October is almost coming to an end. That means we only have two months until 2011 arrives. What decisions will I have to make with my domains? I researched a few dozens of my domains, discovering that several have gone way up in value.
The toughest decision to make is which domains I will keep, and which ones I will let drop. It really comes down to performance. There are some domains that never receive any traffic, and then there are those that generate heavy traffic, but never receive any clicks.
When I first started domaining, I assumed that buying up all the extensions would increase the price of the .com. However, I realized that was a bad business plan. Many domain blogs helped me to understand the reason the .com gain widespread appeal, and not owning every extension is mostly a waste of money.
Because of consistent performance, I will likely keep a few domains that I planned to let drop. I found that changing content on a popular page disrupts performance. I made it a point to leave my popular domains alone, allowing them to continue generating traffic and to receive clicks.
I realize that the New Year is quickly approaching, and I must determine whether to speed up the selling process, or let many domains drop. I own many domains from all types of niches. The most popular categories are NYC, jobs, resume, and education.
My resume and education domains still have some life left on them. I must decide what to do with my NYC domains. I receive traffic on the dating and singles NYC domains. In addition, there are many that have increased in value. However, I have little use to develop these domains. I don’t want to lose these domains, especially when I spent money to buy them.
For the most part, I made back what I invested into the domains. I don’t find it beneficial to invest time into trying to sell the NYC domains. I used to stay up many nights writing sales descriptions for the domains in Craig’s List, on Sales Spider, and even sent out many e-mails. Many times I never received any replies, only a ton of spam and scam offers.
I don’t have any regrets in buying the NYC domains. Because of those domains, I managed to sell 10 taxi domains and 1 cake domains. I have been receiving traffic and some clicks on various NYC domains, many that are in dating, singles, singles clubs, and a few in shorter version names.
What is the best plan to sell the NYC domains? I put out an ad to sell them as an entire lot deal. Maybe the price was too high. I priced the domains at a fair amount, which if I sold at the time, the buyer would have made a nice profit with developing and selling the domains. There are a few that increased in value, and there are others that have skyrocketed in price.
Many of these NYC domains will expire in February. I have four months to move these domains. I may keep a few, but I want to move the entire collection. Any business that deals with many services in New York City will find these .com domains to be useful.
When that Times Square Ball drops, I will be thinking about the NYC domains. I’m glad I purchased the domains, however, I let my interest in New York City to cloud my judgment with overbuying the GEO domains. Instead, I should have looked into resume domains and purchased more job domains.
In looking back, the only mistakes I made is trusting a few appraisal sites to buy many domains. I only purchased hyphenated .com domains because one appraisal website, one that many don’t use, appraised the domains at high amounts. Back in February, I never assumed I would be selling domains in the same year.
Once I discovered Sedo, I was discouraged when my domains were rejected from auctions. I quickly learned that domains must age, the keywords must have many searches, and there must demand for the name; the domain must target popular niches.
Domaining is a learning game. Since then, I closed the learning gap with asking many questions. I read many domain investing blogs, articles, books, and searched through Google to find the most current domain news. Patience is the key to succeeding in domaining.
I can tell you how much time I wasted making calls, going to meetings, sending e-mails, and preparing advertisement posts. However, I gained a lot of experience, and managed to understand how to choose good names. The domain names I registered in Jan-February are ones that I sold to end-users. At that time, I actually considered domains as an investment.
I bought movie, NYC, job, taxi, phrases, travel destinations, and many other domains. The domains I purchased in February are the reason I made a few dozen sales. Without buying those domains, I would not be successful. I’m not as successful as most elite domainers, but I understand the industry enough to do well.
I know how to use domain stats to determine the value of a domain. I purchased coverlettersearch.com when the appraisal system determined its value at $25. I knew the name would increase in value. Most popular niches that have “search” after them generate quality traffic. The domain is now worth around $300. You can tell a name will be popular.
The keyword results, the sound of the name, keywords that compliment a niche, and the monthly searches are a good indicator in making buying decisions. I’m confident spirituality.me will increase in value. The domain has one of the most popular keywords in the world.
The name looks cool, has more than 44 million average keyword results, is searched for 134,000 times a month in the US, and many times more in the global searches, and is one of those names that has many uses.
I fully understand the domain industry. I know what domain names is good, and which ones to avoid. In the past month, I noticed that resume, job, education and hotel domains are generating interest. Influenza domains are becoming more popular because October is the beginning of flu season. People are searching for these terms in the search engine.
I’m no domain expert. My skills are geared toward hand registrations. I never take part in auctions, or check any drop lists to buy domains. I don’t use any special software to find high search domains. I think of names that compliment various niches. I find domain names the old fashion way. I type in the name in the search window, struck on many occasions.
With trial and error, I found many quality names. The moment you find a quality domain name, don’t snooze on registering it. You have to register these names right away because many others are looking for the same ones. I learned my lesson with waiting on various domains. It’s only a matter of time before another domainer will locate, and then register that name.
If you’re into domaining, only register the domain for 1 year. Your goal is to flip the domain as quickly as possible. It wouldn’t make any sense to pay 10 years registration on a domain that you plan to sell in two months. The main reason I own hundreds of domains is because I only register my names for 1 year. I have a few .co.uk domains that are registered for 2 years.
Unless registrars increase the cost of domains, my plan will be to register domains for one year at a time. Domaining is about making the fast sale. Keeping overhead to a minimum allows me to register additional names. If you’re into domain investing, then it’s doable to register domains for multiple years. The last thing you want to do is loose a premium name.
I have many decisions to make this upcoming year. Will I develop domains, or get rid of some that are under performing? Some domains I registered with no value are making back the cost of registration in a few months, while there are others that have value, but don’t generate any traffic.
I’m confident I can sell the NYC domains. As the New Year 2011 approaches, set new domaining goals. If you want to learn to buy good names, or to sell domains to end-users, strengthen your skills in those area. Focus on that skill until you succeed.
My goal is to find a few premium names at a good price. I plan to build a my hometown domains, which I own a dozen of quality names. I want to build my education and resume domains. More than likely, I will never reach the success of Frank, Rick, Francois, and the elite bunch, but I’m glad that I have a chance to be a part of the domain industry.
Set new goals to realize your domaining potential.