If you haven’t read it, you can find it here.

It’s an important post because it marks a sea change in how big domain players are now viewing their traffic and their domain assets.

If your sole source of income is Google or Yahoo, you’re being screwed our of money that should be yours. There’s no question about that, but there are also so few games in town that it’s absolutely inevitable that you won’t make as much money as you should.

For years, domainers (including me) have made some decent (and indecent some would say) money by simply selling their traffic  to Google or Yahoo. It was the lazy mans way to riches and there’s nothing at all wrong with that. I prefer to make money when I’m sleeping, it just doesn’t happen as much as I’d like.

Even now, the developer networks that are springing up are still basing their models around Adsense, ad networks and affiliate programs and personally, I don’t think it’s such a smart move.

What’s really happening, is that domainers are handing their assets over to somebody else who effectively tells them not only how they should make their money, but also how much they should make.

That’s because they are all applying a formula to the development.

There’s no “thinking out of the box” either. From what I can see, all they’re doing is appeasing the networks again and letting the big boys dictate the shots.

Sadly, there’s not much of an alternative. That’s why I do things differently. It’s a slower road and one that has been fraught with difficulties which I’ve had to overcome myself along the way, with nobody there to hold my hand.

On my own journey, I’ve met plenty of people that have tried to rip me off and take my traffic for nothing by not paying me when they should have. I successfully turned the tables on them though and now I pretty much name my own prices and I sell my leads to honest people who have grown to understand the value of what I bring to the party with my names and SEO skills.

To a very tiny degree, I have managed to steer clear of a reliance on the networks and I have people who are effectively buying my traffic directly and working in true partnership with me.

That’s what the future holds for domainers.

How many people would be interested in having THAT kind of development service instead of the PPC nonsense that’s being touted at the moment?

I’ve not perfected everything yet, but I’m getting there and am preparing to introduce it to the market as a package. It might take a while, but I’m already streets ahead with the experience.

Sometimes, that development will involve creating a small site with an occasional affiliate link, some Adsense and perhaps even some promotion of a business that’s local to me.

Usually though, I build sites that are designed specifically to target certain visitors looking for certain services or for very specific information.

I’ve been looking at some of the domain development tools and services web sites this week and there are quite a few domain developers with some nice offerings.

I am still concerned about some of them though, since they still don’t address the main issue that is actually a threat to domainers.

They are all based mainly around affiliate programs and pay per click, with a load of article generation and social media thrown in.

Now I like passive income as much as the next person, but I prefer to keep all of the money on the table, not just a fraction of it. I also like to have full control over the sales process.

So the question for domainers is, can you still earn a passive (or mainly passive) income without having to use affiliate programs or Adsense?

Well I do.

On one of my sites, I sell a service for £30.

That service costs me £10 and is carried out by a third party.

My non-passive involvement is to take the contents from one envelope and re-address it to the actual service provider.

Payment is made at the point of sale – the customers either send me a cheque or they pay up-front using Paypal, so there is never a bad debt situation and there’s no need for invoicing. The companies I deal with issue one invoice per month and give me 30 days to pay, so I’m also getting up to 60 days free use of the money.

If that same service were available as an affiliate program, or pay per click, I’d earn less than £1 per sale. Doing it the way I do it, as a re-seller, I make £20 per sale – or multiples of £20 when more than one unit is purchased, which is common.

Once research is factored out of the equation, the Internet is all about convenience.

If your developed site offers a customer convenience, cost consideration all but disappears and people will pay up without questioning the price.

How do I know? Because I am doing it every single day of the week, including weekends.

I have yet to see any domain development service that can handle this kind of model, which is why I do it all myself. I did consider offering that as a service, but I do think that the domain community still doesn’t quite understand the power of the assets they are are sitting on.

If they did, they wouldn’t be selling, they’d be developing.

It’s too easy when developing a domain, to get sidetracked into areas that you really shouldn’t be concerned with. I’ve been there and done it too many times myself in the past.

Here’s what typically happens.

The initial enthusiasm for the domain is so great that you start imagining what the site could be. So, in the search for content, particularly user-generated content, you add things like a message board, some social networking stuff, geographical information like maps and transport links – all stuff that ultimately earns you nothing.

It’s often quoted that in order to have a successful site, you have to keep things simple. That’s fine as far as that advice goes, but it takes a bit more thinking in order to make money from a site or a domain.

Rather than just keeping it simple therefore, the key is to strip out anything, and I mean anything that does not directly lead to either a payment per click, an affiliate commission or a sales lead or even a direct sale.

This means re-examining and focusing on one question which is simply – “where is the money in this?”

If you can’t see it, don’t develop it.

