All day today Name.com is offering .com and .net domains at $5.99. Their is no coupon code or gimmick where you have to buy other products, just $5.99 domains all day this Friday October 16, 2009.

In case you missed it I wrote about  Name.com's dropping domain tool a little while ago and people really seemed to like it. So if you want to try out a really easy to use tool take a look.

Have a great weekend!

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When an enduser contacts me about a possibly domain sale there are a few simple steps that I go through to make sure I am getting the best deal. Before the tips I just wanted to mention that in the past week or so I have had a few inquires about domain via the text I put on my parked domains.

When you get an email inquiring about the domain don't reply back super quickly. Take a big breath and do some basic things first.

1. Google Search  is your friend use it.

Google the persons name, email, and phone number if it is a common name you might have to try a combination of the 3.

2. If no solid info is given try and find companies that might want to buy the domain.

3. Many times people will be very private so finding out who they are might take some time.

You can do a reverse ip check if you are given their ip address but these are not always accurate

My favorite tool is http://www.intelius.com/ They offer reverse phone lookups and people searches for only $5. I feel that this is a little amount to spend on such great information. Take a look at the sample report. You learn their name, offspring, income, and estimated home value plus more. All of the info is checked against thousands of public records.

If someone does not make it easy for you to get information about them it is really worth the $5 to find out more about them and possibly make the big sale. Also remember the person is doing the same thing with you.

Bruce Marler just wrote a great post about Optimizing the Value of an End User Domain Sale that is worth a read.

What do you do when an enduser contacts you?

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I have always been a fan of holding onto your good domains and doing something with them be it full scale development or just a minisite. Both ways greatly increase the value of the domain if it is sold later on. In my personal opinion their is not point in trying to sell a good domain at reseller prices. Notice I stress the word good.Lets take a look at some math.

Lets say you have 10 "Solid" domains and you choose to sell them on a forum at reseller prices. If you get $100 for each name that is $1000 dollars quickly. This requires you selling all of the names which is not very likely. Many might be happy with that flip depending on how much you acquired the names for. But many people are missing the boat.

Lets take those same 10 "Solid" Domains and with a little time and good sales pitches to endusers lets say that you sell only 5 of the names.

Enduser sales can be anywhere from 50% to way over 500% or reseller prices.

Lets go with only100% increase (I think it quite low) so you sell the 5 names for a total of $1000 and you still have those 5 names left.You have the same profit for selling only half of the names.

Now I think a markup of 300% is reasonable for a true end user sale and still a little low and if you sell those 5 names again you have now made 50% more only selling half the names.

Lets say you focus on 2 of the 10 domains and you sell both of them for $1000, your profit is 100% more than when you sold the 10 domains and you still have the 8 solid domains left.

My point of this post is not to say never sell on the forums again but before you do try and sell to an enduser all it takes is one call or an email and the math speaks for itself.

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Alex Wilson is a Teen Domainer who sells domains on eBay, with over 425 positive feedback on ebay he has sold tons of names. Take a look at his ebay store.

-Alex, How did you get into domaining and internet work in general?

I just happened to stumble upon an auction on ebay for one on one training to learn how to become a domainer and thought it looked like a good investment. Before I just sold random things around the house on ebay so I was already very familiar with ebay.

-What is your main source of income online, website flipping, developed sites, or reselling domain names?

Most of the money I make online comes from reselling domain names that have dropped. Sometimes I will buy domain names for under $5 on ebay or forums and see what I can turn them around for but it's not usually much. I take somewhat of a risk by paying $7 for each domain but I still manage to sell every domain name whether it’s for a profit or loss.

-Tell us a little about selling domains on ebay and how you are doing with it?

Right now I have taken a break due to the economy. Not as many people have money to spend on domains right now so for the time being I'm just selling through a large mailing list I have and on forums. Before I stopped, I sold 40-50 per week which made me anywhere from $100-$500 in one weekend.

