How I turned a website with little traffic and no profit into a $10 a day profit machine

Pay attention, because these are concrete, specific tips of the kind that are not usually shared in the domain name industry.

I have a blog – whose name I will not furnish because I don’t want to violate any Adsense rules - where I write reviews of money transfer services. Not the most exciting of subjects perhaps, but important to the millions of people who regularly send remittances overseas. I don’t publish new material often – one article per month or so – but I do write the articles myself and I try to make them useful.

To find an article topic, I go to news.google.com and do a search for “money transfer”. As I sift through the results I ignore press releases. I keep scrolling until I find a genuine news piece. I read it, absorb the info, then summarize it into a concise article, using my own phrasing and adding my own observations. This usually takes about half an hour.

Alternatively, I look at my stats to see what search phrases readers are using to find my website. I take one of the more popular phrases, do my own search and read up on that subject, and write an article about it.

I also occasionally answer readers’ questions about problems they may be having with online transfer systems or online bank accounts.

The website was created with WordPress, is monetized with Google Adsense, and has always paid quite well per click. The problem has been the lack of traffic, and the low CTR. There is some search traffic, but not enough to generate significant income. Recently I decided to try driving traffic to the website with Google Adwords. I was able to get traffic for as little as 2 cents per click, but the problem was that the Adsense CTR (click through rate) was quite low, on the order of 1.5 percent.

To address this issue, I installed the Heatmap theme, which is an Adsense-optimized WordPress theme. I monetized the website fully, with five Adsense units on each page, three of those being ad units, and two link units, using the sizes and placements recommended by the Heatmap theme. I used the Adsense Injection plugin to place some of the ads strategically.

Initially I set the Adsense ads to image and text, which is the default setting. With the new ad placements, the CTR climbed to between 5% and 7%. Then I tried setting the ads to text only, no images, and I saw another jump in CTR, to between 10% and 15%.

Yes, the ads are a bit over the top. They do somewhat take over the website. But it worked. With the CTR as high as it is, I can now drive traffic with Adwords and make a profit. I spend about $3 per day advertising this site with Adwords, and it generates about $15 per day on Adsense. So it’s quite a good profit for a website that requires a time investment of 30 minutes per month.

The next challenge will be to bring in traffic from other sources, and to update the website more frequently – perhaps once every three or four days – with new articles. I may do this myself, or contract it out, but the key is that the articles must be quality writing, with useful tips and news. Content is still king.

I’ve had good luck selling “proper name” domain names, by which I mean common names like AprilSmith.com, JohnLouis.com, etc. I buy these at auction for the minimum bid (usually around $60), and I’ve sold some for several hundred dollars. I just sold MattGreene.com for $200. The buyer was – you guessed it – Matt Greene. That’s the best part about these proper name domains. You don’t have to market them or go looking for buyers. With any common name there are usually hundreds of people who have that name, and sooner or later one of them will contact you about buying the name.

With MattGreene.com, $200 is not a huge amount of money, but it’s still a decent profit for minimal work.

So if you’re looking for a simple investment that is sure to turn a profit, look for these common proper names. Don’t pay more than the minimum bid or a few bucks over, then just park it and wait for that person to come calling.

A few months ago I was browsing some of the domains coming up for auction at NameJet and I had the idea to see what sorts of common people’s names – I mean the names are common, not the people – might be dropping. I looked at several names and ran Google searches on them, studied the results, and considered their search popularity.

I ended up back ordering a handful of names, and won several at the minimum bid of $69 each. These included AprilWilliams.com, LauraVega.com, and MattGreene.com. I thought I might contact some of the people with those names and try to sell them the domains. As it turned out I got busy with other things, but only a few months later I received an offer for AprilWilliams.com through Sedo, and sold it for $500.

If you’ve been trying to acquire generic domains at auction and getting outbid, you might try some real “names”. If they’re common enough there’s sure to be a market and a steady trickle of traffic, and at the moment there’s not a lot of competition for these domains.

My recent article, “How to Find Great Domain Names: 12 Super Tips” has proved enormously popular and has received thousands of views.

In one part of the article I wrote, “Ignore trends that may have a cult following but are not widely known. For example, I recently read about a new trend among photography hobbyists called lomography. I tasted several domains related to this trend but found that they got no traffic, so I let them drop. Instead look for trends that have the potential to be huge.”

