People Are Buying Domain Names!

In the past several months I have spent most of my time focused on the bigger business we are growing rather than flipping domains and growing my traffic domain portfolio. Typically this would mean sales have been few and far between and admittedly for a couple months there were fewer than typical.

But, in the past couple months I have seen a sharp trend upwards in offers even with out any active promotion on my side, although DomainGang.com a great spoof promotion for my domain ExGirlfriend.us, and for those that did not get it, it was a joke although the domain is for sale:)

Not sure if every one is seeing this but the offers on both my exact match keyword domains and on my traffic domains have both been coming in pretty consistently. In the past week alone I had 4 deals closed. Once again, with zero promotion. What is really interesting is I recently shrunk considerably the number of names I actually have for sale due to a separation between company and personal domain assets. So percentage wise it looks even better.

What is really nice here is that 2 of the 4 deals this week were end users that had actively sought out the domain, one a dot com , one a dot net.

Are you seeing the same thing? Feel free to post your current experience with people actively looking to acquire your domains, how has the market been for you?

Domain Newbie Having A Taste Of Success

This past year I met a person who had been around domain investment enough to understand the value of it but had not really got to  the level of understanding that makes it a profitable enterprise for someone. He is one of the people I referred to in an earlier post about people new to domain investment.

After registering some names and asking for advice a few times and then having me push back several times saying keep reading, keep researching, do not buy another name until you do X,Y, and Z he now is starting to have some success, maybe not on the selling front but at least on the monetization front.

One of the first things he did was he stopped randomly hand registering names. He now uses Bido.com to watch for keyword rich .COM, .NET, and .ORG names and focuses on names that have some level of search relative to the size of the industry and focuses on keywords that generate high PPC.

One of the other ways he has had much success in picking up several VERY nice registrations is by using the Geo.Godaddy.com tool I discussed in an earlier post about using the Geo Domaining Tool. Using that tool right can be a gold mine, I may have to slow him down now though since I might want those names for myself:)

What is really nice is to see he is setting goals for himself now that he is understanding more about the industry, that shows focus, that is how you get where you want to be. Find success, focus on what made that success happen and grow it.

His next step is understanding how to position properly when cold calling or emailing end users. His first contact did not go well, he focused too much on "domain name" and not on the value to the end user. Without explaining why something is valuable it is an uphill battle trying to sell it. He knows this now and is focused on creating his end user email template for moving forward.

Just thought I would relate a potential success story, maybe not on a large scale, but at least on a small scale, of someone that is just starting to focus on generic domains and making progress even in this market.

Optimizing Value Of An End User Domain Name Purchase

When selling a domain name to an end user you need to approach the valuation much differently than when selling at wholesale prices between domain investors. Our domain properties are key real estate properties and need to be treated as such when working with a possible end user.

As domain investors we tend to have domains that span many industries and as such do not necessarily think about the true value our names may have to the business acquiring our domain. When the real estate industry is in good shape commercial real estate agents can look at getting the top price for their property, we are no different with our "domain" property.

Earlier this week I had a contact from an end user looking to acquire one of my domains, it was a geo targeted .NET name in a hot tourist area in a very strong niche. So from the beginning I knew that there was solid value in the domain, but now it was time to evaluate what the true value was to the buyer.

First step was I noticed they indicated they wanted to buy my "website", this is something I have been noticing from buyers that have came from my minisites, they want to buy my website, not my domain name. This is key, they are viewing it as more than just a name, this adds value.

The other thing I noticed is that they person had their logo, title, etc in their email signature. This validated them as a company and what was really nice is I am familiar with their location and their business from visits to the area they are in. This also allows me to focus on speaking the value to their business since I know they are a real business and not just someone looking to buy a name on the cheap.

Before sending though I did some quick searches to determine if they were buying Google Adwords ads or if they were showing up in search results for the name they were looking to purchase. They were not...

After all of this I was able to set a price, although we all like to make the other side make the first move in many cases I find it more productive to set a price and negotiate from there. That is what I did in this case. The person is now taking the offer to the owners of the business (which is a nationwide firm).

