discuss Do You Run Your Own Domain Portfolio Website?

[DanBingham]

If so -

Is it working for you?
What are the benefits?
Did you DIY?

If not,

Why?

Interested to know your thoughts....

 

[Name Trader]

Most buyers prefer to pay 25% more and buy the domain from Afteric/GoDaddy. So the website provides a showcase only for 99% of the time. It doesn't pay for itself, unless somebody sees a domain available and buys it at Afternic/GoDaddy (which I wouldn't know about). They pay the 25% more to remain anonymous, and to have the "security" of buying from a large recognized company. I've had buyers refuse to pay my asking price, but when the negotiations go sour, I put the domain on Afternic at twice my asking price, and they go right ahead and buy the domain at twice the price. Go figure.

Your own website is just one more tool in your sales arsenal.

 

[Josytal]

If so -
Is it working for you?
What are the benefits?
Did you DIY?
If not,
Why?
Interested to know your thoughts....

Yes, not only have I been running my own marketplace for two years, but also developed a stunning software for myself and for others to do so.

Benefits.
I can write a whole book on this, but let me just pinpoint most important benefits. All based on first-hand experience. Not hearsay.

1. You get more organized.
2. Additional, indispensable business management experience
3. Improved negotiation skill
4.
5.
6.
7.

 

[eurorealtor]

I run my own marketplace for my own domains. But since buyers prefer well known marketplaces (as @stub mentioned above), whoever visit my domains gets to the domain's landing page with the following purchase options:

• Escrow.com (fess on me)
• Undeveloped (fees paid by the buyer)
• Sedo (fees paid by the buyer)
• Afternic (fees paid by the buyer)
• GoDaddy premium listing (fees paid by the buyer)
• Bank wire (no fees) for the EU & US customers only. They can choose USD / EUR / CZK currencies.

All domains with "buy it now" prices are 9% higher @ dan.com and 20% higher @ afternic or GoDaddy, that should motivate the buyer to stick to the escrow.com option. Sample

 

[Domain Redux]

Interesting thread and glad I found this!

I started seriously looking into domaining as a way to make some secondary income aside from my day job as a web designer and developer back in June. As a beginner (and still consider myself to be), I bought up a little over a dozen of the newly introduced .dev extensions back in March and have currently only managed to make one sale from that group. That definitely wasn't the best decision in hindsight as .com is most desirable. I will say that the sale was for a small profit, but nonetheless a sale which was exciting! And honestly, I thought it was kind of a joke domain name (as well as being .dev), but somebody found value and turns out they are also developing it—pretty neat! I hope their venture turns successful.

Since then, I've done my research and asked around for advice. A lot of people suggested creating my own space that allows me to control my own content rather than being restricted by an established marketplace (e.g. DAN, GoDaddy, Afternic, Uniregistry, etc.). As a result, I launched DomainRedux.com back in mid-late July.

Domain Redux is still in its infancy, so it's hard to tell what the outlook will be. DR gains small traffic through direct searches, organic searches, referrals and social media (feel free to follow me on Twitter), but hasn't managed to break its first sale yet. I've also listed my domains across a handful of different marketplaces, but if the URL is searched, the user will be redirected to a specific sales lander for that domain on my marketplace. I've only allowed the user the option to purchase via Escrow if the domain hasn't been approved via Squadhelp. I'm concerned that it's due to DR not being an established, reputable vendor or because I only have Escrow as the sole option.

I'm wondering if I should revert to Afternic since the majority of my domains are available for fast transfer and because Afternic is recognized as a reputable marketplace. Feel free to chime in if you've found more luck by redirecting to an established vendor.

I understand that domaining is most times a marathon and a game of patience, but for those of you that have been playing for a long time, maybe you can shed some insight on your experience.

Thanks and best of luck to all of you!

 

[Kpett]

I've run Domain Direct Services for about 3 years now. I created the website through Wordpress and have made many sales. I still get too many tire kickers offering WAY below market value for great domains ... but I've also had some that have started with a way-low offer and come up quite a bit to an acceptable deal. There are many pros and cons to listing domains as "Make Offer" vs. "Buy Now" pricing ... I've just found the Make Offer to work better for me ... but my domains are also all on Afternic and I've been redirecting the URLs over to Afternic as I've been getting better sales there - even after the fee. Buyers do seem more comfortable paying to Afternic than using Paypal directly to me or going through the Escrow route and negotiating who pays the Escrow fee (but I've done that too!) and waiting and waiting and waiting.