If you can see it, make sure that is your sole focus, because everything else is just noise and a distraction from the goal.

So when you’re next in the market for a solution in a box, which generally includes things like social media, blogs, forums and chat rooms, think very carefully about the time that kind of site will suck from you every day and then strip it back to basics and develop it yourself.

An example from today – one of my specialist surveying sites today generated an enquiry from Brazil, to survey 30+ large buildings. The site in question successfully sold the idea of this type of survey by providing only the information that a building manager would find interesting.

The enquiry wasn’t “can you do it?” it was “how much do you want to come to Brazil for this project?” I’m still considering my answer but after a summer of rain, Brazil looks very tempting. Wonder if the family can go too…

I love what TRAFFIC has done for the domain industry, but the auction? It was embarrassing.

There were a couple of hundred or so domain names that went under the hammer and I have to say, some of the reserves on those names were absolutely ridiculous. Surely, the people entering their names understand that they are pitching in the main to other domainers, and that as a rule, these people don’t pay high prices.

At least not in Europe.

Some of the names had no right being in a high profile auction at all. This audience is informed and educated on all things domaining and I watched name after name go past with a “passed” notice on it, either because there were no bids (rightly so in most cases) or because the reserve wasn’t met.

BS.com should have been snapped up. It would make a great domain auction site name.

Now this is partly the fault of the organisers, because in my opinion, they should only carry the type of inventory that is likely to attract bids.These people know what they are doing. I’d hate to think of the names they must have rejected from the auction catalogue.

But the real problem I feel, lies in the expectation of domain owners.

This particular auction reminded my of the early days in this game, where sites like UK2.net would allow people to register a name and then place it for sale on their site, along with an asking price in the millions.

Surely, these stupidly naive reserve prices stifle bidding? Or is it only me that thinks this way?

If the domain industry is to be taken seriously, then domain owners have to start being realistic about the value of their assets.

For those who might criticise my opinion, or suggest that this is a case of sour grapes, I will freely admit that most of my names probably wouldn’t stack up to that much scrutiny and I certainly wouldn’t consider putting more than one or two into an auction.

It’s not why I bought them.

Developed, they are a different story,  but only because I do my own development and have been relatively successful in creating income-generating sites or in some cases, stand-alone businesses.

I’m realistic. It’s my development that creates the income, not the names on their own. Therefore, you can tell me that my names are worthless and I will probably agree with you.

In the current round of domain auctions, all we are seeing is posturing and pouting by egotists who have this crazy notion that their domains are worth far more than they think they are.

Good luck to them, but  somehow feel that if a name is really worth the reserve price, then the domainers in question would be far better off by posting up a for sale page, along with the asking price and contact details. If it’s as great as they think it is, it will sell. If not, it won’t. Just like in an auction, but without the embarrassment of being watched by their peers around the world.

Put your egos down guys, you’re killing an industry.

Here’s the background.

I have a friend, Colin, who loves working with lead. He is a roofer with many years experience, but he’s getting on a bit now and having recently been diagnosed with Epilepsy, he really shouldn’t be going up on roofs.

But he loves his work. he absolutely lives for it.

A while back, I put up a web site for him, a nice simple site that is nothing more than a testimonial for his lead roofing work, which is pretty specialised and very much a dying skill.

He was delighted when he began getting enquiries from people who said they’d  found his details on-line – and in fact, it’s got him a good number of very nice jobs over the past months. I hadn’t told him about the site, so it was a complete surprise for him.

I was discussing his health issues with him last week and suggested that perhaps he should take his doctor’s advice, but of course, he wouldn’t listen. But we got talking about other types of lead work…

Over the years, he’s done a few jobs for funeral directors, lead lining coffins – a skill that has all but disappeared, along with demand probably, since the cost of lead is extortionately high and not many people could afford a lead lined coffin.

A search on Google found nothing in the first few pages, apart from old articles about lead lined coffins being dug up.

Well, you can’t let something as niche as that slip by can you? I can’t.

So I registered a few domain names and set up a one page based on lead coffins. It’s called leadcoffins.co.uk. This is as simple a site as I have ever built and I have no idea whether it will ever get an order.

I do know though however, that if it does, somebody will end up with a first class product built by one of the most highly skilled, enthusiastic tradesmen I have ever met.

I asked Colin if he had any pictures that I could use, but the only ones he had were of him lying in the coffin – his idea of fun – but it looked a bit too realistic and might have the opposite affect I was looking for, hence the rather stark web page.

Imagine my surprise today when, just 2 days after registration, I checked the stats on the site and saw this:

As an experiment, this isn’t bad at all. The site is already perched in the top 10 results on Google and as you can see, is getting relevant visitors – only two, but you only need one call or email to make money.

