What are all the ways to make money from a domain?

[clemdane]

Really naive question here (sorry it's so long!), but I am wondering what the strategies/options are for making money once you have a domain?

I am new to owning domains but I have worked in internet marketing since 1998. I know how to market a fully developed website, but not all the ways to make money from a domain without building a massive seo-indexed site around it.

I've tried to formulate my questions here:

1. How do you make money by "parking" a domain on Sedo or other service? Like if your domain has good keywords?

2. Is it worth creating a microsite around your domain with a few pages of keyword rich content and then selling links on the page? Or is there a way to charge for redirecting your traffic to someone else's related website?

Like if I had registered tulipskirts.com and got a number of searches there would a women's clothing site be interested in redirected traffic?

3. Buy and hold. The lottery ticket approach. If you just buy a domain and hold it I guess you are just waiting and hoping someone will see it and offer on it. This seems very hit or miss and passive (I could hold one part of the portfolio but I want to do something active with the rest of it.)

4. Auctions. What are the best sites for domain auctions? Does anyone have advice for what kinds of domains succeed best on a domain auction site?

I also have a few domains that I am developing into an actual business with a partner but I only have the resources to develop a handful of these (all related.)

Any advice you can give would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Name Trader]

Selling, Leasing, Parking, Minisite with Affiliate Links, Website (bigger than minisite) with paid advertising are all ways to make money from a domain.

1. Sedo as a parking service sucks, but you might want to park there, not for the parking revenue but for the sales exposure.

2. I don't think you are going to get rich selling links from a microsite, but I could be wrong.

3. Personally, I park all my domains for sale. I get quite a few offers from the parking pages.

4. Sedo, GoDaddy, SnapNames. Mostly it's keyword domains which sell best on auction sites.

 

[DubDubDubDot]

1. How do you make money by "parking" a domain on Sedo or other service? Like if your domain has good keywords?

Only a minuscule percentage of domains make enough money from parking to cover the cost of their renewal. It's mostly people just typing in the domain and clicking the links on the page because they are too internet dumb to realize it's just a page full of ads. But again, getting traffic to a domain like this is pretty rare.

2. Is it worth creating a microsite around your domain with a few pages of keyword rich content and then selling links on the page? Or is there a way to charge for redirecting your traffic to someone else's related website?

Like if I had registered tulipskirts.com and got a number of searches there would a women's clothing site be interested in redirected traffic?

You probably won't get enough traffic to warrant selling links. Minisites are a big newbie joke. Don't fall for the minisite hype. The only people pumping them are minisite makers and get rich quick scam ebook writers.

3. Buy and hold. The lottery ticket approach. If you just buy a domain and hold it I guess you are just waiting and hoping someone will see it and offer on it. This seems very hit or miss and passive (I could hold one part of the portfolio but I want to do something active with the rest of it.)

Depends entirely on quality of the portfolio. People approach you for your good domains. Unfortunately, newbies think all of their domains are good...

4. Auctions. What are the best sites for domain auctions? Does anyone have advice for what kinds of domains succeed best on a domain auction site?

Auctions are full of other domainers. This is a double edge sword. You aren't getting maximum end user value, but some people have made a living taking advantage of the "bigger fool" theory.

I also have a few domains that I am developing into an actual business with a partner but I only have the resources to develop a handful of these (all related.)

Beware of putting all your development effort eggs in one basket. If you don't know for sure that site number 1 is going to work, I'd be wary of developing the others until you see what happens..... and don't assume anything before that. You may want to diversify round 1, produce sites under maybe 5 different topics to see what kind of stuff works best for you.

 

[clemdane]

Thanks to both of you. No one has approached me about a microsite and I haven't looked into them, but I have friends who do web design who could put one together for me. The only reason I'd do that is if it made the domain more attractive to a potential buyer. I definitely don't think I'd make much from the links.

My friend and I are going to develop 3 different sites as an experiment and we've both been in internet marketing over 10 years so we'll see if we can make at least one profitable.

Dubdubdubdot, it sounds like you've ruled out all the ways of making money with domaining or am I reading too much pessimism into what you said?

 

[Name Trader]

A well done MicroSite will definitely be more attractive to a potential buyer than a parking page or a Auction For Sale page. But how much is the question. Most end-user buyers want the domain name, not the website that is on the domain. People who would want the website are probably lazy domainers. I would definitely be interested to see the outcome of the development.