The value, price or value of a domain name can range from a couple of dollars to millions of dollars. The real challenge is how to assess the true price of a specific domain name or how to calculate the value of the website. There is unexpected and sudden news all the time about some companies paying thousands of dollars for a domain name that is very relevant to their company and company name. The considerable flaw in the argument of people who do not believe that domains play a significant role in the success of websites lies in the assumption that Internet users will bookmark or subscribe to a given website immediately after visiting it.
There are a couple of important things and true techniques for evaluating a domain name that you should keep in mind when trying to evaluate and they include:
- The length of the domain, the shorter the domain, the more it will cost. Because when the domain name is short, it is easy to spell, remember, and descriptive or qualifiable. Your domain should not contain hyphens or numbers and for me it should have the extension with.com.
- Domain names of one, two or three words are much more valuable than the others (today, it is impossible to find a domain name of three words with the extension .com or .net). Therefore, domains with very few words are the most valued.
- Websites that have been around for a long time in search engines rank better and thus increase their value. However, most sites that have been around for a long time are not for sale, so convincing the owner can cost even more money.
- If we collect data from the very beginning (August 6, 1991, the first website went online), the most common is that the oldest and most popular domain name would have 7 or 8 characters and 2 words. Now approx. 85% of domain names have the .com extension. What remains is the percentage that has .net, .org, .biz and specific extensions related to country names. Three to seven percent contain numbers or hyphens with their domain names. So for the extension me.com is worth more than others.
- Domain names that are hard to spell, have non-alphabetic characters, are extremely long, or are hard to type will not be worth more than easy to spell and easy to type domain names. Also, if you have already purchased a domain name with the extension or Top Level Domain (TLD) like.com, .net, .org, etc. it cannot be changed once you own the domain.
What can we do to improve the value of the domain?
Domain names were discovered to make it easier for people to access websites, so it’s important that your domain is easily understandable.
- Does the domain sound good?
- Will people know how to spell it after hearing it?
- Is it easy to remember?
Any confusion your domain causes will negatively affect how many others are willing to shell out.
Now the most important thing is that what we can do to improve the value of the domain is the same thing that you do to improve the value of your website right now before selling the domain. It is mandatory, get more customers to visit your website. The more popular your site is, the more valuable the domain will be.
Definitely, if the users or customers are eligible to find the website on search (Google, Bing and Yahoo), there will be more visitors, so improve the SEO of the website. For search engine optimization (SEO), you can find different solutions such as on-page and off-page SEO. Increase the content too, the more content you have on your website, the more pages there are for people to visit. Nowadays, social media is one of the powerful sources to get more traffic on your website. Write more and more blogs or articles, for this purpose go for the guest blogging websites and spread your thoughts or products all over the world, but one thing you need to keep in mind is that it is important that your words are easily understandable.
If you’re looking for a fixed formula to exactly calculate the value of your domain, you’re unfortunately out of luck. Appraisal services can issue a number based on a complex set of criteria, but domain names are about much more than algorithms and search rankings. A domain exists in the larger context of the online and offline worlds and all of its complexities and refinements will play a role in how much interest there will be in your domain.
Wondering how to value domain names?
There are a couple of rules about what makes a domain more valuable. Most people looking to buy a domain want to buy one that is already successful and most people on the web define success in page views and customers.
To calculate the value of your domain, you eventually need to understand who your potential customers are;
- What industry do they belong to?
- Is the website important to your business?
- How applicable is your domain?
A domain is only as valuable as someone is willing to pay for it, so knowing what related domains are priced at, how highly sought after your domain is, and how much you reasonably expect a buyer to pay will help you arrive at the right number.