Focus On a Niche

If you’ve been involved in Internet marketing, or business in general, you’ll have heard the advice to focus on a “niche”, rather than try to appeal to a broadly defined market or industry.

Well, the same holds true for domainers. Rather than buy just any domain that looks like it could make you money, I suggest you focus on a single niche. This could be, for example, all domains related “real estate” that end in a specific toplevel domain (TLD) such as .com, .net or .org.

Once you’ve chosen a niche, get to know it inside out. Buy domains relevant to this niche and try them out with different parking companies. Experiment with different parking layouts. Run different affiliate ads. In short, keep testing new ideas as you work out what combination of elements generates the highest overall revenue. When you’ve optimized the domain names in this niche, you can then diversify and do the same in another niche.

Why adopt a niche strategy? Here are a few reasons…

1. Firstly, there’ll be enough work involved in trying to optimize the domain names within one niche, let alone trying to become an expert in various other niches. And the fact is, if you don’t optimize your domain names you’ll be leaving cash on the table. By focusing, you learn how to be the master of extracting every last cent out of a particular niche, rather than being a “jack of all niches, master of none.”

2. If or when you decide to cash out by selling all or some of your domain names, you’ll have built an impressive portfolio of related names that will be worth more together, than what they would be worth if you sold them individually. In general, the whole is worth more than the sum of its individual parts.

3. Following on from the second point, you are more likely to sell 100, 500 or 1,000 good domains in a particular niche, than one or two names across 100 niches.

4. While getting to know a particular niche, you’ll often find sub‐niches. For instance, domainers in the insurance sector may find opportunities in, say, “pet insurance”. It’s these sub‐niches that are often “under the radar”, have less competition, and can make you more money.