The Lazy Domainer’s Way to Fail
November 4, 2007 · Print This Article
I thought I’d start a “smackdown” category of my blog where I refute a lot of the nonsense that’s out there about domaining. I’m somewhat scared to do this, as there is so much nonsense out there, that I could spend all of my time just adding entries to this category. However, I think that it’s worth at least refuting a few of these articles, just so that people know that there is another side to the story.
Today I read the article “Stay Away From Domain Name Speculation” at http://seanabc.blogs.ie/2007/11/03/stay-away-from-domain-name-speculation/. In this article, basically the author, even though he admits “I never got involved in domaining” does not hesitate to give advice about domaining. Oh, I never went to medical school, let me give you some medical advice. Not.
The author makes 5 fundamental errors, which all domainers would do well to avoid:
1. No Research. You wouldn’t invest in stocks or real estate without doing research – why would you invest in domains without doing research? Sure, everything on the internet does look easy – the market is growing fast, and even if you are not the best in your field, you can still do well. However, that does not mean you can skip putting in the time and effort needed to learn the fundamentals.
2. New Registrations. You can definitely make money from newly registered domains, and in future posts I will discuss how to do this in more detail. And the ROI can sound amazing – buy a domain for $8 and sell for $1,000 – that’s like 1150% profit. However, the reality is, especially in established name spaces like .com, almost all of the good domain names are gone. This is the result of many, many domain investors and domain tasters having gone out and registered them. If you can find a domain that is available, the chances are, at least at the present time, the domain is not worth more than registration fee, otherwise someone would already have registered it.
3. Catchy Domain Names. The author recommends thinking up a “catchy” domain name. Maybe if you’ve got millions of dollars to brand the catchy domain name, that’s a good idea (or maybe not even then). The problem with catchy domain names is that they are rarely worth more than registation fee. Why would someone pay a premium for a catchy but meaningless domain, when with a bit of creativity they could come up with a different, yet equally catchy sounding domain name that has not been registered yet?
4. Domaining is Easy Work. Actually, to do well at domaining, you need to spend a lot of time and effort at it. You can’t just drink a beer, sit down at your computer, come up with some wild ideas, and see what domains are available.
5. Domaining Is Only For Exceptional People. The author concludes by making this statement. This is simply false. Domaining is probably the best opportunity that I know of for investing and making money. It is so early in the industry that pretty much anyone can do well, and there are a multitude of ways of making money.
In all fairness, one thing the author does get right: he recommends that you be very selective in the domains you purchase. Of course, that’s very important and is one of the keys to being successful in this business.
For a wonderful success story about how people can succeed in the domain industry, check out this story on Sahar’s blog. A couple things are important to note: Mr. Giordano worked 16 hour days to be successful, and he avoided the hand registration strategy. Oh, and he made $110,000 profit in a month’s time. Hardly sound to me like domaining is something to stay away from.
Written by admin · Filed Under Smackdown
“Domaining” should be seen as only the first step.What
most people fail to do in this industry is realise the full
potential of their investment, ie by developing an
appropriate website for their registered name(s).
Think of your dotcom (or any other TLD you may
harbour) as your block of ‘virtual’ land and we all
know that a land and house package is worth alot
more than land alone. Empirical evidence shows
that webmasters who develop their dotcom’s and
establish a presence on the net generate alot more
value for their domain name/website. A website
domain package is generally more attractive to buy
from an investors point of view fore websites don’t
require major development unlike fresh ‘unknown’
domain names. Just go to any website auction domain
and you will see the length of sold websites compared
to the many domain auction sites who ironically
parade their 2 million plus domain names all static
and gathering virtual ‘dust’. So deal yourself some
justice and do some research on website development
produce yourself a brandable or content packed site,
monitize it (with google adsence or paid text adds)
add your affiliate banners and sell advertising on your
site- see text brokers and the like.
And as a final note to you all google say’s “Content Is
King” -remember Knowlege Is Content!!
Webmaster: MoneyMakingSites.info
Hi Jay, Thanks for your comment. To a certain extent I agree – what you say is correct. However, (1) development and domaining are actually quite different skills and someone who is good at domaining is not necessarily able to develop a successful site; (2) development is actually extremely hard work and the fact is that the majority of websites out there aren’t all that successful. That being said – if you ‘ve got what it takes – yes, take a few of your best domain names and develop them.
It is true to say that there are different skills involved
between the two endeavours and some first time
‘webmasters’ will propably fail. This is due to the fact
that there was a lack of knowlege in advertising a
presence on the net.
The most important thing as a ‘newbe’ in website
development is to learn from your mistakes and
try again. You’ll eventually home in on the required
skills to create and market a site pretty much the
same way you did when you invested in and marketed
your list of domains. The irony is by advertising your
list of dotcom’s in domain auctions and forum’s you
are already generating publicity for them. Its just a
shame that you have no site(s) attached to them.
Promoting your dotcom’s for sale this way is exactly
the same method as promoting them as websites for
visitors but with the benefit of higher revenue
through advertising and the like.
A good place I recommend for first time webmasters is
to park your domain names at whypark.com. They
provide content inriched pages with preloaded CSS
and HTML scripts/templates. You don’t need to know
about HTML or CSS ,the setup they provide is easy to
follow. I moved over form Sedo to Whypark as my
first step to website development. Another area of
interest is to use WYSIWYG (What You See Is What
You Get) editers, you can find these on the net as
freeware. Its a basic HTML generater that you can
experment with to understand the language.
Once you have finished your editing simply save to
‘my documents’ and open your work with notepad
This will show the HTML code of your site that you
created with WYSIWYG. Once you master website
development and marketing you’ll see how much you
lost in revenue from not developing a site for yor
domain(s). I sold to add spaces in early December of
last year for 15$ each compare that to earning 2 euro’s
($4) over a four month period at Sedo! I’ve just
touched the tip of the iceberg here and I only hope this
is the catalyst for your future endeavour on the net!
Jay