About a week ago, I wrote an article with some insight about how to use the Domain Search Tool, which is a free tool from DomainTools. I want to share another way to use the tool, this time to help you sell domain names.
In the past, I used LeadRefs to find potential buyers for my domain names. Unfortunately, LeadRefs closed shop, so I now employ the “old fashioned” method of finding buyers by looking through Google results to see advertisers and see what companies are listed in the organic results. This is certainly a good way to find leads, but it can be time consuming.
The Domain Search Tool can help you find prospective end user buyers. What you should do is enter your keyword domain name into the search tool and see what other companies are using that term in their domain name. For example, I own WhistleblowerLaw.com, and there are a whole bunch of law firms and lawyers that use “WhistleblowerLaw” within their domain name.
Once I have the results on the page, I can easily click on the little globe icon to see the Whois result. If the email address is there (and looks like it’s related to the business and NOT the web designer or another domain investor), I can email that person. I also have the benefit of seeing that person’s name, assuming it’s listed. Taking it a step further, I can visit the website and see if the Whois registrant might be the decision maker or someone who works in IT that might not be the best contact for a domain acquisition.
Using the Domain Search Tool for this purpose may be a bit time consuming, but I’d rather have individual and personalized emails sent directly to the right person instead of sending a whole bunch of emails blindly.
Of course, finding email addresses of the decision makers is key, but of more importance is your domain name. If your domain name isn’t good and/or your targeting is off, you will end up annoying the recipient.
Have you tried http://www.topnames.org? A variety of end-user finding tools.
Nope
Give it a shot, won’t regret 🙂
I regret.
Just now signed up at http://www.topnames.org/ they don’t say that you need to register(which they say is free) until you submit your domain information.
After you register & login & resubmit, then it says you need to pay for the search. I am ok with paying, but would appreciate if they are straight forward about it.
Thank you.
Jagan,
Some of tools are free and some are paid. Everything is stated in the “Subscription Plans” section.
As for end user finding tools that are free, you can use Zone File Analyzer (completely free) or Domain Crawler (50 free queries / day).
Also, on the top of the registration form it refers to the need for upgrading later.
Good tip Elliot, thanks for sharing.
Elliot,
I was asked to reach out to you in case you could make use of the twitter handle @domaininvestor. I am willing to let it go to any active twitter user at no cost. I posted a thread on dnforum. So this isn’t spam 🙂
http://www.dnforum.com/f77/active-twitter-users-need-great-twitter-handle-thread-503158.html
The offer is very generous and appreciated, but I have been using @elliotsblog for a while and would prefer to continue to do so 🙂
Makes sense 🙂
Do let me know if you know of anyone who’d be glad to put it to good use.
Good tip Elliot, thanks for sharing.