I like having a website and a web presence, even if most of my sales are now through Afternic.

 

[pedropt]

Yep I developed Nameed, I have a few sales through it.

There's no feelling like being independent on your own business.
And as someone else said, it does force me to be more organized.

 

[NameBuyer.com]

Is it working for you? - Yes
What are the benefits? - $17k-$25k in extra profits from commission savings and added lease-to-own functionality
Did you DIY? - Yes

I put a lot of thought into this back in April for a similar topic:

https://www.namepros.com/threads/ho...-domain-portfolio.1130416/page-2#post-7176239

I think it is important to keep in mind that everything in your sales process gives an impression.

My foremost reason for creating a marketplace/portfolio site was for cost savings. At the point where I put together a marketplace, I had 1-2 sales per month and I felt it was really dumb to give away a percentage of my sales to commission, when the traffic originated from my domain in the first place. I still don't mind spending 20% on commission when the traffic comes from elsewhere because they are adding a lot of value, but if the sale comes from my own traffic, it makes no sense.

At this point, with 1-2 sales per month you are at about 18 sales per year, around $25k in revenue, and $5,000 per year in commissions @ 20% (ouch).

I started off cheap with nameimprove.com as the domain and a simple website where I listed my portfolio. What I noticed over time is that the offers I received via the site, and negotiations, seemed to be low-ball more often than not compared to what I previously received on sedo/afternic/parking sites. So then you need to wonder, how much are you really saving when your overall offer amounts go down because of the impression you are giving? So I bought BetterNames//com soon after for $1,700 and paid a designer to come up with a better site design for about $500 (which now is now 10 years old and needs a redesign).

Before I upgraded the site, I started looking into marketing ideas much more and found that there are some small things you can do to give yourself a stronger position in negotiation and establish your authority in your industry with very little effort. By establishing a sense of Authority in the industry, you are much less likely to receive random low ball push-back from serious buyers. For me, the basics of doing so were the following:

• Domain Name - to sell premium domains, you at minimum need a domain that is not "bad". Mine (NameImprove.com) wasn't horrible, but I knew it wasn't great, and to sell higher end names I think you are far better off with a good or great name.

• Web Site Design - Whether using a template, a service, or doing it yourself just make sure it looks like a good professional website. As a developer, I've learned I'm not a designer and avoid coming up with designs from scratch even after 20 years of development and design editing.

• Logo - similar to your domain, the logo matters. Unless you are a real designer, I would avoid doing it yourself. Hire a designer, or you can generate some good ones via logoshuffle.com or logojoy.com. At $30-$50 it makes no sense to use a bad logo.

• Email Address - (myname@betternames//com) gives a much better impression than [email protected] did, and much better than a personal email address.

• Email Signature - come up with an email signature that makes sense and give yourself a title. I would avoid "Owner" or "CEO" unless it is obvious that your business has multiple employees.

It is much harder to recover negotiations that have started with the customer trying to cut away at the value of the domain. If you establish your authority early in the customer engagement process, I've found that it is less likely that a knowledgeable buyer will take this path.

The items above are some simple ways you can start establishing authority and help you negotiate from a stronger position.

As a side note, if you are not going to have an end result that is "great" for the items above, you should probably just keep your 20% commission landing pages as your end result will likely be better, or use one of the landing page services that keep you anonymous. For me, the process was going to save me a few thousand dollars a year in commission to start, so investing $2-3k was an easy choice.

https://www.namepros.com/threads/ho...-domain-portfolio.1130416/page-3#post-7177609

I agree with that, no one comes to my site and looks around for a purchase. I've done zero SEO work for BetterNames//com because it doesn't really matter if people find me searching for "premiums domains" or something like that. I did it for landing pages only. The only reason I have a marketplace is so the buyer sees it as a big store and is more likely to think that I know what I'm doing.

I'm currently receiving 8,000-8,500 visitors per day via my custom landing pages, and over 120,000 page views per day, though it is likely many of the page views are from bots and crawlers. The other thing I've noticed is that search engine crawlers do not get forwarded via registrar URL forwarding. So for years and years my website and domains weren't indexed by search engines at all. I switched to my own custom DNS servers (ex. ns1.buy-this.com). Now, if you look up any of my domains on google (ex. search for "comerelax//com" and it will be the first listing in the search engine). This makes a significant difference when you have thousands of domains.

