This is a 7 part series on some of the often overlooked ways you can sell domain names. My focus on these is to have as little additional work involved as possible – enough has already been written in how to actively market and sell domains (if you need a reference to some of this let me know). In retrospect, this overview of the 7 surprising (and simple) domain name sales methods should have come first (each tip article came first), but I’m glad I didn’t because part way through I swapped out number 6 with a better method.

Selling domain names has to ultimately end with the sale of your domain name and the following is a list of ways that I’ve either sold a domain or in one case a friend of mine made a sale. None of these methods took more than a few minutes time and are in addition to the normal sales channels.

Method number 1 has a little background so without further ado, here are the 7 methods:

Domain name sales method #1: Whois your most targeted buyer?

Domain name sales method #2: Take advantage of the oldest profession in the world (communication profession that is)

Domain name sales method #3: Track and analyze your parking statistics for upward trends

Domain name sales method #4: Set up an email account on your parked domains

Domain name sales method #5: Check out the domaining forums – seriously

Domain name sales method #6: Use a premium listing on domain sales sites

Domain name sales method #7: Forward your parked domains traffic to your sales page.

I hope you are able to take advantage of at least one of these – please let me know of your experiences and anything that might have worked for you in the comments below!

This is the final installment in my series on 7 surprising Domain Name sales methods. If you missed Part 6, you can find it here.

Just to recap, this is all about Making money online with domain names by selling your domain name in unique ways – we’ll cover other monetization methods in another series.

Domain name sales method #7:

No Parking on the dance floor!

No parking baby! Telling my age a bit if you catch that reference..

Most domain owners who have parked domains have seen significant reductions in the Parked pages revenue and in a lot of cases a decline in traffic. If you have product domains or names that get any decent type in traffic you may be frustrated with your pennies you get from parking.

As an internet business, what is the most valuable thing you can have – traffic of course. And in this case your domain has VERY targeted traffic since people are typing it in their browser! Why not use domain forwarding and have all that traffic go to your domain sales page! Even better, have a sales page segmented by types of domains or in your Forward address and group like domains together!

You can also include a parameter like “domain=YourDomainName” so you can still track how much traffic is coming from each domain. This combination is surprisingly effective and while they are on your site they will often browse around quite a bit and possibly buy something or click an ad at the very least! I have used this process to forward like domains to an existing developed domain with a similar topic and it worked well for that, too! Be creative and don’t settle for just letting your domains gather dust – one sale and you can make more than the parking for all your domains for the entire year!

Good luck if you try this tip or any of the 7 for selling domain names!

~~ DomainNitro ~~

This is Part 6 of 7 in my series on 7 surprising Domain Name sales methods. If you missed Part 5, you can find it here.

Just to recap, this is all about Making money online with domain names by selling your domain name in unique ways – we’ll cover other monetization methods in another series.

Domain name sales method #6:

Resale markets like Afternic, Sedo and GoDaddy – with a Premium twist

If you have more than one or two domains then you probably have them listed for sale on Sedo, Afternic, Godaddy, or one of several other resellers. No secret there, but what you may not know is that several of these services have “Premium Listings”, not to be confused with other “Premium” services which require you to pay up front a fee to have your domain listed in more prominent areas of the domain search results.

Premium Listings, such as the Premium Domain Listings on GoDaddy, have a much heftier commission on the back end so you need to account for that in your price (currently they are at 30%).

That may seem like a steep price to pay, but the way they feature these domains is at a fixed price so you can account for that in your listing price. They get some pretty good results because when someone searches for a domain such as walkingshoes.com and it is listed as a Premium Listing they go straight to a sales page with the price ready to go. If there isn’t an exact Premium Listing available then one of the more prominent suggestions is to buy similar “premium” domains right beside where they suggest other extensions!

You don’t pay 20 or 30 or even 50 dollars to have it featured in a general category of domains (I’ve done this on Sedo and Godaddy with poor results) and it gets better placement because they do a good job of pattern matching what the original name search was for with the available domains in the Premium Auctions.

I know several people who have had great success with this and considering how few offers I’ve gotten recently on GoDaddy I’m definitely going to add more Premium Listings!

Good luck if you try this tip for selling domain names! Domain name sales method #7 is coming soon!

~~ DomainNitro ~~

I have been looking at ways to make money with blogs and domain names and websites recently and I came across an eBook (free, so don’t sign off) from John Chow that is really well done.

John is one of the more prolific bloggers as far as making money blogging so it shouldn’t surprise you that he has a pretty good ebook. What is surprising is that it is free and full of good information and all it will cost you is your email address if you pick it up from his site. I’ve already downloaded it and he says it is free to redistribute so if you don’t want to give him your email you can find it here.

