Many people have tried to make money buying and selling domains names over the past decade. Some people have done extremely well , and those who came aboard early definitely had the upper hand . Now that most of the good .com domains are gone , it might be easier to sell your domain name, but you have to know how to play the game . Here are my top 7 reasons why you may be struggling to sell your domains .
1. It’s overpriced. Most people believe that their domain name is worth far more than it is . Unless it is a single word domain, and ideally a word that many people would be typing into the search engines, the domain will have little value on it’s own. If you want to sell it, price it right, or you will be renewing it for life.
2. It’s not a dot com domain. Sure there are some decent websites and domains that are not dot com, but for the most part , a non dot com domain provides traffic for the dot com domain. The exceptions are those websites that are built entirely to generate Internet traffic. I even own a few non dot com domains, but it would be rare that I would spend too much money to get one.
3. You have numbers in the domain. I am not sure who thought it was a good idea to replace the letter “o” with a zero. I don’t get the logic. Please refrain from thinking this is “cute” or somehow considered marketing. You will own this domain forever (or until you let it expire).
4. Your domain name is too long. While it can be interesting to have a domain name that is a phrase or a sentence, the general consensus is that shorter is better.
5. You have a hyphenated domain without having the non hyphenated version. Funny story here; I actually broke this rule myself, but it was strictly for testing purposes . Hyphenated domains can often generate some search engine value based on the keywords used in the domain. If you don’t have the non hyphenated version, it is similar to a non dot com where a percentage of your traffic will do to the non hyphenated domain.
6. Your domain is not brandable. Some people make up short words in an effort to own a short domain name. Sometimes these are brandable (like bixxer.com) and other times that just aren’t. If you are making up a name, just think of how it would sound as a brand and people saying it all the time. You never know, you may find the next Digg, Plurk, Twitter, or Reddit.
7. The domain has no revenue. If you have a domain name for sale and it is just parked , it would generally not be worth as much as if you put up a simple website and put some content about the topic related to the domain. At worst you might even make some money by selling ads on the page .
I hope that gives you some ideas about how to get your domain name sold. It might also help you as you approach buying domain names in the future.