One of my readers, “woolwit,” was intrigued by the mention of domain tasting and asked the following question:

“Excellent article and a great reference for creative domaining. You mention domain tasting in the article. I’ve always assumed that it was only the big bulk domainers who had access to domain tasting. Would you consider writing a short How-To taste domains for the rest of us? I’ve looked around on GoDaddy and not found anything. Can you recommend a registrar who makes tasting available one domain at a time?”

At the risk of sounding like a hypocrite, let me say first that I’m opposed to domain tasting. The big tasting companies use automated scripts and sneaky tactics of all kinds to taste domains by the millions, keeping the ones that make a few pennies and throwing the rest back. They’re very secretive about ownership and are generally located offshore. I think it’s bad for the industry and unfair to individual domainers, and I’m in favor of abolishing it altogether. In particular the practice of churning vast numbers of domains but registering none, keeping them in an endless trial period loop, is disgusting.

Until that day comes, however, I do make use of domain tasting on a small scale. I’m talking one or two domains at a time. I think that tasting in this manner is a reasonable way for a domainer with a limited budget to try out ideas without racking up a big credit card bill.

Last year I did a lot of searching, trying to find an affordable tasting solution for the little guy, and I finally found TastingGenie, which bills itself as “Domain tasting for the masses.” It’s run by a registrar called MindGenies.

By the way, this is not an affiliate link or paid post. I don’t get anything for recommending them. I’m simply helping out my readers.

At TastingGenie you pay $100 up front to set up an account. They have sort of a complicated pricing scheme with different plans to choose from, but what it basically amounts to is that you pay as little as 7 cents per domain to taste. They are partnered with DomainSponsor.com, you’ll need an account there. Each domain that you taste is automatically configured with DomainSponsor’s nameservers, and you then go to your DomainSponsor account and add the domain.

The tasting period is 4.5 days. If you do nothing, TastingGenie will automatically drop the domain name. If you want to keep it, you must log in to your TastingGenie account and select the domain name to keep. At that point it will be registered at MindGenies for $7.25. That money will be taken out of your $100 credit that you started with.

I’ve been satisfied with TastingGenie’s service and I think it’s a good way to try out a few domain ideas every now and then without ending up with a lot of useless no-traffic domain names.

I’ve decided to write an e-book on domaining. True, I started in 2005 which makes me a latecomer to the domain name industry. Also true that I have not made millions of dollars (yet), though I do own upwards of 2,000 domain names that earn good parking income and I have made many good sales.

Nevertheless, I have learned much in two years, and beyond that I have considerable experience as a researcher and writer.

But what really prompted this decision is an incident that occurred recently. A member at one of the domain name forums bought a new e-book on domaining, and noticed that substantial portions were plagiarized from this blog, DomainerPro.com. I investigated and sure enough, there was a sizeable amount of material in the e-book that was taken word for word from this blog. Even my text formatting style was copied, with a copyright label slapped on it!

Naturally I contacted the author. He claims that he hired a contractor to write the book and he did not know that the contractor had plagiarized portions of the book. Perhaps he is telling the truth. To his credit, he pulled the book from the market immediately.

If my writing is good enough to be copied into someone else’s e-book, then I may as well write one of my own. In addition to sharing the fruits of my own experience, I will make heavy use of the advice of the experts, crediting them fully for their ideas. I will attempt to put together something very comprehensive, that covers all the fundamentals in detail.

You can expect to see the release of this e-book before summer 2008.

Do you feel like it’s too late to get into domaining? Does it seem like all the good domains are gone? Are you looking for concrete advice, and not finding it? Well, here you go. Some of these are tactics that have worked very well for me. Others I have borrowed from top domainers and tips I’ve spotted on domain discussion forums over the years.

I’m giving away secrets here: there’s some real gold, so don’t say I never did nothin’ for you.

1. Spot Domain Industry Trends

Read domain industry blogs and journals. Read DNJournal.com and check out the blogs listed in my list of Must-Read Domainer Blogs. You’ll notice that some of these tips come from other domainer blogs and magazines. That’s because I read them on a daily basis and I have learned much that way.

Domain forums are a resource as well. Join NamePros.com, DNForum.com, and DomainState.com and read what the pros have to say. Pay attention in particular to the sticky posts on those forums.

