Domain flipping guide: how to flip domain names fast

since the popularization of the world wide web to the the general public in 1991, commercialization of domain names has been one of the smart ways people make passive income. over 3 decades after the inception of the internet, smart investors are still making a good amount of money doing domain flipping, some have even turned domain business as one of their major ways of making a lively hood because they are exceptionally good at this business

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How to start a domain name flipping business

For those who are new to the concept of domain flipping. Domain as a concept can be explained as a web address or link that websites and business owners use to establish their platforms online via the internet. in other words, a domain is the website name you put into your browser's address bar in order to access a website, for example "Therealpay. com" is the domain name for this blog that you are currently reading, Facebook.com, unicef.org, BBC.co.uk, Stanford.edu, doubleclick.net, etc are all some popular domain names for various businesses and organizations.

looking at the domain names listed above, they each have different suffixes at the end of the domain name, these suffixes are known as TLD (Top Level Domain). TLD can be described as the letters at the end of a website address e.g. .com, net, .net, .org, .co.uk, .edu. Each of these TLDs has stories they tell as regards the domain name they are attached to. To exemplify this, a .tv TLD describes that the website is about television or media services. TLD could be geographic such as .co.uk for a website in the The United Kingdom, .de is for Germany, .us is for the United States, .ng is for Nigeria and so on. meanwhile TLDs can also represent niches such as .shop for retail stores and e-commerce website, .club, .ai for tech and artificial intelligence, .tech, .space for astronomy, .stream for media websites, .edu for education or school-related websites  etc. However, .com and .net TLDs are very common and can be used for different purposes.

It is quintessential to understand the purpose of a TLD before registering a website domain name with it. to put into perspective, registering a website domain name that is about education with a .club TLD is very wrong because the context upon which the website is built will conflict with the .club TLD that had been attached to the website address. Take a look at this domain names

ABunivesity.club

ABunivesity.edu

Do the former looks appealing for a school website? I guess not. But the second domain which s ABunivesity.edu looks appealing for a school website right? good. That's how a domain flipper should think when picking a domain name for the purpose oF flipping it for profit. There has to be coherence between the domain name and the TLD suffix that you want to choose from.  Now take a look at this other domain name

Unilorin.edu.ng

The domain name above has three elements which are:

unilorin: the University of Ilorin which has been blended into a smaller word (unilorin)

.Edu: A fraction of the domain TLD which suggests what the website is about (Education)

.NG: the last part of the TLD which describes where the school is located (Nigeria).

Further, on the issue of TLDs, there are hierarchies attached to TLDs and some are more marketable than the rest but you might be wondering which TLD is more marketable and popular for someone who wants to start a domain flipping business

Popular and highly marketable TLDs for domain flipping business

. Com

. Net

. De

. Us

. Co.uk

. Org

. Io

. Edu

If you are unsure about the proper TLDs to pick for your domain name registration, just go for the .com extension because it’s universal and most acceptable to search engines. For most website owners, the goal to rank well on search engines and .com website addresses rank better than another website TLDs which why picking a .com extension is the best option when you are not sure of which TLD will suit your domain name. Now that we are done with Top-level Domain (TLDs), let’s talk about the core construct of this post.

Types of domain name

Brandable domain name

Keywords domain name

Brand domain: this type of domain name is characterized by a short length word, used to identify or build a business brand. Literally, a brandable name doesn’t necessarily describe what the business is all about. For example “Apple.com” is a brand name and if we were to judge such brand literarily one would suggest that the company is about fruit or agriculture. Meanwhile, it’s a brand name for a tech giant company that deals with phones, computers and digital gadgets. Other examples of brand domain names include:

-Forbes.com

-Bloomberg.com

-Dan.com

-Quora.com

-Bing.com

-Google.com and so on

Keyword Domain: Is the opposite of brand domain, it literarily suggests what the website is about, sometimes it can be lengthy and most importantly it contains keywords of the general theme of such websites. Examples are;

-Howtomakemoneyonline.com

-exclusivechauffeur.com

-Forextime.com

-Nairalandforum.com

-Therealpay.com

Etc.

How to pick a domain name to flip

Here are the 5 steps to consider when choosing or registering a domain name:

·         Domain niche

·         Drafting and Diction of the domain name

·         Choosing a TLD for the domain

·         Availability of the domain name

Accessing the domain niche

A niche in this context can be defined as the type or nature of the industry that you want to pick a domain name from. Take for instance finance niche include (banking companies, currency trading, insurance, crypto, forex and any other money-related business). On the other hand, health niche includes (health and fitness websites, pharmaceutical website, yoga website, organic medicine website and any other websites or companies that deals with wellness and environmental safety).

The first and most important thing to do before arriving at a domain name is to evaluate which niches are currently doing well, competitive,profitable and marketable. Doing this initial check will get you a step closer to picking the right domain name that will make a quick sale in the short run or a very profitable sale in the long run because there will be a constant demand for services, tools, and ideas in any niche that is highly competitive and marketable. The question now is; how do I know which niche is profitable and popular? Well, that’s easy to find out.

 One of the ways to identify those niches is to come up with a list of topics, issues, objects or services that interest a lot of people by doing by mere observation or social experiment through one on one interaction with people both offline and online especially on internet forums like Reddit, nairaland forum, quora or blackhatworld.

