Make Money With Domains:

Page 6 - Registering Your Domain

 

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First things first. I want you to get a feel for this market. Check out some record domain prices

Top five highest prices for .co.uk domain names
1. Cruises.co.uk, 560,000 – purchased January 2008
2. Recycle.co.uk, 150,000 – purchased October 2007
3. Ink.co.uk, 130,425 – purchased in 2007
4. Mobile.co.uk, 120,000 – purchased in 2007
5. Taste.co.uk, 110,000 – purchased in 1997

World’s most expensive domain names
1. Sex.com, $12m – purchased in 2005
2. Porn.com, $9.5m – purchased in 2007
3. Business.com, $7.5m – purchased in 1999
4. Diamond.com, $7.5m – purchased in 2006
5. Beer.com, $7m – purchased in 1999

Wouldn't it be lovely if one of those was yours? Now, you may think that ship has sailed and all the best domains are taken. You're right. And wrong. I'll tell you why in due course. I'm going to demonstrate there are still numerous opportunities in domaining.

In order to get a domain name, you have to register it online, or else no one will recognize it as being yours.

To register a domain, you have to go to a "domain registrar" - we have a whole page of the best places to buy domains. Registrars sell additional services such as emails accounts and hosting packages, but you shouldn't have to worry about any of that - unless you are looking to build out your site at least.

When you are picking your names, keep in mind that the registration cost ($2-$10 typically) is for one year's registration. If you want to keep it for longer, you will have to choose the correct option and pay the higher fees. The goal of domaining is to pick names that will be typed into the browser's URL (address) bar. They are called type-in domains. These names need to be highly descriptive and simple.

One of my favorite examples was cellphones.com. The person who had originally registered the domain name made almost $1,700.00 a day through parking services (more about that later).

A company called Cingular later bought out the name and there must have been a hefty sum of money given up. It was probably a couple million dollars, give or take a few. When users type the word cellphones into the address bar, the browser adds the www. and the .com to the typed in text and takes users to the site.

When this domain was privately owned, the landing page was populated by links that were all sponsored. A user most definitely clicked on one of them, allowing the aggregator service and the domain name owner a split of the profit.

When choosing names, it is important to remember the following:

1. The domain should be short - one, two, or three words
(3dimension.net, imagemapping.com, 3dgraphics.com)

2. Good top level domain (or TLD) - typically domains are valued higher as .com, then .net, etc.

3. Hyphens are generally a bad practice - they don't yield many clicks and their resale values are lower.

4. Misspellings are sometimes ok - if the misspelled name is yahooo.com, you may show some profit in users trying to get to their original destination. Watch out for copyrights, trademarks, and any reason for a company to persue litigation, though.

5. Use the appropriate pluralization - homes.com rather than home.com

6. Make it easy to pronounce. If you can pronounce it and visualize its spelling, it is a good choice.

7. Do not infringe on a company trademark - microsoft.com

8. Don't use confusing spelling.

Finding the best domain name for type in traffic is the most crucial and difficult part of domaining.

You might think it is a great idea to go to a domain registrar, type in some random set of words that might somehow be connected, and enter your credit card number. But I guarantee you will be disappointed. No one will type the domain name into the URL bar, and nobody will buy it. At all!

In fact, those domain names are worth precisely less than you paid for them.

If you were to go to a domaining forum, they would tell you that the value is below registration, meaning you wasted your money.

So, how exactly can we pick profitable names? By watching the market and finding words or phrases BEFORE they get big.

PROFIT FROM DOMAINS - CHAPTER INDEX:
 

1. Start of Domaining Article

2. Who Makes $100,000 a day?

3. An Introduction

4. What Exactly Is Domaining?

5. How To Find Fantastic Domain Names

6. Registering A Domain Name

7. Domain Parking Services

8. Dropped Domains

9. Domain Parking Players

10. Setting Up Your Parked Domains

11. Developing Domains

12. Monitoring & Selling Domains

13. Process of Selling Domain Names

14. The Brute Force Philosophy

(Note dated March 2012: The rest below coming in due course. Bookmark this page)


Passive Domain Sales
Passive or Brute Force?
The Common Mistakes of Domaining
Building a Masterpiece Takes Time

How to transfer a domain | Where to buy a domain