discuss How far will having your own page get you towards more sales?

[JLJ]

Hey guys!

I wanted to ask you how does your page (for those who have one) help you get leads. I've acquired a domain which I plan to use to make my online portfolio and blog, however I am unsure how I can get the right possible end users or investors/startups to find me. (It's a pretty good brandable in my opinion as well)

Since I have some background on html and css, plus vast photoshop experience, I'm planning on building a mini marketplace with no more than 20 names, making a logo and description for each name and try to target my sales that way, in addition to a blog. I'm into brandables at the moment, and I think it's the niche I'll be learning for at least the rest of the year.

Before I do this however, I wanted to ask if someone has had good and bad experiences following this type of sales model, so here are some questions:

How many leads do you get from your pool of domains, and is 20 a good number for that kind of market?
Do you often find contacts in the industry this way?
Is it a reasonable long term investment? And fulfilling?
How do you use SEO in this kind of market? I could really use some helping links on this one.
And finally could I ask to if you know helpful threads on these subjects in NP or other forums?

Cheers
Jaime

 

[JayT]

I have been working on that exact thing for a few months. I don't know how much better it is! I am waiting for winter to write more, when I have more time. You can see on my signature the site and many of my domains for sale have individual lander on the site (you'd have to type-in a domain to see lander). I think it is a great idea, fun at least.

As for seo you can use a plugin, they help a little. Give images alt tags, use h1,h2 etc. Unique content is important and meta tags for pages too.

 

[domeen]

Waste off time and money! Park with sedo or afternic and you do better. Thats typical newbie thing that you want to have a blog and sslling site

 

[Justin Matmor]

Waste off time and money! Park with sedo or afternic and you do better. Thats typical newbie thing that you want to have a blog and sslling site

Wrong advice.

What hasn't worked for you may work for someone else.If you have never implemented a stratgy like this then why are you giving advice?

I believe it is a viable strategy.

 

[domeen]

Wrong advice.

What hasn't worked for you may work for someone else.If you have never implemented a stratgy like this then why are you giving advice?

I believe it is a viable strategy.

Hi, thanks
But where do you take that i have not used this strategy?

 

[Justin Matmor]

Hi, thanks
But where do you take that i have not used this strategy?

I implied you might have used this strategy. Read my post carefully.

Obviously it never worked for you.

Does that mean it is a waste of time?

No it doesn't.

 

[domeen]

I implied you might have used this strategy. Read my post carefully.

Obviously it never worked for you.

Does that mean it is a waste of time?

No it doesn't.

It actually dose!
Its a waste of time, better use the time to buy new domains

 

[Justin Matmor]

Parking your domains in a marketplace with 30m other names is like hoping to win the lottery.

Not a viable business plan. In fact this is terrible advice.

 

[garptrader]

In theory having your own site can allow you to bypass marketplace commissions of 20% and negotiate directly with the buyer.

In practice, you end up with a lot of lowball and spam offers that you normally don't even receive when you have fixed price listings in a domain marketplace. Those lowballers just show up as offer page views at SEDO or Godaddy.

 

[alcy]

the general rule is that if you own domains that are worth buying, people will find you, even if you're parked on the dark side of the moon.

just make sure when a lead arrives at your page its not so complicated that even the most intelligent and most intrerested in your domain buyer will not be able to complete and send his inquiry form. anyone who tells you it isn't possible to make overly or unnecessarily complicated sale landers, does not know what they say.

use a simple thing like parking crew parking service. which has a clear big sale banner on top u can customize.

 

[JayT]

In theory having your own site can allow you to bypass marketplace commissions of 20% and negotiate directly with the buyer.

In practice, you end up with a lot of lowball and spam offers that you normally don't even receive when you have fixed price listings in a domain marketplace. Those lowballers just show up as offer page views at SEDO or Godaddy.

You have way more control though. You put your own links and ads on site / sales pages to cut out the middle men. Your domains bring YOU the traffic, helping your whole site rank higher.

 

[BrandZen]

I have to agree with Domeen to a certain extent. Starting from scratch is a waste of time. Just blogging and SEO won't bring any traffic your way. The only way I see you being successful is if you have some good names which get some type in traffic. Good names will sell no matter where they are listed.

With that said, I am planning on starting my own site with my Brand Bucket rejects. I'll be using an Efty marketplace theme.

http://dngeek.com/2016/06/efty-launched-new-marketplace-themes-heres-mine/

I have had some success selling BB rejects with GoDaddy premium listings. These sales were a result of type in traffic. I will continue to keep these names listed with GD but if I can funnel the sale through my own site then I can save the 15% commission.

