Domain Investing - Six Definitions of a Top Generic Domain Name
How come that certain domain names sell for over a million dollars while others get no interest what so ever. Two domain names may appear to be almost the same and might even have a couple of different characters, like Beds.com and Bedsx.com, but you’ve got it - The first one is a winner and the second a no hoper.
Keyword domain names become profitable investments if you follow these 6 golden rules and you must read them before buying your own domain name. It doesn’t matter which route you take to buy the domain name, good investigative work will guarantee a winner when it comes to selling.
1. Keyword volume: Keyword research is step one for finding a good potential domain name. Popular keywords get traffic so check out your domain words on WordTracker or Google Adwords, so you can see just how popular your keywords are. There are several tools you can use; which may give differing results, but you will soon get the idea and you will feel confident in choosing the keywords that will result in good traffic.
2. Commonality: A lot of people say domains are valued on their scarcity, but if you think about it, all domains, both good and bad, are one of a kind. What I like to look for is the commonality of the phrase the name represents within our society and existing lexicon. Usage, word order, and pluralization are huge factors in valuation. For example, “Discount” is not the same as “Discounted” which is not the same as “Discounts.” SportCars.com is valued less than SportsCars.com, and ShoesRunning.com is practically worthless when pitted against RunningShoes.com. Search for the phrase in quotes on Google to see if people are even using it, much less searching for it.
3. True type-in traffic: This information can be difficult to get, but it never hurts to ask, especially when the sale is private and you aren’t under stressful time constraints. You specifically want to know how much type-in traffic the name gets, not including visitors who are referred from search engines and links, both of which are unreliable in the long term.
4. Length: A further important consideration is the domain length. Short domain names will get better results because they are a lot easier to remember and spell and would convert into loads more traffic. Branding domains with takinf these important factors into account will increase drastically the domain name value which is great news if later sell your domain.
5. Prior use: People that invest in domains that are available on drop services or from expired lists may have been fooled into doing so as you really can be unaware of the history of a domain until you are already the owner. You may have even been fooled by a high Google ranking or PR but that can drop down right under your nose if it has previously been used for spamming and you wouldn’t even be able to get the best sounding domain back on it’s feet again. The only way out would be to register a new similar name like flightsblog.com and take that route to get it back to the top again.
6. End user development potential: The one thing pretty much everyone in this business agrees on is a domain needs to be developable. In other words, you must always ask yourself this: Would I or anyone else be willing to spend money to put up a Web site on this name? If the answer is no, it will never truly be considered great.