This site is aimed at funeral directors as I guess they’re the ones who would be looking for the service, but that might change.

I did this because I thought it would be an amusing anecdote and example site to show a few domainers that you don’t have to build affiliate sites in order to make money. People with  skills are usually happy to pay commissions if it means they don’t have to go and sell for a living.

It seemed safer to show people something new than show them the sites that really make the money – I don’t like giving away all of my secrets and to date, I’ve managed to keep the best of what I do out of the public domain. You’d be surprised at some of the niches that can be tapped into – and not an affiliate program in site!

I’ve sold a couple of domains, brought in some nice surveying work and a site I built for my son to promote his extension planning service (www.extensionplan.co.uk) has brought him two nice jobs.

Each of things are only small, but it’s the small stuff that accumulates daily, that provides me with my income and allows me the freedom to choose when I want to work and the ability to pick and choose what I want to get involved in.

Almost time the phone rings, somebody starts by saying, “I have just been looking looking at your web site…”

To me, that’s a small success and it’s always interesting because I never know which web site they’ve been looking at.

It’s those calls that give me the buzz, as I never know which direction they’ll take me, or which people I’ll get to meet as a result.

The money is secondary. Sometimes, there is no money. People just want advice or help.

Yesterday, I received the strangest call of the week. It was from a health and safety training company asking if they could buy asbestos samples to show course delegates on their asbestos awareness training courses.

In the UK, asbestos has been banned and cannot be bought and sold, but oddly enough, I was able to help! My advice was to search ebay for the word asbestos, because there are actually people selling asbestos memorabilia, which is incredible. Who’d be interested in such stuff?

Well actually, around the new year, I managed to find some asbestos snow. This was a box of the stuff that used to make up Christmas shop displays. Shop keepers would sprinkle it over the displays and paste it to windows in the 1950′s. I didn’t buy it. The box was torn and there was some leakage.

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If you think about we’re selling, it makes a lot more sense to let the potential buyer find the name they want, rather than go out in search of the buyer, because as domainers, we’re the ones who are supposed to have the foresight, the knowledge and the expertise aren’t we?

As long as it doesn’t fit my current business plan for development, I start by analysing the domain in question as follows;

What kind of web site visitor would potentially type in the name to the browser?

What would they expect to find if they went to that trouble?

Does the name contain popular key words for a product or service?

Before I place a name for sale, my answer has to be an emphatic “yes” on to least two of those questions.

To the right of this post, is a “Domain For Sale”.

It’s called TaxGuidance.co.uk and for a UK tax specialist, it’s a great domain name. It contains a good quality, exact search term that people are bidding on with Google Adwords, which is always a good sign.

That tells me that tax specialists are on-line and looking for ways to get more clients.

TaxGuidance.co.uk only gets around 2 to 4 visitors per day, but well over 90% of them are direct type-ins, which is a start.

My ideal buyer is an end-user accountancy firm offering tax advice in the UK, since it’s a .co.uk name.

But, I’m realistic about the prospects and offer it for sale with a Paypal payment option at just £950 + VAT.

At that price, it is not worth putting any more effort into finding a buyer, apart from putting up a quick sales page which is aimed at end-users and does go on to explain (probably too much) why an accountancy firm should invest in the name.

I’ve also put the payment link on the sales page, along with my direct contact details, which is important if I am to try and build any kind of trust with my visitors.

To date, I’ve had no takers for this name, but I only need one, which is why I’ll persevere with the approach.

I did manage to achieve a £5000 sale of a three-word .com name earlier this year, to an international firm involved in a specialist recycling  activity, so I do know that this does work on occasion.

When I first started doing this, I used XSitePro to build sales pages. Often, I’d get a designer to make me a unique looking header for the site, believing that potential buyers would want to see how the site might look.

I don’t go to that trouble any more though, it’s only window dressing and anyone that’s interested in the domain, won’t be interested in a $10 design.

Also, it seemed a waste of a unique IP address to host the domain too, so these days, I do things a little bit differently.

Most, if not all domain registrars, allow you to use URL forwarding for your domains and I use this to divert any visitors to a unique sales page that comes under my company name, Hollywood Internet Ltd.

Here’s an example:

www.skillcard.co.uk – the UK construction industry introduced the skill card so that employers of trades people on building sites can see what skills a person has via an accredited training scheme.

This domain is really aimed at training providers, of which there are many.

Just in case a visitor types in the name expecting to see something about obtaining a skill card, I added some Adsense content that will take them to some relevant content and of course, earn me a few pennies along the way.

