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Where The Money Is

Elliot Silver
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15

Picture 1The real money with web development (when you aren’t selling a product or service) is in direct relationship deals with advertisers. Instead of having to hope for clicks with Adsense or a parked page, you can work with someone to build a website, add space for 5-6 advertisers, charge a fair rate for top placement, and blow your PPC earnings away.

Depending on the industry and traffic, a fair rate can be anywhere from under $100 a month to thousands of dollars per month. If you have a great generic domain name, chances are good that if you add relevant, interesting, and useful content that visitors will want to see, advertisers will want to capture the attention of those visitors. Also, if you have a great industry defining domain name, you better believe people in that industry will listen when you tell them who you are. This sounds oversimplified, but I hope the information below will be helpful.

My advice is for you to find the best possible domain name that you can afford in an industry you are passionate about. Search for domain names for sale at companies like BuyDomains and Sedo, and also make direct inquiries using the Whois database. Just keep in mind that when you are trying to buy a domain name in private, make sure you make a good offer, or it will be a non-starter.

Once you have your domain name, write up a small business plan with details about how you plan to build and monetize it. I personally recommend using WordPress, which is easy to maintain, gets lots of Google search love, has considerable development support, and there are plenty of people that can help you manage your blog. With WordPress, you can visually set it up in any way you’d like, and you can add many plugins and widgets to enhance your site. You can also purchase fairly inexpensive templates, so much of the hard work is already done.

After the look and feel of your website is created, it’s time to start discussing what you like and know about that particular industry. Write interesting posts and articles about the “buzz word” topics, helping to share what you know with others. Since you are an afficianado of that industry, you probably know the most popular blogs and forums already, so begin letting people know about your website – but don’t ask for links. One thing that annoys people is when you ask for a link back without a reason for them to give it. Don’t be annoying when you post in the forum, but if you really like that industry, this should be obvious.

Sign up for news aggregation sites that are specific to the industry (like Domaining.com is to ours). You will also want to submit your site to the major search engines, and you may want to submit it to the Yahoo Directory, which costs about $299/year – this should help with SEO. Later on, you will want to submit your site to DMOZ, but don’t do that until your site is fairly established. Some people think you should sign up for a search engine submission service, but others say it’s a BS waste of money. I really don’t know so I can’t give you advice on this.

By doing what I’ve mentioned above, you will begin to get traffic – both naturally (via type-in and links) and via organic search. The companies who make the products or sell services to people like you will hopefully begin to notice your website, and you should start looking to find the contacts who manage marketing or advertising. Use company directories, search engines, or attend tradeshows to find these people, and let them know who you are and what your site is. One way to do this is to request an interview with people within the company – not only to provide interesting content, but to make them more aware of your existence. When they know your domain name, website, and traffic, they should want to advertise – or recommend their affiliate program, which can be even more lucrative.

I know all of this sounds time consuming – it is. However, you will end up with a website about a topic you enjoy, and not only will you have increased the value of your domain name, but you should also have a good opportunity to sign on direct advertisers, which is lucrative, since you are able to cut out the middle man. There really is no easy magic way to make a lot of money online – except by the people who sell the books about making a lot of money online 🙂 You will need to put the time in, but it will pay off.

Quickly Sell a “Faddy” Domain Name

Elliot Silver
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24

There have been a number of times where some new faddy trend or buzzword comes out, and I’ve looked up the Whois only to see someone beat me to the punch and registered it minutes before or a while back. I usually tip my hat and congratulate the buyer on his intuition – especially if it was registered months or years prior.

A problem that some people have, most of whom are domain investors capitalizing on trends, is that they often don’t sell at optimal value, hoping or anticipating that another better offer will be received. When a fad dies off and it’s no longer the lead story in the news, the domain name will drop significantly in value and interest in the domain name will wane.

Instead of rejecting every offer hoping for a better one that might not come, it might be a good idea to sell the domain name for a strong offer that’s received in the first few days/hours of the trend, and some of the money should be used to buy a great generic domain name that will stand the test of time (keep in mind you’ll owe taxes on the profit so don’t use it all).

If you can turn an $8 investment into a $10,000 profit in just a few weeks, it’s silly not to do so. Sure, you might leave some money on the table, but nobody every went broke selling domain names at a profit.

Domain Inquiries Over the Phone

Elliot Silver
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9

On occasion, I will get a phone call from someone who wants to buy a domain name I own. While I do think making a phone call is far better for domain buyers to get in touch with a domain owner, I would recommend that domain owners work out their deals online in emails rather than over the phone.

The primary reason is that you can respond to the inquiry on your own time, allowing you to research the value of your domain name and do some research on the buyer. Additionally, you don’t have to make a snap decision over the phone if you hadn’t intended to sell the domain name.

The secondary reason is that your emails are all trackable. You can easily archive offers for domain names, allowing you to remember what offers came in the past. Additionally, if you have no intentions of selling the domain name now, you can have the person’s email and email address readily accessible when the time to sell comes. It’s much easier to lose a phone number and/or forget who a person in your phone book is after a period of time.

