i want to share with you a really nice and informative guide that a friend of mine, an associate domainer wrote on namepros thread, he asked me to mention his noobiness , i think it is really good writen and it’s high quality

so here it is, enjoy:

Guide to Domains from a Noob

I call this the domain guide for the noobs, because I am a noob!
Ok, we’ve all done it, bought a 100 domains because “we” think the
names we pick are going to make us millionaires within a week and “we” are
the only people who thought of buying and selling this way. Well guess
what, you’re wrong, unless you happen to fall into a 3 char .com
domain for $50. Chances of that happening are NONE.
It all boils down to hard work and research. I’ve only been buying and
selling domains for approx 3 months BUT, what I have done is learned
all the way. If there is one thing everyone should do before even
buying their first domain is “ASK QUESTIONS”. Ask yourself this, would
you buy a car without asking questions? The answer is NO, then why
don’t you do the same with domains? This should happen with every
purchase and it doesn’t matter if it’s a domain or a dalmation, ask
ask ask! The more you ask the more you know.
Now you’re asking yourself, what makes you such an expert on this?
Easy answer, I’m not an expert, I’m a noob! which is why I’m writing this
so that you won’t make the mistakes going forward as a lot of people do.
When I first started just those few months ago, I reg’d everything I
thought looked cool. Yes they looked cool, to me, not to anyone else,
funny how that works huh. look around the forums first, look and see
what is selling and what isn’t. Keep track of them, keep a journal if
you like or even a spreadsheet, but just keep track. All I’m trying to
do is help you get started the right way, not the wrong way.
If you want to make alot of money in this industry, treat it like a
multi-million dollar business right out of the gate. If you treat this
business as a quick $20 in your pocket every week, then guess what,
thats all you’ll have. Now on that note, I am in no way saying spend
thousands of dollars on your domains. Spend what you can afford. I’ve
lost track of how many people I’ve come across on the boards saying,
“Need to sell this domain to pay bills”, don’t get yourself ever in
that situation because you’ll never get out of it. Don’t bid or offer
higher than what you have got in your bank or paypal etc. because to
do so will be your downfall.
Don’t spend the proceeds from a sale before you have it physically because
hiccups and delays happen and the last thing you would want to be known
as is someone who doesn’t pay when they should. So the quick rule here is
very simple, only spend what you can afford once all the bills are paid and don’t
spend more than you have.

Lets move on and cover the basics that surround the whole “Which domains do I sell or buy?

Now before I continue on this path, I’d like to apologize up front if I actually
mention a domain name thats owned by anyone here, I’m just using it as a reference.

To be honest, it’s all about trends for the most part, from the LLLL.com (noob
translation is Letter Letter Letter Letter.com) to the .asia frenzy (which means that
a new URL extenstion came out just a while ago). Who or what determines the trend?
Easy, supply and demand. It’s us the domain resellers that determine that. How? you
ask yourself. This is how. If I own MLBF.com (which I do right now at the time of this
posting) and you own MLBF.net, chances are that the .com version will sell for a much
higher price BUT there is also a better chance that your .net will sell faster. The
reason behind that is simple. The .nets’ cost less and therefore is much more
affordable to anyone looking for a short domain name whereas the .com will sell for
anywhere between 500% and infinity higher and is most part financially unobtainable..

Why is the .com more?, because it comes back to trends. The trend right now is that
the .com is higher than the .nets BUT saying that, alot of people , including end
users, are realizing that it doesn’t matter if you have a .net or .com, as long as its
functional. Now that statement will probably cause arguments all day long but in
reality, its true JUST for ther end user. It is down to us, the domain reseller to
make a point to the end-user that the .com is worth more.

Ok, you say the .com is worth more, why? Because the end user will recognize a .com
more than they do a .net. Going forward about 5-7 years, you might see a flip flop
where end users don’t give a rip if their domain extension ends in .idiot because
the end-user is getting more educated in the way domains are apparent to THEIR customers.

Lets move just to another extension and we’ll see another quick example.

The difference between a .com .org and .biz.
A .com can be used for anything right? Well, technically yes BUT look at this and
decide what you would choose as an end-user, NOT a reseller:

Shopworkers.com or Shopworkers.org? which one? Well, if you chose both, you are right
BUT the chances are the .org would sell faster and be more marketable because the .org
denotes ORGANIZATION, so having Shopworkers.org makes more sense than the .com
version.

Ok, 1 more, Brick.com or Brick.biz, again, both are excellent for this industry
because .biz stands for BUSINESS so which one would you chose? If you as an end user
chose Brick.biz, then that is because you see the .biz denoting that you are in the
brick business, of course affordablility creeps into this one because the .com would
be way higher in resale value than the .biz. Confusing? of course it is, domain buying
and selling is a science of which we must become students of.

If we are not prepared to become students of this art, then we will flunk our class
and be forced to keep repeating the same class over and over and over again.

There are hundreds of domain extensions and I’m not going to cover each one but you
get the general idea. If you buy domains, find the right domain name for the right extension, thats all I’m saying.

Pricing:

This is a very touchy subject and I will not dwell on it for long.

