I Used to Be a Dotcom Millionaire, Well at Least On Paper!

When I first started out online back in the late 90’s I got caught up in the big Domain Goldrush that was going on online. The big news back then was when some guy sold Business.com for millions of dollars and next thing you knew… domain speculators were buying up every domain name they could create, and I was one of them. At one point in early 2000 I owned over 3000 domain names. Yep… over 3000! I know that sounds crazy, and thinking back it probably was.

Actually the first 2 domains I ever registered were MakingMoneyOnline.com and MakeMoneyOnline.com. Then about a week after I registered them, some guy offered me $1000 for MakingMoneyOnline.com… but I turned him down. For the next week this guy kept bugging me about buying the domain, actually even calling me on my home phone leaving me messages. His final offer was for $35,000, which you can see by this site… I ended up not taking. In hindsight I probably should have taken it and used the money to finance my other domains, but oh well… at least I still have it now. Of course I made sure my wife was on board with me not taking the money… and she was

As for the rest of my domain collection… for a year or so everything was awesome… domains were easy to flip for a HEFTY PROFIT. I was selling several domains a week, many for between $1000 – $2000 each, and some for even more… which was a nice little profit. I believe the best place to sell domains back then was Afternic.com, which is still in business today, but with different owners.

One of the most popular parts of the site was their Domain Appraisal section, where I spent several hours each day. It was a free service where once you registered a domain name you could post it there and then other people would appraise your name for you. In all honesty… it was an absolute joke, as most of the people doing the appraisals were other domain owners, and everybody would give each other overinflated appraisals as they wanted you to do the same for their domains. I cannot tell you how many domains I owned back then, where people appraised them at $100K each. I remember one day I added up the averages of all my domain’s appraised values, and on paper I was worth about 8 million dollars. You can imagine how excited I was at the time… but unfortunately those millions never became a reality.

As I mentioned above… everything was awesome for about a year or so. People were spending crazy amounts of money on domain names to create all these startup businesses ventures with no real business plans, and the venture capitalist kept forking out the cash. At the time I was doing pretty well with my little domain reselling business.

Well as most of you know, those Free-Spending Days came to a sudden halt with the much publicized Dotcom Bust, and next thing you knew it was hard to get $100 for a premium domain name. Well those new darker times went on for quite some time and in the next few years my domain collection dwindled down significantly. Some I sold, and many I ended up letting expire as I did not want to keep paying the renewal fees. To be honest, a large percentage of the domains I originally registered were not really that great, but back then I just registered everything that popped in my head. Out of the original 3000 or so domains that I owned, after selling some and letting others expire… I ended up keeping a little over 400 domain names, and today I am down to just under 300.

So how is the domain reselling business doing in general nowadays? As for me, I have not really been trying to do much reselling lately. I have done an occasional flip here and there, but nothing much to speak of. As from my post last week you can see that I tried to test and see if I could sell a complete website via a post on Making Money Online Dot Com, but have not had much luck with that so far. I am actually thinking of adding a “Domains for Sale” section to our site and try and shrink my collection to a more reasonable amount, but we will see.

As for domain reselling around the world… it seems to be doing great. I am a HUGE fan of the website DNJournal.com, as they always have good articles about the industry, as well as great interviews with top domain resellers. But the main reason I check them out each week is they list many of the top domain name sales from the previous week, plus they keep a running total of the biggest sales for the entire year. Checkout some of the domains that sold last week and what they sold for:

Brazil.com – $500,000

Payment.com – $250,000

ChinaTours.com – $200,000

Payments.com – $150,000

Grafikkarte.de (“graphic card” in German) – $73,828

BookHotels.com – $70,500

iPal.com – $59,000

CouponNetwork.com – $59,000

LMK.com – $58,500

DomainAppraisal.com – $52,000

And if you think those were some crazy prices, checkout the top 10 sales so far for 2009

Toys.com – $5,100,000

Candy.com – $3,000,000

Fly.com – $1,760,000

Auction.com – $1,700,000

Webcam.com – $1,020,000

Server.com – $770,000

Brazil.com – $500,000

Talk.com – $500,000

Top.com – $464,750

Body.com – $400,000

So as you can see, even with this bad economy… there are still people and businesses spending BIG MONEY on premium domain names. Unfortunately, it is a little late to try and get into the game unless you know what you are doing and have a lot of money. But it is not impossible.

