advice Increase Exposure

[LiamShiff]

Hello NP community,

Let's say you purchase a "good" domain name, whatever your metrics might be for such a name, and let's assume it has good potential to be sold.

My question is, do domainers just post the listing let's say on GoDaddy auctions/premium listings and just WAIT?

Most of what I have been reading has been teaching me how to find a "good" name, but nothing about what to do after posting it on a platform.

I have a hunch that domainers don't just post it on Godaddy auctions and go about their day...

Can someone share any insights on how to increase the exposure of your listing? On how to actually increase your chances of selling it? (aside from contacting potential companies that might be interested in the name)

Any links or small tips would be appreciated. And sorry if it has already been discussed, maybe I missed the post.

Thanks everyone

 

[WhoaDomain.com]

Press Release
Find a list of Do Follow sites
Article Directories
Creating Social media accounts for each domain and post post post and hashtag the crap out of it targetting all related topics you can think of to match your domain's topic.
find similar sites that have comments section and drop your domain on there BE CREATIVE
Find high traffic sites and pay for placement.

Adwords

 

[Pierre Barnard]

Social Media.

 

[Michael]

List the domain for sale on Afternic and Sedo. For best results, set a reasonable price on the domain, don't leave it as "Make Offer" unless the domain has huge potential. Also don't use WHOIS privacy if you can avoid it, if you're concerned about privacy get a PO Box and a Google Voice number, much cheaper than paying for privacy on a ton of domains anyway.

If your registrar is in the network, opt in to Fast Transfer at Afternic and MLS Premium at Sedo. This will put your domain in the registration path at most of the top registrars in the world and will let someone buy the domain immediately. So if your domain is ExampleDomain.com and someone searches Example.com at GoDaddy your domain will show up as a "Premium Domain" along with the price.

If you park your domain, set up a banner at the top of the page saying it is for sale and linking to Afternic or Sedo. Alternatively you could set up a landing page on the domain with a service like Efty with either a "Make Offer" or a BIN.

With this approach you're covered if someone visits your domain, searches WHOIS, or searches at any major registrar. This is for passive sales though.

If you're actually trying to liquidate the domain through an auction at a venue like GoDaddy, Flippa, etc. there are plenty of things you can do to promote it. There's a section on NamePros to promote external auctions:

https://www.namepros.com/forums/external-domain-and-website-sales.162/

DSAD.com is a popular blog that has a daily post of picks, they charge $10 per day to include your auction there. Domaining.com charges $30 to list your auction at the top of their site and in the sidebar after it gets bumped. We have a Featured Listing product on our site as well. All these options are a good value in my experience, obviously depending on your acquisition cost and how much the domain could sell for.

So we've covered passive sales and also liquidating through auction. But you can also do "outbound sales". This is simple but time-consuming, and generally has a pretty low success rate. You basically just do Google searches trying to find companies that either advertise for the term or show up in the organic search results. Then you go to their websites, try to find the person in charge (C-level executives, marketing or sales managers, legal department, etc) and reach out to them. Tread carefully though and watch out for trademarks.

I think that about sums it up. Some people get more creative like sending snail mail to prospects, taking out PPC ads, attending conferences in a related industry, etc. but this generally only works for very high value domains and the success rate is probably very, very low.

 

[Michael]

Also worth noting that passive sales (i.e. the waiting game) has about a 1% sell-through rate, although you can improve on that by pricing your names and opting into the networks at Afternic and Sedo (maybe between 2-4%). So it's a numbers game.

If you have a portfolio of say 10 decent quality domains, statistically it would take you about 10 years to make a single sale just by waiting. With 100 decent domains you might expect one or two sales per year from waiting. And so on. If you own one domain the odds of it selling in your lifetime are pretty close to zero if you just sit around, unless it is a high quality and/or liquid domain (short, numeric, dictionary, etc).

So basically if you're not a big player with a large portfolio you need to get out there and hustle

 

[Nice Guy]

List the domain for sale on Afternic and Sedo. For best results, set a reasonable price on the domain, don't leave it as "Make Offer" unless the domain has huge potential.

