Invest In Domains

We have all heard stories about someone (usually a friend-of-a-friend) who bought a junk house and painted it, replaced some carpet, and made $50,000 for a few weeks work.  And just as many of us have wished that we had been there to do it too.  Well now you can.

Instead of flipping expensive houses, we are going to be profiling domain names and develped websites that could make excellent Fix-And-Flip oppurtunities.  Websites and domains can be much cheaper to buy and often just need some sweat equity to get them in shape for a sale. If you know how to make a header or write a couple lines of HTML, you could have enough skill already to make a killing.

If you want to get a website at a great price, you’ll have to find a motivated seller.  But how do you find a motivated seller when there are a bazzilion sites out there?  Let’s take a look at 3 different types of sites that you might be able to grab for much less than they are worth:

3 Types of Motivated Website Sellers:

The Hobbyist:

There are millions of websites out there built by passion.  Someone with a hobby that just HAS to share their love (or hate… or anything in between) with the rest of the world.  Most of these sites weren’t built for money, and have never been monitized.  They are a labor of love.

Why Fix and Flip a Hobbyist’s Site?

Maybe the webmaster is tired of updating the site.  Or maybe they are out of the hobby now.  Maybe they are just out of money and need a quick buck.

A hobbyist may have a number of reasons that they would want to sell their site, but if they site was built out of passion and not with the intent of making a killing by doing it, then these types of sites can often be had at very good prices.

The Ugly Site:

It’s amazing how many ugly and/or difficult to use websites there are out there.  When you are the webmaster of a site, it can be very difficult to spot your own website’s blind spots.  These webmasters can be stumped about why their site just isn’t making the money or keeping the traffic.

Why Fix and Flip an Ugly Site?

Buying an ugly site with good traffic or a good database of content can give you the chance to improve the look for functionality of the site and then begin advertising or selling products with it.

Another variation on this is that even some lovely sites just don’t advertise enough or in the right places.  Sometimes this means the difference between the owner making good money or no money!  So buy the site and make the changes yourself!

The Specialist:

Much like the ugly site above, the specialist is another variation of someone’s lack of knowledge or experience giving you a big place to make money.  Some people have one specific specialty, but lack enough balance in their skills to be a webmaster on their own.  An example of this would be a graphic designer who has a site that looks great, but the code is terrible.  Or a programmer who’s code is brilliant and seamless, but th look fo the site is boring.

Why Fix and Flip the Specialist’s Website?

If your skill set is complimentary to, and not a redundancy of, the previous webmaster, then you can fill the void that was left by the website builder.  So, if we look at the example above, and you buy the Graphic Designer’s site and then fix the coding, now you have a marketable asset!

OK, Tell me EXACTLY what to do to find these domains and make the money…

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So you want to be a domain investor?  Maybe you need a little extra cash on the side, or you know an industry pretty well, or you’ve got an entrepreneurial streak a mile wide… No matter what your reasons, becoming a domain investor is as easy as buying a domain name.

Technically buying a domain with the hope of selling it is enough to make you a domain investor, but if you only ever go that far then you’ll be stuck in the ranks of most investors.

To successfully invest in anything, including Domains, you have to have a strategy.  Developing a strategy that works for you and your goals is paramount to doing well in Domain Investing.

In this article I’ll introduce you to a few factors to consider while develping your own personal Domain Investment Strategy, as well as provide you with some resources for further reading.

1.  Domain Investing Budget:

What’s your budget for investing?  Decide before you get started.  Are you going to have $40 dollars per week for the next year, or do you have $5,000 now?  Or something in between?  Deciding how much and when you are going to make some investments is crucial to deciding what direction you are going to move in. (more…)

Buying expired domains is one of the most tried-and-true methods of grabbing some good domains. With a bunch of tenacity, a penchant for late nights, and a bit of luck, the days of grabbing good expired domain names are still here.

Having said all of that, there certainly are some new hurdles in making money from expired domain names that weren’t around 5 or 10 years ago. Some of these hurdles are:

Hurdles to Making Money With Expired Domain Names:

1. Domain Registrars (AKA The Devil, Examples being GoDaddy, 1and1, DomainsDirect, etc.) will either set up auto-renews for the domain owner that helps them keep hold of their domains instead of letting them hit the markets.

That part doesn’t make Domain Registrars the devil. This part does:

Some domain registrars have been widely accused of stealing well-trafficed domains out from under the owners. Since your domain registrar knows exactly how much traffic a domain gets, and could easily see how many links you’ve got, and pretty much assess the value of your site AUTOMATICALLY, it only makes sense that they would grab the domain from you if you forget to re-register it.

Anyways, the end result for Domainer’s like you and I is that less “good” domains are hitting the Expired Domain Name Marketplace. (more…)