Steal these business ideas for new top level domain names

You’ve probably heard of or even been to some - this last year or so has seen over a thousand new top level domain (TLD) names. And there are more coming.

What does this mean for online brands and the entrepreneurs behind them? I’m not sure. While I’m tempted to get excited at how much new opportunity this seems to bring, in reality it’s business as usual. Remember .co domain names? GoDaddy really wanted .co to be the next .com - they paid a lot for Super Bowl advertising around it - but it was/is a flop.

I expect these new names are going to flop too. There’s just way too many. However, in case I’m wrong, I generated a bunch of new business ideas around new TLDs. Steal the ideas if you want. Please.

How to Grab a New TLD

Before I present my brilliant (?) ideas, I should explain how to go about grabbing these. While many new TLDs have already been released, some aren’t out yet. Those ones - if you want them - will need to be “pre-registered”. My preferred registration service for domains has long been NameCheap. If you run WHOIS for any of my domains, you’ll see they’re either registered to me through NameCheap or linked up with their anonymization service (free for a year). Their prices are also among the cheapest, and you get solid customer service.

You can either these names from them outright or pre-register - as soon as they become available, they’ll be yours. Other services like OnlyDomains will just hold some of these names but NameCheap will actually accept payment now and apply it when these come out.

(Full disclosure: Links to NameCheap are affiliate links. If you buy anything through them I will receive a small commission that does not affect your purchase price. These are services I actually use myself, as can be verified through WHOIS lookup.)

Which Ones Did I Grab

I’ll tell you which new names I’m looking at - ging.casino, ging.lotto, ging.games, ging.hangout (social gaming experience?), and ging.poker. Admittedly I have holds on them (via OnlyDomains) at the time of this writing and have not pulled the trigger to purchase. As much as I’m about protecting the Ging Gaming brand, whether these new names are of value remains to be proven. Registration cost can be up to 10x that of a typical domain name.

Idea: “Short Hair Dating” (shorthair.dating - claim the domain name)

Short haircuts on girls seem to be pretty popular as of late, so it’s just natural that niche sites should develop tailored for these short-haired girls and the men who seek them out. With this domain you have two business routes.

1. Acquire the name and attempt to sell it to one of the existing short-haired dating sites. Yes, it’s not the most original concept and there are a few out there already. The domain might cost $20, you could sell it to one of them for $100 with some sales skills. Maybe more?

1. Develop your own site. Of those potential competitors above, the first result seems like a strong website while the second and third result both go to the same place. That one’s not so hot. With aggressive promotion and a quality website, you could take them on. What can you do better? Maybe be more selective with your user base (be really strict about just having short-haired girls, weed out creepy guys). Maybe throw events in major cities. I’ve never run a dating site but hear they can be lucrative.

Get this girl on your site and I’ll even sign up. (Image credit Zerihoun)

Idea: “Battering Ram Deals” (batteringram.deals - claim the domain name)

Kind of a random idea but a sort of linear one too. First, you set up a basic e-commerce site for battering rams. Keep it focused on those as there are enough sites out there for all kinds of tactical gear. You want to be the best stop for battering rams. When people think “battering rams” - Battering Ram Deals! How to source them? Finding a dropshipper would be easiest. It’s probably a pain to store dozens of these things, plus the actual demand for battering rams is unknown to me - could be a lot of upfront inventory money lost. So find a dropshipper. Then I’m envisioning a big viral marketing campaign, spearheaded by some controversial YouTube commercials. Pick up Ryan Holiday’s Trust Me, I’m Lying for inspiration. I’ll lay out one video to begin with. The commercial should lead in with something like “think about all those times you’ve ever needed a battering ram”, then segue into just totally inappropriate situations. Something involving a Porta-John. Something involving a crying girl and a burly man trying to forcefully enter the room she’s in. Suggest a lot of bad stuff, never actually cross the line. Then you can send anonymous tips to Jezebel or other passionate news sites/blogs. Think back to the point of the marketing campaign - viral. You have to step on some toes, press some buttons. For every 1,000 people that come upon the video due to a social media flareup, maybe 1 actually needs a battering ram. Get it in front of a million people and you’ll move a bunch of battering rams. There’s decent margins on those, right?

