A lot of you know that I have been buying future trend domain names for six years. An associate of mine brought up a question last night that I thought was interesting. “Do other domainers know the value of future trend domains or even what they are?”

I told him yes, because I’ve bought quite a few from domainers and seen a  lot of domains I wanted that were already registered. But what he wanted to know was whether domainers would be potential future buyers of the domains, because of these domains’ sometimes complex generic meaning (what the heck is that?)

So he said throw out a good domain for  a very cheap reserve, and see if anyone would bid on it, highest bid wins by Friday this week (3/12/2010)

Ehhh… but I do market testing all the time offering up domains that someone either buys or doesn’t. I put some very valuable domains at low prices to see if people can pick them out from a group. Most of the times they don’t, but enough of the times, to my muted dismay, they do. (PerfectSpanish.com, EstateLawPartner.com, NewJerseyAttorney.org, and a few others).

Anyway, here’s the domain I’m putting up for the “smart nerd” auction I’m holding.  Who can understand the value?

Rules: RESERVE is $200. Highest bid over Reserve by 3/12/10 midnite pst wins the domain.

3DTVAmerica.com

okay, here’s another one for the same Reserve:]

(UPTDATE- DOMAIN CORRECTION BELOW -  3/9/10)

RechargeLocation.com

I know that both these domains will be worth over $10,000 in 2 years, or I’ll buy them back from you.  For now, that’s only $200 Reserve, or what the highest bid is.

Cheap start for a potential mint urly. Which domainer can call themselves a smart nerd domainer?  Like me!

I’m still cleaning out my niches, and these are all the domains left in my LEGAL category.

Just to be a guy showing confidence in his select maturing domains, and not trying to “gouge” any new domain investors who want to build their portfolio with some decent domains for low dollar investments, I’m doing a loss-leader Blog article listing of my domains, bringing in readers to tell them:

“You want these, and in a few weeks, if you subscribe to my Domain Sales email newsletter to be implemented soon, you’re going to see great domains for less than $300, most for $99 or less.”  So stay tuned!

Here’s the legal bunch… check out the geo’s on these!

BIG HOWDEE DOO FOR ALL DOMAINERS — ALL DOMAINS GET DISCOUNT OF $100 OFF THE PRINTED PRICE — that means subtract $100 off each domain price and that’s’ the BIN.

NOTE: THESE DOMAINS PRICES ARE ONLY GOOD UNTIL MARCH 15, 2010.

DomainIndustryAttorney.com – $399
DomainLawServices.com – $299
DomainIndustryAttorneys.com – $299
DomainIndustryLawyer.com – $199 (price lowered $800 on 3/5/2010 to see if Ari or Berryhill are watching!)
DomainIndustryLawyers.com – $299
LasVegasDivorce.org – $299
WyomingLaw.org – $299

CriminalLawAttorney.org – $199 (real price – $99 with the $100 discount)
ATTORNEYPENNSYLVANIA.COM – $599
ATTORNEYINFORMATION.NET – $199
LOSANGELESATTORNEY.ORG – $299
AUTOACCIDENTATTORNEY.ORG – $299 – SOLD
JUDGEMENTCOLLECTOR.COM – $299
TAXLAWPARTNERS.COM – $199 – SOLD
USLAWPARTNERS.COM – $199
PERSONALINJURYASSOCIATES.COM – $299 (price lowered $100 more 3/5/2010)
PROBATEGROUP.COM – $299
PROBATELITIGATORS.COM – $199
PROBATELITIGATOR.COM – $199
AMERICANTAXLAWYER.COM – $199
ESTATELITIGATORS.COM – $199
ESTATELITIGATOR.COM – $199
TAXLAWADVISORS.COM – $199
TAXLAWADVISOR.COM – $199
LAGUNALAWOFFICE.COM – $199
NEWJERSEYATTORNEY.ORG – $199 – SOLD

REMEMBER — see a domain you like? It’s $100 off each printed price.