Industry trends are important. Be aware of what’s happening with valuations of various types of domain names. For example, two and three-letter domains have all been bought up and are selling for high, even astronomical figures. But what about four-letter domains? Dominik Mueller recently expressed his belief that CVCV (consonant – vowel – consonant – vowel) domains are inevitably going to rise in price. They’re short, brandable and supply is limited.

ccTLDs (country code top level domains) are another possibility. I personally believe that .in (India) domains represent a huge opportunity. India holds a fifth of the world’s population, English is widely spoken, and internet usage is growing quickly. The .in extension was recently introduced and is rapidly overtaking .co.in. Sales in the $x,xxx to $xx,xxx range have already been reported for .in domains, and yet amazingly premium domains can still be hand-registered by someone with a creative mind. Not long ago I bought Achieve.in for $10 from a DNForum member, and in recent months I have hand-regged domains (at $4 apiece!) such as propertyauction.in, discountbroker.in, slacks.in, khakhis.in, sizes.in, judaism.in, synagogue.in, dedication.in, beachhotel.in, appreciate.in, swimmer.in & swimmers.in, nonfat.in, frozenfoods.in, indianlife.in, indianliving.in, freewebpage.in, computerschool.in, pacifist.in, pacifism.in, nonviolent.in, coindealer.in, webjob.in & webjobs.in, internetjob.in, computercollege.in, lemons.in, avocados.in, castes.in, wiremoney.in, offshoreservices.in, banktransfer.in, buyclothing.in, sendcash.in, hardwarestore.in, candystore.in, nationalnews.in, and more than 100 others equally good. Several are already getting good traffic and making money.

I’m not saying that .in domains represent the best or only opportunity out there. Through dedicated research and study you can discover other emerging opportunities. I’d advise you to ignore brand-new speculative extensions like .asia, and steer clear of failed extensions like .biz or .name. Instead, look for trends that are relatively new but have already caught on with some segment of the population and are growing quickly. There’s got to be some momentum, some growth.

2. Science/News/Tech Emerging Trends

Subscribe to blogs and magazines that discuss emerging trends and technologies (Business 2.0 was fantastic for this, but unfortunately has just shut down. You could still learn a lot from the back issues, though). Search for and register domain names related to those emerging trends. Ignore trends that may have a cult following but are not widely known. For example, I recently read about a new trend among photography hobbyists called lomography. I tasted several domains related to this trend but found that they got no traffic, so I let them drop.

Instead look for trends that have the potential to be huge. If it’s a product or technology, it should have the potential to be used by every middle-class consumer. Alternatively, it should have corporate appeal: a trend that will make money for businesses and corporations is one that will attract investment dollars.

3. Drop Auctions

SnapNames.com, and now NameJet.com as well, are especially important. I don’t care much for Pool, but I find Snapnames to be easy to use and I have acquired many good domains there. Of course there are reams of junk domains, but you can find gems in the pile. I usually bid between $100 and $300. That way if there are several bids at the default price I come out on top, but if the bidding gets frenzied then I let someone else have it.

NameJet.com: Nowadays, any serious aftermarket bidder must use NameJet as well. They get many of the good domains that formerly went to Snapnames. I place bids on both sites.

I rarely use TDNAM.com, so I can’t say much about it, but I know it’s the primary hunting ground of some domainers.

4. Sedo.com

I have found good deals by searching Sedo for domains with traffic, and picking out the domains that sound good and are reasonably priced. I’ve acquired some of my best earners this way. If I make an offer of $300 on a traffic domain and the seller comes back with a price of $10K, then I just cancel the negotiation and move on. Surprisingly, however, it’s still possible to get domains with traffic and revenue for under $1K on Sedo.

5. BuyDomains.com

Yes, that’s right. There are deals to be had at BuyDomains if you search carefully. Domains there can be purchased on the spot at the listed price with no negotiation, so if someone has carelessly under-priced their domain or forgotten to update the price, you can often get it cheap. For higher priced domains, you can sometimes get good discounts if you establish a relationship with a sales rep and work with him/her.

6. DMOZ

I picked up this tip from Peter at DomainersGazette.com. Drill down into the old DMOZ.org links to find websites that are now defunct or have not been updated in a long time. Use a WHOIS tool like DomainTools.com to locate the owner and make an offer on the domain. Many of these folks are people who started websites years ago and have since let them lapse. They often know little or nothing about domain name values and will part with the domains cheaply.

