This is part two of the site flipping series and you guys should all know this one: How to pick a domain name and registrar. I’m sure a bunch of you guys still use dot blogspot blogs but technically you can’t sell those sites. And when I say “technically”, I think it’s actually against their TOS to sell it so accepting money then transferring is still illegal.

There are plenty of domain registrar sites to buy your domain name from and people prefer ones over others for whatever reason. I tend to go with reputable sites because I’m a name brand type of person (most of the time). I feel as though you get what you pay for. It’s almost equivalent to cheap hosting, in the long run you’re probably going to get screwed.

You guys should all remember my post “This is Why You Should NOT Get Cheap Web Hosting.”

Which Domain Registrar Do I Use?

Personally, I usually go with GoDaddy but with all the additional things that come with it, it gets expensive. I mean, keeping your information private, business stuff, etc. But the good thing about them is the fact that they always have coupons and discounts to save money.

The other one I started using half way through last year was Name.com. The reason why I started using them is because they started off at like $5.99 for dot com names. Next thing you know it just keeps inflating until $8.99.

Though, that’s still pretty cheap especially the fact that the private WHOIS (where they keep your information private) is completely free. In addition, you can use Google accounts with it as well at no additional charge.

So in the long run, you pay $8.99 and not $8.99 + $4.99 + $6.99.

How to Pick a Domain Name

Honestly, this all depends on the person. You can use just about any domain name if you know exactly what you are doing but essentially, you want to pick a domain name in which people would remember. You want it to be brandable and if you have a specific keyword/niche you’re trying to target, you might want to try to include that within the domain, if you can.

There are a bunch of ways and methods I use to pick a good domain name.

Use your Main Keyword as the Domain - Let’s say you already did your keyword research and say your main keyword is “Xbox 360 Cheats”, you would try to get “xbox360cheats.com”.

Of course, this is extremely hard because most of the highly searched for keyword domains are gone. But there are still a lot of them left. Plus, you can always try to go with something like “BESTxbox360cheats.com” that way you’re still including your targeted keyword within the domain.

The reason for this is because having the keyword in the domain name could potentially help you rank in search engines. I’ve done it a bunch of times on smaller sites and it actually works with very minimal linkage.

Shorter = Better? Not necessarily but if you can get a domain name with four characters or less, that is pretty rare. Honestly, if you can, I would consider just selling the domain name instead of creating a site for it. I’m sure you can get some decent money just off of that.

Brandable and Easy to Remember Domains - If you are creative (or lucky), you should have no problem with this one.

Like I mentioned, if you can get a short domain name then that’s golden. Unfortunately, nowadays you won’t be able to find a three letter or even a four letter domain name that is available. If you can, then you are one of the lucky few!

But just because it’s not short, it doesn’t mean you can’t get a easy to remember or brandable domain. You want to come up with something catchy, that sticks in people’s heads. Who cares if it’s corny or cliche, they will still remember it.

You guys remember “ListLunatic.com”, that was pretty brandable and easy to remember.

You Want to Avoid Words that Connect with Each Other with the Same Letter – For instance, “gamecodessite”. Notice how there are two S letters right next to each other. More often than not, when someone is typing that into their web browser, they’re going to forget about that second S. Which could possibly have you lose out on another visitor, subscriber, buyer, etc.

A majority of the time, I go to instantdomainsearch.com because it’ll tell you if it’s available or not instantly. Though, sometimes they aren’t 100 percent up-to-date but for the most part it’s pretty handy.

When it comes down to it, you don’t really have to have a great domain name to flip a site. Though, I almost always try to get a brandable domain name simply because it’s just another good selling point to convince your buyer on the worth of your site.

Anyways, how do you guys pick domain names and registrars? Let me know!