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This is a post I made on my urlacademy.com domain blog many moons ago. I keep a permanent link to it on my blog as it's always relevant imo
After 6 yrs of domaining one thing I can say is that there'll be ups and downs but there really is no better business imo. There'll be days when you're flying, days when it seems no one in the whole world wants your domains.
Original post copied in full
Thursday, November 29th, 2007
I received this email today and decided to turn it into a post
Andy, I haven’ sold a domain in many months and I’m getting really frustrated. I’ve sent out loads of emails to potential endusers and not had one reply. Meanwhile loads of very poor domains (IMO) are being sold everyday for thousands via places like Sedo - which just seems to add salt to the wounds.All I can wonder right now is why the hell am I bothering, and I’m clueless as to what I’m doing wrong. Doing my sums I figure im at least $1k down so far.
Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.
regards
Joseph
Joseph one great thing about domaining is you always have options even though it may not feel like it right now. I feel your pain ! Domaining is a roller coaster for sure. One thing I know is domaining isn’t a non stop domain sales fest. You get time wasters aplenty, but you also get serious buyers too. I’ve registered a few turkeys in my time and I certainly will register a few more but I don’t mind as long as I register a few gems too.
You havn’t sent me your portfolio so it’s difficult for me to give you my full feedback. However here are some ideas you may consider.
1. You could try to trade some of your domains for some much more liquid names.You could get some good LLLL.coms, LLL.net, LLL.info names for instance.
Good quality LLLL.coms are pretty hot right now and you could easy make a 25% + ROI within 3-6 months. Good quality nets will prove much more expensive so tread carefully as you don’t need to tie up too much cash right now by the sounds of it.
Liquid names can be a better strategy than buying brandable or keyword names in that they don’t require much time or effort to sell - as there is generally an established market value for these types of domains.
Selling names cheaply via forums for $10 - $30 is also a great way to get a return for surplus domains, but it’s definitely worth waiting for serious buyers for names you consider to have value. Make sure that you’re not selling domains that make ppc income. Even a domain making 50 cents a day makes circa $180 a year, find just 50 of these and you have an annual ppc revenue of $9000.
There are always bad spells in Domaining when you receive no offers, but the beauty of the Domain game is next week you may get several good offers.
That’s when it might be the time to sell, if it’s a domain that has never received an offer before, consider selling for any type of profit be $50 or $500, it might be the last offer you’ll ever get for that domain. Reinvest any proceeds and again look at liquid domains.
A lot of people are spending many hours each day and night researching and registering domains, yet only ocasionally make a modest sale. If you only make one $500 sale a year and spend 2,000 hours a year domaining, that’s a diabolical return. Fortunately there are more ways to make revenue with domains other than just selling them and any serious domainer fully utilises them.
Development is good if done correctly because once you get the site/s going, it/they will provide the beginnings of an additional revenue stream/s
This income accumulates steadily (in relation to the effort you put in) over the years and eventually the cumulative income will have justified the many hours invested.
Also, don’t forget ccTLD’s. They can be an interesting avenue. Pure generics are still available for registration in many cctlds but avoid ones with large registration fees, especially if the cctld itself is too obscure. Another approach is to stick to .coms - good quality coms !
Set a managable weekly / monthly registration budget, and don’t forget renewals have to also be budgeted for.
I wince when I see how many domains some people have and how poor some of these domains are, it’s great to have a large portfolio if you’re selling often or receiving good ppc returns but I suspect many of these large portfolio owners don’t.
This game can be very frustrating. I used to regularly pull my hair out but I persevered and now I’m really beginning to reap divdends.
I firmly believe in the maxim “The harder I work, the luckier I get” More than anything, I see domainers deluded by their unrealistically high expectations. If you consistently bulk flip names for 20% profit each week, you could turn a 5k investment into $1 million in a couple of year. It’s not always about making huge profits, it’s about making regular turnover, day in day out.
If I were you I would rethink my business on a REGULAR basis. I register an average of 150 domains a week, but I sure as hell wouldn’t if I was only just starting out. Now I retain my good ppc earners and generally ship the rest (as good as I may perceive them to be)
I have been at this for 4 years and have my business model pretty much worked out. My main business strategy is to target and register names with traffic and more importantly traffic that converts. I never participate in drops or backorders as I hand register pretty much everything.
good luck
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http://www.UrlBrokers.co.uk
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