7. U.S. Patent Office filings

This tip comes from PredictiveDomaining.com. Go to the website of the United States Patent Office. From the left-side menu click Patents and then Search Patents. Rather than the Issued Patents section I’d concentrate on the Published Applications. Do a search on a term you’re interested in, like monitor, headphones or VR. For example, I just did a search on “headset.” I looked at the recent applications and I saw a listing for a “biometric encryption key generator,” which is not exactly what I was looking for but intriguing. Turns out it’s an application by Motorola for “a method of facilitating an encrypted communication for use in communication between a local device, operated by a user, and a remote device.”

That’s too technical for me, but it got me thinking about the future of biometrics in security. We see it all the time in science fiction movies: eye scanners, fingerprint scanners, voice recognition systems, etc. So I searched about 30 domain names representing commonly used items that are well suited to biometric locks: BiometricPhones.com, BiometricPadlock.com, BiometricStarter.com (for a car, motorcycle, scooter), etc. Lo and behold, BiometricStarter.com, BiometricCar.com, BiometricCars.com, BiometricScooters.com and BiometricFloorsafes.com were available and are now mine! Want to bet that some tech company or auto maker will want these someday? This goes back, by the way, to point #2 about monitoring emerging technology trends.

8. The Question of Debt

Be very, very careful about going into debt to acquire domain names. Debt can be useful, but use it wisely. Don’t pile up credit card debt by hand-regging hundreds of bad domains that get no traffic and have little re-sale potential. I made this mistake two years ago and have still not fully recovered.

Of course this implies that you must study up on just what is a good and bad domain name. So when it is ok to go into debt? When you’re buying a proven commodity. Shop around for a domain (ideally a dictionary dot com) with proven traffic and earnings. Try to find a seller who really needs to sell, so that you can offer as low a multiple as possible. Calculate how much it will cost to service your debt, versus how much the domain name will earn you on a monthly basis. If the domain name will be profitable, you have a winner on your hands. And of course you can always re-sell it for a profit in the future, as valuations are always rising.

9. Focus on a Niche

Focus on a particular subject area, ideally one you know a lot about but you can always study up and become an expert in any area that interests you. Become familiar with the companies that do business in that space, and follow the sales of all domains related to that subject. This allows you to become an expert on domain names in that space, so that you immediately know what’s priced well and what’s overvalued.

10. Think Local

A specific example of focusing on a niche is the area in which you live, because you are already something of an expert on that subject. For example, I live in Panama right now. Recently I saw that someone was offering PuntaPacifica.com (“Pacific Point” in Spanish) for sale for only $10. This happens to be the name of a very expensive neighborhood in Panama City, with luxury condos selling for millions of dollars. I snapped up the domain name, and it’s now getting traffic and earning parking money. I have many other Panama-related domains that make money, at least enough to cover the reg fees. I’m sure there are plenty of Russia-related domains that make money too, but I don’t buy those because I know little about Russia, so I can’t recognize what’s good and what’s not. (I certainly would bid on Moscow.com, but I think you get my point).

To quote Dominik Mueller on this subject:

11. Stay Away From These

Trademarks: Some trademark variations and typos make money, but it’s not worth the legal repercussions if someone comes after you. In addition, it gives you a bad name and perpetuates the conception of domainers as cybersquatters. Before you buy, check US and international trademark databases, for example, at the U.S. Patent Office website: http://www.uspto.gov/

Tragedy Names: Don’t try to capitalize on national or global tragedies. It could damage your reputation and it’s bad for your karma.

Bad Extensions: Avoid extensions that come from tiny countries and islands, speculative extensions like .asia, and failed extensions like .biz and .name. Stick to .com, .net, .org, .info if it’s really premium, and perhaps a few very good .mobis as a long-term investment.

“Brandable” Nonsense: Don’t waste your time with nonsense words that some call “brandable”, such as ogeejogee.com, or crashgalaxy.com (I just made those up – if someone actually owns them, don’t take it personally). There are too many new domainers registering and buying domains that are just trash. Stick to real words, three keywords or less, spelled properly, no hyphens or numerals. The exception to this rule would be pronounceable four letter domains, which have value.

12. Be Ethical

Keep your word. Don’t back out of done deals because you think you can get more money somewhere else. It’s fine to change your mind if you have not yet reached a formal agreement, but if someone posts a domain name for sale on NamePros, for example, and you reply with an offer, and the seller posts “Sold” and closes the thread, that represents a commitment on your part just as if you had made a winning bid on eBay.