 

[aramyus]

I have never tried nor read any success story from brandbucket or brandroot competitors (and to be honest I've seen many people create such a site for a few months and abandon it later)

It may be easier if you specialize in a narrow segment, say music business names or medical business names.

You can also resell names from other sources. But is it still called domaining ?

 

[alcy]

I have never tried nor read any success story from brandbucket or brandroot competitors (and to be honest I've seen many people create such a site for a few months and abandon it later)

It may be easier if you specialize in a narrow segment, say music business names or medical business names.

You can also resell names from other sources. But is it still called domaining ?

I would not recommend you or anyone go around trying to sell domains you do not own.

 

[infosec3]

In my experience, having your own site is essential, even if it is a one or two-page site. There are several reasons for this. These reasons are especially important for people who do outbound promotion for their domains.

First, here you are trying to sell domain names for people to have an online presence and you are not practicing what you preach.

Second, if you email and end-user, you must give him as many reasons as possible to trust you, since he has no idea if this is a scam. Having an online presence adds (at least a bit) to that desired trust.

Third, and probably the most important one. Many end-users have no idea of Whois and how to find who owns a domain, so what they do is they visit the domain. If you have the domain redirected to your site, they will know you are the owner and offers will come to you directly.

This has worked for me for years. I redirect most of my names to the Contact Page of my site and that is how many buyers find me.

 

[boker]

You can not start your own website with a few names and expect it to bring you a lot of leads in short time....take by example BB or Brandroot, do you think that when they started, they were selling 2 names a day in the first months? BB is counting on type in leads and some connection made in the last 10 years or so in the startup communities and on returning customers. Not really based on marketing or adwords. I have mine for almost a year now and 70% of the inquiries are coming from there...around 20 or so are coming from search engines every day and a few hundreds from type in a day...but I have invested something in advords at start, I have around 700 names, all redirected, so I have some type in and I have a few names that are bringing leads from start up communities, even do they are not brandables. In conclusion, it's hard, you have to spend some money and be prepared to do it for some time before you can see some results.

 

[domeen]

Parking your domains in a marketplace with 30m other names is like hoping to win the lottery.

Not a viable business plan. In fact this is terrible advice.

Why is it terrible? in this marketplace there are more buyers then your site will ever have.
So you think you park all your domains at your own site that you created? so someone types in your domain1.com and discovers that you have domain2.com and domain3.com for sale, and he now buys domain3.com ?? Thats your so called business plan? Thats more like a joke to me.

 

[domeen]

I mean I can get if some big boy . let say 50k domains, opens his own marketplace, I would say that makes sense, but xxxx or even xxx domains don`t make any sense at all.

 

[disaac81]

It is a good thing to do, but to actually benefit from your store through organic traffic you will need a huge amount of money for marketing.

Most domains tend to sell through landing.

In the long run if you get to a point where your site is getting traffic from the search engines naturally then of course this is a good thing, but you will want to list your domains elsewhere too imo.

 

[JayT]

I mean I can get if some big boy . let say 50k domains, opens his own marketplace, I would say that makes sense, but xxxx or even xxx domains don`t make any sense at all.

Depends on what you sell and who you want to sell to. End user are the ones that will pay, they will visit by type-in. Why would you want to give up 20% of your profits for no reason other than a simple inquire form? Your own site take all the profits.

Most you guys really over-estimate how many people are actually seeing your sales page on sedo etc. No domainer is going to invest top $ in your domain there. If you have tools, a blog, some domains, chances are you'll get MORE views, honestly, because domainer / person visit your page, and sees ALL your domains.

 

[domeen]

Depends on what you sell and who you want to sell to. End user are the ones that will pay, they will visit by type-in. Why would you want to give up 20% of your profits for no reason other than a simple inquire form? Your own site take all the profits.

Most you guys really over-estimate how many people are actually seeing your sales page on sedo etc. No domainer is going to invest top $ in your domain there. If you have tools, a blog, some domains, chances are you'll get MORE views, honestly, because domainer / person visit your page, and sees ALL your domains.

I wouldn`t say 20% is a lot for a good end-user sale. It could be less, but I don`t really care. I but prices that I am happy also without the commission.

 

[aramyus]

I would not recommend you or anyone go around trying to sell domains you do not own

Just a clarification

BrandBucket has an affiliate program. I think it's safe to promote hand picked domains as a complement to your own (I've seen a few people doing that). One could also include your own selection of domains from such places as Godaddy which gives you an affiliate commission.

