Flipped my first site...well pleased

[abs007]

Hi All
I have only just become an affiliate and started to use cpa campaigns. Its going steady about $20-$30 a day at the moment. Anyway I bought a .info domain for myself to test out a few products for the cpa campaigns.

I wasnt planning on selling the site and if i was i know its best to go for a .com. Anyway it cost me $.99 for the domain. I already had a hosting account to host the site on. I then installed wordpress and started to build the site around my niche that I chose. I created 2 landing pages and outsourced about 10 articles which cost me $3 each. My work was done. I then added some backlinks and created a social media network around it. My sites traffic went to about 30 visitors a day with the highest being 50 in one day.

As my mind was going crazy with ideas on how to promote cpa offers I had already started my 2nd, 3rd and 4rth project. i then looked at other ways to make money also and came across sitepoint. Well I actually cam across it the day all sites got transferred to flippa.

I thought what the heck i'll give this site a go and see if it sells. I payed $20 to list my site. yesterday someone bought it from me for $275

I was pleased with this and it has given me confidence to start to build sites to sell. I also got this site to a page rank 1 and it was only registered on like the 22nd of june.

Oh yeh one more expense was to pay someone $10 to transfer the site from my host to the customers host

Anyway this is my storey which I though I would share with you guys.

[abs007]

Thank you for your kind words Imran

[Desmond Ong]

Well done abs007.

I'm sorry to say this but I think you will get hooked to site flipping soon. This has been happening to me and all my students as well as site flipping friends -- site flipping is ADDICTIVE!

$275 is a great price considering your site has .info instead of .com.

Good luck.

-Desmond

[abs007]

Thanks desmond
Maybe you can give a little advise - I like to think that im ok at seo and also enjoy working on seo - well I love seeing the results anyway. Would it be better for me to bbuild sites till they start to rank well on the search engines then seel them or just do the quick build and sell

cheers

[JeffLam]

Great!

But why did you decide to sell it if it was earning you $20/30 a day? $275 = ~ 10 days to earn.

Also, mind telling us the niche you were in?

[Joe Walter]

Nice post grats

[abs007]

Hi Jeff it was the weight loss niche.

I wasnt making $20-$30 of this site but from my other sites that I am running. Not one sale was made from the site I sold and it was clearly stated in the listing.

[birddog200]

This is nice to make some cash of of your site, but if you were

making that much per day. I think I would have kept it. But at least

now you know how to flip, and as a previous poster said.

"now you are hooked" haha.

[JeffLam]

Originally Posted by abs007

Hi Jeff it was the weight loss niche.

I wasnt making $20-$30 of this site but from my other sites that I am running. Not one sale was made from the site I sold and it was clearly stated in the listing.

Oops, my bad!

Great deal for you then!

Have some questions for you, check your PM.

Thanks!
Jeff

[Stefan Vee]

Very nice post. Congratulations!
Can we still see the auction?

[Stephen Root]

Congrats. First flip is always the best.. kinda like first affiliate sale.

[abs007]

Hi
Thanks alot all. the auction has been closed.
Yup deff hooked on site flipping but my speciality lies in seo and building organic results so I think i will do this first then flip sites - im hoping theres more money -

[sbucciarel]

Congratulations ... now you'll become a flipping maniac ...
It's a great way to make money online.

[abs007]

Hi Jeff
I received your message but will answer it here so all can see. I will not reveal your domains but will give some advise on what I think is needed from site flipping.

Now if i created a site to flip which I didnt in the first place then the procedure as far as I can think would be somewhat like this.

• Firstly find your market and your targeted audience
• choose a domain name - with a domain I would restrict it to 2-3 words so for example if i was to target the health niche then I would be looking for a domain such as goodhealth.com or ahealthylife.com - using hyphens is also ok but try to keep them to 1 at max - Just remember that the person who will be buying the site will want their visitors to remember the name so look for something catchy - Its also very advisable to have a good keyword in your domain.
• Get graphics for your website - a good header and logo will go along way to making your website look professional. Just remember the old saying dont judge a book by its cover - the reason this saying exists is because so many people do the exact opposite. So when they look at your site make them think WOW
• contents - contents on your website is very important. The more content the more urls which means more doorways for visitors to find your site with and google loves contents - they will reward you.
• Monetization- how will the new owner of the site make money - will it be by selling products or their own ebook or will it be affiliate linked like with CPA campaigns.

Personally I feel that the key to a good flip is to set up a website as if you wanted to keep it yourself and do all of the steps above - In reality you have set up a business which includes a business plan. A bonus will be to give the customer ideas of where the website can take them to.

