Via AskShane.Org:
I don’t think anyone who’s gotten rich off domain names would tell you that it was ever easy. The landscape has changed immensely, but what makes it hard now is just different than what made it hard 10+ years ago.
I can tell you what I know now beyond a shadow of a doubt, though: if you want a low-risk, high-return way to make money with domains today, forget buying and holding. Buy a handful a good generic domains and start right now developing them.
I always have an issue when someone brings development in comparison to domain investment. The idea of development is neat but the execution, costs, learning curve, frustration, and patience.. it’s not something anyone would understand unless they went the road of development. Now don’t get me wrong, there are exceptions where someone gets lucky with a simple application (think HotOrNot.com, MillionDollarHomepage.com, Twitter), something that “sticks”. For the rest of us that actually develop though, that is not the case.
So when you hear the word “development”, please add those other words above from me as “tags”. As I said, there is gold in development, however, if you think it is better than domain ownership and PPC, think again, many times over. I personally am a believer that some of us are property owners, some are developers, some are deal makers, some are collectors, and so on. Just because you do one thing right does not mean you will do the other as well. I will end this post with a quote I mentioned in my life many times over, from Peter Drucker:
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Shane gives some great advice there. When I have the capital to invest, I have in mind to acquire some prime generic domains to develop myself.
I am not so sure that anyone is qualified to label development or ownership/PPC any better or worse than the other. It all has to be put in perspective. More often than not domainers are both owners and developers, even if you are contracting programmers to do it for you.
That said, it has to be a very small percentage of domainers who simply park 100% of their domain names.
If you have great generic domains that are parked, get in touch! Give a developer few months to work some magic and you become a new business owner, wherein the value of your domain and new business will surely surpass your PPC earnings.
First of all nothing is “easy” in life.
Whatever outcomes one person wants to produce be it positive or negative they require EFFORT (effort in doing the “right” or “wrong” thing).
There are so many online businesses that if a person wants to sell it’s domain name portofolio or part of it, the person should contact those online businesses and point ot to them why it would be beneficial to buy the (that) domain name.
When it comes to domain name parking the pay per click revenue $ commission paid to the domain name owner from the parking provider is what decides the outcome (MOST Domain Name parking service providers pay NEXT TO NOTHING to the domain name owners - they advertise ads like 100% , 70% revenue share if you park your domain names with them - it’s all crap since domain name owners do NOT make any money - maybe if they are lucky 2-10 cents a click - it’sCRAP).
I hope this helps
Note: edited due to excessive advertising
Thanks for the comments, Sahar!
My main point, as you included in the quote above, is that development is the “low-risk, high-return way to make money with domains.” You control your costs 100%, and the “execution,… learning curve, frustration, and patience” are certainly no more than they are in domaining.
I just can’t see any way that buying and holding is a safer strategy than developing.
“I just can’t see any way that buying and holding is a safer strategy than developing.”
This is true only if you value your time at zero. Factor in the value of your time, whatever you could be making with your skills elsewhere, and most sites are NOT profitable. For every Youtube and Facebook there are tens of thousands of sites that never go anywhere. Read 6 month’s worth of Techcrunch posts then see that most of those companies fade into oblivion after their initial launch - and this is the cream of the crop, those Techcrunch deemed important enough to cover, usually those who raised VC financing.
Don’t get me wrong, I personally believe in development. I was a developer long before I was a domainer, but this notion of “Develop your domains and you will make more money” is often not true. Successful development is hard and someone fortunate enough to be making a nice living from their PPC really needs to consider what they want to do for a living .. there isn’t a magic little red “develop me” button that comes with each domain.