Now, to make sure you get the most value it is time to start a bidding process, I went to Google once again to determine the Google Adwords customers targeting the related terms. I was able to determine the top companies that would be interested based on that. I was lucky enough to know the area and business they are in so that helped me focus on on several that I know are considered top players in their field. I then either sent emails or made phone calls to these businesses (asking for the Director of Marketing in most cases) to inform them that offers have been made for my "website" and I wanted to allow them the chance to bid on this property as well.

At this point negotiations are ongoing, but based on all of the above, and selling like a website instead of domain I have been able to increase the value and number of betters which increases the chance of success. Hope one of these tips helps you in some way.

UPDATE: Teendomainer also wrote a great post that you should read concerning selling to end users who have contacted you.

Build Your Niche Minisite and Domain Empire

My domain sales have been rather good the past couple weeks so thats put me in the mood to move some more names, rather than focus on selling individual names I thought I would do something a bit different and package names together to help the buyer build a niche domain and minisite network.  I am setting the prices on the packages at a get the deal done price, if you want to buy more than one package I am willing to play "lets make a deal" though.

Please use the Contact me form to send me offers or questions and let me know which package you are buying:

Package 1:

This is a nice package of 3 Geo names that could be developed easily in various ways. Broad match results in the Google keyword tool show 60,500 for the Las Vegas Area and Florida Golf Course name and 40,500 for the Vegas Golf Course name.

VegasGolfCourse.net

FloridaGolfCourse.net

LasVegasArea.net

UPDATE: PACKAGE NO LONGER AVAILABLE, MAKE OFFERS ON INDIVIDUAL NAMES ON SEDO OR THROUGH MY CONTACT ME FORM

Package 2:

If you are interested in building a network of medical sites this would be a great package to pick up, medical terms tend to be some of the highest click value terms for minisites. Here is your chance to pick up a nice set a nice price.

ChronicChestPain.com

ChronicAsthmatic.com

ChronicLymphoma.com

ChronicMalaria.com

ChronicMedication.com

UPDATE: PACKAGE NO LONGER AVAILABLE, MAKE OFFERS ON SEDO OR THROUGH MY CONTACT ME FORM FOR INDIVIDUAL NAMES

Package 3:

Online shopping continues to grow yearly even in this down economy and finding product names with high search volumes is key in building out  a nice product related niche minisite network if you are wanting to focus on Amazon or Ebay affiliate sales this is a great package to go for nice commissions.

The number next to each name is the monthly search volume per Googles keyword tool.

BlackShoes.org  1,220,000

WomensSandal.org 450,000

BlackDressShoes.org 74,000

HighSandal.com 40,500

PlatformStiletto.com 27,100

UPDATE: PEOPLE MISSED THE BOAT ON THIS ONE, PACKAGE NO LONGER AVAILABLE, MAKE OFFERS ON INDIVIDUAL NAMES ON SEDO OR MY CONTACT ME FORM

Package 4:

Networking equipment is a product area that also has high value per click and high dollar sales, this is a nice set of high search volume names. As above the number next to each name is the monthly search volume per Google.

LinuxVpn.com 74,000

EthernetSwitches.net 49,500

EthernetSwitches.org 49,500

GigabitEthernetSwitch.org 22,200

EthernetRouter.org 49,500

UPDATE: SAME AS THE OTHERS ABOVE, PACKAGE NO LONGER AVAILABLE, INDIVIDUAL OFFERS ACCEPTED

Package 5:

If you are looking to build out a nice recipe network this is a set to make that happen, I will throw in the content on the RoastTurkeyRecipe.com site as well.

FruitDrinkRecipes.com

HealthyDrinkRecipes.com

MorrocanRecipes.com

ReducingSugar.com

SpinachDip.net - ON AUCTION AT SEDO

RoastTurkeyRecipe.com

CeliacDiets.com

Get it Done Price: PACKAGE NO LONGER AVAILABLE, INDIVIDUAL NAMES STILL AVAILABLE

I will never package these names like this again, I am in the mood to sell some names though so lets get some deals done.