If you do all of the above then I cant see there being a problem for flipping your site at a nice price.

A good thing to do is to go through the flippa website and have a look at the sites for sale and what ones are selling. Then go for it and create one.

For my website I gave some extra touches and took the domain out of the google sandbox and built backlinks to it. I was lucky to get a page rank 1 in such a short time - to be honest I was lucky with the timing as google updated the pagerank days after I created the site.

OOps I forgot to mention that I have only tested out flippa to sell websites on but know that this forum also supports website sales and so does digitalforums

[EmmaJames]

Thanks for the info...site flipping looks to be one
extremely profitable model...I've got to get busy
learning more about it...don't wanna miss the boat!

[Affiliate.Solutions]

Congrats on the quick return.

[Desmond Ong]

hey abs007,

Here's one tip for you for your success:

"Get a list of buyers".

Trust me. Lots of site flippers don't collect their buyer's emails which is stupid.


-Desmond

[yommys01]

Great I am happy for you man. I have about 3 sites to list but was afraid of losing money on the new market place but I guess I will list the site soon since you already sold one on the new market place.

[Charles Washington]

Originally Posted by abs007

Hi All

Oh yeh one more expense was to pay someone $10 to transfer the site from my host to the customers host

Good call! I'm glad you had the mentality to do this. That was well worth $10!

[Adrian Cooper]

Originally Posted by JeffLam

Great!

But why did you decide to sell it if it was earning you $20/30 a day? $275 = ~ 10 days to earn.

Also, mind telling us the niche you were in?

Congrats, but the buyer got a great deal.

For a site with a small but steady income you would expect to get 6 to 12 months net profit - after any PPC costs - for a growing site up to 3 years annual sales.

Keep in Mind that bank interest is about 0.5% if that. If you can buy a site that runs on autopilot and could make 50% or 100% per year return, that would be amazing to most people.

Site flipping will be huge soon, but I would want to show 12 months increasing net profit to get a good price.

[mikeyman120]

Great Job,
Sounds like you did what most people can't, you started to make money right away.
Thanks for the tip on sitepoint.

Mike

[abs007]

Thanks for the great posts guys.

Oh yes I will make sure I keep hold of my customers emails and give them the first opportunity to buy my sites before they go up for sale. Thanks for the advise.

Ive got some sites that I will be working on soon to put up on the market.

The best thing about site flipping is that you enjoy it. If you enjoy doing something then go for it.

Now that ive made a sale I am happy to work on more sites and if they dont sell then i will not be at a loss. well I would have lost my time however I will make sites to make money so worst case scenario will be to make money from google adsense which isnt all that bad.

I feel that people who can give a website a good start off are the ones who will make it in the site flipping industry.

From now on my sites will be sold once they start to make money so they increase the value.

Just to clarify that the site I sold never made any money whatsoever - however the design was ok and so was the landing pages that I created. This was the key for the sale. If you looked at the website then it was easy to see how you could make money from it and the future prospects of the site.

One thing that came to my mind today was how to increase the value of a site when your flipping it. I think it would be a great idea to give a future growth plan or a future tactics plan showing where the website can be if they continued to build on it.

Some buyers would like a site they can keep and just inject them with backlinks to maintain the position and increase the serps - other may like a website they can grow with a clear way forward plan. If you give one to with your site anyway its not gonna hurt.

When creating a site with the intention of flipping it then its vital you know what way you are heading in as you will need to explain this on the listing.

A well thought out plan will go a long way to becoming a successful plan

[JeffLam]

Originally Posted by abs007

Hi Jeff
I received your message but will answer it here so all can see. I will not reveal your domains but will give some advise on what I think is needed from site flipping.

Now if i created a site to flip which I didnt in the first place then the procedure as far as I can think would be somewhat like this.

• Firstly find your market and your targeted audience
• choose a domain name - with a domain I would restrict it to 2-3 words so for example if i was to target the health niche then I would be looking for a domain such as goodhealth.com or ahealthylife.com - using hyphens is also ok but try to keep them to 1 at max - Just remember that the person who will be buying the site will want their visitors to remember the name so look for something catchy - Its also very advisable to have a good keyword in your domain.
• Get graphics for your website - a good header and logo will go along way to making your website look professional. Just remember the old saying dont judge a book by its cover - the reason this saying exists is because so many people do the exact opposite. So when they look at your site make them think WOW
• contents - contents on your website is very important. The more content the more urls which means more doorways for visitors to find your site with and google loves contents - they will reward you.
• Monetization- how will the new owner of the site make money - will it be by selling products or their own ebook or will it be affiliate linked like with CPA campaigns.