The huge advantage that you have with a custom landing page over the offer coming in via Sedo or Afternic is intelligence. In most cases I can figure out who a buyer is before responding to them if it comes from my website. From Sedo or Afternic, I have no idea. Imagine how your negotiation goes when you know who the buyer is as opposed to not knowing anything about your buyer.

I only get about 35% of my sales from landing pages in regards to upfront, buy-now sales. The other 65% come from external marketplaces (afternic).

But it is important to keep in mind that once you have your own site, you can implement any idea you want and because of this 100% of my lease-to-own agreements come via my landing pages as well. There were 9 in the last year and I currently have about 30 active lease-to-own agreements. So if you add these into my sales numbers above, about 50% or more of my revenue comes via my custom landing pages.

So while I originally put up a portfolio/marketplace to cut down on my $5k commission costs, it is now a vastly different situation. I would say in terms of negotiation advantage and lease-to-own deals that never would have existed otherwise, the amount of extra profits that are generated from my portfolio/marketplace are at minimum $17,000 per year and more realistically about $25,000+ per year. So, I'd say the initial investment of $1,700 for BetterNames//com wasn't too bad.

 

[BrandPlease]

Keep in mind -having a marketplace is simply a marketing tool, nothing more. It alone won't sell a single name.

If your looking to have the type of biz that you are networking, getting interest in your products & (more impt) content, handing out biz cards, speaking at conferences, etc.. - then you need a full website & marketplace. A marketplace that works for your brand. - I would say in that case, chat with @Tia Wood . Because, you don't want someone's style you have to force your brand into.

If you really just want nice landers, with action items, & portfolio & design - pick your poison. The difference here is your not basing your biz/marketing efforts on driving traffic a particular site (reoccuring content traffic, not 1 time sale traffic) - a better fit may be a true domain sales & management platform.

I would recommend getting a platform that does more than sales pages, alone. A "business management" platform as @Josytal mentioned above - you need more to manage a decent portfolio.

Hope that made sense - just pointing out there is a difference in a site to list, promote, a sell Domains vs. a Branded homesite or a Blog -ish kind of deal.

Good Luck,
Brian

 

[BBQ Names]

That's a strange idea. Why do you NOT list your domains on your portfolio website? Isn't that the whole point of having a portfolio website?

I understand this. While not giving it quite the importance I did in the past, my thoughts were that giving a potential buyer access to your “strategy” in acquiring domains by listing all of them in one place, gives them the idea that there are may alternatives to the domain you are trying to sell to them! You don’t want the buyer who typed in your domain to suddenly reconsider a buy it now purchase due to huge list staring them in the face.

Which is also, conversely, a great reason to have your names listed on the various other venues (Afternic/Sedo, etc) in addition to landing pages of your own. I suspect many of my sales have been as a result of my names being sold as the better choice (price & or quality) due to a keyword search performed in the major marketplaces. Lots of your perfect buyers will never directly type your domain before hitting “buy-it-now”. They didn’t even know it existed.

My ideal: Landing page to my own marketplace, but also have them listed (most with buy-it-now pricing) on the majors.

 

[Kpett]

I looked at your site @usadomainer - I think you may need to rethink how you approach the escrow.com part. If someone sees the BIN and hits "Buy Now" you then tell them they have to pay an additional fee for "domain concierge" - this could turn off a buyer. I would just add a little more to my price and then tell the potential buyer that all domain concierge costs are covered by Domain Redux. Just a thought. Good luck!

 

[Brands.International]

Just make your own website - I think it just adds some credibility

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Another good question for a thread @DefinitelyDomains ! You add a lot to the NamePros community.

Personally I do run my own website but I am not at all sure that the effort is worth it. I have managed to get decent search results on some specialized terms (not on many others) but overall modest traffic. I think only a very few of my sales were a result or even encouraged by my website.

In the early days of domain investing I planned to do sales mainly directly from the website - I had earlier run a home-based tiny business on a similar model, and that combined with in-person local sales seemed to work. For domains, it seemed to me that it did not, for me at least. So I switched a bit and while keeping my own site, I made the links for actual purchases to be through DAN, Afternic, Sedo, registrar marketplaces, etc. My thinking was that customers would have more trust in transactions through third parties. So I have a site, but don't really use it to directly sell domain names hardly ever.

I think if your website is mainly just a listing of domain names you have for sale, maybe with logos, there is little benefit to running your own when your DAN portfolio or your Efty marketplace can readily do that with almost zero effort. However, if your site can offer unique content, such as information on the niches you specialize in that is not available elsewhere, it may be worth the effort.

