Trading Domains To Make Money: A Basic Guide
In 2010, Clover Holdings, a relatively unknown company, bought a domain name that had been put up for auction by the company Escom LLC for the price of $13 million. Welcome to the world of domain flipping. Domain flipping involves buying website domains with the aim of selling them at a profit. Of course, you can’t expect to make millions from each domain name you sell, but you can make a decent amount of money if you know what you are doing.
The focus of the site and the strength of the domain name are two important factors for success with domain flipping. It is often helpful to focus on a common niche or sub-niche, though it’s usually better not to base your URL on the niche’s main keyword. The most popular keywords within a niche are often extremely competitive. Rather, search for related keywords that you can focus on. With the help of an online keyword research tool, look for keywords that rank high among the search engines, but don’t have much competition. When acquiring brand new domain names, do a detailed analysis of the keywords before finalizing a name that includes the keyword as part of the URL.
When the new domain name or site has been acquired, the next step is to work on the website. Make improvements to the site that will ensure the search engines give it a higher ranking. You will also want to make it more attractive to users and increase its potential to make money. These objectives remain the same whether you purchase an existing website or you develop one yourself.
Your site should be attractive to users, so focus on improving the design and functionality of the site. The next step in sprucing up the site is uploading high quality content and optimizing each page with your keywords. Create multiple backlinks to enhance the site’s position in the search engines.
Work on the profitability of the site. A site that generates a substantial passive income is highly desirable and will sell relatively quickly. There are several approaches toward generating an income, such as hosting ads on the website, participating in affiliate marketing, and creating a sizable list of site subscribers. Install Google Analytics to track your website traffic statistics and online campaign results to enable interested buyers to easily verify all information before bidding.
When you are finished working on the site and are ready to sell it, there are many domain marketing sites where you can list your site for sale. Among them, Flippa.com has the highest bid statistics. If you want to know how much your site could go for, determine how much money it is bringing in every month and multiply that by 10. Therefore, if your site brings in $40 a month, expect to earn $400 on it. This is merely a guideline, however, and some sites with enormous potential bring in nearly twice that ratio.
When you list your site, disclose the traffic and income data for your site via Google Analytics. Buyers considering the purchase of your site will expect to see exactly how much money the site is bringing in, how many visitors it serves, and the various technical data. They also want to know the purpose and niche of the site.
Once you agree to a buyer’s bid, request payment through escrow for a safer transaction. You can give the buyer the website after your escrow service acknowledges payment in full. This usually ends the transaction. Sometimes, however, your services could be requested to assist the buyer with transferring the site and understanding what you did in the building process. You should always make sure these terms are disclosed before the sale goes through.
Patience and shrewd business sense is required when you begin flipping domains. The sites that have existed on the Internet for many years are going to bring in more money than new domains. There are very few rags to riches stories in domain flipping. If you are flipping an unknown site that you built, or you are selling a site that you optimized to increase its current popularity, you will attract the highest bids with sites that have developed a solid reputation and reliable performance.
