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Cashing in With Parked Domains

Guest post by: Traci Hayner Vanover

Article Overview: For a minimal investment, you can pick up keyword rich domain names in any imaginable niche - and, with a few savvy tips and small time investment - you may just be surprised by the results. Will you be able to retire to Aruba with it? Probably not. But, I can honestly say that I have turned a less-than-ten-buck investment into 3 and 4 figure returns. If that piques your interest, read on.

Cashing in With Parked Domains

Investing these days can be scary at best. Combine that with the knowledge that Social Security may be nothing more than a distant memory when the time comes for “my generation” to retire, and — well, it’s enough to keep you awake at night. Lots of folks say investing in gold is wise, and I would tend to agree. But, what if you don’t have a lot of cash to invest? Is there anything that a small business owner with limited cash can do?

The answer is yes! There are actually lots of ways that you can bring in extra revenue — but the one that I want to focus on for today’s Friday File is parked domains.

For a minimal investment, you can pick up keyword rich domain names in any imaginable niche — and, with a few savvy tips and small time investment — you may just be surprised by the results.

Will you be able to retire to Aruba with it? Probably not. But, I can honestly say that I have turned a less-than-ten-buck investment into 3 and 4 figure returns. If that piques your interest, read on.

Legalese Disclaimer: The information contained below is based upon my own experience – all resources noted are the actual ones that I use. Your mileage may vary.

What to Do with Domains?

Here are a few that ideas that I have used:

• Park them with a reputable service
• Redirect them to affiliate programs you are promoting
• Build Adsense websites
• Redirect them to niche sites/mini sites you already own
• Create review sites for targeted niches & promote affiliate products
• List them with a broker to “flip” for cash
• Redirect them to a Squidoo lens

A Bit of Background

If you want to seriously dabble in domains, it pays to do your homework. Magazines like Modern Domainer are recommended to keep up with trends in the industry. I would also recommend following Google Trends, as well as being an avid reader of topics such as Technology, Retail, New Media, Pop Culture, and Politics. Resources such as these (and hard core domainers would tell you this is just the tip of the iceberg) will provide you with insights into hot trends and markets that may be ripe for the picking.

All this to say that if you are looking for a big payday for your Pee-Wee Herman domain, you’ll likely be disappointed — that ship has sailed.

Finding the Deals

There are plenty of tools and services that offer to help you identify recently-dropped names that you can snap up on the cheap (sites like JustDropped, DNJournal, and DeletedDomains re a few to consider).

If you are looking for an investment-quality domain to hold on to, use with a parking service, develop an adsense site, or redirect to a Squidoo page (more on that in a bit), I highly recommend signing up for my pal Jeff’s newsletter, DNFolio. I have been on this email list for quite a while now, and can personally vouch for this newsletter as one that offers great names, super prices, and excellent service. Jeff also offers regular sales for his subscribers, and that is reason enough to get on the list!

Another place I have found excellent deals is at GoDaddy’s Domain Name Auctions. I don’t recommend going over there without a plan, or you will become quickly overwhelmed. Instead, have a list of 4-5 targeted niche keywords (that you have arrived at by using your research tools noted earlier). Then, conduct an “Advanced Search.” Here are a few of my preferences:

• Limit the characters to 16-20
• Check the boxes to eliminate hyphenated results, and results containing numbers
• Check the box for .com only (again, this is just my preference)
• Check the box for Closeouts
• Enter your keyword where prompted

Of course, these are just some of the preferences I use routinely – you may want to play around with them to see what you can find. If the domains are BUY NOW tagged, you will be able to purchase immediately. If you have to enter a bid, it may take a few days to hear whether or not your bid is the winner. Be sure you indicate you want to receive updates in case you are outbid.

One side note about GoDaddy: They do assess you a renewal fee of approximately $10 that is added to the final cost of the domain. While I am not a big proponent of this, I have chalked it up to one of those “costs of doing business.”

Domain Parking

There are a number of services out there for domain parking, but I like using Google and Parked for mine. In choosing a service, look for online reporting, payment via Paypal or direct deposit, and excellent service. Some plans charge a fee for setup, but I didn't pay one with either of these options.

Squidoo

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, chances are you already know that I truly love Squidoo. So, it should come as no surprise that I have integrated Squidoo into my domaining activities. Particularly for niche markets where there are significant affiliate opportunities, redirecting a domain to a Squidoo page offers a much greater potential for revenue generation. It does take a bit of time to create content and research affiliate programs in order to create a top-notch lens — but, the returns certainly outweigh this small time investment.

One side note about this method: While direct type-in traffic will be redirected to your lens using this method, you’ll still want to be sure to select a keyword-rich name for your lens at Squidoo. For example, if you are generating a lens about Paris Hilton’s purse collection, you might select a name for your page such as squidoo.com/paris-hilton-purses.

I want you to understand that these are real strategies that you can be using — and that they do work. In a time when we’re all looking for creative money-making opportunities, this is one that doesn’t require a huge outlay of cash or time — yet offers the potential for big returns. In my book, that is an opportunity worth considering.

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Article Tags: domain investing, domain sales, domaining, flip domains



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