Again, I haven’t valued the domain particularly highly. I’ve priced it a level that I’m happy with and one that an established business will have little difficulty in paying.

It’s not aimed at domainers or start-up businesses.

The fact that it’s on my company web site means that a potential buyer can see that they are dealing with a real entity that looks like it has substance.

That results in less haggling in my experience.

There are other ways of finding end-user buyers for domain names and I’ll add more about this later.

If the answer is “yes”, but to date, despite your belief in that name, you haven’t had a flood of offers coming your way, then you have three choices:

1. Contact a broker
2. Get real
3. Start selling

A broker, if a real domain brokerage actually exists, should at least be able to give you an idea as to whether your name is as desirable as you believe. You’ll know immediately, because they will accept your domain name as a listing without asking you for any money up-front, their commission will be reasonable and they will ask for complete exclusivity over the sale, probably asking you for control over the name servers.

If your domain name broker isn’t so keen to help you without an initial listing fee, perhaps the name isn’t so good.

By domain broker, I mean a specialist who is prepared to pro-actively market your domain name to it’s most relevant audience, creating interest amongst competing potential purchasers in order to maximise the price.

Domain listing sites, parking and the like do not do this and despite their claims, are not what I would consider to be a brokerage.

No domain brokerage service I have personally seen to date, comes anywhere near what I would consider using even for a moment. That isn’t to say they don’t exist, but I think such a service is rarer than an end-user buyer.

That kind of rules out option 1 doesn’t it?

2. Getting Real in the domain name game is also a bit of a big ask for many domainers, who, almost without exception, see all of their names as being super-prime and worth an absolute fortune.

Sadly, very few domainers have super-prime domain names. Not even me, which is a shame, because I’d really like to own just one.

Unfortunately, most deluded domainers have many super-prime domain names. I know this because despite me not being a domain name broker, I get lots of domain lists from people wanting to sell and offering me almost unbelievable commission-only sales deals.

I say unbelievable because it is unbelievable that any names on the list would ever sell, never mind make a commission!

So what’s “getting real” all about?

It means taking an objective look at the domain in question. I say “domain” rather than “domains”, because if you think you’re going to attract streams of end-users to a portfolio or a list, you are wrong. You have to concentrate on one domain at a time, in isolation, if you’re going to sell to an end-user of any substance.

Trying to sell a collection of names to such a buyer is just too big an ask. Even to an educated buyer of names.

But knowing what I know about some who call themselves domainers, getting real isn’t really an option either so that leaves just one option.

3. Start Selling – and that means some hard, dedicated work on the domain you are looking to sell.

First of all, assuming your name is actually generic and desirable and not what the uneducated amongst our numbers call a “brandable” domain name, you must now look at how you’re going to get your domain name in front of the elusive end-user buyer.

As a salesman of many years experience myself, I know most domainers aren’t going to want to see this, but the fact is, that finding a buyer of any description is very hard work.

That doesn’t mean it’s impossible though and you might be surprised to know that it might only take a day or two of concentrated effort to set the correct wheels in motion, though it will take considerably longer than this to actually achieve the sale.

You have many options available to you and I don’t necessarily recommend one over  the other. You just have to go with the one that most suits your personality, agrees with your time schedule and is most likely to get you a result.

First off though, I’ll say this. If your domain name is as good as you think, it should be doing most of the work for you.

I bolded that last sentence. Please read it again. It’s that important.

As a bare minimum, you should have your sales pitch on the home page of your domain name, saying that the name is being made available for sale, ideally with a realistic sales price.

A realistic sales price is a price that is affordable to your target audience.

Your target audience is not necessarily the market leader in the sector – so don’t pitch the price at a level only the multi-billion dollar corporation can afford.

Your target audience should be the staff, management or marketing advisors to those corporations.

Here’s a good clue with regard to this. Most larger companies will have advertising or marketing agencies advising them. It’s not hard to find the better advertising agencies, just look at advertising publications like Advertising Age for example.

These guys are in these magazines bragging about who their clients are.

Contact them and sell them the idea. Let them earn some mega bucks too – if you think your name is that great.

Back to the sales page. If your name is that good, you don’t need much more content than:

• The name
• The price
• Your contact details

If you’re having to pitch the idea of a domain name too hard, perhaps it’s not as great a name as you thought.

You might want to promote the name a little. That means wither:

• Telesales – how good are you at reaching decision makers?
• Sales Letters – if you know the right contacts, a letter might work in certain cases
• Email Campaign – if you can stand the rejection it might be do-able
• Search Engines – optimise for your target market
• Pay Per Click – this would be my choice

A good broker miught do all of t his for you. But as I’ve already stated, I don’t think such a broker exists. It’s too much like hard work for most, for relatively small returns.