I generally take lots of notes and mark up documents as I read them so I thought I would just type them up and create a short list of tips for making money on your blog/domain in a review format. The following are my notes and comments/thoughts I had as I read the ebook:

Chapter 1 – it is an introduction, but it is really all about what I would term accountability. Take a look at this quote related to “Someday Never Comes”:

“When you talk to a successful person about his goals, he’ll tell you what he plans to do and when it will be done. When an unsuccessful person talks about his goals(assuming he even has one), you’ll hear something along the lines of “I hope to do this someday.” Here’s a clue for all you losers out there; someday never comes.”

Some people will call that quote mean or too blunt or say that it is overstating or oversimplifying. BS! Think back about a time when you were most productive or accomplished more than you thought possible. Usually people think of these times and they are related to a project with a specific due date or something they really enjoyed and knew had to get done. A work project with a deadline is really just a goal someone else imposed on you… also, the things you enjoy usually tend to get done and done well! Why not blend the two? John says you have to have a time limit or it isn’t really a goal. I think that is the very heart of a goal! So do something you enjoy and set timely goals!

Chapter 2 – Recommended Money Makers. No, I’m not talking about Chris Moneymaker or anything related to poker this time. In this chapter, John goes into different ways to make money on your blog.

First is content links – now this ASSUMES you have some really good content… Content links are great because you don’t have to sacrifice any ad slots in your primary advertising areas (usually following the F pattern). These types of ads read your content and dynamically place hyperlinks as ads as part of the text so it is easy to implement and pretty unobtrusive. He recommends Kontera and even lets you piggyback off his subscription because they usually won’t approve smaller blogs. I’m sure he gets some kickback or ad revenue, but who cares if it gets you in the door.

Next is Text Link Ads – I haven’t used a service like this before, but basically it looks like you are giving up your recommended/favorite sites section of your blog which makes it look like you are recommending whoever they place in they ad… I’m not too sure about this one since it is YOUR reputation you are selling… If anyone has any experience with this please let me know.

Google Adsense comes next and for the vast majority of people that is going to be the first network you experience. I like Adsense and they tend to display truly relevant links and they have text, image and video ads of all sizes so you can really fine tune your site and test different size ads with different layouts. Seems like a waste of time, but small changes make huge differences with adsense and almost any other network in terms of conversion (clicks in this case). He also mentions Bidvertiser, but unless you really need to get paid at $10 increments I can’t see the benefit.

This got much longer than I expected so I’ll post the rest later. Let me know what you think and whether you like to see links/reviews like this one.

~~ DomainNitro ~~

This is Part 5 of 7 in my series on 7 surprising Domain Name sales methods. If you missed Part 4, you can find it here.

Just to recap, this is all about Making money online with domain names by selling your domain name in unique ways – we’ll cover other monetization methods in another series.

Domain name sales method #5:

Domaining forums

Yes, I know the forums are primarily other domainers and the vast majority of the stuff you will find there is junk, but you can find some deals if you check every few days… This is about selling domains though, and one place most people forget about is the “Domain Names Wanted” section of the Forums.

I have posted countless PM’s to Namepros and DNForum requests and although I’ve gotten a few leads, most are no thanks… Until recently.

I replied to a wanted post for a name about a month ago and the person said it was overpriced and wasn’t just right and would take it off my hands for much less so I said No Deal and just forgot about it.

Weeks went by and I got an email about the same domain with a low offer and rejected it, but was happy it was getting some interest. A couple more days and I get a PM with a much better offer which I accepted after a bit of negotiation (and asking if the email was the same person, which it was.)

All in all, I don’t know if the time I’ve spent lurking the wanted section makes up for the sale, but they do lead to sales for some people and in this case it was one of mine! The moral to this story is just because you get rejected a LOT, don’t give up and eventually you will succeed.

Good luck if you try this tip for selling domain names! Domain name sales method #6 is coming soon!

~~ DomainNitro ~~

This is Part 4 of 7 in my series on 7 surprising Domain Name sales methods. If you missed Part 3, you can find it here.

Just to recap, this is all about Making money online with domain names by selling your domain name in unique ways – we’ll cover other monetization methods in another series.

Domain name sales method #4:

Email “hell” leads to heaven!

I had a domain that I was going to put a mini-site on recently and one of the steps I always take is to have an email address for that domain. I use that email for domain sales emails, contact info on the site, etc. BTW, GoDaddy used to, and maybe still does give you a free email account with each domain so I have lots of email accounts waiting to be used for just this situation.

I set the email up one night and logged into the following day to send out a couple of sales letters and there were several emails waiting in my inbox. Now, normally that isn’t a big deal since spammers send email to domains, domain registrant contact info and the like, but these emails were all in Spanish and about half of them looked legitimate so I used the translate tab in Google and verified one of them was legitimate.

The Google translation also revealed the email chain and this one had been forwarded so I could see the history and the person had typed the address incorrectly. The address they really wanted was somebody@mydomain.com.es. I always set the email up as a catchall so I got these emails and realized the company might want the .com and this would give them a concrete example as to why.

