Buying An Expired Domain Name For Your Business

Have you ever thought about buying and expired domain name for your business or personal website? Do you know what an expired domain is? Then read on and I will run through the basics of catching that all important name which will perfectly describe your business niche.

If you have ever tried to hand register a domain name no doubt you will have found that most great names have already been registered, especially in the .com extension. You may be able, if you are lucky, to find the perfect name in a .net or .org variant but for the sake of your customers and possibly for the resale value of your business .com is always the most popular solution. When a domain is registered it is usually renewed on a yearly basis, unless the owner has taken the step to register for a longer period like 5 years. As a domain name comes round to renewal date the owner may not be interested in keeping the name anymore. If this happens and he lets it expire then there is a chance you can grab it as it “drops”. Established domain catching services such as Snapnames, Godaddy and Namejet are places where you can view names which are about to go into public auction or expire completely.

You’ll see that popular names sell for quite high prices in public auctions. However you cannot let this put you off if the name is exactly what you need to push your business forward. Having a super domain name which describes your business perfectly is worth its weight in gold. Just because it is only a “name” certainly doesn’t mean it’s not a valuable asset. Many would argue it’s the most valuable. With the popularity of searching online increasing, and many people now using search as the first point of call for gaining information it’s now more crucial than ever to have web presence. Think of it this way. Once you own the important domain name no one else can ever take it from you. They can try to compete by spending a ton of money in optimization fees, but for the sake of a one off payment to buy the name (and simply a few dollars each year to renew it) you can instantly have what all your competitors are trying to achieve with their non descript names.

Finding The Best Expired Domain Names

Now that you understand what an expired domain is and what it means to your business you need to be able to find which names are about to drop that are suitable. For the sake of this article I will describe the ideas I use over at Dropday.com, however there are other services such as Freshdrop and many others if you do some searching on Google. These services check all the major name catching services and provide lists of domains about to expire into auction, or even buy it now situations.

Let’s say you are in the kitchen design and fitting business (for the sake of an example). Firstly you may want to look at your customer base and current trade to decide which area the majority of your income is made. Possibly you find that most of your income is from kitchen design. Use a tool such as the Google keyword suggestion tool to find out which keywords people are naturally searching for when looking for “kitchen design”, make sure you select your locality and language from the advanced search section. You don’t want to know what people in the UK are looking for if your business is based in the US! Once you have got the list select the “exact” box to the left of the keyword list. This will show you what people are typing in exactly rather than a broad search. Arrange the list from highest to lowest by clicking on the local monthly searches column title and then in the “include terms” box to the left type “kitchen” so that the results are more relevant.

Now as in the example shown kitchen design is highly searched, and the exact name kitchendesign.com is already owned with an established website. Even if it were available a name such as this would probably cost you several hundred thousand dollars to aquire (great if you have the cash for that, but the majority do not!). So let’s look further down the list. There’s “kitchen ideas” “small kitchen design” and so forth. Make a list into a text file of the top 10 or 15 searched keywords that would suit your customer base and let’s pop over to Dropday.com

Over at Dropday open up advanced search. As in the example shown type in “kitchen” (or your own keywords) and make sure the box is checked for “contains” and also the .com box below. We only want to buy .com right? Now if your keyword is a popular one you will most likely be presented with a ton of domain names here. A ton of useless ones too. This is where your list of keywords comes into play, do not stray from those keywords. The only time I would break this rule would be if I found a domain that is so catchy it could be branded however I wanted. Stick to the keywords if you don’t plan to build a brand! Now here you can start to narrow down the options. Try sorting the names by column from high to low. Create year can be a good column as most great names were likely registered a long time ago. You can also try the search again using the keyword as “starts with” rather than contains, or even state the maximum number of characters you want in the name.

Maybe there is no suitable name, don’t despair. Great names do not expire every day. Save the search next to the “find” button and come back each morning for 10 minutes and view only the todays additions. I will guarantee that within a couple of weeks or months you will find a name that catches your eye. Maybe it has an added word like “newkitchendesigns.com” or such like. You can now visit the service which will have this name on offer by the link in the far right column of the table.

Bidding On An Expired Domain

At this point you do not want to bid the maximum you are prepared to pay for the domain name. To be allowed into the auction all you have to do is bid the minimum (or in case it is a GoDaddy auction just add it to your watch list). Once you have placed the minimum bid keep an eye for when the auction starts, and once it starts look at the closing date and time. Either set an alarm on your phone or computer to remind you an hour before the auction closes so you don’t miss out.

Wait until the last few minutes before bidding or you’ll raise the price needlessly. If the price changes within the last few minutes sometimes the auction gets extended for further bids to be placed. However you may be the only one bidding on the name. If this is the case you get it cheap! If not then have firmly your head the maximum you want to pay and DO NOT GO PAST IT! Do not get caught up in auction fever, but also don’t be afraid of paying good money for a killer domain.

That’s about it. If you win the auction then you are all set to control a niche and gain business once your website is placed on it. Good luck with your endeavours.

Researching Niche Market Ideas For A Website

These days it is more important than ever to look for niche market ideas when building a website due to the level of competition in search engines. There are many ways of finding a great niche for an online business, this article will explain my favorite ways of finding niche market ideas by using freely available tools or cheap methods.

Firstly some of you may be thinking what is a niche? Well it’s generally a topic, product or area that is targeted to a small amount of people searching for that particular product or thing. Sometimes a web developer can hit lucky and find a niche that actually has a lot of people searching for it with relatively little or no competition. These are golden niche markets, and if you find one be sure to exploit it properly

So lets get down to business. For work at home ideas a niche market website is about the best of them all especially if it is an area of high income. Finding something that is worth promoting either by producing an online store, information site or by lead generation is the first priority. What you need to find is something which offers a good rate of return. This could be a product with high value, or an niche market where advertisers pay good money to be displayed on websites. Here are some ideas of how to find products or information that can deliver good returns. Read the rest of this entry »

Getting Started In The Domain Business

Like any other business getting started in the domain business takes careful planning if you are to profit from it. Although if you take your time and research some high traffic niches, get familiar with how to buy and sell domains and how to market your names then it is a business that can be started with a small initial budget. The thing to realise is that you won’t make it big overnight with the domain business, not unless you have some hefty investment capital to plough into your first purchase (and of course have a buyer lined up for said purchase!).

Plan Your Domain Buying And Start Small

As I said above, like any other business, you need to carefully plan out how you are going to enter the domain business. Are you going to target product domains? Are you going to buy short, brandable domains? Are you going to buy 3 character domains? What capital do you have to invest? There are many niches to consider. Trying to jump into all of them from the start is most likely going to lead to a failure. Focus on one area, and start small. Read the rest of this entry »