Why your business needs a Domain
Taking your business online is now a necessity to keep up with the competition, to do that; you'll need a domain name.
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Choosing the Best Name for You
You've decided that you want to own a domain name. There's just one problem, you're not sure how to choose a good one.
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Direct Navigation
As the Internet matures, the number of potential customers online is growing and with it, the number of ways to promote your business online. More...
Sell Domains!
It is instructive to understand why people sell domain names in the first place. Domain owners sell domain names for a full range of reasons and at differing levels of sale aggressiveness. On one extreme end some domain owners almost never sell a domain. The only domains they sell are when a buyer aggressively pursues them and offers what the domain owner feels is far above market price for the domain. The other extreme is when domain owners sell their entire domain portfolio to wholesale buyers at one time - leaving them with no remaining domain assets.
The most common method is that of selling domains at a moderate rate creating incremental revenue. Domains sold using this method realize a substantial amount of income compared to the traffic revenue the domain name would normally produce. These opportunistic sales unusually command prices that are 50 - 250 years of the current traffic revenue. This asset liquidation revenue is added to the traffic revenue generated by the owners other domains allowing the owner to take money off the table or reinvest in other domain assets.
Selling domain assets is often viewed by domain owners as liquidation and not true revenue. This in its most simplistic form is actually true. The associated argument is that when you sell a domain asset you loose the traffic revenue from that asset. Although it is true that domain owners loose a marginal amount of revenue the asset realization is typically of such a high revenue multiples that the benefit is substantial. "Rate of Sale" also diminishes the importance of these incremental sales. The rate of sale for most portfolios that are actively sold is only 0.5%-2.0% per annum. At this rate the volume of traffic revenue lost is inconsequential and sustainable.
One argument against domain sales is that the domains of most value will be the only ones that are sold, therefore depleting the aesthetic value of the remaining domain book. The answer to this dilemma is appropriate pricing. If the highest value domains are priced appropriately or even at a value far above market value they either will not be sold or will be sold at values that the domain owner will gain significant benefit. This method also has an additional benefit of cross selling. When users find higher value domains are available for sale it fuels interest in the domain market and generates a flow of customers into the domain sales process. This traffic in effective systems is often converted into sales of domains of a lower value which are still at extremely high margins. Therefore the domains that are actually sold are not the owner's most valuable stock, but by having that stock for sale the volume of lower value sales is increased.
Another argument for active domain sales is domain portfolio valuation. Currently portfolios are almost entirely valued on simple multiples of domain traffic revenue. These valuations are unsophisticated and have two major failings. The valuations don't actively consider the true value of difference classes of domain traffic quality or domain sale value. Domain traffic and sales are both becoming major differentiators of revenue outcomes for individual domains. The most practical way of dealing with these domains is to segment them into quality groups, categories, underlying metrics, and for domain sales in "rate of sale" classes. Once traffic quality and domain sale rates are fully understood domain valuations can be dramatically refined.