Creating Your Domain Name

8) Benefit-Based Names

This is one of the most creative and little know ways of producing new domain names, and hence is a great source of new dot coms for any inventive person.

The idea behind a benefit-based name is to express some benefit to the customer in the domain name itself.

As an example, a language school might choose to register its company name - nothing wrong with that you might say. But when a user is confronted by a list of 50 Web sites in a search engine, they will choose a name that offers some benefit to them, something that fulfills a need - given the choice, would you click on 'FluentJapanese.com' or 'IZCJapaneseLanguageSchool.com'?

My Examples: FreeGoldCard.com, ExoticThailand.com, FluentJapanese.com

9) Put Two Short Keywords Together

This is one of the more risky ways of producing new names, but it's fun, creative, and also has the potential for big rewards.

This technique is beloved by branding firms. They combine two short, powerful words (or partial words) to create a new name. Often, the name makes little or no sense as a phrase in its own right. The name has to be branded, but that actually increases its value rather than reducing it. If a name is going to cost $1 million to brand, what's another $20,000 to purchase it in the first place?

If you can come up with a couple of good, short keywords that fit nicely together, you might have a real hot name on your hands.

My Examples: EarnShare.com, PostSecure.com

10) Acronyms

Now that all the 3-letter acronyms have been registered, the battleground has moved to the 4-letter acronyms.

Cross-check any interesting 4-letter acronyms you come across at acronymfinder.com to see whether they have a standard usage. If so, they will be much more valuable than a random 4-letter assortment.

My Examples: 4SQL.com

11) Growth Areas

It makes sense that those areas of the Web that will expand the most will also need the most new domain names. If e-commerce is involved, so much the better.

Research firms such as IDC and Forrester Research are a great source of pertinent information surrounding the Web, and particularly, the expansion of e-commerce on the Web.

Final Tips:

1) Only register names for a year at a time. You can always renew the registration at year's end, if you haven't managed to sell it before then.

2) Not all the names you register will have value. At the end of the first year, review all your names, and decide whether to 'keep them or dump them.' Don't consider dumping a small percentage of names as a disaster. It just demonstrates how much you have learned in the past year.

3) Domain name speculating can get very addictive, but keep the potential earnings in perspective. There are thousands of other people round the world trying to do the same thing as you. Don't spend more money on names than you can afford to lose.

4) Find a friend you can trust to give you an honest opinion on your names, *before* you register them. It will save you a lot of money.

5) Think about specializing in one particular industry - this is particularly important if you have very limited time available. You're less likely to succeed trying to be a jack of all trades, better to be a master of one.

I nearly forgot to answer the question at the top of the article. Did I make money registering two hundred domain names in two months? The short answer is yes. I have already sold ten names, more than earning back the registration money in the process. I've also turned down offers for another twenty or so names.

Some names I will never be able to sell, most I will sell for a thousand dollars or less, but a few names have real potential value. It hasn't been easy, and certainly not the instant gold- mine some domain speculators would have you believe.

Speculating on domain names is a lot of hard work, but it's enjoyable, an intellectual challenge, and far removed from the 'geeky cybersquatter' image that is commonly portrayed. Give it a go, you've got nothing to lose, except the registration fees of course.

About the author:

Lee Hodgson runs a site called DomainGuideBook.com, (http://DomainGuideBook.com), which offers discount domain registrations, daily domain news, domain name guides, and other domain related resources. Contact him at lee@DomainGuideBook.com.

Introduction to Domain Naming

This article originally appeared in the September 21, 2000 edition of the WebReference Update Newsletter.