-Where do you find your names to sell? And what types of names do you sell mostly?

I can’t reveal my exact source of domains other then they are dropped names. I sell .com's 99% of the time because they are the most profitable. Exact match domains tend to be the most profitable on ebay so that’s what I try to stick to unless of course it's a really good product or brandable name.

- Do you often visit the domaining blogs and domain forms?

Yes very often. It's a great way to advertise and get to know other domainers. I usually stick to namepros though it’s great.

-What tools do you use to become more productive and successful?

I use estibot (appraisals), google search, google keyword tool (for monthly searches and CPC)

-What advice do you give to teen domainers and internet entrepreneurs in general?

I know this sounds like what everyone else says, but be confident and don't give up. Be willing to take risks because if you don't you will find yourself going nowhere. Also remember you have to spend money to make money.

-How do you balance school, work, friends, and relaxation?

Since I'm only 16 and a sophomore in high school I try to put school and friends first, then work, and last relaxation. You don't want to overdue the work though sometimes you need to take a week off and just relax.

How can people contact you with questions?

Email me at aswilson13@yahoo.com with questions, need help, or would like to see a list of all my domain names I currently own.

Thank you Alex for you time, if anyone reading this wants to be interviewed just contact me. You don't have to be a teen!

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When you invest time and money into developing a website you want it to pay off in the end. The key to web development is to make sure you can make money off the time and effort you invest into the site. I will be going over 5 steps that I take before starting any development be it a minisite or larger project.

1. Make sure there are people to visit your site.

This may seem like a stupid point, but there is no point in building a great site if no one wants to come to it. First start off by searching your keywords in the Google Keyword tool. I like there to be over 2,000 exact searches a month. I would also Google your keywords and take a look at your competition. Do they have a good alexa, pr, do they have advertisers. Some people think that having a competitor is bad, but initially competition tells you that there is a market for your site.

2. Can you build the site to compete with others?

If you are trying to build a video sharing site and compete with Youtube, Vimeo and others it is not going to be possibly to gain any market share unless you have deep pockets and a team behind you. You need to make sure you can get ranked high in the search engines so you can draw traffic and advertisers in order to be profitable. Take a look at SEO, and Content of other sites. You don't want to build a site and stop halfway because you are in over your head.

3. Do you have the time and resources to commit to the project?

Before starting you need to make sure you have time and money set aside for the project. If it is just a minisite you need to make sure you have time set aside to update the content weekly.For a larger site set a deadline when you want to have it done by.

4. What is the purpose of your site and How will you make money off it?

Is your website product, content, or affiliate based. Do you want to sell people a product? (Take a look at ebay and amazon affiliate programs) or Do you want to teach or show people something? Adsense may be better for you. There are many different ways to earn money on websites just make sure your site will use one or a combination of some that fit with your website.

5. Do you want to build the site?

For me this is the most important, I have to enjoy all of my sites, if I don't I will not make time to update them and then they will not be profitable for me. I am not saying you need to be an expert but, Do something that you enjoy and it will turn out better in the end.

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Every day I walk around school and everywhere I look I see that the .Mobi will not make it. My generation has been raised on the "smartphone." Be it an iphone, blackberry, windows mobile, or android cell phone they all run the full Internet. There is no need for videos.mobi when you can just go to videos.com on your phone. Once people grow up with a smartphone I do not think they will shift back.

None of my friends have ever heard of the .mobi. people know about m.twitter.com or m.google.com but not .Mobi. I personally see no point of the domain extension when you can just offer a mobile version of your site and have no need for the .mobi.

I do not own any .mobi names, nor do I plan on buying any anytime soon. I know this post my anger some, I am giving you my generations perspective, I think that is what is unique about my blog. I am not your normal domainer, I am still only 16 and can provide a different look at many things.

What do you think about the .mobi?