NOTE:  AND FOR THE BIG BOYS AND SMARTEST INVESTORS, HERE IS THE BULK SALE DEAL THAT WILL MAKE YOU DROOL :  If you buy before anyone jumps on either of these domains, then ALL THE DOMAINS ABOVE IN BULK – YES, ALL THE DOMAINS (26) CAN BE BOUGHT AT BULK FOR ONLY (UPDATED 3/5/2010)  $2,000. (TOTAL CHERRY PICK PRICE WOULD BE $6, 100+).

BULK PRICE gives you savings of $5,500.  Some of these domains get CPC, but all are killer brands, especially the geos.(I’ll give this offer for only 48 hours after post):

Act fast – email me at successclick [at] g m a i l . c o m

This prices are only good until March 10, 2010

As usual, there are more than two domains that have great SE relevant page counts, and some have decent PPC. If you have to ask, don’t buy it. The price is so low because I don’t want to work at getting data…

Have fun!

Elliot Silver, who I respect in the highest regard, stated on one of his recent blog articles: 

“I would much rather own one good name that I bought for $2,500 than 300 newly registered names. If you don’t end up selling them, you’re just going to double your carrying costs the next year.”

I had a different viewpoint that was too long to voice in a comment on El’s site, so I wrote this blog article answering his comment. Let me present these two different scenarios of what would happen if an experienced domain investor bought 300 OOTB (Out Of The Basket – meaning “new registrations”) domains compared to spending the same amount ($2500) on one premium domain.

If you have the stomach for details, read below:

1) I am already guessing that you’re an experienced domainer. If you buy 300 OOTB’s, I assume you’ve done your homework and these domains are already giving you the hand-jive, or you wouldn’t have registered them. (New domain investors and their domain buying obsessions don’t apply to the following)

2) Now you have 300 OOTB’s, which your experience has told you, “I won’t buy a domain like a noobie, these aren’t all .biz domains, they’re all .coms or one word high trend noun ccTLD’s”.  You know that at least some of these 300 domains have some value at a profitable resell level, (or you realize you bought them on a drunken domain raid and all bets are off.)

3) You want to test out your new purchases, and set up 50 of them to sell cheap quick. You sell 25 domains quickly for only $100 and get your investment back. That leaves you with 275 other domains to play with.  You find that you have a great eye for domains, and you’ve done your research like a bio-physics student at Stanford.  If you scored with a domain that was just waiting to mature or hit the consumer trend index, that would become apparent within a year or so. Now you have a domain in your remaining list that is worth maybe $2500. You sell that domain name and you’ve doubled your investment now, leaving you with 274 domains to play with.

4) The following year, you do a followup on SE analysis for search and page results from quoted queries on each domain as they come up for renewal. You consider if they need to mature, or whether you were not thinking when you registered it. Let it drop, big deal. Let’s say you let 20% of your domains to drop, leaving you with about 220 domains.

5) You invest another $1700 to renew those domains.

6) The next year, you discover that another one of your domains is hot, and someone gives you $1600 for the domain. You’ve just covered your renewal fees for 224 domains. Now you’re looking at your list of 220 domains a lot closer, because you’re seeing why YOU BOUGHT THEM OOTB IN THE FIRST PLACE!

7) You watch the progress of the domains while parked at a PPC or at WhyPark to check OST or TI traffic… and you discover that either one or both are making some rev for you, and you’re getting a few purchase enquiries a week. You sell a few for $250 each on average.

The next year, you dump those domains that are not performing, or are similar to other domains that are.  Now let’s say you’re left with 150 domains. At this point, you’ve made your money back, and about $4000 in profits from sales on your original 300 domains, yet you still have half of them left.

9) You decide you want to focus on a select powerful group of domains falling into a limited niche group. So, you put up a sale of the remaining 150 domains at $100 each. The sale goes well, and you sell 75 domains for $100 each. You’ve made $7,500 in profits. You still have 75 domains left.