All of this could be summarized as my answer is: I don't know

Bob

 

[Name Trader]

Hi @stub, I’m interested to know – is it just that you do a much higher % of sales through Afternic, or do you actually know that customers have come to your own website then chosen to buy through Afternic afterward? {I assume you'd know this if you have links giving them either option.} If the latter, what sort of value range domains are they doing that for (choosing to pay an extra 25%)?... Thanks

I cannot say with 100% certainty that they go to my website first before making an offer a domain at Afternic. I'm basing it on the fact that all my domains point to my website. But most of my sales (about 80%) come thru Afternic, which is the first time I here that somebody is interested in my domain. Of course, it is possible that somebody who is interested in a domain, hasn't type the domain into their browser. But I suspect, most do, or would.

I only sell thru Escrow.com, But I'd say its about as rarely as 1 per year, which go thru Escrow.com without any intervention from me. This may be because I make the buyer register on my website if they want to buy a domain from me. Also. Most of my domains are still Make Offer despite my intentions to begin selling more domains at fixed prices, as a new year's resolution in 2019. I also insist that people who want to make offers register, as well. Which probably puts some people making offers, off. But, for me, I want to know who I'm selling too, as best I am able too.

The highest prices I've sold domains at 100% mark-up at Afternic are about $10k. These are situations where I got a direct inquiry and last quote to them about $5k, before negotiations soured. So I priced them at 100% markup on Afternic. Most priced domains at Afternic are only 25% increase over my own website. I don't sell anything below $1k. My average selling prices range between $2.5k - $10k. It's mostly a break-even existence.

 

[EZPZYO]

If so -

Is it working for you?
What are the benefits?
Did you DIY?

If not,

Why?

Interested to know your thoughts....

Is it working for you? YES
What are the benefits?

• Visibility/Publicity/Backlinks
• Better oppertunities to learn & earn
• Open Communication, with no middle man involvement. Establish rapport with buyer(s) learn about their industry and future plans.
• Traffic sources/stats for pricing strategies.

Did you DIY? YES

If not,

Why? N/A

 

[Tia Wood]

I custom develop and customize existing solutions for domain portfolio websites so I can lend some insight.

The biggest benefit of running your own domain portfolio website is total control with development. If you have a bigger portfolio (value wise) and targeting bigger companies then this is the way to go. Especially if you have brokers, employees or contractors.

Otherwise, an existing solution such as a ready made script or at a marketplace like Epik, Efty or DAN will do just fine. The biggest benefit of going with these places is going to be promotion for your domains and much lower overhead to get started.

If you have the money to spend on obtaining buyers & marketing and need total development control then run your own.

Otherwise, the other solutions would suffice. Keep in mind you might still need to do your own marketing and buyer outreach.

If anyone needs recommendations on existing solutions, PM me.

 

[Name Trader]

Interesting thread and glad I found this!

I started seriously looking into domaining as a way to make some secondary income aside from my day job as a web designer and developer back in June. As a beginner (and still consider myself to be), I bought up a little over a dozen of the newly introduced .dev extensions back in March and have currently only managed to make one sale from that group. That definitely wasn't the best decision in hindsight as .com is most desirable. I will say that the sale was for a small profit, but nonetheless a sale which was exciting! And honestly, I thought it was kind of a joke domain name (as well as being .dev), but somebody found value and turns out they are also developing it—pretty neat! I hope their venture turns successful.

Since then, I've done my research and asked around for advice. A lot of people suggested creating my own space that allows me to control my own content rather than being restricted by an established marketplace (e.g. DAN, GoDaddy, Afternic, Uniregistry, etc.). As a result, I launched DomainRedux.com back in mid-late July.

Domain Redux is still in its infancy, so it's hard to tell what the outlook will be. DR gains small traffic through direct searches, organic searches, referrals and social media (feel free to follow me on Twitter), but hasn't managed to break its first sale yet. I've also listed my domains across a handful of different marketplaces, but if the URL is searched, the user will be redirected to a specific sales lander for that domain on my marketplace. I've only allowed the user the option to purchase via Escrow if the domain hasn't been approved via Squadhelp. I'm concerned that it's due to DR not being an established, reputable vendor or because I only have Escrow as the sole option.

I'm wondering if I should revert to Afternic since the majority of my domains are available for fast transfer and because Afternic is recognized as a reputable marketplace. Feel free to chime in if you've found more luck by redirecting to an established vendor.

