How I Make Money as a "Domain Registrar" in a Nutshell
This passive income idea has nothing to do with flipping domain names. Rather, this formula is about selling domain name registrations (ie .com, .net, etc.) and making steady profit every month with the only "work" being marketing your site. Here's the breakdown.
Becoming a certified domain name registrar is expensive and a lengthy process. It's also extremely difficult and expensive to build an actual registrar website. However, you can become what is called a Domain Name Reseller and sell domains at a profit above what you buy them for from domain registrars. Basically, you're like an authorized dealer for a domain name company except that you get to brand yourself into your own company.
How Does It Work?
The reason I advocate this blueprint is because it's easy to do, there's low overhead, it has high potential, and it's a useful service most people need.
All you have to do is buy a domain name reseller package, customize your store template the way you want, and you're open for business. You could literally have a live storefront in 30 minutes or less. It's what webmasters call a "turnkey website" because the infrastructure is already there, all you have to do is put customizations (name, logo, color scheme, prices) and make it go live.
What are the Cons?
As with any business start-up, YOU COULD FAIL but whether or not your own domain name company fails is up to you. The first con is that if you just buy the reseller package but never drive any traffic to it, you're not going to make money. In other words, you won't just become a domain reseller and then magically have people buy from you out of the blue.
Another con is you don't have full control over your pricing. For example, my .com buy rate is $7.80 right now and I can't set my sale price below $8.49 unless there is a special on the registration rate. I can adjust the price as high as I want but my low price is set. This is actually simultaneously a good thing as I'll discuss below.
One more thing I don't like is the analytics and tracking aren't good in the reseller. I track my traffic in Google Analytics and the reseller program makes it so where it's hard to tell what traffic source visitors come from. Also, when someone does make a purchase I can't tell what keyword they typed in from a PPC campaign.
What are the Pros?
You can make a lot of money and how much you make is strongly tied into how well you market your site (translation: performance based income, where you control how much you make). Check out these numbers from top resellers:
First of all, I AM NOT ONE OF THESE RESELLERS! My reseller revenue is growing and I make a tidy profit (screenshot below) but these people are insane! The top reseller made $44,728.40 in October alone! Keep in mind, this isn't an actual domain name registrar, it's just a reseller site.
The reason I show you these numbers isn't to suggest that you can start your reseller site tonight and make $15,000 by January. I just want you to see that this stuff really does work and you really can create a strong passive income source.
Here is a screen shot of my recent earnings:
The beauty of this business model is the income is much stronger than at first glance. Domain name registrations and other website related services like web hosting and website builder software must be renewed every year. For example, people typically buy domain names in one year time frames which means they'll be coming back next year to renew them. Also, if they have web hosting, their typically not going to just abandon their website so that's another renewal where you bank. This is the definition of residual income.
Another money making aspect of being a reseller is PPC commissions. When people buy domains from you but don't put up a website - and leave the page parked - ads are automatically served on the pages. You get an 80% cut of all the advertising dollars from the clicks. This is deceptively a huge boost to the business. I've had several $3-$5 clicks which are a great perk. Similarly, along these lines, you get to know if any of your domains that you own are more valuable than you knew of.
Of course, the marquee money attraction is the margin on selling domains and other website related products. You can make your margins as high as up as you want to but I like to keep them at $1 per domain or below because I'm playing a volume game. I want to bring in as many people as possible with low prices and build a huge customer base.
As I mentioned above, one really good thing about having a floor on your prices is you can't lose money. Some small businesses have the temptation to sell for below cost when they first start and they end up losing money out of their own pocket because they take a loss on sales. When you become a reseller, this literally cannot happen.
Oh, I almost forgot, there is no work besides marketing. All your customer service calls and support emails are handled by a registrar company. This is a huge part of the domain reseller package! No customer support or backend work? Are you kidding me? For $150 a year, this is benefit alone makes it a no-brainer. Professional customer service 24 hours a day would cost you thousands even if you outsourced everything.
Blueprint For Success
Reselling domain names all comes down to a numbers game. The simple formula is this:
($150 + Marketing) < (PPC Commissions + Margins)
Your mission is to make this formula work in one year. If you can accomplish that, you will make increasingly more money as you continue to add to your customer base.
Remember that while some people only do buy one .com domain registration, others will regularly have $50+ reciepts. You would be surprised how much people buy and how fast the commissions add up just from one order.
