Who all lists domains on their own site?

Unless you have a considerable number of two-word .COM domains redirecting your domains to a portfolio site probably won't generate that many leads but having a portfolio site is still a good way to illustrate to potential buyers whom you may be reaching out to that you are legit. The idea is that if the domain is forwarded to your portfolio site, you get the lead rather than some marketplace which is going to take a commission. As well, if the potential buyer doesn't like your list price, they may hunt around that marketplace i.e. SEDO and see what else is for sale and buy another name. Do you want to be the lead generation tool for selling someone else's domains?

Now regarding choosing a domain name for your portfolio site - you can post a message in the domains wanted section and see what might be available. It sometimes frustrates me to see domainers operating domain portfolio sites on crap domain names or only looking to pay $100 for their brand. If you really believe in the branding value of domain names and you are in the business of selling domains and you are spending thousands of dollars acquiring domains for resale, why limit your budget for your business' domain to $100? I don't get it. Anyway, perhaps with all these new TLDs or the .Domains TLD you can find something which is brandable enough.

Note I have had offers in the past for a couple of my portfolio domain names but no deal was made

Thanks for your reply, would you mind sharing your site? Do you list a price on your page or just contact info?

I have all of my domains listed on godaddy auctions and sedo as offer/counter with no list price. I figured it may be a better approach to add a buy now price, but offer a slightly lower price on my sales page so that they are inclined to work with me directly instead. Care to share any pricing strategies that you use?

With regards to my own site I have several ideas, but I'm leaning toward focusing on brandables. The majority of my portfolio is brandable 1 and 2 word hand regs or trending niches like 3D, robots, wearables, etc, so I would probably be best fit to do something like namerific or BB, but with much lower prices.

If I decide to build a brand rather than just use it as a portfolio, I'm going to incorporate a blog so that I can add keyword rich content relevant to domains, branding, start ups, etc.

I'm also brainstorming some methods to increase content and help out the domaining community and myself simultaneously. For instance, allowing fellow domainers to add 1 domain of their choice to the website and creating a logo for them for free with $0 commission.

Since it would be a lot of work I would maybe add a donation option or offer my services in exchange for the services of other domainers such as a guest post on their site or something.


The domain name that I decided to use for now for my portfolio and possibly my brand is NameNeat/com. It was just a hand reg, but I'm pretty happy with it.

I'm still considering other names, but for now I'm at least going to start adding content and building my portfolio. I'm going to add a custom logo for each of them also so that I can add emphasis to my portfolio presentation and have an aesthetic design in place should I choose to develop it.

A few examples:









What would you guys think if I were to do something like this? Any other ideas or criticisms?

Well it seems you have a quite clear idea of what you are going to do which is very good.

I will echo GarpTrader telling you not to expect much natural traffic if your portfolio is mainly made by brandables. Don't let that discourage you as you can always drive more traffic using a blog, seo etc.

All the big marketplaces have positive and negative aspects and you will have to analyze which one best suites your needs, what kind of listing etc. You might end up finding out you won't even need them; as i said you sound pretty aware of what to do and how to do it.

So thumb up for me and good good luck

Bits4domains, you seem like you're on track for success.
I'm impressed with the quality of your brandables and logos.

I would suggest listing a name with each of the brandable boutiques.
You can see what you like and don't like about each of them.

You can see my attempt at IconicNames. I am thinking of changing it to NamesWiz.
What do you think?

Iconic said:

Bits4domains, you seem like you're on track for success.
I'm impressed with the quality of your brandables and logos.

I would suggest listing a name with each of the brandable boutiques.
You can see what you like and don't like about each of them.

You can see my attempt at IconicNames. I am thinking of changing it to NamesWiz.
What do you think?

Click to expand...

I submitted one, viewee, to namerific to test the waters and it got accepted in under 2 hours. I added another handful later in the day and they are still pending, but I feel like they are much better than a good amount of the ones listed, so it should go well.

I considered BB for any that don't make the cut, but it seems they are taking months to reply at the moment. I'm also turned off by the listing fee. I would rather use the money to buy more domains that I have on my current list and try to explore other options.

Now regarding your site, I like where you're headed. Since you don't have much content and we share similar ideas, maybe we should take a shot at putting our heads together for a little collab project?

Do you have more domains or is that all of the brandables you're adding for now? Also, are you using any analytic tracking, and if so how much traffic has it received? I also noticed afinita says sold, was that through your site?

But I hope you're right about being on the right track. I feel like I'm pretty creative and resourceful when it comes to finding names, and I have sold 6 for low $xxx and a handful for high $xx in only 4 or so months of passive domaining, but I want to take it to the next level.

I gave up web design, graphic design, and affiliate marketing to focus more on domaining, but I need to make a large sale or two to get where I want to be. I have a good chunk of earnings set aside to cover my renewals, so anything I make now can go toward investing in premium drops and low $xxx listings. In the meantime I'm researching methods of generating leads and finding end users so I can kill it when the time comes.

