During these tough economic times, I am spending a good deal of money investing in my own business (via development) rather than buying new domain names. Although the TRAFFIC auctions were relatively strong and the domain aftermarket continues to show positive signs, I am still finding it more difficult to sell domain names. There are some good values out there, but I believe the market will get worse before it improves, so I am holding off on making acquisitions for the most part unless I am inclined to develop.
Since most of my sales have been to domain investors, and since people are being more conservative with their finances, my sales numbers are down in the last 3 months year over year. I am not going to complain because it could be much worse, but generally speaking, I think there is less money being spent by domain investors. I do think companies are still actively trying to buy generic domain names related to their businesses, but as the credit crunch impacts credit limits for all sorts of companies, this will be impacted as well.
With these difficult times, I am paying for development expenses rather than investing in other domain names. At the moment, Burbank.com is being completely revamped because I am not satisfied with how it looks. I put up a quickie site to ensure search engine links weren’t lost, but I am now building a directory and making the site more appealing. I think this will increase the value of the site, and I also think it will encourage businesses to advertise. This hadn’t been my focus since my priorities were on acquiring good domain names, but it is becoming my focus.
I am also working on my other sites to make improvements on them as well. I am adding interesting content based on keyword trends, linking to videos that could be of interest to visitors, and I am working on building links to my sites.
Like real estate, there will almost always be people buying domain names. People have tighter budgets these days, and it doesn’t appear that this will improve for a while. Of course I am willing to make strategic purchases for the right price, but determining what the right price is has become more difficult. For the time being, I am working on strengthening other areas of my business.