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A few months ago I created a minisite for a client and we decided on top of the SEO work, we were also going to try and use Twitter to grow the sites traffic and users. The minisite was a simple wordpress site with around 20 articles of good targeted content so I knew that once people found the site they would find it valuable. The site was not overloaded with ad or pop ups, jut a nice simple easy to navigate site.

Use Twitter to Drive Traffic to Your Minisite

1. Register the Name of the Site for a Twitter Account, if it is not available you can add com or something

2. Before you Tweet any of your own sites use the twitter search function and find users tweeting about the same things you will be and ReTweet their stuff, start conversations with people tweeting about your topic.

3. After building up followers, slowly begin to Tweet your links and if you have built your account right people will ReTweet and read your post

4. Continue to help others and engage in conversations and ReTweet others post, you need to help others if you want them to help you.

5. Remember to not Tweet the same links all of the time, mix it up write some new content.

The Results of this case study were very positive, I was able to build a twitter account for my client that had a few thousand followers all about his topic and the best thing is that they ReTweeted his links and engaged in conversations with the account. The hundreds of clicks per link that were sent to the wordpressblog resulted in many new comments and repeat visitors. Twitter visitors commented much more than visitors from Google we noticed. We also saw the sites adsense earnings go up quite nicely.

Overall I think twitter is a great place to help drive traffic to your sites, but you have to do it the right way for it to be valuable. I really like it for Geo, and product related domains.

What do you think about using twitter for your minisites?

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The great folks over at Live Domain Auctioneers have decided to open up their online live no reserve auctions to all submitted names. All of their auctions start at $1 with no reserve, if you are the highest bidder you win a name. No exceptions. I really like this format and in three previous auctions they have had some decent sales. Results of the 3rd Live Domain Auctioneers Domain Auction. 

Here are the guideline right from their website

* Submission deadline is October, 9th
* Selection notification emailed by October, 13th
* All chosen domains will sell to the highest bidder regardless of price (No Reserves).
* 10% commission on all sales.
* Considering .com, .net, and .org domains "only" at this time.
* Please submit any documented statistics.
* Final "Sales Agreement" with details and instructions will be emailed to chosen domain owners.

I think that the no reserve $1 start really encourages deals and gets the bidding going. The audio from a real auctioneer adds to the great format and I know that I will be submitting some names myself. If you have some names send them over, it can't hurt.

I will report more about the October 25th auction when the names are revealed.

Submit Your Names

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Twitter names at Godaddy

I was just over at Godaddy looking at a few names that I have there and I saw something that caught my eye. Godaddy now offers an instant twitter username checker and if your username is available you can set up a twitter account and start tweeting in seconds.

This is the first time I have seen this and I do not know how long it has been their for. I think it is a good idea for people to be able to easily grab their Twitter name to protect their brand, but we do not need any twitter squatters thinking their names are going to be worth millions. The Twitter username Drew was a major exception because it was sanctioned by twitter. Comedian Drew Carey bid $100,000 for the name.

What do you think about Godaddy allowing its customers to easily register twitter usernames for all of their domain names?

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Name.com has a great search of recently expired domains that makes it quick and easy to find keyword .com and .net domains. The search is fast, easy to use, and customizable making it one of my favorite expired domain searches.

• To get to the search page go to Name.com

Name.com Expired Domain Search

With the search you can include .com's .net's hyphens, numbers, and you can set your max length. You can also set how far back you want to search for expired names. You can chose to have your keyword at the beginning, contain, or end of the domain. The Max number of results it will display is 50 per page but you can always go to the next page. They also offer email updates on keywords you select, I really like this service because I do not have to visit the site every day.

Name.com also does a program it calls "Domain Name Happy Hour" where it drops the price of the expired domains from 3pm to 10pm. So the longer you wait to buy the cheaper the name, but someone may snag your name. The prices go back to normal at 10pm.

If a day has a long list of names for my keywords to make my search for valuable names I throw them in the Estibot Bulk Appraisal Tool and it will give me tons of metrics to evaluate the names on.

I hope you enjoy the tool and feel free to share some of your favorites.

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