He’s like a witch… he lures us all in to reveal our secrets! I want that preacher that Sarah Palin used to get witches off her. It worked! Look at what it did for her career!
Find a niche, own all the best domains representing that niche. Build them out.
-DEFINITELY attend at least one domain conference a year, especially if you want to call yourself a “domainer” and intend to make domaining your main source of income.
-#10 – heck, Andrew, everyone reads this site anyways, like I told you two years ago would happen. I’d add in #12, “read http://www.successclick.com for the dirty stuff.” I’m shameless, aren’t I? 😉
For those of you with 401k’s, vote Obama. (Seth will love my endorsement) lol
Here’s to HOPE.