One option would be is if you could snag (register) yourself a great domain name that relates to a new industry that is just starting to develop. That might be worth a lot of money to you. One of my good buddies who I have done some domain reselling with over the years (who actually bought MakeMoneyOnline.com from me years back) registered the domain MyBlog.com. He registered it back when blogging just started becoming known. Well he ended up selling that domain a year or so later for $400,000. Now that was a pretty good return on his investment. So there is definitely possibilities out there, you just need to stay on top of the next new and greatest thing.

2 Simple Fixes that Could Increase Comments on Your Blog

Lately I have been doing lots of “Blog Surfing” to not only see what people are writing about, but also to comment on blogs to get our name (Making Money Online Dot Com) out there. Now I am definitely not one of those people that just say something like, “Great Post! Keep up the good work!” I like to read each post and if I have something I think I can contribute… I try and leave a useful comment. Sometimes they are quite lengthy and sometimes they could be fairly short, but I always try to add to the conversation.

While visiting all these blogs lately there are a couple of things that I have come across that has kept me from leaving comments on posts where I usually would. Here are the 2 things that keep me from sometimes leaving comments:

1) Comment boxes that don’t auto-fill. This one probably bugs me most of all. The first time you go to a blog and leave a comment you usually have to leave at least your name and email address. Most sites also let you add your web address and many nowadays let you add additional information like your Twitter ID and more. Most sites require that your first comment be manually approved by the blog owner before it appears to the public, which totally makes sense. Another thing that is common in most blogs is once you leave your first comment… your information is stored on that site so when you go to write another comment you don’t have to fill out your personal information again. There are some sites that I have found where each time you leave a post you have to fill in that information again.  I absolutely hate having to do that each time I comment on the same site and I am sure there are many others that feel the same way.  So if your site does not have that “Auto Fill” feature I think you should fix it!

2) Captcha in the comments section. This one really bugs as well. I understand that nobody wants to get a bunch of spam posts on their site (me especially), but that is what the plugin Akismet (which comes with every WP blog) is for… right? It catches almost all the spam comments we get on our sites. It’s true, we have to check the spam folder each week to make sure it didn’t grab some legitimate comments, but for the most part it works great. I hate it when I leave a comment on a blog and then I come across one of those Captcha codes that are really hard to read. Then I have to refresh it until I can read it clearly or it takes me several attempts until I type it in right. It makes me want to just leave the site and abandon my comment. Now I can definitely understand having Captcha on your contact form, as you really don’t expect too many contact emails each day. But having it in your blog comment section is really not needed in my opinion. Why even risk lose visitors to your site?

Of course these are just my personal feelings. Maybe I am the only person this bugs. All I know is having those 2 things on your site might be costing you some comments from me.

How you guys? What do you think about my opinions… do you agree? Please leave your comments below.

5 Best Bribes to Build Your Subscriber List

As everyone SHOULD KNOW or you probably have heard… that the MONEY is in “The List”! It is still the best and fastest way of making money online and off, and it will probably always be that way. That is why you see companies like Google and other huge corporations spend BILLIONS of dollars on companies that have HUGE subscriber bases or followings. They want access to those users!

As for us small business owners who don’t plan on selling our businesses for billions of dollars (unless someone offers it to us) building a strong list of subscribers is of utmost importance for our long-term success.

Your list can be used for keeping your readers informed of what is new on your site, let them know of new products you have coming out, promote affiliate products, recruit affiliates to promote your product(s), etc… the list could go on and on. It is not uncommon for Internet Marketers with large lists to make many thousands of dollars in one day by sending out a simple email to their subscriber list.

As for collecting names and emails there are many different options, but one of the best and most efficient ways is to use an autoresponder. Not only can you build a subscriber list with an autoresponder service, but you can also utilize their built in autoresponders which is basically a 24/7 (working while you sleep) sales machine. I am not going to go over all the reasons why autoresponders are so great in this post, as you can read that elsewhere.

I would say however that one of the best autoresponder services on the market today is Aweber. They were one of the firsts in the business and are still the cream of the crop (IMO). We have had our account with Aweber for at least 6 or 7 years now and we have over 40 different autoresponder lists for different niches setup with just that one account. It is a must-have in our marketing arsenal!