Personally I feel that the key to a good flip is to set up a website as if you wanted to keep it yourself and do all of the steps above - In reality you have set up a business which includes a business plan. A bonus will be to give the customer ideas of where the website can take them to.

If you do all of the above then I cant see there being a problem for flipping your site at a nice price.

A good thing to do is to go through the flippa website and have a look at the sites for sale and what ones are selling. Then go for it and create one.

For my website I gave some extra touches and took the domain out of the google sandbox and built backlinks to it. I was lucky to get a page rank 1 in such a short time - to be honest I was lucky with the timing as google updated the pagerank days after I created the site.

OOps I forgot to mention that I have only tested out flippa to sell websites on but know that this forum also supports website sales and so does digitalforums

Thanks for the prompt reply!

Which brings me to my next question: How important is the ranking of the site on Google for the sale of the site?

Jeff

[easylearning]

Good post. If you want to make money on the internet, you must take action.

[abs007]

Hi Jeff
Again I would say that the better rankings you can get the more your site will be worth. The reason I say this is because either you have better rankings which means getting more visitors or its easier for the buyer to improve on the rankings to get more visitors.

Sometimes better rankings doesnt mean more visitors.- Let me explain

If your website is on page 10 of google then your not gonna get noticed. If your website is on page 5 of google then more then likely your not gonna get noticed. Although the site ranks better on page 5 doesnt necessarily mean more visitors however what it does mean is that if the new owner worked on the site then it would be easier to bring the site on page 5 to page 1 sooner then the one on page 10.

Hope that makes sense.

However some people may not check the rankings of a domain and may only look at the traffic. With traffic well, it can be generated in many ways - you can use the web 2.0 sites to your advantage to leverage traffic - use bookmarks and various other methods other then the search engines. However getting your site to page 1 of google is a massive bonus and am sure you will get a nice reward from the right buyer.

Saying that I have a website built around free xbox games and consoles on page 1 of google. It has a competition level of 50 000 000 and I have 3 pages on the first page of google- 2 pages are web 2.0 sites and the 3rd is the actual home page of the website. The potential is massive and I have a great plan for the site. If anyone is interested before it go's on the market then hit me with a Pm -

Please note getting a website to page 1 of google in a competition level of 50 000 000 is not easy and the keyw -phrase it ranks for is xbox 360 free games. This keyword is searched for 40 500 times a month and you will be on page 1.

Hook me up with a PM for full details

[abs007]

For all those that sent me a message please check your PM

I will wait till I get replies from you guys before I stick it up for auction

cheers

[Desmond Ong]

Originally Posted by JeffLam

Thanks for the prompt reply!

Which brings me to my next question: How important is the ranking of the site on Google for the sale of the site?

Jeff

Hey Jeff,

If you can bring your site up onto the first page of Google -- that's great. That will be a very good selling point.

For example, you can pitch something like "This site XYZ.com currently sits on Google's first page results for the competitive keyword XYZ! This proves how powerful our SEO efforts that we implemented onto this site!"

[JaniG]

thats great

i managed to sell a site i made for $177 and it took like a few hours to make

i sold it a few days after i made it

site flipping is awsome

[abs007]

Great news team fire

yes there is definitely money to be made. The key to this is monetizing your site and your customer knowing what they will get back and what the future holds for the site.

At the end of the day the buyer of your site is making an investment so give him something good to invest in. The more info the better. Just be clear about your listings and work on returning customers

[Roger Mayne]

This is a really inspiring thread. I've built a site purely for flipping. It's the first project of its kind that I've personally done. Others I've flipped have been sites that I've run in the past, then sold on.

So far I've had 10 articles written and have submitted 7 of them to the blog directly, 2 to EZA, and the last one will also go to EZA. I've also started to bookmark each post to build traffic and backlinks, as well as a few comments on other related blogs.

Traffic is slowly increasing, but no income yet. Hoping it will be profitable in the end. Only things I've paid for so far is content ($50), domain name ($10) and eventually the site listing ($20) = $80. Hoping for at least $200 on the sale to make it worthwhile spending time on.

[abs007]

I cant see there being a problem with that swifty

Sounds like you know what your doing and will be able to give a descriptive listing in order for the new buyer to make a great offer.

Personally if i was to pay that much then I would want more out of it. Dont forget not only is it the money you invest but also your time.

The way im working on my domains now is that I create the website as needed then place all of my articles on the site and schedule them to publish themselves. When I have done about 3 sites I take time out to work on the backlinks and web 2.0 sites for them.