10) You have 75 domains left from your original 300. Eh, you decide to lower your price to $35 each after renewing them for two years. Your profit would be about $20 per domain. You sell them all and make another $1,500.

From those 300 domains, you’ve made about $15,000 in profits over two years.

Now, let’s go the “premium domain for $2500″ aftermarket route.

1) You buy a nice domain for $2500. You build it out, hire developers, etc, pump it with SEO and do some advertising. Your wallet is pried open and $10,000 has been taken out to achieve a minimal setup you want following these guidelines. Now you’re in for $12,500. You admit you’re not a brick and mortar end user for this domain.

2) You start getting traffic, and you are looking at your monetization paths for the domain site. Maybe PPC is an antithesis to the product/service you’re selling, so you prefer to go the CPA route, featuring some storefronts, and maybe you engage your visitors with a forum or blog. You answer questions, you build up a following.

3) You find out you have 500 people registered for your site, and 100 of them have bought something from your site at a CPA payout (let’s go middle ground and say 7% on a $30 sale, which is about $2.10 per sale commission – multiply by 100, you’ve made $2,100).

4) You’ve invested about $12,500 in a domain name, and after a year, your return is $2,100.  You have to pay out another $2500 in updates and maintenance on the site. You’re now in the hole for $12,900.

5) You continue focusing on how to get great PR, and getting more visitors to your site. You set up an email system that you hope your members won’t unsubscribe from, and maybe will buy something from you. You make a few more sales, but it only covers operating costs.

6) Now it’s your second year, you have over $13,000 in the $2500 domain you fell in love with and decided to build out. You see that you’re going to need a good amount of cash to really make the site a powerhouse that will give you a good return. Now you are looking at getting an angel investor, or equity partner.

7) You sell 40% of your domain website for $50,000. That money is immediately invested in building out the site better, having a consultant assist with streamlining your GUI, redesign of the site graphics, promoting the site to a focused market. (blatant self-promotion here)

You get a better commission rate from your CPA producer, but for some reason, even 10% of sales averaging even $50 per order is not cutting it. You see 1000 buyers come in and purchase at the $50 average, which gives you $5 at a 10% comm.  Now you’ve grossed $5,000 that year. After expenses, no profits yet.

9) You’re weary working on this one domain, because you have other domains you’re working on too. Each domain costs a lot of money to develop into viable revenue generators. You have partners calling you every several days wondering about their money they invested. You tell them things are doing well, but you’re getting tired of hearing from them so often.

10) In the start of the third year, you ask your partners to buy you out for your original investment, which was $2500 and about $15,000 in further development costs out of your pocket ($17,500). The partners agree to buy you out for $15k.

11) After three years, a lot of work and money, you’ve sold the domain and lost about $2500, not counting your time.

12) ERASE #1 – 11 above, and say you flip the domain two years later for $7500 after parking it, for a 200% profit. WHEW! Smart move!

13) (Ahhh… the magic number 13). Wait, forget #1 – 12 above. The domain you bought can be made into a directory! Whole new story here, because now you can sell ad spots to your domain’s relevant market for $50 – $500 a year. Auto-renewal is sweet if you get 1000 advertisers and 25% of them check this on signup.  Hire one or two cold callers to get the advertisters in (have a nice site built out and offer free listings in limited scope). Depending on the market of your domain’s relevance, and your design features, this is the best way for a domainer to go in to buildouts.

14) Let’s say you didn’t see #12 and #13 above. You learn your lesson trying to do a CPA build and…

….a month later, you do your research and buy 300 domains OOTB.

My firm belief is that if you don’t have $10,000 to develop a domain, (and that domain MUST be a viable product/service generic domain that can be made into a directory), then don’t pay more than a few hundred dollars for it, based on paying about 20% or less than its retail value.

