How I Sold My 1st Domain for 4390% Profit in Just 60 Days

[tarikpierce]

If you are just getting started, here is a bit of motivation to prove that you can make a good ROI in this industry.

Here's exactly How I bought a domain for $10 then sold it for 4390% ROI in just 60 days.

1. Find an Angle

When you first start out, you need to find an angle that allows you to hand register some good names.

An angle could be a niche, keyword combination, prefix, suffix, etc.

I.E. Finance domains, How to Domains.

The domain I sold was a "How to XXXXX". I use SEMRush (free w/ paid version) to generate a long list of similar how to names. It's a free tool but you need to subscribe to view all the results. You can use Google Adwords Keyword Tool (free) or Wordtracker (paid) as well.

Good Prefixes:

How to
Where Can I Find
How Much
Top 100
Best
What Are
What is
etc.


2. Find a domain with some Demand

You want to find a domain with either type-in traffic or LOTS of Google searches. Type in is the most important, but remember that searches indicates demand.

At least 5k searches per month is a GREAT domain to pick up. In some industries, 1k searches can be good if the CPC is high enough.

3. ALWAYS List the Domains on Godaddy Premium Auctions as well as other marketplaces (sedo, afternic)

The reason is because Godaddy is still the leader in the USA for domains and people trust them. Trust is key in this business. I have definitely lost a few sales due to lack of trust. It's better to list your domains on Godaddy, Sedo, etc and let the buyer purchase through their system.

Sure, you pay a commission, but the buyer feels comfortable. Lots of people get scammed. Try to spend a moment in the buyer's shoes and you will sell more domains.

4. Price the domain to SELL

Ok. We all dream of registering a $10 domain then selling for $20k. This does happen, but around 50% of the domain sales are less than $500.

Download the Sedo Q2 2012 report. It's a PDF and a good read.

Anything under $500 creates comfort and confidence. A buyer can purchase the domain without hesitation.

Once you exceed $1k, then the buyer may require a signature from the VP of sales or ask their spouse if it is ok. Cheaper domains sell faster than expensive ones.

5. Follow Up

Once you make your 1st sale, you have the option to contact the buyer through Godaddy. Ask them if they need any other similar domains and/or services. Your buyer may exclusively want certain domains, and you can create a side income selling domains to them. Or maybe you have design skills and can charge $200 for Wordpress development. The key is to foster a relationship because people buy domains, not businesses.

Join my mailing list for more in-depth methods plus a cool way to automate this

http://howtoselladomain.com/

 

[laney69er]

Great article, for someone who is very new to this it is extremely informative

 

[Havela]

3. ALWAYS List the Domains on Godaddy Premium Auctions as well as other marketplaces (sedo, afternic)

The reason is because Godaddy is still the leader in the USA for domains and people trust them. Trust is key in this business. I have definitely lost a few sales due to lack of trust. It's better to list your domains on Godaddy, Sedo, etc and let the buyer purchase through their system.

Sure, you pay a commission, but the buyer feels comfortable.

This post inspired me to list some of my domains as GoDaddy premium listings, and today I made my first GoDaddy sale ($5xx).

Sometimes words you read in a thread just stick with you, and Tarik's rationale about how GoDaddy is used by the man in the street (and hence has a much wider reach) made perfect sense to me. In that perspective 30% commission is a price you are willing to pay. My domain was listed on both Afternic and Sedo and was parked with Sedo's landing page, but the buyer had not even entered Sedo's sales page (with the exact same price). That just tells me that my buyer wanted to use GoDaddy to purchase the domain.

Just thought I'd chime in with my recent experience..

Tarik, you are repped (and I'll have a small celebration). One step closer to feeling like a real domainer

 

[Brandon Sheley]

great tips, I have a few "how to" domains that I may pick up

 

[infmoney]

Congratulations Havela! Very nice, thanks for sharing your experience with us.

I've had a couple of names with the Godaddy premium listings for a while and haven't had any luck. Nice to read that people are having success with this method.

The 30 % is no big deal if you factor that into your price.

This post inspired me to list some of my domains as GoDaddy premium listings, and today I made my first GoDaddy sale ($5xx).

Sometimes words you read in a thread just stick with you, and Tarik's rationale about how GoDaddy is used by the man in the street (and hence has a much wider reach) made perfect sense to me. In that perspective 30% commission is a price you are willing to pay. My domain was listed on both Afternic and Sedo and was parked with Sedo's landing page, but the buyer had not even entered Sedo's sales page (with the exact same price). That just tells me that my buyer wanted to use GoDaddy to purchase the domain.

Just thought I'd chime in with my recent experience..

Tarik, you are repped (and I'll have a small celebration). One step closer to feeling like a real domainer

 

[Havela]

Congratulations Havela! Very nice, thanks for sharing your experience with us.

The 30 % is no big deal if you factor that into your price.

Thanks and agreed.

I think its very difficult to fix domain prices as this is far from an exact science. For the time being I am using a combination of Estibot (for searches and CPC), Domainindex and Sedo's pricing tool. The domain I sold was listed with Sedo's suggested price as BIN.

My impression is that prices have gone down over the past years and I do not compare much with prices from 2010 or even 2011.

Some people say: You have to know the worth of your domain in order to sell. Others say: A domain's value is what an enduser is willing to pay. But, unless you sell in a specified niche that you have indepth knowledge of, how do you know what an enduser is willing to pay for your particular domain? There is no way of knowing that. However, if you use references that the buyer can verify, like appraisal tools and recent sales, at least you are able to justify your price. :imho:

 

[ibidu]

This post inspired me to list some of my domains as GoDaddy premium listings, and today I made my first GoDaddy sale ($5xx).