Don’t lie about traffic stats, don’t generate fake traffic, don’t use advertising to drive traffic to parked domains (a violation of most parking services’ TOS), don’t sell your parking account, don’t sell domains with deceptive characters (e.g. making people think a numeral “1″ is a letter “i”)…

One might argue that engaging in unethical practices could ruin your reputation in the domain industry – which is a lot like a small town where everyone knows everyone – and thereby affect your ability to make money.

That may be true, but more fundamentally, being honest and ethical in your business dealings gives you a feeling of self-respect, and a peace of mind that is priceless.

Ok, now get out there and find those great domains, make money, and be happy.

P.S. Are there any important tips for finding great domains that I missed? What has worked for you? Comment!

“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”

- Thomas Edison

Having a hard time with this domain name business? Or for that matter, with any other challenge you’re facing in life? Have you been working at it for a long time and starting to feel like you’re not going to get there?

Don’t give up, evolve. Learn from your mistakes.

Here are five pieces of advice that will almost guarantee success. It took me two years to learn how crucial these points are, so pay attention:

1. Sell. As a domainer, focus more on the sell side and develop selling strategies that work.
2. Buy Revenue-Earning Domains. Only buy domains with the proceeds of your sales, not on credit or with your savings. Use the money from your sales to buy revenue-earning domain names. Ask the seller for proof of earnings and analyze the stats and the domain carefully. Is the traffic steady or declining? What is the source of the traffic? Is it easy to monetize? Is the domain easy to remember, pronounceable, and descriptive? Consider all these points and make sure the domain name will be profitable for you within a reasonable period of time before you agree to buy.
3. Buy Underpriced Domains. Look for deals where the seller is either desperate or is undervaluing the domain name out of ignorance. If the industry standard is to pay one year to ten years revenue depending on the quality of the domain, try to find someone who’s selling for 10 months to 2 years revenue. Make lowball offers and bargain hard; you’ve got nothing to lose.
4. Monetize Your Traffic. If a domain name is getting traffic but no clicks, look for alternative ways to monetize it, such as changing parking services, altering the keywords, developing a website, or redirecting the traffic to an existing website or affiliate link.
5. Dump or Sell the Losers. If a domain name is getting no traffic, dump it. Sell it for whatever you can get, unless you are convinced it has re-sale potential, in which case, return to point # 1.

Remember the coyote in the old road runner cartoons? In every cartoon he’d try some new ACME device or trap to catch the road runner, and each time he’d fail abysmally. Like maybe he’d try a rocket-powered harpoon, but he’d point it the wrong way and shoot himself instead of the road runner. Whereupon he would ditch that idea and try something else.

Even as a kid I remember being frustrated and thinking, “Why not just try the harpoon again, but this time point it the right way?” By the time I was ten I could not watch the road runner cartoon anymore because I was so annoyed at the coyote’s inability to learn from his mistakes.

Maybe I was a weirdo kid and missed the point of the cartoon, I don’t know.

Look, I know this is a cliche, but the night is darkest just before th dawn. The moment when something is the most difficult is often the moment before a breakthrough. Don’t abandon your dream, just refine your strategies, learn, adapt.

No, not mine… I’m talking about DNBizBlog.com. I came across this blog last week, and though it’s still freshly minted with only four posts, I’m very impressed with what I’ve read so far. The author, who goes simply by the handle ASN5, is a programmer and domainer from way back who registered his first domain in 1994.

On his “About the Blogger” page he tells a funny story about telling representatives of Universal Tire Company that he would register the domain name tires.com for them if they would be willing to commit to a $100-per-year website. They replied that his proposal made no sense because “nobody’s ever going to buy tires over a computer.” The domain was purchased by another tire company three years later for $700,000 and is a storefront for America’s largest independent tire dealer.

My point is, he (or she – it’s not clear from the handle) – has been around for a while. He knows the material and presents it concisely. The topics he’s written on so far include the ethical conflicts of interest of domain name registrars who are also domainers; a breakdown of the different types of domain traffic; and the questions that one must ask himself before investing in domain names.

The only comments on the articles so far are mine, but this blog deserves to be more widely read.

Another thing I like about DNBizBlog is that the content is instructional in nature. There are already plenty of domainer blogs (too many in my opinion) that focus on “domain name news”, as in what Sedo is doing, or the results of the TRAFFIC auction, or who paid a half million dollars for what domain. We need more content oriented toward novices and struggling domainers, explaining the basic concepts of domaining.