In other words, if you pay more than $2000 for a domain, you better expect that you will need at least $5000 to make that domain perform as a DIRECTORY for you to recoup your investment. That’s only if your domain has that “branding” power to do it.

In my own world, I own two domains I bought for $2000 each. These domains are keyword category killers. They are huge medical domains with 100 thousand google results, and are THE medical term used for what the medical procedure is. However, they aren’t big PPC winners for some reason, and to flip them, I have to go find the online marketing directors of some billion dollar companies that manufacture the machine that performs this procedure. I haven’t done that yet, but that’s all I can do with them UNLESS I DECIDE TO BUILD THEM INTO DIRECTORIES.

Then I have to compare their total cost ratio of ROI to the other 500 domains that could be great directories, too.

What a mess!

I have over 1000 OOTB domains I’d like to build out but the cost is beyond my current financial capabilities (and my wife’s “yes” factor). After serving as an equity partner for a corporate company, I definitely don’t want to go down THAT road again. I’m too old, plus, I like having fun and my freedom.

So, my good buddies — just flip those mothers for that 500 – 1,000% or more profits per domain. Then pick TEN of your best domains to build out, as directories. The rest of your domains are financial teets for your ten best.

This is what I learned from Zappy and Andrew of Internet Real Estate.

So with all due respect to my buddy El-Silver, if you have the experience El has in knowing a good domain when he see’s it, and he buys 300 of them OOTB, I will bet on the return of those 300 domains against his purchase of a $2500 domain and building it out, or even flipping it for three times his purchase price.

If you got this far, you learned a lot. Re-read it if you’re serious about making money in domaining.

cheers!

I’m sick of reading “new” comments and blog articles based on those old posts about WhyPark users (from 2007) claiming to be using Whypark and getting “blacklisted” on Google.

THE MEAT: I haven’t had one of my 220+ WhyPark.com domains blacklisted on Google since I moved them to Whypark in 2008. So keeping with my same program of adding domains to WhyPark, I wrote one original piece on my domain PRODUCEINDUSTRY.COM™, which discussed a movie “Food, Inc.” as a film that revealed some disturbing information about the food we eat. The article was only about 250 words or less, and it took me about 5 minutes to write it. (I write in a “flow of consciousness” style – meaning that I write what I remember as it pours out of my head. This is an easy way of writing, for all you domainers.)

SO WHAT’S THE BIG NEWS? Here it is:

If you search on YAHOO for the phrase “PRODUCE INDUSTRY” in quotes, which are the two relevant keywords of my domain, you will see my website as #1. Yes, that’s right. Granted, that could change, and I won’t whine about it, because I have 3500 other domains I own that I’m monetizing. But this GOLD MEDAL (yeah, it’s a cheap connection to the Winter Olympics, sorry!) has to go to WhyPark because this site, which only made money when parked and some e-coli scare came up, is now getting good traffic continually, and I’m seeing that it is based on OST.  This is showing me that my domains I’m building out quickly and easily at WhyPark are WORKING for me. They ARE getting indexed by SE’s, and they are showing up as real sites.

If that changes, I’ll add another new custom page, and wait until it moves its way to the top again.

BEST OF ALL: (and this is important for all big domain portfolio holders) I don’t have my longtail domains stuck in a PPC landing page that most SE’s ignore. One way or another, having my sites built out on WhyPark give them credibility, potential SE indexing, and a useful site for users to land on after typing in the domain, or finding it through organic search on a search engine (Organic Search Traffic – OST).

I had to share this news with you because I surprised myself by accident, searching up this domain on Yahoo.  If you have 100 domains parked somewhere, and you’re tired of seeing zero traffic, zero income, and no SE indexing on those domains, then bring them over to WhyPark and just wait 90 days to surprise yourself, but that surprise is more of an expectation for me. I can only say, I “expect” you to have those same “expectations” for domain monetization success that I have with WhyPark. GO FOR IT!

