There are many types of business to earn online: some rely on advertising, some choose to build an ecommerce, and others resell domains.
If you have enough foresight, it’s entirely possible to use this gift to profit from it.
Taking ownership of a domain name, desired by others, allows you to start a real business based on buying and selling domains.
Many companies have moved into this field, and not by chance they have implemented bots that monitor domains and make automatic purchases as soon as the domain becomes available again. In this way, whoever owned it before ends up forced to negotiate to get the domain back or buy a new one.
But is it really that easy to start this business? Are the earnings worth it? What are the risks?
In this article we’ll try to explain better how domain reselling works and what benefits and risks this activity involves, along with tips to improve.
Domain trading consists of buying, and thus taking ownership of, a domain through any provider, and reselling it at a higher price to anyone interested.
The skill lies in spotting current trends and anticipating the moves of those who plan to launch a site riding the wave of that trend.
This is one of the ways you can increase the chances that acquired domains may be requested.
Another way, already mentioned, is to take ownership of domains previously used but that for some reason, usually failure to pay, become available. By acquiring these domains, the previous owner, if interested, will do anything to get it back.
THE VALUE OF A DOMAIN
The first thing to know is the domain’s value.
As you know, the most sought-after domains are without a doubt the main .com, .net, .org and .it (or other national variants, like .fr, .es, etc.). These will surely be searched more by any user, so you should always aim to buy these extensions to have a better chance of reselling them.
Another aspect to consider is the name’s length. The shorter a name is, the higher the demand will be. Avoid choosing long names because you’ll hardly find buyers willing to purchase a domain with an unpronounceable name or one that’s hard to remember.
A useful tool to check to get an idea of the cost of domains similar to the one you chose is Namebio.
This online tool lets you search for domains similar to yours, showing the related price. This way you’ll have an idea of how much the domain you identified might be worth.
EVALUATION CRITERIA
The domain is assessed based on several criteria, even if they are not entirely known and clear, but surely an important role is played by SEO, and therefore the ranking of the name in search engines.
The more a name is searched on Google, the greater its relevance and the higher the price can be.
Given the period, imagine identifying the word “coronavirus” and taking ownership of the domain coronavirus.com. Surely your domain will have a very important SEO relevance, considering all the searches carried out on Google in this period, and consequently the value of a similar domain is much higher compared to a domain with a different name and a lower search index. Companies could be strongly interested in the domain name in question and therefore contact you for the purchase and sale.
To understand the current trend, and make targeted choices, Google helps us with its tool Google Trends. The site provides an overview of the most popular searches of the moment, and it is also possible to enter a keyword, to see all the searches associated with that word, analyze the chart and get an overall picture of current trends.
WHERE TO BUY A DOMAIN
To buy a domain you can rely on any provider, or even services that deal specifically with domain resales, like Sedo, to purchase your domain. Evaluate the costs carefully, both activation and renewal, because these will be your fixed expense.
Flazio Domains offers all .it domains at the fixed price of €3.99, even for renewals.
This can certainly be a very advantageous way to start the business by leveraging the service that Flazio Domains offers.
A very solid strategy, but also costly, is to snap up all variations of the domain, both as extensions and as wording, buying the domain in both singular and plural and, if possible, in national languages.
It’s a choice that lets you keep greater control over that domain name, if you feel it’s worth investing time and money to look for every possible combination.
WHERE TO SELL A DOMAIN
Once you have acquired a domain, after the proper evaluations, the next step is to sell it, otherwise your activity would be pointless.
There are several ways to sell a domain; the simplest is to create a homepage informing users that the domain is for sale, perhaps leaving an email to be contacted if interested buyers show up.
Another way can be to use social media, and thus promote your reselling activity and show some domains you own.
There are also some resale marketplaces, such as eBay, for example, even if used in a non-conventional way, it still provides some visibility.
You could instead opt for Flippa, a marketplace where you can sell anything, such as sites, blogs, ecommerce and also domain names, or for Sedo, already mentioned earlier, which is more suitable for this activity because it specializes in reselling domains registered in their systems, listed by the respective sellers. You just need to register and enter the domain and the offer you intend to receive for that domain.
TRANSFER A DOMAIN
After receiving payment and agreeing on the domain delivery, it will be enough to provide its authcode to the buyer so that they can transfer it to their provider or wherever is most convenient for them.
With the domain transfer, ownership passes to whoever holds the migration code (Authcode) as they become free to claim the domain in their own name.
ALL THAT GLITTERS IS NOT GOLD
It’s good to consider a few aspects before starting this activity because risks are just around the corner.
Like any investment, this business can bring notable profits or considerable losses.
The market is extremely volatile and unwise choices could be costly.
The biggest risk is precisely losing money by buying domains that will never be resold.
You must be prudent, do the proper research, and make sure that the domains you own are actually suitable for sale.
It isn’t easy to choose and find the right domain name that can generate money, and it’s good to keep in mind that many established companies, like Apple for example, have rights to certain names, especially among the products they create such as iPhone, so you may risk infringing copyright and end up with lawsuits and complaints for improper use of the trademark.
Don’t be fooled if you find the domain iphone.it because the name iPhone is a trademark registered by Apple, and buying such a domain with the intent of reselling it to the parent company would only cause legal trouble.
This kind of digital protection is called Brand Protection, while the fraudulent activity that leads to improper use of the domain—either to damage the company’s image or to resell the domain at a higher price to profit from it—is defined as Cybersquatting (also called domain grabbing).
Also pay attention to another fraudulent activity called Typosquotting, which consists of registering domain names similar to the original ones, in order to capture traffic from users who make typing or spelling mistakes, for example goggle instead of Google, or yutube instead of Youtube or aple instead of Apple, etc.
Now that you’re aware of both the benefits and the risks, all that’s left is to sign up on Flazio Domains to start buying your first domain, which will mark the start of this new business.
