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Guest Post: Keepin It Real & Keeping The Money Coming In

Elliot Silver
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The following post is courtesy of a friend and well-known, but private domain investor. He gives some strategic advice which he adheres to, and it makes him quite a bit of money. When I first started out in the domain industry, my strategy was to sell as many names as possible for thin profit margins. It takes a lot of $30 domain sales to make good money. My friend has generated PPC revenue (correction from earlier) for a few months, and then sold his names for a revenue multiple.

“This past week I sold a total of 9 minimal income domains for $2,450. I paid a total of $61.85 for them (all were reg fee). In the year I had them they made about $800 in ppc income. So my total return on a $62 investment was $3,250 with a net profit of $3,188. That works out to a 5,142% ROI. Sure I could have held them instead of selling like others try and wait till they find a 10x buyer, but odds are I’d be waiting a much longer time and would have to invest more of my time in continued marketing which has a cost factor to it and if you do that you don’t keep cash flow coming in. You want your resell domain properties to flip fast. Time is money. There’s nothing wrong with pricing to sell at 2x or 3x. It works. It moves inventory quickly. It’s the way to keep constant high profit cash flow coming out of your portfolio with enormous ROI’s.
The strategy then is to not be greedy if you want to make money in the domain biz. Make a profit, but make it possible for the next buyer to make a profit too. Where else can you make a 5,000% ROI??? I know of no investment that can do that kind of number on a reliable continuous basis week after week, but domains can if you keep your prices reasonable to sell quick. That’s the secret!”

While I plan to keep the domain names I build into mini-sites, I think my friend has a smart strategy to produce a growing revenue stream. The buyers of his names/sites will benefit from his legwork – it’s a win/win for everyone.

Planning to Attend a Conference

Elliot Silver
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As I am preparing to attend the GeoDomain Expo in Chicago in July and the TRAFFIC conference in New York in September, I would like to offer some advice to those who are planning on attending. Most conferences are expensive, and coupled with airfare and hotel registrations, it’s important to take a few things into consideration before attending.
Usually it can save quite a bit of money by registering early, so I recommend reviewing the upcoming conferences far in advance and using the early bird registration option. Most of the big domain and related conference websites have the dates and locations of upcoming conferences many months in advance. If finances are a big issue, try to attend a conference closer to home to avoid paying airfare.
In the past, I’ve used Farecast to find the best prices on airfare. The cool thing about that site is that it gives prices for various airlines, and it recommends whether you should buy the tickets now or wait based on their experiences. I’ve also found that you can save money by booking your hotel using the special conference rate, which is usually less expensive than you can find elsewhere. If the conference is in a big city with good transportation, you can usually save money by booking at a different hotel, but make sure it’s close enough (and safe enough) so that you can get home in the wee hours of the morning. I wouldn’t recommend staying in the Lower East Side during TRAFFIC, for example, because you will spend much more than you saved on cab fare alone.
As most people will tell you, conference attendance is about networking and meeting with old and new friends. Most of the panels offer valuable information and advice, but the primary reason I attend conferences is to meet with friends who I might see only one or two times a year. I would recommend reaching out to people with whom you want to meet to let them know you are planning to attend the conference. It’s likely that the person or people will be more than will to meet and chat with you at some point during the conference. While it’s nice to have a short conversation in passing, it’s even better if you make plans to speak ahead of time.
For the GeoDomain Expo, I am excited to listen to the panels and learn as much as I can. While I’ve received a tremendous amount of advice from the Castello Brothers, Rob Grant, Jessica Bookstaff, and several others, I am not an expert geodomainer yet. I want to learn how I can operate and grow my two geodomains, and I want to meet with the companies that offer products or services to help develop my geodomains. Take some time to scope out who will be in attendance and who will be speaking on the panels. If you make plans to go “off campus,” make sure you aren’t missing a panel of interest. Make appointments with sponsors and other exhibitors if you want to learn about the company or products. It’s usually easy for them to take a few minutes outside of the exhibition hall, but you should ask ahead of time so they can be prepared.
I am getting excited to attend the GeoDomain Expo and TRAFFIC. I’ve only attended a few conferences, but I’ve never, ever been disappointed with them. Each conference is a unique experience, and I think they are well worth the expense if you are serious about the industry or want to get serious about the industry. Almost all of the serious domain investors and developers attend the conferences, and it’s a great opportunity to learn from the professionals in a personal setting.

.Mobi Meltdown

Elliot Silver
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Jeff at DomainBits has an insightful post on his blog today.