Many domainers know I’m mainly focused on new technology niches. This give me the opportunity to sell about 1200 generic domains I’ve owned for many years, and have been selling them successfully as cherry picks in the last two years.  I find some excuse to sell them when I want, and for this batch, I’m calling it “Pre-Spring Specials”. I know, it sounds like you’re buying clothing from a catalog, but it’s all good.

Straight up, I’m selling these domains for $99 – $199 each just to blow your mind.  I invite comments on my domains, and hope you see something in the below list that gives you a “what! Nice name for cheap!” type of feeling.

I accept Paypal only payments to my Verified Paypal account. You can reach me at Successclick -*at-* gmail.com (of course the “*at*” is meant to be the symbol @.  You can also post here any domain name with “SOLD” to secure it for yourself.

Here’s the list of domains and prices:

AntiLockBrakeSystem.com – $199

SaltwaterPump.com – $199 (hint hint!)

PodDJ.com – $99

TireLight.com – $199

BloodPressureProducts.com – $99  – SOLD

LyricExpert.com – $99

RankMyBeauty.com – $99

BARSTOWJOBS.COM – $99

RadioControlRacing.com – $199 – SOLD

LinkToMoney.com – $99

Neurasthenia.com – $199 – SOLD

OATMEAL-COOKIE.COM – $99

Mastectomy-Products.com – $99

FlareLauncher.com – $99

AutomotiveComponent.com – $99

BMXramp.com – $199 (hint hint!)

HeavyDutyBattery.com – $199  (hint hint!)

UPDATE:  BULK SALE PRICE FOR ALL DOMAINS ABOVE: $1,000

Let me know, first come, first serve!

NEWS UPDATE:  I am finally taking the time to provide an email subscription service for my readers on domains like this so I don’t have to post them on my blog. I should have it up and running by April. Stay tuned, and thank you for reading my blog. If you see a domain you like, email me quick!

Much Success!

I own ElectricFashion.com™, and since it wasn’t doing anything at Parked.com, with few visitors, maybe a few pennies a month, I decided that it was time to do a “preemptive” move that I’m surprised I haven’t thought of before and offered to my clients and readers. Well, here it is.

NOTE: I think this is an important strategy to embrace if you have over 100 domains, and many of those domains are branding or generic descriptive domains under 16 characters (no hyphens, numbers, contractions, prepositions, etc.)

Do you want to have a “offensive” defense against “reverse-hijacking” attempts and at the same time have a good chance of getting your domain indexed? (parking your domain at a PPC  landing page will NOT advance your domain in the SE’s).

Try this — it gives you a fighting chance:

For this strategic option, you have to consider whether you want to move a domain that is making good money at your PS in order to PROTECT it from possible “reverse hijacking” attempts. If you feel confident where your domain is parked, and you have great domain attorneys, then this doesn’t affect those domains. But what about those domains that aren’t performing as “hello! You have a big vacation coming” revenue generators?

What if you have a generic domain that you know is powerful, and is just waiting for that end-user sale? Ooops! You’re getting attacked by some company who feels your domain is infringing on their copyright, even though you know it’s generic, and should be safe. This happens to domainers every month.

What can domainers do to help PREVENT the kneejerk move by some companies trying to reverse-hijack your domains?

ANSWER: Move your domain from a landing page (like Domainsponsor, TrafficZ, Parked, Sedo, etc) to a content-building site, such as WhyPark.com or other content building sites.

HERE’S THE BIG SCARECROW FOR YOU TO FRIGHTEN THE CROWS: DON’T BE AFRAID TO TELL THE WORLD THAT YOU’RE TMing YOUR DOMAIN!

Set up your new content sites to present the phrases of their domains with a “TM” behind the phrase. Yes, you can start establishing your own TM ownership on your domains by simply presenting the domain consistently with the “TM” mark behind the domain phrase, or the domain itself. Trademarks take five years to be reviewed and established, and the first thing the govt looks at is if you’ve been using your domain phrase clearly marked as a “TM”.  The longer you’ve been promoting your domain as a TM, the stronger your case is for you owning that domain phrase.

