Domain Name Speculator

Domain name investment has been a valid business opportunity for some time now, many entrepreneurs have quietly been buying and selling domain names for profit. I have been using the Internet for a number of years but have never actually paid that much attention to the actual domain name; that is about to change.

With the recent changes to Hubpages and other content writing sites brought on by the Google Panda update I started looking around for other business opportunities, I purposely didn't want to find another writing opportunity because I am registered with enough sites to write and make money so I broadened my horizons. Enter domain name speculation; somehow this unique business had passed me by but never mind I have found it now.

In this article I want to talk you through what I have learned about the world of domaining, what it is, how it works and how you can buy and sell domain names and make money from it.

The first lesson I learned and the first tip I want to share with you is; Don't rush in !

Now this may seem like simple advice but it's good advice and will save you time and money in the long term. Excited about finding a new money making opportunity I headed off to my domain name registrars, I use GoDaddy for my .com domains and 123 Reg to register my .co.uk domains. The first thing I noticed that every domain name I wanted to register was gone, after about 3 hours of not finding one single name I started to panic and out of desperation registered names that were available rather than names I wanted.

Rushing into buying domain names won't help you make money, you need to know what you are going to do with them. My original plan was to buy them then flip them; flip means sell in domaining circles, sadly the names I bought were worthless let alone flippable.

Ironically if I had applied the skills I have learned as a writer on Hubpages then I wouldn't have made this fundamental mistake.

Writing on Hubpages you learn so many useful skills that are transferable to many other online business. Researching domain names is no different and here are the key things to do when buying a domain name:

Use Google keyword tool to establish if anybody is actually searching for the name you intend to buy, if not don't bother unless you have plenty of SEO experience to rank for other long tail terms. As we have already found out domain names or rather good names are difficult to buy unless you have a big budget, the key is to find long tail keywords that have a lot of traffic then see if the name is available.

Names come under a number of categories for example:

Keyword domain names- products and services with exact match words.

Brandable- think Google, Twitter; these are names that have been turned into a brand.

Geo- these are names with a specific target audience, New York Lawyers is a good example.

Ideally if you can decide on the type of names you want to buy then it will help you focus or find your niche, this in itself makes researching potential domain names easier. Check trademarks, in simple terms don't buy a trade marked name as you will struggle to keep hold of it and could be sued.

Check out the competition, can you compete with established websites, can you capitalise on an angle or product that hasn't been explored; if not move on.

Use the Internet to find trends, Google and Twitter both display trends, maybe you work in an industry were new products or services are coming through. The main point is that if you are ahead of the crowd you stand a good chance of earning money from domain names.

This part; selling domain names is the holy grail of domaining and can be done in a number of ways.

End users- If you can find a person or company that wants your domain name for their website you are more likely to command a better price. Remember there is only ever one of a domain name in any given extension so if the right buyer comes along it can be very valuable.

Domain Investors- There are many people who invest in domain names, they may buy thousands of them and hope that they will increase over time or sell them on to end users. The price is usually lower when selling to this market unless you have a name they really want and then they will pay handsomely.

Auctions- Domain name auctions are a great way of buying and selling names, there are literally thousands of names sold everyday for millions of dollars. You could make money simply by trading in this area of domain speculation

Another way to make money with domain names is known as parking. What this means in practice is you park the name with a company such as Google who will display adverts on the landing page, when someone clicks on the adverts you get paid.

You are unlikely to earn much money unless you have a pretty good name or loads of domain names parked, that said the potential is there to make a decent passive income if you have good names and plenty of them.

Another way domain investors make money is by building minisites around there domain names.

This is great alternative to parking your domains as not only does it give you a way of promoting your domain names for sale but you can put adverts of affiliate products on there and earn additional income.

Wordpress seems to be the site builder of choice as it's fairly easy to use and more importantly free! If you are interested take a look in the links box on the side of this article and have a look at my first efforts of using Wordpress. Granted I have a lot to learn but it is helping me sell domain names.

So there we have it, a quick overview of becoming a domain name speculator. It doesn't really matter if you have any experience neither if you haven't got a lot of money to invest in your domain names. There is plenty of good advice and information here on Hubpages on buying and selling domain names and the Internet is full of great sites about domaining, domain flipping and building minisites.

Good luck with your new business venture.