How do I know I’m paying the right price? Well, you don’t BUT what you can do is surf the forums and see if a similar name or industry domain is at what you are asking to pay. If you don’t see anything similar, we come back to part 1 of this guide in the fact of ASK! Now, saying that, don’t base your purchase off of one opinion, it doesn’t hurt to ask others as well. That way you can at least get an average. Also, do not be surprised if what you are saying you are willing to pay doesn’t fly with the seller. Sellers are pretty particular in prices for their domains. I would say at least 20% have set their own prices but the remaining 80% have done their homework. Does that mean you won’t get the domain you want because the seller isn’t budging on his price? Possibly BUT remember, it’s their property and not yours and they can sell it for whatever they like.

I’ll equate another industry that is similar to buying and selling domains and that’s the housing industry. Here’s the quick scenario:

You have a row of 100 houses in a sub-division and the average price is $100,000, we’ll equate this sub-division with LLLL.coms (remember what that is? If not, go back to part 1 of the guide.) And let’s say 1 house owner decides to sell for $75,000, does that mean that his sale is going to affect the pricing of the other 99 houses?, probably not! BUT on the other hand, if 20 of the house owners sold their houses at $75,000, now we have a shift in the market pricing for the rest of those houses that are unsold. The average house is now cheaper just because of those 20 sellers. Now if you do the reverse and the 20 sellers sell for more than $100,000, then the market shifts upwards. It’s exactly the same in the domain world. Remember what I was saying earlier about the domain sellers and the market trends, same thing, SO, taking that into consideration, be careful how you sell and how you buy. If you speculate that your domain, based on your research is going to go higher, then it might be prudent to hold off selling, on the other hand if you expect it to drop, you have 2 choices, sell what you have at the current market rate OR wait it out hoping that the market will swing your way.

There are a 1000 other ways to base pricing and this is just one of them. Remember that this is my own guide and it is 100% up to you if you use this guide or not.

Domain speculation is a big part of this industry and don’t forget that.

Marketing:

Ok, now we have our domains, who do we sell it to? That has got to be the easiest thing you’ll ever do! Ok, now you think I’ve really lost it, but bear with me and you’ll see why.

How many people do you know have email accounts? Nearly everyone right? Apart from the old hermit who lives in the cave down the road from you but chances are he has broadband so you won’t see satellite dish poking out the top of the smoke stack! But anyways, as you’ve already answered the question.

Ok, so what right? How many of them have entertained the idea of owning their own little bit of the internet? Who knows? That’s the point, you don’t know until you ASK. Oh My Gawd, there it is again, there’s that “ASK” thing again, funny how it rears its ugly head again huh? Now, when you ask most people what they do on the internet, there is a very good chance they have a Myspace page or a Facebook page or belong to a similar type of site and will boast about it, “Hey, have you seen my MySpace Page?” How many times have people asked you that? Well, if you can count one time and didn’t say anything about a domain to them, then you just missed a sale!

The way you’d approach this is so simple its crazy!. All you have to do is say, “Hey, do you like sharing your slow page with 25 million other people or would you rather own your own domain!” When they give you the blank look, that’s when you step in and explain to them what a domain is. One way to explain it is like this. A Myspace or similar page is like riding the web using a Carpool with a Pacer (for those Non-North Americans, that’s like sharing a ride to work or a friends etc) versus riding the highway in your own Cadillac. When you are sharing the web with the Pacer people, you have no control because no-one you know is driving or where the ride turns left or right, whereas with your own Cadillac, you make the right turns, burnouts, hand brake turns, In other words, you are in control of All your own content and its 100% personalized with YOUR rules.

Heck, if your Great Aunt’s next door neighbors Cat’s pet fish has the internet, ASK!

With the more high end end users like Corporations, it’s similar but you have to be more strategic and select your words slightly different but the concept is the same. ASK.

This is just a basic idea but the concept is still the same

Get it?

Tools of the trade:

The number one tool you should be using is the one between your ears. Ok, now that’s just plain rude you say!, No, it’s just the plain truth. If you thought I was going to list of all the tools you need for domaining, I just did!

What, no secret underground web sites that only senior domainers use , nope, well, yes, there is one, and you are reading some of the most informative posts on the internet in regards to domaining on it right now, NamePros.

If you had followed this guide and re-read the 1st post in this guide, then you would have seen the word “ASK” numerous times. Have I pissed you off yet in this paragraph? I hope so, I hope so enough to make you realize that before you even got to this part, you should be asking questions already like this: “ What is a name drop, where do names drop, what’s the procedure for backordering, what’s the best place to reg domains etc”.

Now like I said right from the beginning, I’m a noob BUT it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that there are a lot of VERY experienced people on this forum who have a better skill set than I do. Do I still ask them questions, of course, I’d be a fool not to.

If you think you are smart enough to learn this industry without asking questions, then I wish you the best BUT saying this, if you realize 2 weeks down the road that you just spent a ba-jillion dollars on useless hand reg’s and can’t sell water to a thirsty man and your paypal account is drier than the Mohave desert, think to yourself, you know what, maybe I should read that noob guide.

I’ll finish up this guide with a couple of quick comments here.

First off, please remember that I’m a noob and have only been domaining since Feb ’08.

Secondly, all of the above are just common sense.

Thirdly, the opinions and comments in this thread in regards to my guide are just MY guidelines, no-one elses.

Fourthly, just ASK.

I wish everyone the best in their journey within the domaining world and I hope you make more money than you can shake a stick at.

If you have found any part of this guide helpful, just drop me a few rep points, they are always appreciated. If you are not sure what rep points are, I know I know you say, just ask right, the simple answer is what? “YES”

Take care all and catch you around the boards.

Rhinoz

A link to the guides thread at namepros can be found here