But enough about that… What this post is about is the “Best Ways to Bribe People to Subscribe to Your List”. Yes, I said “BRIBE” people to subscribe to your list. Nowadays it is harder than ever to build a list, as EVERY WEBSITE you come to is designed to try and get you to give them your name and email address. So the best way for you to succeed is to literally BRIBE them with something in exchange for their precious contact information.

You see some sort of BRIBE on most sites nowadays as well… like the site owner that is offering you a FREE eBook or eCourse for simply providing your first name and email address. We even do that on this site with our Private Label Secrets, which if you haven’t signed up for, you are missing out on a great resource (Yes, that was a plug).

So here is a list of some great bribes you can offer your readers to help build your list and start making more money online…

1) An eBook. This is probably the most used method today and still works pretty good. We use this method on several sites and it works great. The key is to offer an eBook that really relates with the niche you are in.

2) An eCourse. An eCourse is similar to an eBook, but is usually distributed to the reader over a period of time via email. The good thing about this method is you are carrying on a continuous dialogue with your reader each day (or at whatever intervals you prefer). The key is to end each email with a little taste of what is coming up next to keep your reader intrigued and excited about getting your next email. If you would like to see this in action, sign-up for our newsletter and we will send you our eCourse on making money with PLR products. You can always unsubscribe at anytime if you like, but I don’t see why you would.

3. Run a Contest. We have had some great success with this method over the years and will probably start having contests on this site soon. Basically you just say something like, “Sign-up for our newsletter and get into a drawing to win _______”. Now there are actually several tricks to this one to help you build your list faster and to keep your subscribers longer.

• Run a raffle for your subscribers once a month, or more often if you like. Give away something that your readers will want. Use your imagination on what you can do for prizes. If you have a marketing budget you can buy prizes, but if you don’t, you will have to be creative. Do you have a skill that is valuable that you could offer as a prize? I have seen designers give away complete site makeovers, banner creations, logo creations, etc…. What do you know how to do that would be valuable to your reader? There’s gotta be something!
• For one of our other blogs we are getting our prizes from local merchants for advertising on our site. They actually pay us to advertise on our site, plus they give us free stuff that we can give away to our subscribers. Not a bad deal for us at all. I have sitting in an envelope on my desk right now; eight movie tickets, four $25 gift cards for our local brewery, two gift certificates to Extreme Pita, four free 20 inch pizza coupons from our favorite pizza shop, and more things coming in the next couple of weeks. We are hoping to be able to give away one prize a day, Monday through Friday, 52 weeks a year. That should definitely help build up our subscriber base.
• (ADVANCED METHOD) Sell the eBook that you created instead of giving it away like I mentioned in #1. Create a simple sale page for it and charge $24.95 (just an example). That way you are giving the book an “actual value” instead of giving it away and saying it’s worth $24.95 (the “perceived value”). Next… you run a contest and use your eBook as the prizes. Maybe you give away 10 copies a month, or if you have lots of traffic, 10 copies a week. It really doesn’t matter to you, as you were going to be giving it away for free anyway. This can actually work better than just giving the eBook away, as many people assume if you are giving something away, it doesn’t have any value. But if they have a good chance of winning something of value, you have better odds of getting their name and email. NOTE: If you use this method, make sure that you take the extra steps to create a really good eBook, as you might actually sell some, and you want to be known as someone who over-delivers whenever possible.

4. Subscribers Only Gifts and Deals – Let your readers know that your loyal subscribers get free stuff and deals that regular visitors don’t. You can do all sorts of stuff with this technique. You can occasionally send your subscribers free gifts like ebooks, software, maybe some custom graphics… use your imagination. You could create them yourself if you have the skills, you could have someone else create them for you, or you could customize some PLR products you have. There are all sorts of ways to come up with worthwhile gifts.

You could also offer your subscribers discounts on products you sell. We plan to use this method for the new product we have coming out. We are probably going to be selling it for $7.00 (as per the $7 Dollar Secrets Method), but we are going to give all our subscribers a $5.00 OFF Coupon Code so they can get if for only $2.00. So again, if you are not subscribed to our newsletter, you should sign-up right away.