(Image credit The Specialists, Ltd.)

Idea: “The Bipolar Diet” (bipolar.diet - claim the domain name)

Another thing you could take two different ways. The diet itself would basically be carb-cycling, perhaps with intermittent fasting thrown in. Like LeanGains. And because you’re alternating high-carb, low-carb days with presumably very different foods… it’s “The Bipolar Diet”!

1. Make the site revolve around an info-product. Release enough information to hook people, pay for some Google Adwords advertising to get your traffic. The product itself could be an e-book, or a whole package with videos and stuff. Or both and you have a “premium” option and a “basic” one. Maybe hire some people on Elance or oDesk to produce that for you on the cheap. Have your finished product on Clickbank so affiliates are doing the selling too, in case the Adwords traffic on its own doesn’t convert that well.

2. Keep all the content free and make money a little at a time with affiliate links. Amazon, eBay, Clickbank. If you’re lucky you’ll attract a sort of cult-like following of “bipolar dieters”. Be especially active on Pinterest, Tumblr, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter with cool stuff and social media could drive most of your traffic.

Also note that you could make “The Bipolar Diet” about the optimum diet for controlling symptoms of actual bipolar disorder instead of a gimmicky, hyped carb-cycling routine. I think a ketogenic diet has been suggested as best for that? Either way you might weasel your way onto the Dr. Oz show.

(Image credit JoeFitness.com)

Idea: “Rent a Baby” (renta.baby - claim the domain name)

This one’s pretty straightforward but will be a liability nightmare. If you can navigate the nightmare, perhaps there’s a business here. After all, people pay for cuddling.

Liability nightmare! (Image credit CBS and DailyMail.co.uk)

Idea: “Fat Guy Yoga” (fatguy.yoga - claim the domain name)

I imagine that yoga would be beneficial for fat guys, yet is uniquely prohibitive to fat men at the same time. How is a fat man supposed to feel comfortable exercising in an environment typically dominated by fit, flexible women in yoga pants? Or at least not feel self-conscious. How can he follow the typical routine given his lack of flexibility and obvious physical obstacles such as his gut? Someone needs to figure all this out, market yoga for fat men, and release an info-product or train yogis to become certified in Fat Guy Yoga. There’s money here somewhere.

(Image credit WizIQ)

Idea: “Online Dating Help” (onlinedating.help - claim the domain name)

This is actually an idea my friends and I were screwing around with about a month ago, when Johnny mentioned he gets all kinds of mail from Match.com. People suck and/or hate writing about themselves, especially on dating sites it seems. I haven’t even really filled in my own About page at the moment.

That’s where Online Dating Help comes in. You are now a service provider:

• Help your clients choose pictures. Use your best judgment about picking interesting or charming ones. Maybe consult Hot or Not. You could even refer them to a professional photographer in their area - possibly the best choice as you could make a referral deal with photographers as another income stream.
• Do the writing for them. Pictures are supposedly the most important thing in online dating, but you’ll have to help them be textually appealing as well. Maybe the dating site prompt is “Where do you see yourself in 10 years?”, you write for them “I grow weary of human pursuits and strive to become a cat. Creep through a little grass, lick myself, stalk a few field mice.” Brilliant.
• You could even “open” potential matches for them. If your client is looking for a woman, remember that women get a ton of opening messages on these sites. You have to make your guy stand out. “Look, I know tonight is Julio’s wedding so I just wanted to make sure you’re not planning anything crazy.” Irresistible.

There’s a lot of opportunity here for helping people and running a respectable business. Different revenue streams galore.

Put out your own dating guide, they’re pretty popular on Amazon. Charge extra for Skype consultations. Photoshop pictures for a small fee. Make videos. Have a paid members’ area. Play puppet master and match your clients with each other. The world is your oyster!

(Image credit ninegps.tumblr.com)

Conclusion

If a domain unavailability has ever stopped you from creating an online business, these new TLDs may shine some new light on the issue. Remember to use a tool like this one to check social media names too.