Here’s a Good Hurricane Domain Name to Develop: GoBags.com

Elliot Silver
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16

As I’ve done in the past, I want to share a domain name with you that’s for sale and I think the price is pretty reasonable. There’s no affiliate code with this, and I am not going to make a dime if you buy it (nor have I been paid or asked to post this).

With Hurricane Irene fast approaching New York City, I’ve been reading some of the news stories, and many with a local focus discuss hurricane preparedness. One of the essential things these articles mention is to have “go bags” ready in case an evacuation is necessary.

From what I understand, a go bag is basically a bag of supplies you can quickly grab as you are evacuating. According to the New York City Office of Emergency Management,  “every household should pack a Go Bag – a collection of items you may need in the event of an  evacuation. A Go Bag should be packed in a sturdy, easy-to-carry container such as a backpack or suitcase on wheels. A Go Bag should be easily accessible if you have to leave your home in a hurry. Make sure it is ready to go at all times of the year.”

I would imagine Go Bags are recommended in many other places where rapid evacuations are deemed necessary. There are a number of websites that offer tips on what to pack in Go Bags and many have sections where supplies can be purchased. In my opinion, someone could develop a website and sell these bags that are already prepared, and different bags can contain things that would be necessary for different emergency situations.

The domain name is owned by a private domain investor (who doesn’t know I am even posting this) and it’s available for sale on Afternic right now for $4,500, with offers over $500 considered.

I have enough projects of my own right now and no e-commerce experience, so this wouldn’t be a good fit for my company. Perhaps you can make good use of it.

What do you think about this name and its price?

Why I Like Screenshot Tool

Elliot Silver
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2

I was making my daily inquiries the other day, when I saw a great domain name with a “coming soon” landing page. The page said that this was going to be a new venture and it would be launched sometime soon. There was no copyright or update date on the site or the footer.

Ordinarily when I see a coming soon page with a 2011 date, I generally refrain from making an offer. I know that development can be time consuming and expensive, so if the domain owner posted something that said the domain name was in the process of being developed, there’s little reason for me to make an offer to try and buy it since it will likely be expensive or there won’t be an interest in selling.

This is precisely where the screenshot history tool comes into use for me. On this particular domain name, I checked the screenshot history, and it showed me that the same landing page has been on the site since May of 2009. That indicates to me that the domain owner either got sidetracked or had other issues preventing him from launching the website. It also told me that he hasn’t monetized it, so he doesn’t know what he’s leaving on the table.

This information is invaluable in negotiating to purchase a domain name. If the guy replies to me and says he’s working on a website, I can tell him that it hasn’t happened in two plus years, so perhaps it might be a good time to throw in the towel and make some money from his underutilized asset. In any case, it’s a tool that I use on occasion, and when I do use it, I find it very helpful.

Quick Sales Tip: Don’t Click The Ads

Elliot Silver
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4

I want to share a quick tip with you regarding selling domain names to end users. It’s one of those tips that may seem obvious, but I am sure it’s happened before and it’s something you may or may not have considered.

When I try to sell a domain name to an end user, I pitch it to companies who are advertising on Google via Adwords for that exact keyword. I figure, if they’re spending money trying to attract people who are searching for the keyword, perhaps they’d like to buy the exact match domain name and build a website to help the rank organically.

One thing I never do though is click on the ad to visit the website. Not only is it rude for the domain owner to make the potential advertiser pay to hear his or her pitch, but it can also cost a sale and business contact if the website owner is tracking the leads and sees that the visitor goes straight to the contact page.  This is especially true if it’s an infrequently searched term and is much easier to track. It will piss off the website owner if you made him pay $2.00 to read your domain sales pitch.

No advertiser wants to do business with someone who is so lazy that he or she can’t cut and paste the url into a different window and opts to make the advertiser pay for his or her visit.

This is something that you may or may not have considered, but if there are just a few potential buyers for one of your domain names, burning one bridge by doing that can kill any chance of a deal.