Great..happy for you!

Would you mid answering the following questions which could benefit us all to a good degree:

1- Did you hand-reg that domain?
2- Description of the domain i.e. 2-word.com etc
3- Were other main TLD's taken as well?
4- How old?
5- Did you have it appraised by GD's appraisal tool and how much if yes?

TIA.

 

[Havela]

Great..happy for you!

Would you mid answering the following questions which could benefit us all to a good degree:

1- Did you hand-reg that domain?
2- Description of the domain i.e. 2-word.com etc
3- Were other main TLD's taken as well?
4- How old?
5- Did you have it appraised by GD's appraisal tool and how much if yes?

TIA.

Thanks

1. Yes, I hand regged a dropping domain which I had scooted out before the drop.
2. Two words, rather generic dot com.
3. No other TLDs taken.
4. I regged it 1.5 months ago so it is technically a very young domain, but it was regged for the first time in the 90s, so it has a long history.
5. Yes, when you list a domain as a premium listing, GoDaddy will automatically state their appraisal - which I do not trust at all. GoDaddy are so far off the mark they are not even on the same play ground, most of the time heavily underrating domain value. Did you see the recent thread where somebody appraised google.com and facebook.com and got some ridiculously low returns? According to GoDaddy, my domain was worth $62...

For appraisals, have you checked out Domainindex.com? I recently started using it and am so far very happy.

 

[ibidu]

Thanks

1. Yes, I hand regged a dropping domain which I had scooted out before the drop.
2. Two words, rather generic dot com.
3. No other TLDs taken.
4. I regged it 1.5 months ago so it is technically a very young domain, but it was regged for the first time in the 90s, so it has a long history.
5. Yes, when you list a domain as a premium listing, GoDaddy will automatically state their appraisal - which I do not trust at all. GoDaddy are so far off the mark they are not even on the same play ground, most of the time heavily underrating domain value. Did you see the recent thread where somebody appraised google.com and facebook.com and got some ridiculously low returns? According to GoDaddy, my domain was worth $62...

For appraisals, have you checked out Domainindex.com? I recently started using it and am so far very happy.

Thanks for the great answers.

I must say it's ironic that GD allows something which has been appraised by their own system as $62 to enter in their premium auctions I've tried their system and it's a farce

Domainindex is a fun site and if they put their money where their mouth is then I would make a good living out of selling my hand-regged domains

 

[Havela]

I must say it's ironic that GD allows something which has been appraised by their own system as $62 to enter in their premium auctions

I checked again today and GoDaddy's suggested value was actually just $32 :P whereas all the other appraisal tools came back with $500 - $1000... I don't even consider GoDaddy for appraisals anymore, but I love them as a registrar and auction site.

I don't think GoDaddy have many criteria for listing premium domains. I know there is a limitation to type of extension - and perhaps also length?

Hope you'll keep us posted on how your sales pan out.

I had two $xx sales before this one and I'm thinking it can only get better as I learn more about choosing the right domains.

 

[ibidu]

Hope you'll keep us posted on how your sales pan out.

As much as I would like to but where I live at the moment, selling a domain has a death penalty! Because they would read domain like this .... "do ma in" and "do ma in" is not something that you should sell in this country....

In fact, it would sound 100 times worse if I said "I sold a domain at Godaddy" then they would take it as the following.....

"do ma in Go Daddy...." which could jeopardise my Daddy as well.

 

[unmark]

Just came across this great thread.
Congrats Havela!
I'm a couple months late with that but as they say - better late than never.

Would really appreciate if you can help with my few questions.
1] How can you list a domain in more than one place at the same time as BIN? What if you sell it at two places simultaneously?
2] I think in one of our prev replies you mentioned that you list with GD Premium, Sedo and Afternic [but park with Sedo]. Is that how you do this? And all of them are as BINs or "Make an Offer"?
3] Sedo MLS Premium list domains with Go Daddy.
What happens when a domain is listed with Go Daddy directly and with Sedo MLS Premium at the same time?
This one is really confusing...



I have few domains for sale but use only one platform per domain [all of them as BINs]. Looks like that's not the right approach. But can I do this with more than one platforms at the same time? And how?

Thanks a million in advance.
Cheers,

Mark

Thanks and agreed.

I think its very difficult to fix domain prices as this is far from an exact science. For the time being I am using a combination of Estibot (for searches and CPC), Domainindex and Sedo's pricing tool. The domain I sold was listed with Sedo's suggested price as BIN.

My impression is that prices have gone down over the past years and I do not compare much with prices from 2010 or even 2011.

Some people say: You have to know the worth of your domain in order to sell. Others say: A domain's value is what an enduser is willing to pay. But, unless you sell in a specified niche that you have indepth knowledge of, how do you know what an enduser is willing to pay for your particular domain? There is no way of knowing that. However, if you use references that the buyer can verify, like appraisal tools and recent sales, at least you are able to justify your price. :imho:

 

[clemdane]

Hi Tarik, where can you look up how much type-in traffic and Google searches a domain has? Great article, thank you.

 

[cvigo1]

Great Post, thank you!
You are becoming the mentor!))

 

[IntrepidPoster]

Great advice. I have yet to even buy a domain at this juncture, but I'll keep these things in mind if I do.

 

[nicolai0208]

It only not less than $500. Some experts buy some $10 and sold $10,000 like Mike Mann
I had a domain with prefix Howto, that is howtorate.com, it has 83,000,000 global monthly searches. Still waiting for sale

 

[mrdang]

thank tarikpierce >>> Millionaire domainer