Section VIIII: Selling Your Domain Names | Part 1: Development Not Working?
Selling Your Domain Names
Some domain names are just not good. Every domain name entrepreneur, at one point or another, finds him- or herself holding a horrible domain name and laughing, “What was I thinking when I bought this!?!?” Don’t worry, it happens to the best of us! When your domain name stinks, don’t give up hope. You still may be able to sell it instead of just letting it expire and losing money on it. Even if you just make back the registration fee, at least you won’t be losing money!
Why is Development not Working?
When you have a domain name that stinks worse than the docks on a hot summer day, your first step is to identify why the domain name is not attracting buyers. There could be a number of reasons for this, but before you know the problem, you can’t fix it, so do a thorough diagnosis.
Look at the name itself and review the rules from Part One of this Ebook. Is your domain name memorable? Does it create an image in a person’s mind when they hear the name? If you answered no to both of these questions, you probably can already take the hint that your name isn’t attracting buyers because it is, in general, just not a good name. Look at the mistakes to avoid. How many of them have you violated? If your domain name is hard to spell, includes numbers, has a TDL like .info, and is more than three words long—well, what were you thinking when you bought it, anyway?
Sometimes, however, you can have a fairly good name that just falls below the radar. For example, take the name www.ComputerStore123.net. This name isn’t that bad. It’s not a .com, but .net names are still higher on the value list. It have numbers, but “123” isn’t confusing like “2” or “4,” which could also be “to” or “for.” The subject matter is marketable as well, especially on the Internet.
If you don’t understand why you have no buyers, look at the price you’re charging. Is it too high? You may need to lower the price in order to attract some bites. Remember that auctions must start lower than the price at which you expect to sell. If you want $3,000 for a site, start the auction at $1,000 or even lower and let the bidders work it up. If you’re worried about selling for too little, put a reserve on the auction. In the end, the $3,000 site that had no buyers may sell for over $4,000 because you started the auction bidding lower. Once people get caught up in a bidding war, they don’t like to lose and will bend their budgets a bit!
If you think your price is on target, however, you should also look at the development you’ve done to your site. You may need to work on it a bit more in order to find a buyer. For example, if your website is not so great and gets no traffic because you haven’t even created a sales page, you probably won’t find a buyer. However, if you can boost even 200 unique views a day, you might be able to get a bit of attention for your domain name. Marketing is crucial as well, so make sure that you review the previous section and beef up your domain name to find a buyer.