I understand that domaining is most times a marathon and a game of patience, but for those of you that have been playing for a long time, maybe you can shed some insight on your experience.

Thanks and best of luck to all of you!

All my domains point to my website. Like @Kpett, I don't want to pay commission on referrals to other websites. If the buyer doesn't trust me. They have to find the other listings for themselves. I only use Afternic other than my own website. Because they are large and trusted and include GoDaddy listings. which covers a large portion of the total market place. Most of my domains are make offer there (except those where I have had offers which fell thru), although I'm still trying to get them all priced.

I also used only Escrow.com for my priced domains on my own website. Escrow.com is well trusted, except for their KYC requirements. The Escrow fee is always for the buyer.

 

[Kpett]

Like @stub - I use both. For buyers that want the security of Afternic, they can buy my domains there, and I have most there with buy now prices. Nice to wake up one morning and see one of my domains sold for $8,000 without me having to do any negotiating. (Of course, I only received $6,400, but I had built extra into my price to cover that cost.)

However, I have also sold domains through my website ... and the website gives me an internet presence as a domain investor, which I have complete control over.

 

[Lega.cy]

Slowly building my own at concepti.st

I enjoy it as a hobby for myself + set up automatic twitter presence as well + it gives me an opportunity to branch out to add-on services

However, I need to sort out captcha for sending messages as I get tons of spam + still trying to figure out analytics.

Last 6 months been switching 2 months at Efty, 2 months my own, now planning 2 months at DAN (as I need to fix some of the bugs on the website)

I still think Efty/Dan etc are better solutions if you just want to sell, whilst building your own marketplace gives you more in terms of "brand building" for potential spin-offs and upsell

 

[Name Trader]

Afternic+fast transfer: Does it have significant advantages over other marketplaces?
Does landing there have any benefits?
I rarely sell at Afternic, but maybe because I don't use fast transfer and don't park there.

Yes. Buyers trust Afternic Fast Transfer. As a seller, I trust Afternic Fast Transfer. Afternic/GoDaddy are the biggest retailer of aftermarket domain names on the planet. You get more sales using Afternic fast transfer. It's almost painless to setup. It's nice to get the email that they've sold a domain without any additional effort on your part. Even addictive The BIG problem is to establish the price without leaving too much money on the table. Just set a price you would be happy to receive. If you don't make any sales, reduce your pricing or find better domains. You should review your fixed pricing strategy, according to the market and your needs. I suggest every 3, 6 or 12 months.

 

[Kpett]

@usadomainer - if they are on my website, I don't want to re-direct them somewhere else - so that's where I have the "Make Offer" comment form, and I can negotiate from there. I even had one buyer have me put the domain on GoDaddy with a Buy Now price 20% higher than our agreed-to amount because he felt safest buying through GoDaddy. You never know. But most of my domain names' type-in traffic goes directly to Afternic now.

 

[domeen]

Owning your own domain sales site is so 2000 or something like that.
What's the point? There is none.

List at afternic + activate fast transfer and you sell a lot more.
If you don´t like to park with afternic, use sedo or something like that.

maybe if you own 100 000+ domains, it has some point.

Or maybe if you sell some country .tld-s. And you need the marketplace to be in specific language

 

[JayT]

Most portfolio sites list the domain, niche, tld, and maybe with short description on each domain.

I think it's helpful to make visitors read a generic sales-pitch, just 1 page that hits home with all types of buyers. Important to to get it right, because depending on how you word it, you could easily hinder a sale too. I do it on mine, a few points to get someone excited. See what i mean at: used.best

Once you have your own site, you are in control of the traffic you may bring. You can employ a myriad of ways to drive traffic from sources. Many visits will not be someone looking exactly for your domain...Since so many 'organic' visits come without the intent to buy the domain, you might still be able keep them on your site and sell them something similar.

The best part of building your own is that you can transform it into whatever works at a given time.

 

[Name Trader]

@domeen - I would not say that having your own website is old fashioned at all. But like you said. Most of my customers have bought thru Afternic/GoDaddy. So what's the point? The point is provide a more personal/flexible service than the potential customer will find at a place like Afternic. I also use my website for the management of my domains. and it also gives me a warm fuzzy feeling, apart from the costs involved

 

[DN_Hunter]

I tried to develop my own site (a couple of times), but in the end I just didn't have enough time to dedicate to it because of my day job. So I've used one of the ready-made sites to list my names.