Nobody is more enthusiastic about selling your names than you are, so why bother with third parties?

As you’ve seen, although I have more than 20 years of professional selling experience behind me (It’s nearer 30 now, because I am an old duffer), I still consider selling domains to end-users to be hard work.

Try an email or telesales campaign and you’re likely to get abusive and rude responses, mainly because people just don’t understand the importance of domain names.

Company contacts are usually salaried people and will resist spending money at any cost. They certainly won’t want to support your efforts to get a good price. Most are small-minded and jealous, just to add to their ignorance.

As you might imagine, in order to sell a domain name to it’s most relevant market, you have to reach the decision maker. That’s true no matter what method you choose.

Therefore, initially, your efforts must be focused on finding that elusive person, whether they are the chief executive or a third party at an advertising agency.

Only then can the real selling start and in the next part of this small series (because the subject is large and complex), I’ll start examining some options in more depth.

Bob: “No, who is it”?

Me: “Only one of the largest utility companies in the country, asking if we can help them with roof surveys for their new green energy installations”.

Bob: “Tell ‘em bollocks. Actually, let’s have a look… F**k me, where did that come from?”

Me: “The autoresponder, the one I did about roofing”.

This is a real conversation (with all of the excitement and most of the foul language removed) that took place at office closing time last Friday between my business partner on the surveying business and I.

It again proves the point that large companies, or at least the managers, decision makers and staff in large companies are going on-line to find the help and assistance they need.

Notice I didn’t say “suppliers”.

That’s because they probably don’t realise that they are looking for suppliers at the time.

No, they need information. Not crummy, low rent e-books knocked up by wannabe bedroom entrepreneurs, but real information about how to solve real-world business problems.

I tried the whole e-book thing more than 10 years ago – it’s not always the road to riches you think it is.

Solving business problems however, most definitely is, but it takes a lot of initial work and a hell of a lot of practice to get it right.

Now I don’t sell my information products. I give them away on my specialist web sites. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, most of my readers are probably students researching their subjects.

Here’s the news.

If the information is good enough for university students, it’s good enough and valid for real businesses and those businesses are on line and seeking the information every day.

I deliver my information in installments via an auto-responder, over several days. Each piece of information is complete and there are no teasers, no more web sites to visit, nothing to buy. I just let my visitors have what they were looking for.

All I ask for in return for this oasis of information and advice is a first name and an email address – bit that’s not for marketing purposes, it’s just so that I can personalise the emails I send.

It goes against everything the Internet Marketing gurus teach doesn’t it?

But then how many Internet gurus sell to large corporations, governments, local authorities and institutional investors?

If, and in all honesty, at this stage it is an extremely big if, this particular job comes off, we’ll be talking an on-going contract worth a small fortune. But my point about doing things like this is that once again, I have a red hot enquiry from a major company that at this point in time, nobody else has.

I am the sole advisor, all because of an auto-responder series I wrote about 18 months ago.

If you’re going to the August Meet Domainers show in August, I’ll be talking about this type of development and how, in a different sector of course, any domainer can pull off exactly the same kind of trick with a low budget web site and some cheap hosting.

Afterwards, if I can find the time to get round to it, I might even give away a CD with all of the information on, but don’t ask for one, because if I do it, it will only be available to show attendees on the day, which happens to be 27 August 2010.

I’m not a guru you know.

I’ve received no less than three offers on domains this week and every one of them provides a reason why the potential buyer can’t pay the asking price for the domains in question.

One just doesn’t have the money for his start-up business, which is clearly my fault and I should subsidise him to the tune of around $1000.

Another tried the old charity trick – if you haven’t experienced this little chestnut yet, you certainly will. There’s never any money in the pot, but they really could use that name… Real charities do actually spend money, especially on marketing in my experience.

The guy with the “limited budget” made me laugh though. He makes an offer of 50% of the stated price on the landing page of the domain in question and hopes that I’ll find his offer reasonable.

As usual with these clowns, I have not replied to any of them, since they are playing a game that I first saw around 1999 and that crops up time and again, regular as clockwork.

Maybe they’ve read a cheap e-book on how to acquire domains on the cheap, or perhaps better still, they are up-coming X-Factor contestants practicing their sob stories before going for their big shot at success.

I must try that this afternoon when I go to order my wife’s new car. Given that she wants a rare breed of VW that has a 4 month lead time, I bet they’ll be thrilled when I pop in and offer them half the asking price, on the basis that she only has a limited budget, only does a few miles each year, rarely turns right and occasionally has to take her elderly mother shopping.