Another way to narrow down competitive and marketable niches is by coming up with several ideas of industries and then do keyword research. Let’s say you came up with these topics;

Forex

Real estate

Antenatal clinic

Robotics

Artificial intelligence

Next, you need to do an analysis of each keyword that you have developed by checking their search volumes and trends. Doing this will show you how competitive and popular the keyword niche is. You can do these analyses using the tools listed below

Google keyword tool

Google trend

Check the explanation below so as to understand how to use these tools

Using “real estate” as the keyword to demonstrate this procedures. Don’t forget to change your location to “All locations while using Google keyword planner

We can see that real estate has monthly searches of  1 million to 10 Million searches worldwide. Next we need to proceed to Google trend to check where in which country and state where that keyword trends most. Also you need to change your location worldwide while using Google trends. Remember, we want to target popular countries in the world for our keywords (us, UK, Australia, Dubai, Canada, Germany).

Here the Google trends result shows 4 out of our 5 popular countries where the keyword “real estate” trends most. Now we need to click on each of the countries to know which state or region within each of those countries where the keyword trends most.

In Canada, regions like Yukon, British Columbia, and Ontario has more trend volumes than other regions (I excluded northwest territory and prince Edward Island because they are too lengthy for our domain name goal). New Zealand is a relatively small population country, therefore, there may not be serious demand for real estate services in New Zealand as compared to Canada and the US, which is why we are going to exclude New Zealand from our analysis.

Australia has Tasmania and Queensland as regions with more search trends and better word lengths. The United States also have regions like Maine, Vermont, Montana, Massachusetts, New York, and Alaska and Utah which corresponds with our requirements. Remember to write these states down somewhere.

Drafting and Diction of the domain name

Drafting: Now we try to merge the keyword “real estate” with the region names that we have written down before. Now we will have the following names

Diction: whether you are using a brandable domain name or a keyword domain name. Make sure the domain name passes the two components of Diction which include radio test. Radio test is an experiment you do to check if the domain name that you have drafted is pronounceable or not. How do you conduct a radio test? By orally saying the domain name to someone and telling that person to spell the domain name you just said to them. This can be done via phone calls or physical talks.

Choosing a TLD for the domain

Now that we have drafted a domain name, we need to decide on which extension is good for the domain, although in most cases using a .com TLD is the best option. How about when the .com version is taken by someone else? Well then that’s when we have to improvise on targeting the domain to a geographical location (only if the drafted domain name has a high potential of saleability judging by the search volume and area of interest).

Availability of the domain name

We have gotten a domain name and a TLD, next is to check if the domain is available. But wait, before you check the availability, make sure you have money to register the domain just so if the name is available you can quickly buy it before someone else does.

Where to buy or register domain names?

 

 

I always recommend Namecheap and WebHostingPad when it comes to domain registrars because these two websites appear to be the best in terms of domain regulation and domain commercialization. Namecheap offers affordable domain registration and a free market place where you can list your registered domains for sale. WebHostingPad on the other hand also offer affordable registration and they have a larger customer base for domain listing and auction for those who are interested in domain flipping business

After registering the domain what next?

Whichever Registrar you chose to buy a domain from, make sure you list domain on their market place see the tutorials below to know-how to list your domain your Registrar’s market place.

How to sell a domain name on WebHostingPad auctions

How to list domain on NameCheap marketplace 

How to sell my domain name?

There are two methods for getting your domain sold. First is by contacting end-users and the second method is by listing your domain on the auction and listing websites.

How to sell domain through end-users

In the simple sense of the word, an end-user is a person or business to whom your domain name is most beneficial or useful. So you just have to look for a website that shares similar or the same niche from which you have crafted your domain name. Once you get a list of websites that are relevant to your domain name, you try to look for clues within those websites to find contact details of the owner of that website or business. Avoid going through the customer service or support pages on the website because you will most likely not get through to the website/business owner.

Another way to identify the business or website owner is to do a whois search of the website address. Just go to  https://www.whois.com/whois/ and enter the website address. Scroll down and you will see the registrant contact details. But in a situation whereby the registrant is using a whois guide to hide his/her details...

Next step is to navigate through the website, look for clues that give the website or business owner’s full name. Copy the name and search for it on LinkedIn, once you have gotten access to the website owner which is your end-user, all you have to do next is to email or message the person and brief convince the person to buy your newly registered domain which is similar to theirs.

How to sell domains on Domain flipping websites

Here are the best places to sell domain names where you auction or list your domain names for sale

Flippa

Sedo

Afternic

Dan

These 4 websites are my favorite platforms to get your website flipped and make good money doing that. Another important factor to note before ending this post is to know how to price your domains when listening to them or negotiating with an end-user.

How much can I sell my domain name for?

Domain appraisal and pricing

There are online tools that can be used to appraise your domain name before tagging a price to it.

Godaddy domain appraisal tool

Estibot appraisal

Just put your domain address in the box and click enter to evaluate the worth of your domain.

Sometimes these online tools may be wrong and That is when you have to use your own instinct to judge the value of the domain before selling. Your judgment should be based on what you have gathered from the analysis we did with Google keyword planner and Google trend.

Remember, you have to be smart and creative in this domain flipping business. Making money selling domain isn’t just by guesswork, you have to put in the effort and target the right market just I have explained in this post. If you find this post useful, don’t hesitate to share it across your social media platforms.