5) Access to Membership Area – Here’s a way to really build up a subscriber list, but it probably takes the most work. Again you can do this in a couple of different ways as well. You could have your main site that has lots of really good information on it, and then create a free membership section where you offer something more. Maybe something like “advanced techniques” or “how-to videos”, just something special that the regular visitors don’t have access to. To get free access, you readers will need to join by giving you their name and email address.

Another method would be to create just one great website and only allow access to subscribers. This method is a little harder to build your list, unless you already have a good reputation built up. With the first method, at least the reader has a chance to view some of your work first, so they can decide if they like you before they give up their contact information.

Ok… that’s it for this post, as it is starting to get REALLY LONG! I could probably add several more techniques, but my fingers are starting to get tired.

Why don’t you guys give us some more tips in the comments section below? What is something people could give away to bribe people to subscribe to their list?

Selling Information Products – Best Ways to Start (Part 2)

I am going to change the order of things in my series on, “Selling Information Products”. Part 2 was going to be on some simple ways to create your first information product, but I am going to save that one for the next section. Instead, I am going to write about the best way I know of to create and sell your first information product and why I think it is the best.

As many of you know I have been making money online (doing all sorts of things) for over 10 years now, and in that time I have purchased MANY books and courses on all sorts of different ways of marketing things online. I believe the most I have ever spent on a product was around $997 which I purchased at a JV Alert Seminar. I probably never would have spent that much money on one product, but the creator gave anyone who purchased it life-time access to all his products and any future products he creates, so it was definitely worth the money to me. Plus he let us pay in in 3 installments, which really closed the deal.

Besides that one, I believe the most I have ever spent was; I bought a few products in the $497 range, many in the $97 range, a lot more in the $47 range and I cannot tell you how many in the $29.95 and under range. Almost all of them were very good products, except a few which I should have asked for my money back, but didn’t.

So why am I telling you this? Because of all the products I have purchased online to help me in my making money online endeavors, the best thing I have ever bought (to this day) only cost me $7.00. SERIOUSLY… ONLY $7 BUCKS! I am sure a large percentage of you out there have heard of this before, because it is definitely not new. But for those of you that haven’t, you should pay attention, as it is still one of the best ways to get started making money online. The product I am talking about is called the “Seven Dollar Secrets”.

What the Seven Dollar Secrets is a short 33 page eBook teaching you how you can make a ton of money online selling inexpensive (ideally around $7.00), short (around 30 pages), content-packed eBooks. Not only can you make a lot of money, but you can also build a subscriber list (who actually spend money online) at viral speed. And I am sure you know that building a list is the key to making money online for the long term.

So let me give you a quick overview of what you will learn, and more importantly what added bonus you will receive that makes the product worth many, many times more than seven dollars.

• You will learn how simple and fast it is to create a content rich eBook
• Why $7.00 is the “Magic Price” to start building your Info-Product Empire
• How you can make much more than the original $7 you charge your customers
• How to quickly build an Army of Affiliates eager to promote your book
• Why your subscriber list of paying customers will build at viral speed
• ADDED BONUS – The actual script he uses that makes all this work. I personally would spend at least $100 to purchase just the script and it comes FREE as a bonus for buying the eBook.

Now is this going to make you rich fast like one of those MILLION DOLLAR PRODUCT LAUNCHES you hear about all the time? HECK NO! What this is going to do (if you apply it) is it is going to help you get started (hopefully fast) making money, and even more importantly help you build a list of people who spend money online which is the most important thing of all. Because once you have built yourself one of those huge lists like the big gurus have, then you might be able to have one of those million dollar launches, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Let’s first get you started making some money.

SPECIAL NOTE TO ALL YOU BLOGGERS OUT THERE: If you want to make money blogging you need to do more than just write posts and paste Adsense and Banner Ads on your blog. If you visit all the probloggers out there like; John Chow, David Risley, Shoemoney, Zac Johnson, etc… they all do more than just write posts. Many of them have other sites that they own which they promote on their blogs that bring them in a lot of money; many have their own products, as well as promote affiliate products in many of their posts. You too need to step out of your comfort zone if you really want to start making money online. I honestly believe that this will open your eyes to a whole new world of income for you, and it is cheaper than the price of a pizza! Click here to grab a copy for yourself.