Looking for insight like OP, how do you determine a "reasonable price" if you are not a seasoned veteran. I have tried multiple domain free appraisal sites and they come up with drastically different numbers. One site shows $0, another $40, another $2000.

Also don't use WHOIS privacy if you can avoid it, if you're concerned about privacy get a PO Box and a Google Voice number, much cheaper than paying for privacy on a ton of domains anyway.

Why exactly? Is this just for saving on privacy costs? If you are flipping fast like you are suggesting, why not use something like namecheap which offers free privacy guard first year? I am trying to determine if this is to cut costs or helps in actual sale. Actually I am reading below and now coming back and retyping this....might have just answered my own question...so anyone looking to buy domain can do a whois and find contact info correct?

If you park your domain, set up a banner at the top of the page saying it is for sale and linking to Afternic or Sedo.

Any thoughts on parking from one to the other. I was just playing with both and found Afternic's landing pages for offers and the like just seemed aesthetically better, but I really don't know anything outside of that on a real difference.

 

[Nice Guy]

OP...not sure if this helps and not exactly what you are asking for, but I read through the pages on this thread: https://www.namepros.com/threads/domain-sales-letter-examples.1757/

and found it opened doors in my thinking. Might not be exactly the path I am after, but definitely helps expand some ideas in my own mind. Hope it helps if you haven't found it!

 

[Michael]

Looking for insight like OP, how do you determine a "reasonable price" if you are not a seasoned veteran. I have tried multiple domain free appraisal sites and they come up with drastically different numbers. One site shows $0, another $40, another $2000

Search NameBio, DNPric.es, etc. to look for similar sales. Pay attention to the venue, if you're trying to price for an end user (retail) you'd want to look for sales at Sedo, Uniregistry, private brokers. etc. If you're looking to price for wholesale pay attention to sales at venues like GoDaddy, NameJet, DropCatch, etc.

It depends on your business model too though, if you need steady cash flow pricing like Uniregistry does when you only own a few domains might result in you never making a sale. Understanding the venues and learning to search for close comparable sales is very important in pricing. Automated appraisals are pretty much worthless.

Why exactly? Is this just for saving on privacy costs? If you are flipping fast like you are suggesting, why not use something like namecheap which offers free privacy guard first year? I am trying to determine if this is to cut costs or helps in actual sale. Actually I am reading below and now coming back and retyping this....might have just answered my own question...so anyone looking to buy domain can do a whois and find contact info correct?

Many end users don't realize they can send an email to the privacy address and it will get to you, so they don't try. They won't be able to reach you through phone either. Granted it won't stop a really serious buyer from finding a way to reach you (like typing in the domain and hitting your Efty lander - or finding it on Afternic), but the added friction could stop you from making a few "impulse purchase" type of sales. Just not worth it when there are other ways to stay private without making life hard for the potential buyer.

Any thoughts on parking from one to the other. I was just playing with both and found Afternic's landing pages for offers and the like just seemed aesthetically better, but I really don't know anything outside of that on a real difference.

I don't park so I can't really speak from experience, I have everything on a landing page. Hopefully others will chime in. Afternic is solid because it has a big phone number which increases buyer trust/comfort. Bodis I heard has a pretty good option for taking offers or having BIN prices on a parked page. Uniregistry is a good all-around solution as well.

I think a "for sale" lander is better considering parking earnings are in the toilet and most domains don't earn their keep, so might as well make it as clear as possible that the domain is for sale without any added noise rather than earning a few pennies a year.

 

[LiamShiff]

List the domain for sale on Afternic and Sedo. For best results, set a reasonable price on the domain, don't leave it as "Make Offer" unless the domain has huge potential. Also don't use WHOIS privacy if you can avoid it, if you're concerned about privacy get a PO Box and a Google Voice number, much cheaper than paying for privacy on a ton of domains anyway.

If your registrar is in the network, opt in to Fast Transfer at Afternic and MLS Premium at Sedo. This will put your domain in the registration path at most of the top registrars in the world and will let someone buy the domain immediately. So if your domain is ExampleDomain.com and someone searches Example.com at GoDaddy your domain will show up as a "Premium Domain" along with the price.

