It can become all too easy for domain investors to watch their portfolio grow without taking the time to properly organize their domains and the goals they have for each. Years can go by before you realize that you keep renewing domains that aren’t making you money, aren’t going to sell, and that, frankly, you’re never going to develop.
This is where most new investors quit. They typically end up with a few hundred domains, don’t make any sales, try their hand and developing a few, but in the end spend far more money than they make. This happens when you’re buying domains because they sound good to you rather than because they represent a real liquid asset for your business.
The key is to get organized and manage your domain portfolio so that you can identify if you’re buying junk, determine what’s working and what isn’t, and most importantly, make the changes you need to move from a collector to an investor. Below are three quick tips for effectively managing your domain portfolio so that you can turn a hobby into a real business.
Organize all of your domains in a simple spreadsheet – I have written about this many times before but can’t emphasize it enough. Put all of your domains in a spreadsheet and try to keep track of how much you paid for each, when you bought it, and most importantly, what your goal is to use that domain to make money. If you can’t come up with how you would make money with a domain then you probably shouldn’t have bought it and you definitely shouldn’t renew it. You can read more about how to organize the spreadsheet in this post – Weekend Domain Projects #1: Get Your Portfolio Organized.- Have someone else review your portfolio – chances are you love all of your domains, you picked them, and each has a special meaning to you. That’s the problem, you are too close to your portfolio. I always recommend investors have someone else review their portfolio, if you want to sell names a broker is a good place to start, if you want to develop and monetize names a website developer is a good place to start. The idea is to have someone else that doesn’t have the emotional attachment that you do review your names for you. I have reviewed portfolios for years and if you’re interested feel free to visit LintonInvestments.com and shoot me an email.
- Come-up with lists of comparable sales – for domains that you want to sell use a tool like NameBio.com to find similar sales. This is good ammo to have if you’re quoting prices to end-users and for you to understand realistically what your domains might really be worth. If you own TampaLawyers.com and TampaAttorneys.com sold for $10,000, expecting $250,000 for your domain is probably out of the question. However, if an interested buyer tells you that they think it’s only worth $500 you can show them the TampaAttorneys.com sale to help them understand what the real market value would be.
As always I’d love to hear from you! Feel free to comment on any of my tips above or share some of your own. Comment and let your voice be heard!
