How To Be a Domainer

Online businesses are thriving. And even for brick-and-mortar businesses, an online presence is important. There are a lot of means for you to earn money online. You can monetize content. You can monetize traffic. And some people even monetize names and brands. If you are into investing and you think you can manage as a domainer betting on brands and names online, domaining is something you should look into.

You have the potential of earning big money, if you would know how to play your cards right. Like stocks, you would just have to buy low and sell high.

Get your domains. Domains are essentially brand names on the Internet. When you access a website by its name, domain name servers (DNS) would then direct your browser to the actual physical server where the site is hosted. However, domaining involves buying a handful of domains, and keeping these both to monetize the potential traffic from search keywords, or selling these to interested buyers. Domains typically cost $8 or so (for the popular .COM, .NET and .ORG), and you can sell domains for hundreds or even thousands of dollars. There have actually been multi-million dollar domain purchases, such as BUSINESS.com, WINE.com, and the like.

Typographical error based established domains are no longer worth it if you have no intentions of backing it up with a legitimate business with that typo name. You would eventually have to hand it over to the established domain holder with the correct spelling with little or absolutely no earnings. The best way to get your domain is to go for keywords. You could check the typographical errors of the keywords as your target domain name. This would pass to be legitimate and something you could really build and work on.
Check with your favorite domain registrar (such as GoDaddy.com) for available domain names. There are also automated volume buying tools around if you would want to purchase domains in bulk. If you are looking at this business to thrive in the long run, check the trends of popular keywords. Google Trends is one such tool you can use.

Park your domains. When you have already accumulated domains, sign up for affiliate programs or cost-per-click programs like ClickBank.com. Your domains would be parked in the servers of your domain name broker, which have Domain Parking as an affiliate program. Looking at the key advertising market of your domains, the affiliate program would then host a page with advertisements and links on your domain. Every time people click on the links or buy products from the page, money would start to come in.

Market and sell your domains. If you have intentions of selling your domain, check out domain auction houses or visit domain marketplaces, like DigitalPoint.com, Sitepoint.com and Sedo.com. If you have already made a name for yourself as a domainer, your sites could sell for hundreds or even thousands of dollars. If you are lucky enough to get first dibs on a very good domain name, you can even get millions. There are also public relations or PR firms and advertising companies that might be interested in at least one of your domains, which you can sell at good prices.

Domains are usually priced, depending on their age (the older, the better), Google PageRank, number of characters (the shorter, the better), and even the top-level domain (.COM is always best).

Experienced domainers usually get a good income out of their domain buying and selling activities. However, for starters, do not go beyond your limit. Don't borrow money or use up your credit limit in buying domains. This is not a quick revenue generating business. It usually takes some time before a number of your domain names could bring the money, in and pay you back what you have spent in buying these in the first place. But don't get disheartened. With any online business, diligence, time and a bit of luck are needed to succeed.