It’s in the best interest of a domain owner to work out a deal online.

Blend of Personal & Business Accounts

Elliot Silver
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12

I am in the midst of a discussion with a couple of friends regarding the division of personal life and professional life and would like some feedback. My blog is primarily a business blog, but I do like to share personal information as well. When I read other blogs, I like to know about the person behind the blog, and I am happy to share information about my background as well. I think it’s only fair that my blog readers know who I am and what I am doing.

I also have a Twitter account, which as the url would suggest (@dinvesting), is an offshoot of my blog. However, I don’t really have any friends who are on Twitter aside from my domaining friends, so I use it as a personal account as well, especially because many of my domain industry friends use Twitter as well. I am not one for sharing intimate details of my personal life with many people, so it’s not exactly a big deal having the mixed account because even the personal stuff is watered down, knowing that anyone can see it.

Facebook, on the other hand, started off as a strictly personal account and has evolved into a joint business account as business acquaintances have “befriended” me. People have added me as friends, some of whom I hardly know or don’t know at all, and I generally accept requests if we have friends in common, despite the fact that I might not know the person, to avoid being rude. I’ve met and become friends with many people via the domain industry, so despite the fact that we didn’t grow up or go to college together, we are still friends.

I must admit that I am getting annoyed by seeing constant self-business promotion via Facebook, as I still consider it more of a personal account. It’s also annoying when Facebook “friends” seem to combine their Twitter and Facebook accounts and do retweets and other stuff on Facebook. I suppose that means that these people have decided to make it their business feed rather than a personal feed, but what must their non-business friends think about all this business they are bringing. It doesn’t seem like there’s a way to block specific people who are notorious for their business-related posts.

As an aside, a few of my friends have been known to take those annoying Facebook quizzes too, so I’d love to block their feed as well! I don’t really care if they would be Don Corleone in the Godfather, if their iPod color is blue, or that Brad Pitt would play the story of their life if made into a movie.

Anyhow, the big question is where do you draw the line, and when you draw the line, do you go back and adjust your accounts to reflect this?

Find a Top Web Designer

Elliot Silver
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3

I am lucky to have found a great graphic designer who has helped me with a number of projects over the last year and a half. I initially found Mike after holding a logo design contest at 99Designs (formerly part of Sitepoint). I wrote a creative brief, added a cash award for the winner, and somewhere around 15-20 designers participated. It turned out to be much easier to find a designer than I initially thought it would be.

I would like to suggest another way to find a great web or graphic designer using 99Designs as well. Search through either current or past design contests, which can be found on the home page. Many of the top design contests have dozens of designers, all of whom submit one or multiple entries. You can search multiple public design contests to see which designers seem to have a style that you’d like for your project.

You can then look at the profiles of your favorite designers, and see what other contests they’ve entered and recently won. Additionally, many designers have their external portfolio website listed on their profile, allowing you to contact them outside of the 99Designs website. You can also send the designer a private message via 99Designs asking for a price quote for your project.

If you prefer to keep things more trackable and on site, you can set up your own design competition, and using what I suggest above, send private messages to the designers asking them to participate in your contest. 99Designs is a great site to find designers who will compete to complete your website design project.

Make a 1,000% Profit

Elliot Silver
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18

The title of this post isn’t what you generally expect to see on my blog, but I found a way to make 10x my investment in a short period of time, and I want to share this because I don’t think it’s a limited opportunity. What I am going to share probably won’t work for everyone, and it won’t work all the time, but I can tell you that I did this before, and I did very well.

Snapnames and Moniker have made it very easy to list domain names for sale on Snapnames. The problem many people have is registering domain names that other people want to buy. Sure, I can go ahead and register 1,000 new domain names and put them up for auction right away, but if nobody wants them, I’m basically out $8,000.

With Snapnames’ new interface, I can see what people are bidding on or buying in real time, and frequently, I can spot patterns that can help me buy domain names that someone else is looking to buy (and is willing to pay a premium). Using this information, I can register domain names that are essentially part of the same pattern, and offer them for auction. Assuming the buyer has a special alert set for that particular pattern, I can auction it for a $79 minimum bid, just like many other auctions.

If I paid $7.50 for the name, and I sell it for $79, I’ve made 10x my money (minus the 20% commission). If I do this with 100 domain names, I can make some decent money relatively easily.   If I do this with 1,000 domain names, I can make some very good money.

Of course there is a risk to this – in that the buyer may not be buying anymore or may have only been searching for a particular type of name on a random day, and I’ll get stuck with the names. However, I personally believe it’s worth the risk, as I basically only need to sell 1 in 10 names to break even, and my leftovers can be sold in bulk or at a loss – either way I’ve already broken even.

You may be asking yourself if I’ve done this, and I have and I’ve had pretty good success.

Again, there is no guarantee with this whatsoever, and you obviously need to know what to buy and what not to buy based on perceived needs of buyers. Sometimes patterns may look obvious, but they aren’t, and you can get stuck with the names. However, with the chance of making 1,000% profit, it may be worth the risk, and when I did it before, I did very well.

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