Make Money Online Through Domaining
A lot of people desire to make money, online or elsewhere, but they think that starting your own small business requires a lot of start-up capital. This is incorrect. You can start a business with next to nothing and thrive. Domaining is a prime example of how you can do exactly that.

What is domaining? Domaining is the art of making money online through domain names. But what are domains? I assume everyone reading this has had at least some experience with how the internet works. Probably you have typed www.something.com into your browser at some point. You have? Good. That which you typed in is a domain. A domain name, quite simply, is what you type in to your browser when you want to visit a particular website.

I won’t bore you with all the hard-core tech. stuff behind how domains work but, at this point, a little more technical stuff is necessary. You are able to access every website because it is hosted on a computer, just like yours, which is set up so that the public can access its files and folders online. Such a computer is called a server. Very basically, the internet is a network of many servers and we access them through our computers, mobile phones, and other devices. Every computer or device that is on the internet (whether is is a server or device used to access the server) has a unique address on the internet. This is called an IP address. Normally, an IP address is something like: 216.239.51.99.

Therefore, to access a website you need to get your browser to go to the IP address for that website. Now, as you may have noticed, it’d be quite a task to remember even one single site’s IP address, let alone the tens of sites that one may visit in a day. The domain name system was creating particularly to solve this problem. Instead of remembering a bunch of numbers, you remember just a simple “name”. For example, it is much much easier to remember www.google.com than it is to remember 216.239.51.99.

Another key benefit of the domain name system is that domain names are transferable. If you were to move a website from one server to another, the IP address has to change – everyone who accesses that site will have to use the new IP address. But having domain names changes this. You can move your website from server to server with the domain name staying the same. What does this mean? This means that you can transfer domain names, as well as whole websites, from one server to another easily and quickly. Or, in chapaa-speak, you can sell your website or domain name very easily.

Domainers
Domainers are people who take advantage of the domain name system and use it to earn money online. And guess what? Anyone can profit from this business – your gender, age, education, race/tribe does not matter one bit! You just have to work hard and smart. Don’t get me wrong though, this is NOT a get rich quick scheme and not everyone who reads this will make even a single cent online. A very common misconception is that web money is easy to get – that’s not necessarily true. You have to work just as hard as you would elsewhere. Only difference is that you can do it from the comfort of your home and at your own pace and time.

Ready to start? Good. This article is part one of a series of articles that will fully explore making money online from domain names. The other articles in this series are:

1. Introduction
2. Domain Extensions
3. Researching Keywords
4. Domain Name Registration
5. Domain Name Parking
6. Selling Your Domain

Be sure not to miss any of these articles by subscribing to Like Chapaa (free) or signing up to receive free updates by email.

How Do You Make Money From Domain Names?
Basically, you can make money from domains by selling them, or parking them. Selling them is pretty self explanatory – you buy cheap and sell high. Many people sell domain names through established marketplaces such as sedo, flippa or Pool.com. Still others sell them privately. For example, read about how people made millions selling domains related to Michael Jackson following his death. Or have a look at the top 100 domain sales this year – you can make thousands (of US dollars).

Domain name parking is a little more complex. Simply put, it is creating a really really simple, one page website on your domain name and loading with with advertisements. When people visit those domains and click on the adverts, you earn money. Selling domain names is a quicker way of earning from domains but parking (if done right) is a more stable, hands free way of earning from domains – it is passive income (you don’t have to do anything but receive money 😀 ).

To be a good domainer, you will have to apply a healthy mix of selling and parking.

A Note On SEO
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the process of improving chances of people finding your websites from search engines such as Google or Bing. Higher chances of people finding your website through search engines means higher traffic (number of visitors to your website) which usually means higher earnings for you. It would be impossible to be a successful domainer without learning and applying a little SEO.

Although domainers do not often get to delve deep into the SEO realm, you should be aware that domains that would naturally do well in search engines (SEO-friendly domains) are more valuable. I’ll definitely be writing more on SEO but you can get a head start by going here: SEO Book, or SEOMoz.

Now that you know the basics, it’s time to move on to the next step. Be sure not to miss any of these articles by subscribing to Like Chapaa (free) or signing up to receive free updates by email.