I crafted a quick email to them and forwarded an email I had received and within a few days we had worked out a deal. The great thing is I never had to do much research of potential buyers or anything so I didn’t waste any time getting the sale! Just wish I had done it sooner!

Who knows if this method will ever work again, but I plan on setting up several more email accounts this weekend.

Good luck if you try this tip for selling domain names! Domain name sales method #5 is here now!

~~ DomainNitro ~~

This is Part 3 of 7 in my series on 7 surprising Domain Name sales methods. If you missed Part 2, you can find it here.

Just to recap, this is all about Making money online with domain names by selling your domain name in unique ways – we’ll cover other monetization methods in another series.

Domain name sales method #3:

Recognize odd traffic patterns for parked domains

Whenever you park domains you should get some traffic from type-ins (if you don’t, you might not have a very good domain but that is off topic.) Oftentimes you will see heavier than expected traffic and many domainers look for these type of domains. Usually they were previously developed and have backlinks that are still driving traffic to the domain. This post is not about that

What I’m suggesting here is to look for traffic that is new and increasing or is steady and the domain was never developed. You can find this information easily by looking at your parking company month over month stats. Oftentimes this will not be because you hand registered some fantastic domain, but in reality someone is developing a site and people are typing in your domain name in error. This is especially true if you own the .com.

Late last year one of my domains went from about 30 uniques per month to 100 to consistently over 500. A quick Google search found that a site was developed and was advertising heavily for another tld. Great for me because I was getting additional clicks, but it still wasn’t a lot of money so I sent exactly one message to the site owner through their contact page and had a sale closed very quickly.

If I hadn’t parked the domain or kept up with the stats I never would have been able to make that sale because the owner thought that once a domain was “his” it was always “his” and applied that same logic to the .com I had parked – he had seen the site, but missed the “this domain may be for sale” link on the parked page I guess. Maybe he would have figured it out eventually, but at the very least I expedited the sale!

Good luck if you try this tip for selling domain names! Domain name sales method #4 is here now!

~~ DomainNitro ~~

If the first 3 weeks of the year are any indication then 2011 is going to be a great year for Domain Name sales! 

I’m already closing in on the same number of sales I had all of Q4 last year and interest has been very high on several other domain names I have for sale.  It has slowed down my blogging and development projects, but I’ll take that any day!  I have Part 3, 4 and 5 of the surprising sales series almost done so be on the lookout for those tomorrow!

I hope your domain name sales or however you make money online is picking up as well.  I’d love to hear how other areas of online sales are going so drop me a line and let me know!

This is Part 2 of 7 in my series on 7 surprising Domain Name sales methods. If you missed Part 1, you can find it here.

Just to recap, this is all about Making money online with domain names by selling your domain name in unique ways – we’ll cover other monetization methods in another series.

Domain name sales method #2:

Use the “Tell-a-Woman”

Now this is not specifically about networking and building relationships in the traditional sense and before you send that complaint email or post hate comments please realize this concept has been around a long time and was coined by Tex Williams back in the 40’s. Cue the twangy background music:

“DON’T TELEPHONE, DON’T TELEGRAPH, TELL A WOMAN”

If you want to spread the news
There are lots of ways to use
But the ordinary ways are much too slow.

There is just one thing to do
Here is my advice to you
Confidentially it’s the fastest way I know.

Don’t telephone don’t telegraph
Tell a woman and the news will get around.

This holds true today even in the times of FaceBook, Twitter and Texting where you can communicate with hundreds or thousands of people in almost real time. It doesn’t even have to be a woman, but generally it is someone who you may know who fits the following… You’re having a conversation at dinner with a group of people and you are interupted 3 times in an hour by someone stopping by who saw person X at your table – they literally know everyone… or it could be someone you go to when you have a question because they “know everybody”…

These people are invaluable friends, but they can also be a help in your online business and in selling domains. If you are like me, you’ll buy some random domains at some point because they have great search numbers/CPC, but you have no idea what you’re going to do with them. I had one like this that was about to expire and even though I liked the name I hadn’t actively tried to sell it and I wasn’t going to renew it because I just knew it was going to take a while and a lot of work/time to get the necessary contacts.

Well, we had dinner with a few friends recently and two of them are the classic Tellawoman, including being female, and they were chatting about someone taking a new job and it was in the exact area of my domain. They were able to put me in contact with that person and effectively lent me their authority and network of people and I sold a domain that I would otherwise have dropped and just lost the money.

Once again, this took almost no effort on my part and you can’t beat that for simplicity because it only took a few minutes time. Now, I wouldn’t suggest overusing this one – mostly because I hate pushy people and I surely don’t friend/choose to hang out with people I know are just pushing me to buy their junk, but used sparingly I think it is surprisingly effective… Just don’t be “that guy/girl” – nobody likes that. Oh, and if you are offended by the reference, I apologize in advance – doesn’t make it any less true though.

Good luck if you try this tip for selling domain names and look for Domain name sales method #3 here!

~~ DomainNitro ~~