ALT-1 Making Money Online with Domain Parking
Due to the worldwide explosion of the internet, domain name parking has quickly become a viable method of earning revenue. This is especially true for those who have domain names that are not being used in conjunction with a current website.
To get started in domain parking, one must first have at least one internet domain name. Domain names can be registered at any Domain Name Registrar, or purchased from another party. Once the domain has been acquired, the user can sign up for any domain parking service and add the domain name to their parking account.
There are quite a few parking services available for the domain owner to choose from. Some of the best known parking companies include Sedo, Fabulous, NameDrive and WhyPark. Each domain parking company has its own standards and terms of service, so be diligent in reading the fine print before signing up. For example, some companies will accept any domain names into their parking program, while others only accept .com and .net domain extensions. Many parking companies also prohibit adult or gambling domains.
Once the relationship with a parking company is established, and the domains have been added to the parking account, the Domain Name Servers (DNS) must be set to those of the parking company. This is done at the registrar where the domain is held. Setting the DNS allows the domain to redirect to the landing page containing the advertisements that will produce income for the domain owner.
Most, if not all, parking companies allow the user to specify or edit the look and content of the landing page. By entering keywords for each domain, one has some control over what kinds of ads will appear when a user visits their webpage. Advertisers bid on the right to have their ads placed higher and more frequently on the landing pages. When the web user comes to the domain parking page and clicks on one of the advertisements, the domain owner earns money from the advertiser!
There are at least two big factors in determining how successfully a parked domain will perform. The first factor is web traffic to the domain. If nobody comes to visit the parked page, then no one can click on the ads, and no revenue will be earned. One way to increase traffic to a parked domain is to choose relevant keywords so that the major search engines will include the landing page in their search results.
The second factor for achieving high revenue is choosing relevant, high-paying keywords that result in a large amount of revenue per visitor click. Some domains get a lot of traffic, but don't make much income because the parking keywords aren't targeted to the domain name. Advertisers are generally willing to pay more for subjects like cruises and mortgages then they are for garbanzo beans, for instance. Overture.com is a website where domain owners can check the advertiser payouts for any subject, so the highest topics can be targeted.
For most people, domain parking produces a small side income as a by-product of domain ownership. But, some use domain parking as a primary income source, earning hundreds or thousands of dollars per day. Note that most of the people earning that kind of money have purchased high-traffic domains that were former websites that are now converting into consistent revenue.
