While I think it’s always smart to register domain names in an industry in which you are familiar, there are plenty of times where this isn’t feasible or sensible. When you aren’t entirely familiar with a particular industry, looking at some of the page titles in industry specific websites can give you good ideas about what types of names would have value.

If a company dedicates a page on its website to a specific topic or service, or if it mentions the term in the title of it’s home page, I would bet that it’s likely that the .com domain name of that exact match term will be of interest to them or someone else in their industry.

Let’s use the search term “soccer cleats” to illustrate my point. Here’s a look at some of the page title keyword phrases I found in Google when I search for soccer cleats:

• Soccer Cleats
• Soccer Jerseys
• Soccer Gear
• Soccer Equipment
• Soccer Balls
• Indoor Soccer Shoes
• Soccer Goals
• Youth Soccer
• Soccer Footwear

In my opinion, if you owned the .com of any of these key phrases, it would be likely one or more of the leading soccer sales companies (either those listed in the top of the results or those advertising) would be interested in buying the domain name from you. Some of the .com names would be more valuable than others, but if you found one for sale for a few thousand dollars, you could probably flip it for more.

Searching like this has been done by people like myself for a while, and many of the strong keyword names have been registered for a number of years. However, there are plenty of terms that can still be bought and flipped for great prices. Doing research like this is important because there are plenty of companies who would LOVE to own names like these, but they wouldn’t know how to get them.

If you do the legwork, which includes domain research, acquisition negotiations, and buyer research, you could end up making some great deals.

I wanted to share an email I received without identifying the person who sent it or the names mentioned in the email. The reason I’d like to share it is because I know more people think like this, and I would like to offer my advice.

Elliot,

I just registered the following super-domain names: SuperXYZKeyword.com, SuperXYZKeyword.com, SuperXYZKeyword.com, SuperXYZKeyword.com, SuperXYZKeyword.com.   Do you think Supermedia/Idearc would want to buy these domain names from me? I think they are valuable.

I’ve said it many times, but I want to reiterate it. Just because one company is buying a particular type of domain names, does not mean similar domain names have any added value – especially when they are “brandable” domain names. It’s more than likely that the company went out to acquire the names they were interested in buying, and they opted to not buy others.

I personally do not believe “Super” keyword domain names have any value aside from the value added by SuperMedia when they choose to develop them. Likewise, similar brandable names bought by other companies might not have value if the company doesn’t want to buy them.

Before you go out and register names like these, you should ask yourself why the particular company didn’t think of these domain names before, when they were buying their other names. It’s likely they just weren’t interested and/or had a specific plan in mind for specific domain names.

If you do feel the “need” to take a chance and buy them, don’t buy more than just a couple. Before you know it, you will own dozens or hundreds of names with similar backgrounds, and it’s likely that you won’t sell them.

I want to share a quick domain acquisition tip with you that I have used in the past when I bought a domain name from an end user company who was using the domain name for its website. Although I didn’t think it was likely that they would sell the name, I made an interesting suggestion to them, which helped close the deal.

My advice is that you give them suggestions for new domain names (or cheap domain names), that they can use for their website if they sell their domain name. Depending on their situation, they may be willing to take the cash and re-brand. This is more likely to happen with a company that keeps a minimal web presence, but it probably also depends on the amount of money you are willing to offer them.

Because the deal I made is private and the domain name has already been re-sold by me, I can’t use the exact names in my situation, but I will use two examples to illustrate what you might be able to do. Let’s say you are hypothetically trying to buy ChristmasTree.com from a company called “The Christmas Tree.” In your email to The Christmas Tree, you offered them $50,000 for their domain name, but they said it’s not for sale since they use it for their website.

If TheChristmasTree.com is available to register (or listed for sale), your next move might be to suggest that domain name to them as a good alternative for their website. This might be appealing, especially for a company that doesn’t heavily rely on their website, as they can get some liquidity at the expense of a URL change.

This won’t work every time, and the success rate may be pretty low. I did it once, and the offer was enticing enough to the company. It should also be noted that they didn’t use the domain name for email, so that big complication was avoided. It’s just another tool to have in your arsenal when buying domain names in private.