It’s a basic truth that anyone who has been working on the web in any capacity has URL’s they’ve purchased and have not actually used. You know you have some of your own. Whether you bought a URL expecting to cash in on a new television show’s popularity or you just happened to snag a great name because it was available, we all have those URL’s sitting around collecting dust and costing you that yearly fee. When it comes down to it, these domain names are nothing more than yearly money sinks for your hard earned cash. Every year that you renew, is another year it sits idle and doesn’t earn you a cent.
The sad truth is, most people are unaware of the options available to them to take advantage of an unused domain name. Therefore, we’ve taken the time to compile a short list of ideas that you can use right now to take advantage of an unused domain name.
1. Park it with a domain parking service. One of the simplest and easiest ways to basically set it, and forget it with an unused URL is to just park it. There are hundreds of services out there that will pay you money for parking your domain name with them. For example, in a couple of simple steps, you can park your domain name with sedo.com, and you’ll instantly have the opportunity to start earning revenue just by having your website sit unused. It’s as simple as that.
2. Park it yourself. Don’t want to use a parking service like Sedo? Why not just park your domain yourself? Many web hosting providers such asInMotion Hosting, BlueHost and HostICan allow you to host multiple domain names within a single account. Once you’re setup, you can put up a simple page with text link advertising from a service such as Text-Link-Ads and sit back and watch the money roll in. It’s all a matter of putting something up there for people to click on.
3. Put up a simple storefront in a matter of minutes. If you have a domain name that could be geared toward the marketing of a particular product, why not setup a simple storefront until you have the time to put up the site you originally envisioned. There are literally hundreds of products that you can download and have up and running on your domain name in minutes, completely operating a fully featured web store. For example, the Build a Niche Store package allows you to setup a site selling products off of eBay in under 10 minutes. It doesn’t get any simpler than that, and since it runs on eBay, all the work is done for you.
4. Place it for sale in a domain name aftermarket. If you think you have a solid domain name, but you don’t know what to do with it, you can try selling it for more than you paid for it on the domain name aftermarket. Domain buyers all over the world are always looking for unique marketing and branding domain names, and if your name seems right for their particular product, you can stand to make a hefty profit. You can find various domain name aftermarket’s all over the web. For example, Sedo provides domain selling and auctioning services in addition to the aforementioned domain parking services. Don’t let your domain expire when you can turn it for a profit.
5. Contact potential buyers about taking it off your hands. One of the most overlooked methods of dealing with unused domains is to seek out potential buyers yourself. Why wait for them to come to you when you can search the web for them. Whois records for domain names generally contain contact information for the owner of a domain. Do a Google search, find someone who’s website may benefit from your domain name, and approach them with an offer to sell your domain. You never know who might be looking for a good name, and it never hurts to try and sell directly.
At the end of the day, every domain name you possess has the potential to be a name that someone else may also be interested in. Don’t waste the opportunity to market yourself and maybe make a profit by letting your domain name sit around doing nothing or even worse, simply expiring after a year or two of inactivity.
