By Simon Grabowski, CEO of GetResponse.com
So in such a highly competitive hi-tech world, how’s it possible for the average guy or gal to register a domain name without already have been beaten to it first? After all, there are over 100,000 of the little beasts being registered daily and the queue for each domain name is probably at least a mile long. What gives?
It’s all about successful domain name branding. There is a big, big lie (a whopper of a lie, in fact) which is causing many dot-com startups to spend ridiculous amounts of money to budding entrepreneurs who got there first. Some guy who registered a great .com name back in 1993 for $100 is probably going to be on the receiving end of a $500,000 or more deal – for such domains like loans.com, taxes.com, bingo.com, and other one word generic domain names. But nowadays, unless you have that kinda cash to throw around, it’s impossible to get hold of them.
But was $500,000 worth it for a company to buy such a name? Perhaps. Perhaps not. It’s definitely very easy to market such a name, which may pay for itself ten times over in the long-run. But for the small or medium sized business, you may as well save your cash.
The lie is simply this: That all of the best branded names have gone.
Wrong! Sure, without the toolkit which enables you to find such names, it’s definitely very hard. But in actual fact, there have been many successes online for projects based on $10 domains – in fact, some companies are earning much more online than the companies who ploughed multi-thousand dollar investments into their name branding!
Here’s how to..
Find the best domains on a shoestring budget
What makes a good domain name? Since we’re left with virtually no generic names to implant our brands into, what we need to do is go for an approach at the other end of the spectrum…
We can either come up with clever phrases, or simple, to the point explanations of what our website is about. Unless your own company name is especially well-branded (like Mcdonalds or Sony), then don’t bother registering your company name as your main venture unless you think you can successfully market it in a way which ties in with your current strategies. i.e. showing your existing off-line clients or established based of contacts your new company website.
Let’s work with an example. Recently, I was wanting to come up with a domain name for a new marketing project I had. I was looking for something which would reflect selling online. Basically, I was wanting to teach others how to sell online and needed to find a good domain name that would become a home to this project.
All of my ideas for names, such as SellingOnline.com or OnlineSales.com or even HowToSellOnline.com had all been taken. Rather than settling for a long, ugly and unconstructive domain name, I plugged in the word “sales” into the BizMint search system and within moments found…
InternetSales101.com
This is a name that was previously registered, but since the previous owner didn’t renew their domain registration, was made available after it’s expiration. I registered it on the spot for around $10.
This names reflects the website perfectly… “Internet” and “Sales” are keyword rich for what I’m trying to portray and “101″ is the number which means “a course for beginners”, and .com is the most favored domain name, especially since I’m writing a course on how to sell online.
Now if I’d have found this name on a domain auction website, I’d have been willing to pay as much as $500 for it because I know the site could earn more than that every single day. But instead with the BizMint system, I was able to find an expired name which has recently be made available as was open for me to register for just $10. Bargain.
How YOU can find the perfect domain name
First of all, what’s your area of business? Write down around 5 or 10 different keywords that relate to your website and plug each of them into the BizMint search system. Make a note of all the domains that are available (or ones that are soon to be available) and see what you can come up with. Write down only the best ones that stand out at you.
After plugging in “cars” and “autos”, here’s what I came up with.
AmericanFamilyCars.com
AmericanLuxuryCars.com
AmericanSportyCars.com
CarSaleLine.com
CarsHut.com
ImportCarStore.com
Cars24hr.com
CarsForTeens.com
AutosMania.com
AutosDirectly.com
AutoSalesGuide.com
AutoSparesFinder.com
Out of the thousands of matches I received, the above are just a few that immediately caught my eye. There are probably more and more expiring daily, and having access to this system enables you to keep a permanent eye on your industry. But these are just a recent few.
Depending on your niche, the above domains would be perfect for the right kind of car website. Sell lower-priced cars especially for the young student driver? CarsForTeens.com says it all. Or perhaps you compile a list of the lowest price cars available in your state? AutoSalesGuide.com is right on the money. Or how about AmericanLuxuryCars.com for the well-to-do business man? These are just a few examples of many.
The next step is to analyze the search results you receive and use them to provide further inspiration for the kind of website you’re looking for. Many times the expired domains churned out at you are good enough to register on their own – but at an absolute minimum, even if you don’t register any, they can provide great inspiration for your own ideas.
For instance… you may not want Cars24hr.com, but instead 24hrCars.com. The list doesn’t show this domain as expired but that doesn’t mean it’s not available. You can use the Whois search on the main BizMint members-only page to find that specific domain and see if it’s available. If it is, you can grab it for registration immediately.
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