Shane’s 100 Domaining Tips #41-50

It’s time to continue my ever popular (ok somewhat popular) list of domaining tips.  Some are common sense, some are reminders, others may be things you never thought of.  I present you #s 41-50

41.  Double check every name before you make a bid. Don’t rely on the auction price to tell you it’s the correct spelling.   Fifty seven bids and a going price of $2450 doesn’t mean it’s not a misspelled name.  People have a herd mentality and a typo can climb quickly if nobody is paying attention.  If you do bid, make sure you’re not the last bid.

42. If a person won’t do a name transaction through Sedo or Escrow don’t do the transaction. It’s a sure sign of problems.  If they say it’s due to a certain time frame do two things.  One, make sure it’s not stolen.  Two, make them transfer you the domain into your account before you pay.  If they are in such a hurry make them trust you.

43. Use Domain Tools to put a dns watch on all your domains. It’s a bit of an effort to get all your domains in but you will get an email if any of your domain data changes.  This service isn’t necessarily made for this purpose but it’s a good alarm system for your accounts.

44. List your domains at Godaddy auctions.  You can put any reserve on it you want and it costs nothing to put in the auction so why wouldn’t you?  If you get a couple bids you’d be surprised how much attention a domain will receive if it makes it to the “Hot” section.

45. Don’t believe anyone’s traffic data.  Unless you put your own analytics code on a domain assume the numbers you are given are wrong.  It is way too easy to buy or redirect traffic if you are a domainer.  It is easy money to send mad traffic to a domain, put it up on Godaddy auctions and then people bid up the auction because it got 20,000 uniques last month.  Screenshots can easily be doctored as well. Of course, there is always DNWStats.com

46.  Don’t spam comment sections of blogs.  If you want to sell or promote domains you should build up your reputation through intelligent, insightful, or witty responses to articles.  In due time you’ll gain a little lead way and perhaps people might actually click your name’s link.  If you think you are getting any Google juice or traffic by changing the url in your comment you are mistaken.  Almost all comment links are no follow and hardly anyone clicks on the name of a spammy type comment.  I even change the url of the spammy person to lead right back to another one of my articles on my site. My blog, I can do what I want to spammers

47.  Beautiful women help sell. I’m not saying to put a half naked girl on your websites but I am telling you to put a fresh faced beautiful young women somewhere on the front.  Sell kayaks?  Put a pretty girl kayaking on the front (you listening Morgan?) I find the girl next door does much better than the fake boobs, wife beater shot.  Where do you get a picture like this?  You’re going to have to buy it.  You can often look through flickr, find the right photo or photoshopable photo and buy it.

48.  If you plan on doing this domain thing right all your domains will be someone else’s eventually. If you want to make money in domaining you either better monetize your domains or SELL IT.  Don’t be fooled by your perception all your names are priceless.  You want to either sell them, drop them, or monetize them and sell them.

49.  You can’t do it by yourself. Every successful person has someone that helped them get there.  It may be a designer or writer.  It may be your wife who proofread your sites.  To make money in this business you are going to have to assemble a team.  One by one you need to pick out someone you trust, you can work with, and someone you want with you long term. This can also be another company that does certain tasks for you.  Either way, you want to work with people that can grow as you grow and who share the send end goals.  The team you build will determine how much money you make.  You’re going to eventually figure out what things make financial sense for you to do and which ones are best hired out or handed off.  Don’t be lazy but don’t be heavy handed either.

50.  Everyone thinks they can do better but most can’t or don’t. There is certainly money to be made trying to improve on what someone else has done but the real money is doing something different. If everyone is building this type of site then build something different.  If nobody is doing something and you think it would be great,  then try it. You’re either going to be the person that fixes the problem or learns the hard way why nobody else is doing it. Either way you’re going to learn.  Original and creative thought is one of the greatest things a person can have and yet it’s one of the hardest things to find in business.

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Don’t Forget to Read the Other 40 Tips

Shane’s 100 Domaining Tips # 1-10

Shane’s 100 Domaining Tips # 11-20

Shane’s 100 Domaining Tips #21 – 30

Shane’s 100 Domaining Tips #31 – 40

And Make sure to check out

99 Tips for Successful Domaining

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