Have you heard of Flippa or Afternic where you can sell domain names?
Did you know that they are multi-million dollar businesses?
While this is a lucrative business, these companies are far from efficient.
For example, this is Afternic’s landing page. Absolutely ugly and awful.
There is a site called DAN.com that does give a good landing page but they are priced at 9% of the sale value, which to me as a domain seller is too much unless I’m selling super premium domains ($10,000 or more).
So while going through these businesses, I came across Efty.com
Their basic plan starts at $12 a month which is perfect for a small seller like me. So I did some digging around for their traffic numbers and found that they are not doing all that well.
They are leaving a LOT of money on the table.
So I thought, why not share this opportunity.
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Mandatory Feature Set
The idea here is to create a domain sales page service that doesn’t take away massive margins from the seller. In this space, there are a few things that will make domain sellers really happy. They are:
Beautiful & responsive designs.
Simple contact form with an ability to place a bid.
Chat function to connect with the seller or his representative. (buyer should be able to chat with sellers in real-time via a custom app/email chat)
Another good add on would be the ability for visitors to create affiliate links right on the page. No lengthy sign up process, just share the affiliate link and when a sale is recorded, a flat commission is paid.
Based on my research, I’m yet to find a service provider with all the above features.
So if you pull this off, you will definitely stand out.
Choosing a Domain Name
This is a tricky space to get relevant names for less. Mainly because the domain business is pretty lucrative and they have a massive secondary market.
Most relevant domains are already taken.
Having said that, I did find a few .com domain names that you might find useful.
FYI, all domains listed are $13 or lower.
Download a list of domain names here
SEO & Keyword Research
As I mentioned before, the space is pretty competitive but by focussing on hyper targeted phrases, you can steal decent traffic from incumbents.
I’ve created keyword lists along with categories they can go in.
You can use this to create chunks of content and start pushing them in the form of a series on your blog or social media.
At this point, I would not recommend paid advertising since the PPC rates are pretty high for this industry.
However, your SEO efforts would be really worth it given the high ROI.
Download a list of keywords and their categories here
Quora Marketing
This is as simple as answering questions on the site.
I’ve added this section for primarily 2 reasons.
It is super hard to get PR in this space.
There is significant Q&A interest from beginners.
Lot of long tail keyword opportunities.
Here are some nuances to keep in mind.
Start by answering 5-6 questions everyday and slowly increase the amount of answers.
Do not add links on the first few answers. Quora might end up shadow banning or even worse completely banning you. You can start adding the links gradually once you have been on the site for 2 weeks or more.
Add your job title preferably as “Co-founder” or “Entrepreneur” and add your domain name as your employer. Example, Steven Smith, Co-Founder at urlpath.com
Ignore “answer requests”; they usually have low ROI.
Give legitimate answers and avoid copy-pasting templated answers initially so that the system doesn’t flag you.
I’ve compiled a list of questions and their Quora links. Just click on them and start answering.
Download the list of Quora questions here
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Communities
While there are communities where domain sellers and buyers interact, most of them are small paid communities and trying to sell on them will get you banned immediately.
So what’s the best way to go about it? Create your own community.
There are 2 places where I think you should start your community.
Reddit, because of its high SEO value and existing user base.
Telegram, because of its functionalities that support closed communities.
Reddit Community
The Reddit community obviously has to be free, so make sure you are taking advantage of the eyeballs you get from it.
You can start by creating an automated disclaimer (See image below) that will be commented on every post which can include general instructions along with your name and credentials (including your website URL).
You can also add your URL to mega threads that are pinned to the top of the community page.
Telegram Community
This community could be exclusive paid community.
You can sell access via Gumroad or directly get paid via PayPal.
You can also run weekly sales on this community and take a small cut.
Affiliates and Content Creators
You can build the paid community by getting in touch with content creators in this space and offering them an affiliate commission for paid signups.
Or even better, sign them up as affiliates for your domain sales page business, directly.
You can manage your affiliates using PartnerStack.
Here are some creators you can try getting in touch with:
YouTubers:
This list is by no means exhaustive. If you do a little more research, you can find a lot more influencers/creators with decent long tail traffic on YouTube.
There are a few podcasts as well. A simple search on Apple Podcasts or Google Podcasts should give you enough content creators in the space to get started.
So that is it about the business of sales pages for premium/semi-premium domain names and how you can grow this.
If implemented properly there is a good chance that this might become a viable business. The margins are high with domain names, so even a small upgrade from incumbent services can get people to pay good money for your service.
So, are you interested in starting this business but have some questions? Drop me an email and I’ll see if I can help you with it.
Thanks for reading and all the best.
https://www.newsy.co will be very relevant here.
Eric Sjust now
It is hard to find a balance between getting good value and being charge overpriced themes when searching out a place to sell your domains. I have found it best if you have the time to seek out your own buyer by looking in your niche for competitors and contacting them directly.
Thanks,
Eric S
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuCIWlLwkX97kd4GEw45QYw