What to buy with 1,000 USD?

[clearskies]

I have gone through the first stage of buying a string of crap domains without knowing the first thing about domaining. I have sold a few of these through ebay and will try to get rid of the others, apart from one or two.

I have now read a bit about it but am still at an early stage. I am now thinking that I would like to invest a little of my hard earned dosh on a good domain.

Could I tap into your knowledge and ask what you would use different levels of money to purchase and what you would do with the domain when you had it? To help me, please give your suggestions in the form of:

1. $500 investment
Type of domain to purchase, with extension, number of letters etc
The best way to make money out of said type of domain, whether parking, ads, re-sell etc

2. $1000 investment
Same

3. $2000
Same

4. $5k

This will be very useful to me in my early domaining investments. I'm sure it would help others too.

Thanks,
James.

 

[bmugford]

You go where the deals are. If you can buy a $60 domain that has amazing end user potential buy that. If you can buy a great CVCV for under $1K then buy that. I would not start out looking to spend a certain amount of money. Be flexible and wait for a deal to come along.

Brad

 

[DavidH]

Different people do different things with domain names, which will have a big impact on how you spend your money. Some flip, some develop, some park, etc.

There is no right or wrong answer how to invest your money. You need to decide first what you want before investing.

From my point of view, I spend my spare time flipping low cost names to end users so if I had $500 I would spend it on say 10 dot coms (with two, max three keywords in each name) which had as high as possible exact searches on Google adwords. Mostly I succeed with names from Godaddy auctions so I would concentrate on purchasing aged names with high end user potential.

I would park the names to see if any traffic developed while contacting end users . I would then reinvest the proceeds from sales in further names and repeat, hoping along the way to occasionally find a better quality name to probably keep for future investment.

As I dont sell every name I purchase, my personal preference would be to buy a number of names rather than put all my eggs into one domain name basket.

No doubt you will get other very different responses but this is what works for me.

Good luck.

 

[SlimPickins]

hi James and sorry to not contribute to answering your question in the hoped for way, but an important factor, imho, is deciding beforehand what your strategy is for this domain/in general.... for example, are you looking for a QUICK return (ie flipping to other domainers or spending the time to research and contact as many possible endusers as you can for a quick return on your investment to wash, rinse and repeat) or are you looking to hold onto it as long as it takes until someone comes knocking on your door with "that" offer or to spend the money (or just time if you have the skills yourself) to develop the site with great/competitive content and promote, build backlinks etc to generate passive income....

i am willing to offer different amounts for the same domain depending on what i plan to DO with it.

If you are comfortable sitting on your investment (dont need the cash again soon), there are lots of bargains out there for quality domains that should bring a nice return down the road regardless of whether you "just" park it or develop it to some extent.... but, if you are looking to flip/upgrade repeatedly and quickly, i would suggest you focus on one niche and/or extension, get to know the market for it as well as possible, what the seasoned investors are saying and doing, and critically scour through the deals for the REAL deals within the particular market, even amongst resellers.

i can still very clearly, and without fondness, remember my first rush of registrations.... sheer rubbish, and can honestly say that i was very, very clueless and without resources until i happened upon namepros. not that i am a pro now, or live off domaining, but i also don't feel that i am a lost babe in the woods either.

more and more i am feeling that development is where it is at. passive, consistent income and a developed domain, that is already bringing in traffic, can only help to negotiate a better price down the road.

best of luck! sp

 

[clearskies]

Thanks you all so far. Rep added.

Anyone else, please?

 

[cmason]

I'll give you my input as a newbie that has come out of crappy new-registration-only phase as well! I think that the other posts have done a fantastic job of giving you a pretty high level method to make money, but I will share what I have done to go from shelling out $200-$300 on hang-regged crap to turning a few K in profit the past couple of months. As the others have pointed out, there are flippers, parkers, developers, end-user fetchers and other types of domains. Personally, I focus on the flipping while I learn more about development

For me, I focused on good "commodity-type" domain deals. By "commodity-type", I mean LLL's, CCC.com's, L-L's and others that have a pretty solid minimum wholesale price. There are resources that publicize these minimum wholesale prices so you can have a good idea if an $80 investment can easily be turned into a $190 sale. I purchased 3 LLL.org's for around $100 and flipped them within a couple of weeks for about double that. I have also done the same thing buying a few LLL.info's for $60-$80 and selling them for $100-$120. Sure, this isn't big profit, but a 30,40,50,100% return in just a few weeks is HUGE!

When I first came out of hand-regging crap I got into the L-L-L market...only to find that a lot of those were dropping (good for me as I was buying). I spent some time reading about the L-L-L market and where it was a year or two ago. Whenever I see a good deal I jump on it and will try to sell it in the forums for a fraction more than I spent, but I am also willing to hold onto them for the long-haul. My biggest advice is to only sell below what you paid when you want to:
a) Get rid of crappy domains
b) Need the cash quickly

At the moment I am focusing myself on [keyword].org's that fit the extension. I have found some great deals myself, but I think that these will be a good start for my stretch into developing. I rarely hand-reg domains these days and have been shying away from analyzing the drop lists. Instead, I look for deals in forums and at auctions. I buy these to hold and potentially develop in the future. But, f a reasonable offer comes forward I will accept to make a quick flip.

My response has become a little drawn out and unorganized, but I just wanted to share my experience and let you know that what I have done has worked out with nearly $0 in parking revenue. Minisites may be my next big step (the whole 100 sites making $1 a day is quite appealing), but it is possible to have early success in flipping as well.

All the best in your adventure and I trust that others will share their experiences and knowledge in this thread.

 

[garptrader]

Many of my best domains have come from drops and other domainers but I would urge caution on spending $$$+ on individual names if you are new to domaining. It takes a while to understand what constitutes a good domain and you don't want to get into a bidding war on Namejet for a so-so domain. It still amazes me where the backorders are coming from for all those low-quality names on Namejet and Snapnames. While the easiest resales are .COM domains, domainers often overlook .Net domains which actually can be good for development. A pet-related .Net domain I acquired about a month ago (low $$$) is now on page one of Google for its keywords.

 

[clearskies]

Really fantastic advice, and thanks very much for sharing your experiences. Rep added.

Can I keep this going, please? Any one else like to contribute?

Cheers,
James.

---------- Post added 08-22-2009 at 01:33 AM ---------- Previous post was 08-21-2009 at 11:51 PM ----------

Can we please continue this thread? It would be much appreciated.

Thanks,
James.

 

[DomainBizMan]

Invest in CCC.com or premium-semi LLLL.com market. Don't blow all $1000 on one domain unless its amazing. Would you rather buy 1 good domain for $1000 and resell ofr $1600 a year later or buy multiple domains with that money and have greater returns?

 

[clearskies]

Thanks for the input. I see your point but I have read the opposite view on NPros i.e. the reverse logic of one corker is better than a number of good ones - the "keep your portfolio lean" type of approach means less renewal fees.

I do see your point though. For me the other element is risk - if a newbie like me is looking to invest then lobbing everything on one domain would be a mistake indeed.

Do you suggest catching a few good drops? What's your view on developing?

Thnaks again, James. Rep added.

 

[MyFarewells]

CVCV is the safest way to make your money back with a profit.

 

[mjbenterprises]

I agree with most of the posts here... Quality LLLL.coms, CCC.coms, CVCV.coms... Strong investments for the long term future...