You wake up in the middle of the night with a great idea and rush off to grab a new domain to turn that idea into reality! But as the day goes on, your excitement fades, and you no longer think the idea is so great. Even worse, now you have a domain sitting around doing nothing and achieving zero results for you.

Well, you are certainly not alone. Over the years, I have collected a massive number of domains that grow dusty from inaction. To make matters worse, I have a terrible time disposing of domains. Once I have them in my grip, I never let them go, holding on to them as tightly as I cling to the ideas that inspired them! And if a domain is sitting around doing nothing, that means every year it’s racking up registration fees and eating up what could have been some nice extra cash.

Can you relate to this familiar scenario? Do you have a backlog of underutilized domains that could be earning you money at this very moment? I’d love to share with you five ways I’ve discovered to turn dormant domains into results-grabbing powerhouses. Let’s start with the easiest and least amount of work, and we’ll lead into more time-intensive work with the largest potential yield. Take your pick from these options and put your domains to work for you today!

Option #1: Domain Parking

The fastest and simplest way to turn your dormant domain into cash is by “parking” it with a parking service. This method is also known as parked domain monetization. This means that you point the domain to a service which will then display ads based on the context of the domain. For example, if your domain revolved around the subject of cats, the parking service may display ads that are useful for cat owners, linking to products such as cat food, cat treats, cat toys, and the like. When a visitor clicks on one of those ads, you will earn a commission. This is what is known as pay per click.

An added bonus of these parking services is they often also act as auction services. If somebody happens to visit your cat domain and decides they would like to purchase the domain for their own use, the parking service may make your domain available for sale at a flat rate that you decide, or they may sell it off in an auction-like format. Either way, a financial win for you.

A few examples of parking services that you can check out are Sedo, Bodis, and Parking Crew. It’s smart to test out each company to see which works best for you, comparing earnings, ease of use, and availability of support.

Domain parking is a fast and simple way to turn your domain into opportunity. It’s not the biggest moneymaker but it is a great way for you to get started in monetizing unused domains.

Option #2: Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing refers to promoting another company’s products or services and receiving a commission for your referrals and their purchases. Affiliate marketing is a great way to make money online, and it’s one of my favorite methods. Many companies offer registration for affiliate programs where you can earn regular commissions for promoting their products and services.

As opposed to forms of passive income, affiliate marketing typically requires active work. As an affiliate, you might use social media, blog posts, paid ads, newsletters, or a variety of other online marketing methods. In your dormant domain case, we want to keep things simple, so we will skip those typical affiliate marketing tactics. Instead, we will simply forward your domain straight to the affiliate marketing product. This is like the domain parking method that we discussed earlier, except you take full control of choosing the product or service that you promote.

In the case of our cat domain, you could forward the domain to an affiliate marketing program that promotes your cat’s favorite nighttime treat. As before with the domain parking method, people will visit your URL and be taken to the product page for the cat’s treat, earning you a commission for every sale. A bonus to this method is that you can promote these cat treats in casual conversation. If someone happens to ask you what your favorite cat treat is, you can simply tell them your cat domain. When they purchase those treats, ka-ching! Money in the bank.

This method takes a little more work than the domain parking method because you’ll need to find an appropriate affiliate program and go through the sign-up process. It’s also important to note that some affiliate programs may not approve of certain ways of marketing their program, so I recommend checking with the affiliate manager before you utilize a specific method.

Option #3: White Label Marketing

A white label is essentially a “copy” of another company’s website or business but branded with your name. When somebody goes to your domain, they view the white labeled website or store as if it is yours. They would not know the difference. As they peruse the store and make purchases, you earn commissions from the white label company.

Not all companies offer white labels, so this will take a little research. This is a step beyond the affiliate marketing method because instead of promoting just one product, you can promote many products or even an entire store. With white label marketing, instead of promoting just the single cat treat from our previous example, you take things to the next level by promoting a whole pet store that specializes in a wide range of cat products, thereby increasing your potential profit!

Like the affiliate program method, you can easily tell people about this store, building your business by word of mouth.

Option #4: Forwarding to Scheduling Tools and Social Media

Sticking with the “domain forwarding” concept, you can forward your dormant domain to various scheduling tools and social media sites where visitors can connect with you on a more direct basis. You may forward your domain to scheduling tools like Calendly so that people can easily book meetings with you. You may forward your domain to your private Zoom link and then easily verbally share that with others rather than sending a cumbersome and easily mistyped code. You may forward your domain to your Linktree page so that people can easily find all your online content via one simple link. You may even forward your domain to your book or podcast. The possibilities here are endless.

At first glance this may not seem like a moneymaking opportunity, but depending on where you forward the domain to, it could be highly beneficial to you, helping with branding, saving you time, and in the right scenarios, dramatically increasing your profits as well.

As an example, I forward my domain RyanDiscovery.com directly to my Calendly. When people go to that domain, they land on my calendar and can easily schedule a Discovery call with me. When someone asks how they can contact me, I simply tell them that very easy-to-remember domain. This is one simple way that I implement the domain forwarding concept in my business. How can you use it to grow yours?

Option #5: Blog Monetization

The final option is blog monetization. This method takes the most work but gives you the most earning potential and the most control. Let’s look at this method as it applies to the example of your dormant cat domain. Your work would begin with setting aside a little time some afternoon to create a very simple blog. It doesn’t take much at the outset. You can write a few simple posts about cats, your cat, your favorite cat product, or anything cat-related at all. Once it’s complete, you can pepper the site with a variety of moneymaking methods.

My favorite method, and the easiest to use, is Google AdSense. Google AdSense will pay you very similarly to the domain parking system, except you will have the opportunity to curate your ads just a little bit. In the domain parking method, you really have no control over content and are completely hands-off. With Google AdSense, as an example, you can create a nice blog post about cat leashes, insert some code, and Google AdSense might show cat leash ads to your visitors. What does this mean to you? Much higher click-throughs than with the previous method because the ads are relevant to the content and the visitor, meaning more money for you!

Making money from blogs is a business in itself and can be expanded upon in a multitude of ways to continue that business growth, so we won’t get too far into detail in this article. But if you have an hour or two to spare and enjoy building simple websites, this is a fantastic way to put your dormant domain to work, and the methods I have outlined above are excellent for someone at the beginning of this process.

So Where Do You Start?

If you don’t have any spare domains sitting around and all you’ve got is a “great idea,” head on over to Vacares and register a domain now. Then use the tips above to put that domain to work right away so it doesn’t sit around collecting dust and racking up yearly fees.

And if you do have a collection of domains already collecting dust? Don’t waste more time beating yourself up over it, just start turning them into money right now! Even though your genius idea did not pan out yet and you have yet to follow through on the project, it’s easy to recover past fees and even make some extra cash with just a little bit of work. Try any of the five methods listed above and see which works best for you. Most importantly, don’t be afraid to test out each method on a different domain to see what you like best and what is most effective.

Who knows, this could be a very profitable side business for you in itself!