Conclusion: DNBizBlog.com is one to watch. I have added it without hesitation to my popular list of 26 Must-Read Blogs for Domainers (and 8 Extras).

In my previous post I mentioned Sedo’s ongoing premium dot Mobi auction and suggested two of my own domain names, installer.mobi and updater.mobi, that were included in the auction. I’m not quite satisfied with the results of the auction, but I can live with it.

Updater.mobi went for $100, and installer.mobi for $320. Personally I thought installer.mobi should have brought more as it has many possible uses and the keywords around it are quite pricey.

But it’s entirely my fault as I did not get serious about promoting it until the last two days of the auction. In fact I only emailed one or two businesses who might have been interested. And the worst part is that I know better. I know that it’s best to list potential buyers before the auction even starts, then contact them in earnest once it gets underway. I was just busy with other things. The offline world intrudes.

I have 25 other good dot Mobis – some quite good, I think – and I’ll take the auction much more seriously next time. Overall it’s encouraging to see that the dot Mobi market is heating up. Perhaps my DigitalVideos.mobi, JobAds.mobi or OnlineBrokers.mobi will be worth some big bucks after all.

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
Thomas A. Edison (1847 – 1931)

Many new domainers feel that the domain name train has left the station. They look at the pioneers like Rick Schwartz, Frank Schilling and Kevin Ham and think, “Those guys took all the good names. There’s nothing left. It was a one-time deal.” Is that true? Can you still get rich with domain names, or is it too late?

Sahar Sarid recently wrote a post comparing the domain market now to Florida real estate 80 years ago. In response, Steve of Alledia.com (an SEO club for Joomla users) commented:

Chances like this don’t come around very often. Domaining had its window 13 years ago. Fort Lauderdale property had its window 80 years ago. It may well be that there are no such opportunities available right now. One may develop next year or not for the next several years.

To be fair to Steve, many folks struggling to enter and succeed in the domain name market express the same frustrations.

True, a beginning domainer with a limited budget cannot acquire a Business.com or Applications.com type of domain name, and maybe not even BusinessApplications.com. Does that mean that opportunities to get rich do not exist?

I’ll write a post soon outlining some specific ways to find good domain names. It’ll be a good one, so stay tuned. In the meantime, let me point out some broad trends:

1. Population Growth. The human population continues to grow, creating increasing demand in every consumer sector. The world population is expected to grow to 9.4 billion by the year 2050, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Insane, huh? Of course only a small percentage of these will be internet users, but with the spread of internet-capable mobile devices and cheap laptops, that percentage will continue to increase.

2. Internet Evolution. The internet itself is still developing to say the least. If you count from the invention of the World Wide Web by Sir Tim Berners-Lee and others at CERN in Geneva in 1990 or so, then the web is in its teens. It’s an industry in its infancy, yet thundering ahead like a hurricane. Can you imagine declaring 17 years after the invention of electricity that the moment had passed and there were no further opportunities in electric devices?

3. Internet Users Growth. The number of people with part time or full time internet access continues to mushroom, especially in the developing world. There are a billion people with internet access now, and there will be 1.5 billion people with internet access by 2011, with the biggest growth in the online population occurring in Brazil, Russia, India and China, according to a new report by Jupiter Research.

4. New Technologies. New types of handheld devices, new internet browsers for mobile phones, and new internet services for mobile users are all going to dramatically change the way people access and view the internet in coming years; these trends will also open up the internet to the masses of people who have cell phones but no computers.

5. Domain Trends. Like the World Wide Web, the doman name industry is constantly developing. Important new ccTLDs are being introduced, many more people are taking up domaining as a hobby or full time job, media companies are being formed based on domain names, and price appreciation is extending to previously quiet sectors.

In the next twenty years technology will evolve in ways that will boggle our minds. As for the domain name market, it’s busy and getting busier. When a market is busy it creates opportunity. As Thomas Edison pointed out in the quotation up top, opportunity is a function of the work you put in (and keeping an open mind). Study, learn and don’t shut yourself off to new ways of thinking.

Lastly, let me change the direction of this piece and point out, since we’re speaking of opportunity, that every sunrise grants you an opportunity to be a better human being. I hope that you achieve financial wealth and success in the domain name industry. More important than that, however, is that you keep peace with your own soul and be a force for positive change in the world. That’s what we really need, and that will benefit you much more than any domain name.