If you park your domain, set up a banner at the top of the page saying it is for sale and linking to Afternic or Sedo. Alternatively you could set up a landing page on the domain with a service like Efty with either a "Make Offer" or a BIN.

With this approach you're covered if someone visits your domain, searches WHOIS, or searches at any major registrar. This is for passive sales though.

If you're actually trying to liquidate the domain through an auction at a venue like GoDaddy, Flippa, etc. there are plenty of things you can do to promote it. There's a section on NamePros to promote external auctions:

https://www.namepros.com/forums/external-domain-and-website-sales.162/

DSAD.com is a popular blog that has a daily post of picks, they charge $10 per day to include your auction there. Domaining.com charges $30 to list your auction at the top of their site and in the sidebar after it gets bumped. We have a Featured Listing product on our site as well. All these options are a good value in my experience, obviously depending on your acquisition cost and how much the domain could sell for.

So we've covered passive sales and also liquidating through auction. But you can also do "outbound sales". This is simple but time-consuming, and generally has a pretty low success rate. You basically just do Google searches trying to find companies that either advertise for the term or show up in the organic search results. Then you go to their websites, try to find the person in charge (C-level executives, marketing or sales managers, legal department, etc) and reach out to them. Tread carefully though and watch out for trademarks.

I think that about sums it up. Some people get more creative like sending snail mail to prospects, taking out PPC ads, attending conferences in a related industry, etc. but this generally only works for very high value domains and the success rate is probably very, very low.

Thanks a lot, this was really good information, hopefully, I will be able to land my first sale soon.

 

[LiamShiff]

Also worth noting that passive sales (i.e. the waiting game) has about a 1% sell-through rate, although you can improve on that by pricing your names and opting into the networks at Afternic and Sedo (maybe between 2-4%). So it's a numbers game.

If you have a portfolio of say 10 decent quality domains, statistically it would take you about 10 years to make a single sale just by waiting. With 100 decent domains you might expect one or two sales per year from waiting. And so on. If you own one domain the odds of it selling in your lifetime are pretty close to zero if you just sit around, unless it is a high quality and/or liquid domain (short, numeric, dictionary, etc).

My question becomes then, how do you know if the strategy you are adopting when buying up domain names to make your portfolio bigger and more valuable is even a good one? Since it takes SO much time to validate your hypothesis regarding your valuation/buying strategy?

The reason I am asking is because relying on bot appraisals is not reliable and nobody would want to spend years buying domain names (using their strategy) if they don't even know if it actually works.

Your 2-4% sell-through rate assumes that the strategy is a sound one in the first place

 

[Michael]

My question becomes then, how do you know if the strategy you are adopting when buying up domain names to make your portfolio bigger and more valuable is even a good one? Since it takes SO much time to validate your hypothesis regarding your valuation/buying strategy?

The reason I am asking is because relying on bot appraisals is not reliable and nobody would want to spend years buying domain names (using their strategy) if they don't even know if it actually works.

Your 2-4% sell-through rate assumes that the strategy is a sound one in the first place

You don't, that's why you often hear stories of people spending thousands and thousands of dollars before realizing almost everything they own is junk. Even from people who are now very successful like Andrew Rosener or Morgan Linton.

You can speed up the learning process by outbounding or liquidating to see if you're buying domains that others see value in, rather than waiting for passive sales.

Other than that, and lots and lots of studying of sales reports, there's not much you can do to have confidence in your model. This is a risky investment vehicle.

 

[LiamShiff]

You don't, that's why you often hear stories of people spending thousands and thousands of dollars before realizing almost everything they own is junk. Even from people who are now very successful like Andrew Rosener or Morgan Linton.

You can speed up the learning process by outbounding or liquidating to see if you're buying domains that others see value in, rather than waiting for passive sales.

Other than that, and lots and lots of studying of sales reports, there's not much you can do to have confidence in your model. This is a risky investment vehicle.

What you say is incredibly useful, I think too many people get drawn by the success stories of the people that post on forums about their sales but no one really sees the people that don't succeed.

The important thing is, we can learn much more from the mistakes of others rather than from their successes because there is so many things we must not do in the process and so few things we must do. And doing the right things doesn't always prevent us from doing the bad ones in the process.

Maybe there should be a thread for failures as well as successes.