Recently I’ve started to try my hand at domain trading. For those of you that don’t know what a domain is, it is the name/url of a website, e.g. Google.co.uk, ebay.co.uk etc. Domain trading involves searching and buying domains that you think may be valuable, and then trying to sell them for more. This is something I have wanted to get into for years, but I never really knew how the process worked, and what constitutes a ‘valuable’ domain.
Over the last month, I found myself with a lot of spare time on my hands, and decided to do some more research into domain trading. With the help of forums such as Acorn Domains, and some individuals in the industry (you know who you are), I started to build up an understanding of what type of domains were valuable, and what were not (I’m still learning).
I have since been registering domains in my name, that I would like to develop, or that I thought had the potential to be resold for more. I now have about 20 domains in my domain portfolio.
I noticed that a hot niche to have a domain in at the moment was for Electronic Cigarettes, with ElectronicCigarettes.co.uk selling for £15,000 recently, and ElectricCigarette.co.uk selling for £1,750. I knew that if I could find one in this niche then I could possibly make some money. However as with any popular niche, it’s very difficult to find a domain available to register, as usually they are snapped up by somebody else. After searching for various terms that could be used for electric cigarette, such as ecigarettes, electriccig, etc, it seemed like they had all been taken. However while I was browsing facebook, I saw a status from a friend of mine. 
I noticed that this person was calling them e-cigs, a term I didn’t previously search for. After searching again, I found that e-cig.org.uk was available to register, and after getting a second opinion from Frank Paul (cheers Frank!), he suggested it was worth registering. So after paying £7 to have it registered, a week later I put it up for sale on Acorn Domains, where within half an hour of listing it someone offered me £300 for it. I gladly accepted the offer, and was happy to have sold my first domain. Hopefully I will sell a few more in the future 