Share a Secret or Tip To Help Others

Elliot Silver
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28

I want to try something a bit different today and see if others will follow suit with comments. The domain business isn’t as secretive as it once was, but there are plenty of things that some people still won’t share. I try to be as helpful as possible by sharing insights into my business and how I am making money (or not) in the domain business.

That being said, I wonder if you would be willing to open up and share something that you haven’t shared before. It can be a secret or a tip, but it should be something you think others might find beneficial.

Here’s a “secret” tip to start this off… hopefully it helps you. I use Freshdrop every day to scour the lists of domain names. This may be a surprise, but the most important category I follow is the GADV, which is the # of advertisers on Google for the keyword phrase.

In my opinion, the more companies advertising on a certain keyword, the better the exact match domain name will be. Of course, the name has to make sense, so it involves a sanity/gut check before placing a backorder or buying the domain name.

What are you willing to share to help others?

To Make Money Investing in Domain Names, You Have to Put The Time In

Elliot Silver
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36

I am frequently asked how I know what names to buy so I can quickly re-sell them. The quick answer is that I do quite a bit of research and market intelligence.  Unfortunately, it seems that many people love quick answers, but they don’t actually enjoy (or just don’t have the time/desire) to put the work into doing the research.

I spend quite a bit of time researching who is buying what names. I do my homework to try and find out approximately how much they are paying for these domain names. I review sales reports, past sales, and sales listings to try and find the prices paid. I pay close attention to patterns and when I see a pattern forming, I try to get ahead and search for similar domain names to buy at better prices. If I know someone is buying Car related names and is paying $10,000/each, I try to find similar names for much less.

One of the keys to this is knowing what is similar to names a company is buying and what is rubbish.  UsedCars.com is great, CarsUsed.com does not make sense to me. Similarly, UsedAutomobiles.com may be good, but not even close to UsedCars.com. To know what’s good, I research search volume, the number of results in Google, but I also use my brain. Does CarsUsed.com or UsedAutomobiles.com really sound nearly as good as UsedCars.com? No. For all the tools I use, I think my brain and the gut feel I have is superior.

When I am buying domain names, I am taking on all the risk. I could just ask the owner to broker a similar name I think a buyer will like, but that will net me 10%. Taking on all the risk can net me a lot more than that. The downside is that I could get stuck with the name. That’s where the gut feel comes in to the equation. If I buy a name for $5,000 with the hopes of selling it for a lot more, my gut tells me that even if I have to cut bait, the loss will be none or small. I know enough about good names to know that if buyer A doesn’t want it for my price, I can find 10 other buyers that will want it, although my sales price may not be what I first thought.

For a few hours each day, I scan drop lists, read sales newsletters, scour aftermarket sites, and do Whois lookups to see who owns what and who is buying what names. Selling great names is not difficult at all. Knowing what names to buy and at what prices is the hard part. If you have and own truly great names, you will have no problem selling them. The only issue is determining a price that makes sense for you.

Monitor Old Email Addresses

Elliot Silver
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3

After working at my first “real” job for about a year, I started looking for another job. Obviously, I needed to use a personal email address to send resumes and apply for jobs, and I opted to create a more professional sounding Hotmail account rather than using the AOL email account I had used since high school.

Although I don’t really use that account anymore, I want to keep it because it’s my name, and I’d rather have it than someone else.. I generally try to log in to that account once or twice a year to keep it active and prevent someone else from taking control of it.

I logged in to my account for the first time in probably a year, and I was informed by Hotmail that the account had been compromised. Apparently, someone had sent spam emails from the account, which I was able to confirm by checking the sent messages box. I immediately changed the password and took control of the account.

Many of us have more than one email address. Sometimes they are used to make offers on domain names or used for other reasons. Whatever the case may be, you should monitor those email addresses often. Fortunately, most of the contacts I have in that account are old head hunters and people with whom I emailed 5+ years ago. However, it would have looked bad had they been current business contacts.

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