How To Turn a $12 Domain and 2 Hours Into a $250 Asset
by Alexis Dawes
Domain name resource sites I visit often tout the benefits of trying to sell a name on eBay.com and Afternic.com.
However, have you checked out the domain marketplace on eBay lately? It might have once been booming. But today its not the Studio 54 of the domain sales market that it once was.
Afternic is a more quality site. However its a hit-or-miss game here. If youre a beginner to domain name selling, youll burn a lot of cash thinking youve got a hot name, and placing it on Afternic, only to discover youre the only one who thinks its the bees knees.
According to a February 14 article on the Mercury News web site, "The market for simple, catchy dot-com names isnt what it used to be. Speculators who scarf up Internet domain names -- the part of a Web address after the "www" -- to resell for profit say top prices have fallen about 90 percent since the dot-com go-go era."
(See the complete article at: http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/business/technology/ personal_technology/2666167.htm)
Its easy to get discouraged in this business.
Or you can opt to leave the speculation behind, and transform your domains into real money makers. How? By creating and selling turnkey web sites.
"Turnkey Web Site Development in a Nutshell"
Do you realize there were fewer than 30 companies developing and selling turnkey web sites on the Internet? If you did a search for these folks on Yahoo you probably couldnt find them.
They exist nonetheless. Many of them making a comfy living selling their virtual properties on none other than the infamous eBay. It may not be the hot spot for domain selling, but it is a mecca for turnkey web sites. And its still untouched enough for folks to make a decent profit.
How does the process of creating and selling turnkey web sites work? Heres an example of a project I recently did:
* I purchased the expired domain for $12,
* Paid a designer $50 to put a web page together for me (which I used as a template for the other 2 pages of the site),
* Paid a writer $55 to put together a special report that could be sold on the site,
* Sold the site on eBay for $375.
MY PROFIT-- $258
MY WORK TIME-- 2 hours ($129 an hour)
An exceptional case you ask? Not really. I monitor the Websites for Sale section on eBay like day traders watch the tiniest tick on the stock market. If you know what sells, its not hard to make money at this business.
And if you can crank out 3-5 turnkey web sites a week, you can make significantly more than selling just the plain domains. (Especially if you already have some type of web design skills to start with.)
As the domain name market continues to become oversaturated with happy go lucky speculators, the turnkey web site industry will continue making quiet progress in the background.
Which side of the tracks will you be on?
----------------------------------- Alexis Dawes is the author of "How To Develop and Sell Turnkey Websites on eBay: An Insiders Profit Guide For Entrepreneurs, Site Designers & Consultants." Check out her site at (http://www.SmallSiteSeller.com).