Once again..well done.

Just one advice if I can : if it was me I wouldn't give affiliate marketing up because there is where the ongoing income resides. Domaining is a lot about investing and waiting...waiting....aaaaaand waiting

photonmymind said:

Once again..well done.

Just one advice if I can : if it was me I wouldn't give affiliate marketing up because there is where the ongoing income resides. Domaining is a lot about investing and waiting...waiting....aaaaaand waiting

Click to expand...

I forgot to mention that I just graduated college and started a full-time career at Shell. So ongoing income isn't necessarily an issue. I just don't want to invest anymore money out of pocket on a hobby. I take my hobbies too seriously sometimes :hehe:

I see the waiting part as an advantage now that I have to balance a full time career. When I graduated I also put all of my affiliate marketing projects on the backburner and they have all but died now.

I was making a killing because I had tons of sites in all sorts of niches bringing in conversions, but the disadvantage was I never built up any sizable authority on a particular one. I just focused on organic traffic and long-tail keywords that I could rank easily for, so a few months without generating content or updates brought traffic to a halt.

Actually, affiliate marketing may even take more waiting than domaining in a lot of instances. Adding content and researching keywords daily is a huge huge hassle, but it's necessary almost daily for sometimes up to a year before you ever start making income.

So I feel the best way I can still use everything I've learned and take my domaining to the next level simultaneously is to start a domain site/portfolio/blog/sales platform. Dat synergy :lol:

well...you seem to be doing everything right.

Apart from working @ Shell....IMO

I like a lot of the thinking you have put into this idea. I myself think that having your own website with your domians on it is a great idea.

If you think about the cost for a site like this it is actually pretty cheap money wise since the only costs you have to put out are the domain name/reg itself and the hosting. You can use wordpress to set something up and you can do that for free with the exception of your time.

I myself have been doing something similar to what you are thinking and it teaches you a lot. You can experiment with your site design depending on if you want an elegant looking site to present yourself that way or you can even go with some kind of catchy theme site. It just kind of depends on what you are going for.

If you spend some time promoting your domain site you can start getting the word spread and even do some social promoting. The main thing is if you have a little time to spend building up the site I think it would be a good idea considering the low cost to get one up and running (Not counting your time). For the cost of a domain name and hosting you can present yourself in your own way instead of how a selling site wants to present your domain.

Anyway, enough rambling on. I like your ideas and think if you can put a little time into them you will do very well.

ulterios said:

I like a lot of the thinking you have put into this idea. I myself think that having your own website with your domians on it is a great idea.

If you think about the cost for a site like this it is actually pretty cheap money wise since the only costs you have to put out are the domain name/reg itself and the hosting. You can use wordpress to set something up and you can do that for free with the exception of your time.

I myself have been doing something similar to what you are thinking and it teaches you a lot. You can experiment with your site design depending on if you want an elegant looking site to present yourself that way or you can even go with some kind of catchy theme site. It just kind of depends on what you are going for.

If you spend some time promoting your domain site you can start getting the word spread and even do some social promoting. The main thing is if you have a little time to spend building up the site I think it would be a good idea considering the low cost to get one up and running (Not counting your time). For the cost of a domain name and hosting you can present yourself in your own way instead of how a selling site wants to present your domain.

Anyway, enough rambling on. I like your ideas and think if you can put a little time into them you will do very well.

Click to expand...

Thanks. I've got a decent amount of experience in wordpress and webdesign, so I'm not really worried about that aspect.

I'm more concerned with the possible options I could explore and if they will be worth while. In other words, will it make me money, bring end users, etc.

bits4domains said:

I submitted one, viewee, to namerific to test the waters and it got accepted in under 2 hours. I added another handful later in the day and they are still pending, but I feel like they are much better than a good amount of the ones listed, so it should go well.

I considered BB for any that don't make the cut, but it seems they are taking months to reply at the moment. I'm also turned off by the listing fee. I would rather use the money to buy more domains that I have on my current list and try to explore other options.

.

Click to expand...

What you will discover about namerific is that getting a domain accepted does not necessarily mean it's going to get listed. I have domains that were accepted in January that are still waiting to get listed and I read a post the other day from someone whose domains were approved in October yet are still awaiting further processing . On the other hand, a domain I submitted in March was accepted and listed within a few days of submission. The order in which things get listed, if they do, seems to be completely a matter of whim.

As far as BB, they seem to be working to catch up. This past Monday, they approved domains I submitted on Feb 3rd, and by yesterday ( 4 days later ) they were on Feb 22nd. We'll see if they can keep up the pace.

