How to Make Money from Domain Names

Make Money Online With Domain Names

First Published: AdawnJournal.com December 18, 2008

One thing I like about Internet Entrepreneurship is that you are not limited to only one or a few things. You can make money by doing numberless things, such as blogs, websites, eBooks, affiliate programs, Internet auctions, domain parking, and much more.

What Is a Domain Name?

Today, I am going to discuss how you can make money from domain names. The first thing you may ask is, “What is a domain name?” Let’s look at ADJ’s URL or web address. It is www.adawnjournal.com. Here adawnjournal.com is a domain name of ADJ. A domain name is something that identifies a site, its IP address.

How to Buy a Domain

You can buy a domain through domain registrar companies such as GoDaddy. There are lots of other companies offering domain services, but I use GoDaddy and they are one of the big players in the market. To buy, simply visit a domain registrar and you should able to figure out how to do so. If you are not sure, call their support line or send them an email.

What’s Next?

Once you have purchased your domain, you have many options by which you can use it to make money. I will describe the most important ones here:

·   Do Nothing – You can just hold the domain and do nothing, anticipating that one day your domain will increase in value and someone will buy it for lots of money. You have to be creative in buying if you would like to sell it for a higher price one day. You see, domain names are like Internet real estate and good domains will increase in value in time. For example, Business.com was sold for $7.5 Million and then it was sold again for $350 Million. I do not know who first bought it and at what price, but they almost certainly made a hefty profit.

·   Park Your Domain – If you do nothing and hold your domain, the domain registrar will be making money by creating a default page to direct visitors to your domain. Visitors often type wrong or misspelled domains into their browser and that’s how they end up on these parked domain pages. These pages look like real websites and some confused visitors will click on ads, directories, or search results (which are ads too). Once they click, the domain owner makes money. For example, moneysavingtipsnow.com is a parked domain which I own. So, instead of letting the domain registrar make money with your domains, why don’t you make money for yourself?

·   Or – You can use your domains to promote an affiliate program, sell your own (or someone else’s) products, or create a content rich site to draw traffic to generate income.

There are other ways to make money from domains, but those mentioned above are most used by entrepreneurs.

How to Park

There are many sites offering domain parking services; trafficparking.com, sedo.com, and namedrive.com to name a few. These sites have pages explaining everything you need to know about domain parking.

Final Word

You need to do a lot of research before buying domain names. There are thousands of free tools out there to help with your research. For example, there are tools that will tell you what misspelled names visitors are typing, tools that will tell you domains that are about to expire so you can grab them, tools that will suggest possible domain names to you if you enter keywords, and so many more tools that you can’t possibly imagine. To find these tools, just do a search by entering domain, tools, research, etc.

Something I forgot to mention: how much it does cost to hold a domain? It varies by registrars, but a ballpark figure is about $10 annually. Don’t get confused here, this is not to host a site; the $10 is just to hold the domain under your ownership.

Internet Entrepreneurship needs lots of research, efforts, and time. It does not make you money overnight, but if you can stick to it for the long run, a rewarding life awaits you.