Another huge plus is that if people buy one domain from you, they're likely to buy another and maybe all their domains with you! Even better, some people will tell people they know to buy from you as well! It's just the same as when you refer someone else to a good deal at Wal-Mart or PapaJohns.
Insider Advice on Making Money from Your Reseller
Absolutely do not get into a PPC bidding war on Google Adwords with the big domain registrars. These guys are willing to lose more money than you can to bring in customers (they know how lucrative they can be now and in the future). Instead, you need to carve out certain keyword terms to bid on that exactly target smaller sects within the people searching to buy a domain name.
For example, rather than just bidding on the broad search "domains" or "domain names", target keywords like [purchase a domain name] or [domain registration advice] where you know people want to buy a domain. This way you guarantee your self highly targeted traffic that is ready to buy a domain name right now. Read: Money!
One way you can get some brand awareness right away is to post your new domain company as your business on Facebook and send out a status update letting your friends now. Getting friends and family on your side is a great way to build up a customer base right away. A Facebook fan page can help your cause here. If you don't have a Facebook fan page, you can always pay a friend, child, niece, brother, cousin, friend or whoever to post out a shout out update for you. $10 will be a nice ROI for their 10 seconds of work and at the same time, you get your name out there to however many people are on their friends list (a lot of people have 100s of FB friends).
Another way to build customers is to buy a domain from your reseller site and then sell it on an auction site. Ebay is an easy place to sell domains quickly and get a lot of views. So not only do you get instant publicity from the listing but you probably also gain another potential renewal from a new "customer".
I also got people talking about my reseller by making t-shirts and handing them out. T-shirts are outstanding advertising that have long lasting effects for as long as people where the shirts. How can you beat people advertising for you as walking billboards?
My Domain Name Reseller
You can check out my reseller site here. You can also see my Facebook Fanpage. I also created a fun company page where you can see video testimonials and get more information on my site.
Easy Tips for Success
A professional looking website and color scheme can make all the difference in whether someone buys from you. I highly recommend you get a customized logo from 19dollarlogos.com to really make yourself stand out and look polished. For the quality and price, you can't beat these guys. You should also choose a color scheme that is catchy but professional looking (some of the templates just aren't).
I can't hammer home how big in-person referrals can make you a lot of money. It's so easy to bank after just connecting with some other entrepreneurs or small businesses. I do online consulting and have sold several domains just referring my site to people.
One service that works really well both on free and especially premium membership is PRLog.org. PRLog.org does a great job of feeding your stories to news sydnicates that pick it up and run with the news. I've had great success with online press releases from PRLog.org.
The great thing about this passive income opportunity is it's not some pyramind scheme or something that leaves someone out of luck. Domain name registrations are a very useful service that every business and a lot of people can use. Think about it, you can't even pick up a product box or watch a commercial without seeing a domain name. They've got to buy them from somewhere and that somewhere may as well be you. Many registrars charge $9.99 and up so you'd actually be saving your referrals money!
So How Do I Become a Reseller
There are many different domain name resellers out there. There are even free resellers but with one huge catch: Your baseline prices are $12.99 or more. It's not worth it! Think about it, if you could make money selling for $5 more than regular buy rate, you could make a LOT more money selling at a $7.99 buy rate!
There are two types of plans you can get for becoming a domain name reseller. One is the pro and the other is the basic. The basic is cheaper and only costs $79 but I don't recommend it because the buy rates are higher. It's $9.08 for a .com buy. In contrast, the pro is $7.80 for a .com registration baseline price. Also, the basic does not have the PPC commissions included (huge potential you're missing out on here). With the pro plan so relatively close in price at $169, it really doesn't make sense - especially if you're going to really grow and build your business.
There are many resellers out there, but if you use a 25% off promo code, DotResell.com is by far the cheapest domain name reseller. Try promo code RSPLAN25 when you check out. You'll save $42 on the pro plan. RSRENEW10 should work for 10% off basic. (If either of these promo codes has expired, please let me know so I can update this info.)
If you don't have a domain name yet for your reseller, let me take this opportunity to promote my own reseller site. If this information has helped you decide to become a reseller or just start up a blog or website, I'd love to have you register the domain to your next success at my reseller:
.I really do appreciate you thinking of me the next time you buy your domain name. I hope my experience as a reseller has sparked you to make a great new passive income stream, maybe even as a Domain Name Reseller!
Thank You!