As for your original question, I've tinkered with the idea of creating a portfolio site but have never gotten around to it, mainly out of laziness. What I have done, however, for the past couple of years is point every domain to it's own contact page and I generate way more sales from those contact pages than from all the listings sites combined ( sedo, godaddy, afternic, etc. ). The advantage of doing things this way is that 1) I get to research who my buyer is and price domains accordingly 2) I can negotiate with the buyer directly and 3) I can send follow up emails and/or phone the buyer to complete the sale. Bear in mind, that brandables are a small part of my portfolio so I can't say for sure that this strategy would work for them.

discobull said:

What you will discover about namerific is that getting a domain accepted does not necessarily mean it's going to get listed. I have domains that were accepted in January that are still waiting to get listed and I read a post the other day from someone whose domains were approved in October yet are still awaiting further processing . On the other hand, a domain I submitted in March was accepted and listed within a few days of submission. The order in which things get listed, if they do, seems to be completely a matter of whim.

As far as BB, they seem to be working to catch up. This past Monday, they approved domains I submitted on Feb 3rd, and by yesterday ( 4 days later ) they were on Feb 22nd. We'll see if they can keep up the pace.

As for your original question, I've tinkered with the idea of creating a portfolio site but have never gotten around to it, mainly out of laziness. What I have done, however, for the past couple of years is point every domain to it's own contact page and I generate way more sales from those contact pages than from all the listings sites combined ( sedo, godaddy, afternic, etc. ). The advantage of doing things this way is that 1) I get to research who my buyer is and price domains accordingly 2) I can negotiate with the buyer directly and 3) I can send follow up emails and/or phone the buyer to complete the sale. Bear in mind, that brandables are a small part of my portfolio so I can't say for sure that this strategy would work for them.

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I've also read several cases of people getting accepted but not going live for several months, and it's because no designer chooses them.

The designers are limited to how many logos they can create, so they tend to accept the domains that they feel have a good chance of being sold or have a large commission.

I learned, however, that if you are a designer you can add your own logo to any of your domains that get approved. I'm applying now to become a designer since I have a lot of experience, so hopefully I can get them live on my own.

What are some examples of domains you have sold with your landing pages? I'm creating my site now with just a clean simple layout and an individual page for each domain. So when someone views the domain they will get forwarded to that page and there will be an inquiry button that opens a contact form.

I guess the only way to see how it will work is to try it, but I'm not even sure how many people come across my domains organically..

bits4domains said:

I've also read several cases of people getting accepted but not going live for several months, and it's because no designer chooses them.

The designers are limited to how many logos they can create, so they tend to accept the domains that they feel have a good chance of being sold or have a large commission.

I learned, however, that if you are a designer you can add your own logo to any of your domains that get approved. I'm applying now to become a designer since I have a lot of experience, so hopefully I can get them live on my own.

What are some examples of domains you have sold with your landing pages? I'm creating my site now with just a clean simple layout and an individual page for each domain. So when someone views the domain they will get forwarded to that page and there will be an inquiry button that opens a contact form.

I guess the only way to see how it will work is to try it, but I'm not even sure how many people come across my domains organically..

Click to expand...

Every domain of mine that BB has accepted has gone live within a few days of approval so I'm not sure why namerific can't manage the same. I thought it might be due to the $10 fee, but the guy who's been waiting since October says he paid the optional $25 fee and it made no difference. Anyhow, I don't see the point of having an approval process if the designers are effectively given veto power. It'll be interesting to see if designing your own logos will make a difference.

Examples of domains I've sold via my contact page include domains like H e a l t h T X, G F C l o u d, B u y H V A C, D i s a s t e r R e c o v e r y C l o u d, etc -- basically keyword domains.

Regarding pricing I believe that for all but the top 10% of your domains you should price them in aftermarkets. When people shop they want to know the price and in the domain aftermarkets your domain is essentially competing with other domains with the same keyword. If there is no price, the assumption is it is expensive and unless you have a one-word .COM they are likely to look for something else. However, on your website I would suggest not pricing domains because you already have your buyer on your site. Just make sure your contact info is easy to find. What happens if you price domains on your website, over time you will make adjustments at SEDO, Godaddy, etc (some up, some down) and updating website pricing is typically going to be more time-consuming. So your website pricing will become inconsistent with prices elsewhere.

I'm going to try and start investing in keyword domains soon. Right now I just have a few, but a ton of trending technology, brandables, and a few misc. keywords.

As for the site, I've got it up and running at nameneat.com

I've only been working on it a few hours so I don't have much content, but that will give you a general idea of where it's headed.

Let me know if you have any suggestions!

My portfolio site is: KingTutDomains.com
Some domains are for sale, some are with sites.
Some domains (very few at this time) direct to my business sites, but the number of them directing will increase.

I once had a site that ran portfolio software (with all my domains listed, approx 1500), and I'd get a few offers but nothing particularly serious. But then again, with no SEO done, nobody found the site unless they searched for that particular domain name.

This is what I currently do:

Park domains at Sedo, with the message that the domain can be bought.
Redirect to BrandBucket etc where necessary.

+ Have a website/blog for my domain business. However, it just lists some of my domains. And it lists those sold. The site exists to add legitimacy. I link to it in email signatures, so during negotiations the other party knows I'm not desperate to sell.