“Here are some other interesting comparisons: mortgage.net sold in 2006 for $149K versus mortgage.mobi for $18K now. Sales.us sold in 2006 for $8K versus sales.mobi for $10.5K – yes, that’s right – .mobi is only doing slightly better than the anemic .us market was doing two years ago. Films.tv sold last year for $8,600 versus films.mobi for 10K now. Boats.org sold two years ago for $50,249 versus boats.mobi for $6K now. Forsale.org sold last year for $12K, forsale.biz sold in 2006 for $3,550, forsale.co.uk sold two years ago for $14,692 versus forsale.mobi for $5K. Show.org recently sold for $13K versus show.mobi for $5K.”

I can’t say that I disagree with him at all. Surely a warning sign to investors in alternative extensions. Personally, I would hate the be the guy who speculated on average or poor names in the $x,xxx to $xx,xxx range, because those are surely suffering in value. Check out the rest of his post when you get a chance.

Exhibitionists.com – Final Price Cut

Elliot Silver
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I have decided to drastically reduce the price of Exhibitionists.com to make a quick sale. This is a great category killer niche domain name, and it does receive traffic. I am not sharing traffic or revenue stats, as I have the keyword set to something other than adult-related.
The original price of Exhibitionists.com was $45,000, but I am now reducing the price to just $24,750 for a quick sale. This is posted in a couple different areas, so the first to respond will get this great category killer domain name for a hell of a price. Names like these don’t come on the market often, and certainly not at a price like this.
To buy it now, either post “sold” in the comment section or drop me a note. We can finalize the payment after the Memorial Day holiday.

Developing Mini Informational Sites

Elliot Silver
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In the past, I discussed developing mini-sites on good domain names to generate revenue using Adsense instead of parking the name. The logic was that the traffic to the mini-website would grow as it begins to rank in search engines, whereas parked domain names won’t typically see an increase in traffic unless it’s related to a specific event or hot trend. Domain owners could quickly develop some of their domain names and increase the revenue generated.
I was reading Morgan’s Blog today, and he gives a great example of why development can exponentially increase the value of a domain name. He registered StimulusChecks.info at the end of April, and he built a relevant website with valuable information. Because he is providing value in the form of good unique content, Google has rewarded the site and it is ranking well for related terms. As a result, the name is making about $10/day in revenue and receiving around 200 visits/day.
Because of the nature of this topic, I would venture that the big traffic spike might flatten out in the next few weeks, but without a doubt, Morgan will make a great profit from this project. If he does this on other decent domain names focusing on relevant topics, he could generate a strong passive revenue stream that will continue to grow as he builds his network of websites and links to all of them.
Another great mini site was set-up by Aaron Kuroiwa, owner of FlipSquare.com, a new domain sales venue. Aaron registered AlcoholTreatmentClinics.com after seeing it in my list of domain registration suggestions for charity. Aaron wrote articles and built a the website that ranks highly in several search terms. The site averages about $3/day in revenue and is growing – not bad from a new registration to a mini-site that probably took a day to build.
These are just two examples of thousands that are out there. I will be rolling a few out in the near future (when I get some free time from developing Lowell.com and Burbank.com). While this certainly isn’t meant for every domain name, it might be a good option for strong keyword domain names that aren’t earning strong revenues. The ability to scale is important, and domain owners can scale with this. One recommendation I can make is that a person should link all of their sites in order to boost each of the sites’ rankings. As they continue to grow individually, the entire network will grow as a result. A final suggestion is to develop sites in which you have an interest. Since writing articles and finding information can be boring, I think it’s important to build sites about things of interest to you.

Moniker Live Auction Recap

Elliot Silver
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I spent this afternoon doing some work while listening to the Moniker Live auction. While I am not surprised at the results ($2.56 million in sales), I am a bit disappointed in them. I was hoping to see somewhere in the ballpark of $4-5 million in sales, assuming Israel.com didn’t sell. I realize there might be more bids in the silent auction that continues for the next several days, but I don’t think the final tally will increase substantially.
Here are a few of my opinions for the auction:

  1. Sellers still have very high expectations for their names and fairly unreasonable reserves. I think domain owners need to understand that in today’s market, buyers aren’t going to spend a ton of money on a domain name simply because it’s a great domain name. Unless a buyer has a plan for the name, chances are good that they won’t pay a premium for it.
  2. Many decent/good one worders that would have sold in the $15-30k range at past auctions didn’t sell today or sold for less today.
  3. From what I heard from a couple people in attendance, the house crowd was smaller during this auction.
  4. Non-.com extensions saw much weaker results than before. I believe names like 20.net, Garden.info, and all the .mobi names would have sold for much more a year ago.
  5. If you have a good name and set a good reserve, bidders will bid it up and set the price – just what happened in the case of PostalCodes.com.

I was expecting a weak auction, and that’s what we saw today.

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