I’ve digressed. My original story is this:  I set up my TM domain ElectricFashion.com™ about a week ago, and the Google-searched phrase “electric fashion” popped up my domain, showing it was indexed within a week of moving it to WhyPark. That’s right, I just noticed that my domain site at WhyPark has been indexed by Google today.  If you look up that phrase, I’m in the top 10 results. For those “Google kills those content developer sites” proponents, here’s the news: This domain is parked at WhyPark and is in Google results.

So I’m excited about this — I am moving as many domains not receiving typein traffic over to WhyPark as fast as I can, and adding a Custom Page or two to make things speed up, so to say.

Final Note: I have about 202 domains which made nothing at PS’s now making me about $70-$100 a month in revenue at WhyPark. I have about 3200 domains split at three other PS’s, and only one of the PS’s can triple that amount… and that’s with 7 times as many domains. Granted, I’m a “future trend” domain buyer/flipper, but I’m impressed that I can take domains that made nothing and quickly start generating some monthly income on them through OST. (Organic Search Traffic — or SET “Search Engine Traffic”).  Seeing one of my “future trend” domains get indexed on Google in a week is a big jump ahead for my monetization AND resale potential for that domain.

So much for the neggy nellies attacking Whypark’s rapid popularity and proof of monetization revenues going up. I welcome any questions or comments regarding Whypark users’ and their experiences, pro or con, and if you have an issue, I’ll be glad to help resolve them for you.

Happy Domaining!

1) No runaway prices on domain registrations. Currently, it seems ICANN is going against the current recession, allowing Verisign to raise prices on .com extensions. Hey, somebody has to be able to abuse the system!

2) Transparency in PPC services, starting with the sources (Yahoo, Google, Bing, etc). This is the “talking to a wall” segment.

3) More information from domain blog experts on all the monetization options available for their domains, including myself

4) When to sell, when to build out, when to drop, how to avoid buying a TMer domain, when does a hyphen work, etc.

5) Seeing themed domain auctions with some new faces. We’re all tired of auctions that cater only to other domainers looking for a good deal

6) More surveys and reports on which are the best registrars to buy domains, based on ease of transfer, registration fee pricing, bulk management, ease of use through total control feature sets, etc.

7) More focus on domains sold by the “little guys”, which make up 98% of all domain sales, instead of incessant vanity articles on the domain players who have already made it big (millions of $$$) by selling domains we all know would sell for big bucks. What can domainers learn from these guys we all wish to be like? Answer: “You should have been there in 2000 with $100k in your bank account” and “This industry is easy when you come in with lots of money first”.

The majority of domain investors don’t have domains that fit the “six figure and up category”, and we already know all the success stories, projects, partnerships, ad nauseum, etc. of those lucky/smart 25 domainers who own the most domains, or the best domains. Let’s focus more on the new and old domainers who survive comfortably without any fanfare by selling domains for $1000 or less, every week. (I’m curious about my friend Rob Sequin’s rise in the industry). Let’s provide data on domains sold from $300 and up (thousands of these deals happen every month), show the hard working domain site builders (just watch Elliot go!), list the end user companies “getting it”, and how we can help more end user companies become educated on the value of domains in their business. List as many “end user” businesses buying generic prodservs domains as we can, and provide this info to use to anyone contacting an end user potential buyer to prove the value of domain names.

8 ) Reports on content building websites, their ease of use, the viability of the content, ROI, simplicity of adding custom content, SEO education, notification on when their “content site” has been indexed by any SE

These are but a few of the most requested “wants” I hear. If you have any to add, now’s your chance. If you identify yourself, I will allow a linkback to your website in your comment.

I admit I have failed in writing more helpful articles for new domainers, so I will try to provide information along these lines, and include relevant points added by those commenting here.

Happy domaining!

Stephen Douglas