So you wanna explore new methods to sell domains. Before you jump into conclusions, this is a totally experimental method that I’m currently “trying” to adopt. So if you’re looking for proven tactics for selling domains or developped websites, this may not be for you. On the other hand if you feel adventurous and want to try new ideas you might want to hang in for a few more minutes. Either way, let me thank you first for popping by.

Expired Domain Hunting

Obvious enough, this method involves buying domains or acquiring real gems of online real estate. The best way to get high quality domains is by hunting for expired domains. People leave domains to expire for many reasons. The reasons aren’t important to us, but the fact they do leave it to expire is important. e.g. every now and then there are LLL.com (3 letter .com) domains getting expired. It’s just like a $5000 cash bundle is left behind in a coffee shop. Although it’s just not possible to register such domains just for reg fee, it is possible to bid on expired domains on an auction at the designated registrar where the final price would be much lower. There are two reasons for expired domains to sell for less

1. Competition is much lower compared to a regular domain name auction where the owner would actively drive traffic to the auction.
2. Expired auction is like ebay. People look for bargains and big savings. Anything above average is expensive so naturally the stock goes for much less.

Domain Selling Method

The most difficult part of the domain business is selling them. There are names that sell by itself and all you have to do is show your interest to sell. But my focus here is to make the most from a minimmum investment. Cheap price is not the only advantage in buying expired domains. As I’ve already mentioned some valuable gems are getting dropped in hundreds everyday. All the ingredients that make a domain name valuable can come readymade with an expired domain.

e.g.  creepycrawl.com Expiring today (10 sept 2009) and you will not find a single reason not to backorder or bid on this domain. Another simillar domain expiring tommorrow (11 sept 2009) – polycafe.com.

Both these domains :

• Have hundreds of backlinks according to Google and Yahoo
• DMOZ listed
• Have a decent Alexa and Compete rank which means website traffic
• Very old
• Highly brandable and memorable
• .com extension

Can you resist names like this? I don’t think so.

Now the interesting bit….

The first step is to be selective and filter out few domain names (possibly domains with two or three dictionary word combinations) with a decent Alexa rank. Be very careful with the Alexa number, because it gives the 3 month avg as the rank. If you want to dig deep check the 7 day average in the traffic stats tab for the domain. Spend some time evaluating other Alexa stats such as ‘avg time on site per user’, ‘where people go on the site’ and the ‘keywords driving traffic to the site’. In a nutshell, do everything possible to determine that you woould get the estimated traffic at least for another few months.

Step two is to slowly build and maintain a portfolio of such expired domains with some available traffic. 10 to 20 of such domains is a decent number to start with. Core principle of this system is to sell one domain at any given time and point all the traffic from rest of the domains to the one currently being sold. Imagine if you had 50 domains and maintain the stock level at 50 at any given time. Suppose one domain gets 100 visits a day on average, the domain sales page will continuously receive 5000 visits/ day, everyday.

Step three is to focus on a single niche domains so the traffic becomes highly targeted for the domain name being sold.

That’s my experimental three steps to success selling domain names. The target is to sell 4 domain names at an average of $500 every week. With average 35,000 targeted traffic every week, is it going to be difficult task?

I guess, I will have to find out!