Ep 13 Part 1: Josh Reason on Domain Investing


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Aug 07 2020 40 mins   10
In this episode of the Website Investing podcast, Richard speaks with top domain investor Josh Reason about flipping domains. Josh has a great daily domain investing podcast and is building the wholesale marketplace DNWE. In this part 1, free subscribers get the first ~30 minutes of the conversation; paying subscribers also get part 2 in their RSS feed. As is typical, part 2 elicits more insights as we get deeper into the conversation. EPISODE SPONSORS ? Smash Digital - an SEO growth agency with actual skin in the game, ranking their own portfolio of profitable businesses, and offering the exact same services to clients. Check. Them. Out. ? Niche Website Builders - a hands-off approach to outsourcing your content. Packages include keyword research & high-converting review templates. Get 10% off your first order. Part 1 Show Notes The World of SEO Domains Finding SEO Domains with Value Josh recently learned more about the SEO part of domain buying (hat tip to Sean Markey who has his own domain newsletter). He now knows how to spot a good deal from a bad one, thanks to some of his podcast guests who helped him learn. Josh thinks that there are only a few domain investors who actually look at the SEO value behind domain names. Aged Domains In the world of website investing, aged domains are valuable as they enable you to rank content much quicker than on brand new ones. In the world of domain investing, an aged domain can be more valuable as it was previously bought, i.e. the best names typically get registered first. But if a premium one-word .com drops and the creation date gets reset, it still has the same value as it will make a good brand. Cannabis Industry Domains Despite the cannabis industry being relatively new and competitive, and despite it being hard to find SEO names that have value in this industry, a recent deal took place wherein an aged SEO domain related to this industry was sold for ~$4K. Using Appraisal Tools Josh prefers using GoDaddy to Estibot, but would only use it as an indicator tool that he can use to sort through large lists of domain names, so that he can figure out which ones have more brand value than others. However, when it comes to dollar figures, he does not use these tools at all. SEO Sales You could see a lot of SEO sales on GoDaddy and sites that track top sales such as NameBio because when these deals happen, they have a higher dollar amount. In fact, you won’t see many SEO sales when you move down the list. Moreover, there aren’t that many SEO sales happening each day. It is still a small portion of the market. This could confuse domain investors, especially beginners, as they could think that domain names similar to the ones subject of SEO sales are worth buying. Buying Domain Names Josh recommends to beginners that they don’t buy names that they could hand register, because this only means that no one else wanted that name in the first place. Instead, he suggests that one buys a name that is already owned / dropping. ‘Bad’ Domains Domains previously used for adult content and spam would most likely have a lower value. These days, leasing domain names (to later own) is getting popular. However, when a lessee uses the domain name for something like adult content, then subsequently defaults and returns the domain, the domain could take a hit in value. To be certain, it’s best to do some research and due diligence on the domain name to check if it was ever used for such purposes, especially if you are paying a lot of money for it. Other Useful Tools Josh recently tried a few names over at Squadhelp, which is a good marketplace to give you some additional exposure to buyers. He also uses dan.com as well as Efty to build his own commission-free landing pages. Josh also highly recommends listing your domains on Afternic as the most important single place, which has a big network of registrars. Josh’s Background Website Investing In his first year of investing in website [...]