Else, I totally agree with your recommendation.

 

[JLJ]

Thank you for all your feedback guys, really appreciate it.

I agree with most of the points here made, but I must distinguish the second reason of @infosec3. Doesn't being, or at least looking trustworthy help a lot in the brandable industry? @boker mentioned and gave an example of (of course) BB, but in reality I think, their engine is only still working because of the clients that trust their brand come back for more, and that would work as well in smaller scale (most of us) if we give the best service we can as a professional in the industry.

Of course I'm not a professional nor sure I'll ever be, but my reasoning is that cutting the middle man plus offering your own services, in addition to your own take on what it is you're trying to sell makes for a more awesome and more appealing service that most websites, since in the brandable industry, uniqueness is key, and as @Justin Matmor said, listing with 30 million other options doesn't help you catch the possible buyer.

I have not hopes of getting sales fast, although it would be awesome. I think it's too easy to lose yourself in a sea of domains and you forget to really try to see the full picture of one domain. Since it's a hobby thing, I would like to keep quality of quantity, as for now I have no intention of holding more than 20 - 30 domains.

I've also been thinking that this may help your business "persona". This is mostly speculation inside my head, but no way getting "out there" won't help you. I'm almost even tempted to say that this might be a real hard factor in the equation. Even if most of domain sales are private, I'm almost sure the best domainers we all know get leads due to, not only having the best eye for candy (and owning them), but by being highly influential and known in the industry, having multiple buyers that come back to them because of trust established. And I reckon some of them started from scratch. (@L2 Media).

Let's say an entrepreneur is looking to buy a domain name and he goes (@alcy) to the dark side of the moon, and gets on your website to inquire on given domain. If this dark side of the moon gives him the goddamned best service of his life, do you think it is likely that he will comeback in latter ventures? Or refer to a friend that such happened, making your site a good point of reference if you're not in the mood to browse 30,000+ domains.

I know that this is hipothetical, and it does depend on the quality of the domains listed. It's true that wether you develop a DN site or not, if you own a LL.com it will sell. But I do not think that that applies to any given situation. A better sales pitch and presence in the market may go a long way in negotiating a price, and we have some examples of BB's names that sold that a good part of us don't like.

I still suck in knowledge of SEO and targetted traffic, got to read more.

 

[DomainVP]

You should have your own landing pages, so that you can field inquiries, but it makes absolutely no difference how 'pretty' the page is.. it makes ZERO difference.

I've been doing my own landing pages from day 1, and I have done every kind of landing page you can think of. You know what works best?

The domain name, a contact form (or eMail), and that's it.

You might remember this thread, where the OP was touting how amazing his landing pages were and how it helped him convert sales.

Well I actually put his pages to the test for 3 weeks.

I made a exact mirrored copy of his landing pages, with better usage of the domain on the page because the wording was too generic due to the OP of that thread did not knowing how to integrate domain names into the copy via code.

Guess how many inquiries came flying in... ZERO... as predicted.

As soon as I took that junk off my domains, I got 2 inquires that week; by using just the domain and a method of contact.

Turning landing pages into sales portals is not going to sell a domain any faster. You can go ahead and try, and spend time and money on this - but it's already been done.

Good luck to all.

 

[KickstartNames]

I've done pretty much the same as you are thinking of doing.
I also have some knowledge in web design so I decided to build my own little marketplace.

I had no illusions about quick business, but on the contrary I saw and still see my project as training in all the parts involved in running a small marketplace. It is precisely this i find stimulating, to influence all the details, from the way my marketplace looks to pricing and marketing strategies.

If you want to learn the brandable industry from scratch, I think it is an extremely good way to learn.
I also believe that a good domain name sells itself to some degree. the only question is how long it takes. Really bad names are never sold, even if you own several hundred of them, and not even if you have them at e.g. Sedo or Brandroot.

In my case, it took several months before I sold my first domain, and I know I left money on the table because i was simply too afraid to loose the deal. It took a year before I made the decision to continue my project with the market place and I have not looked back since. Now I know better when it's necessary to negotiate prices and I also know when I do not need to fold me to sell.

So my humble advice to you (for what it's worth still being a newbie myself) is that if you are really dedicated and interested and prepared to allow some time, Do as you planned, with good domain names and a genuine interest to learn the industry you will have the potential to succeed!

Best of luck with it!