I've discovered a few tricks over the past 6 months, and now look back at the names I used to reg and cringe lol.
Some tips for you bud:
Always check the history of a domain name. I do this for my own reasons, but you can determine when it was first registered, how many times it's been dropped and picked up, how it was used and server etc. Greater the age the better the google rank, if many people have dropped and purchased... well you can make your own inference here, people also believe use may impact value.
Check for deleted and expired domain lists. We call them drops... I think. Your hand register may land you something unique and never registered, or you might come across an expired/deleted wonder, but using lists help you zone in on value that may have been overseen, or someone simply couldn't afford to reg and had to choose between the dropped domain, and their other domains.
Check the Cost-PerClick (CPC) as we're ultimately selling to advertiser. That is, people who want customers. The cost per click data can be found through Google, or domain valuation tools. DomainIndex will give you this information, though I'm not sure how accurate this is.
Check the broad term search for keywords and exact search for key words global and local traffic. Simply adding the letter 'S' onto a valuable word can impact the traffic, and at the end of the day, traffic is a significant variable that determines the marketability of the domain.
Sales prices for specific words will help, not guarantee, bu willt help you determine the expected return for keywords within your domain. Take the words Credit, Home, Job. The sales data for these show a higher sale price, with more domains hitting the 15k-20k mark than their alternatives like Debt, House, Jobs. You can check sales prices at DNPric.es. It's one of few places. Again, this is just one of many tools, but it's good too see. The words Socio or Globally, have a rubbish sales history, which is why a lot of names are probably available to hand reg. I don't bother with words like this.
If you're going to do brandable domain names, try to make the word sound like the correct spelling, or try to make sure the words are commonly searched terms, and brandable at the same time. I try to find high traffic words, or potentially high traffic words that are brandable. Something like CityCenter or GreenRecycling would work well for a brandable domain. I don't own these, but just to give you an idea as you're starting. Later you'll learn how to match words and stuff.
gTLD's and search results correlate and so your name needs to work together. Make sure the gTLD you use works with the keyword you use, because it affects search results. Market.center or Job.agency work because people type those words into search engines, and search engines read the domains like this. That's my understanding, so it's important not to get trigger happy with keywords... Because there are thousands of them out there all competing with each other in search engines.
Look, that'll get you going hahaha. The domain names you have now aren't exactly premium in my eyes, but I'm still learning too. This post is to show you that a strategy, and method, is required if you're going to source something significant.
Goodluck!
p.s. I just registered SecurityTokenExchange.org for $12 auction and registration fee. I found this in a deleted/expired (can't remember) drop list. So be sure to check them out.