One of the problems i have been noticing is the jumps in the search engines. As the domains im getting are new they jump to the top then disappear then come back then disappear then they find their own position on the web.

I advise you guys what I advise myself which is to stay focused and not to be too optimistic and hopefully we will all be in for surprises

cheers

[JWT]

Site flipping is something I took an interest in a while ago but didn't follow it up. Think I may have to look again now this post has sparked my interest.......

[James12C]

Thanks - I was never certain what site flipping was!

[abs007]

One thing that I thought I would mention is that if your going to be flipping sites then flip a site that you would like to buy yourself. The worse case scenario will be that you wont sell it but keep it. Any successful site flipper will be able to make money of any domain.

Although choosing the right domain name and so on has the benefits but its true if you know how to make money then you can apply the formula to any domain. the reason domains are so important when flipping a site is because they need to be catchy and something the customer will like.

So as long as you have a good plan from the point of buying your domain you will not be at a loss

For those that dont use CPA offers then I would suggest you get into them and become an affiliate. Many people buy sites with CPA offers and adsense in mind - its the easy way round. Others like selling their own ebook and other building mailing lists.

go fo it and test it out -

[abs007]

Originally Posted by teamfire

thats great

i managed to sell a site i made for $177 and it took like a few hours to make

i sold it a few days after i made it

site flipping is awsome

Thats great stuff teamfire

Can I just ask why you spent so much money to make the site and what was the profit at the end of it?

cheers

[parzlou]

Congrats on your first site flip ...
I find site flips are my favorite revenue stream by far I enjoy building em up and gettin em fat to bring to market .

peace

[abs007]

Hi Parzlou
Maybe you can give us a little advise. Should we hold on to a site and build traffic before we sell them. I mean if I spent 3 months on any site im sure I can take it to the page 1 of google.

Would this be a better idea or just buy a domain do it up a little and build little traffic then sell it on.

The reason im asking is because im not certain as to what the market is like for more established sites

cheers

[parzlou]

I am in no way an expert on this and There are a couple differing opinions ......a year or so ago all you needed was any basic wp themed site with a few plr articles and some you tube vids , throw in a cpa offer or two or maybe some ebay auctions and you could turn em over as fast as you could build em ..
I did a few of those with meager returns for sure but if you did enuff then you made nice money
now I like to take my time with em use original articles and do some backlink building let the sites get indexed and if you can show some income from cpas or adsense you got a winner ..
Like I say I am not the best for you as far as advice there are lots of pro site flippers on this forum seek them out ... one I know of for sure has already commented on your thread

If you have any questions give me pm and I will do my best to help

[abs007]

Hi
Thanks alot for the advise - yeh I have a feeling imran is the pro you are referring to. If you read this Imran it would be great for a little advise.

My skills lye in building organic results and I like to think i am good at it. I know by giving a website which ranks on page 1 will get you much more money then it the site was on page 4 for competitive key-phrases. the only problem that I can see is that link building can be fairly time consuming so if i was to go down the route of getting wesbites established before I sell them then I would like a much better reward for the work.

I mean if it only made a little difference to the price then its clearly not worth doing it like this but rather pop up websites build a little traffic then sell them on

cheers

[Mike Hersh]

Seems like you're on the right track to me

Working on a few project is never easy and can get you distracted easily. If you know that you can manage a few projects all together than go for it, multiple sources of income are always great for people who know how to work on all of them.

Good luck in your next project,

Mike G

[abs007]

cheers mike
I think the key to it is to stay organized. i have a excel file for each domain with a new email account for each one and links to the backlinks i have created and the web 2.0 sites- i also have my keywords listed in the spreadsheet.

I only do this so that I dont have to remember where i was when i left off.

I think its a good idea to do this for any site you will flip as well - its like when you sell a car and it has a full service history. Do this for your site and give a full history of how it has been built from the date of registration to the web 2.0 accounts - backlinks and keywords researched

[triosolutions]

Congrats! Nice work. Actions speak louder than words.

[Roger Mayne]

Originally Posted by abs007

cheers mike
I think the key to it is to stay organized. i have a excel file for each domain with a new email account for each one and links to the backlinks i have created and the web 2.0 sites- i also have my keywords listed in the spreadsheet.

I only do this so that I dont have to remember where i was when i left off.

I think its a good idea to do this for any site you will flip as well - its like when you sell a car and it has a full service history. Do this for your site and give a full history of how it has been built from the date of registration to the web 2.0 accounts - backlinks and keywords researched

That's a great idea and something I never thought of! I need to get more organized with my details. I guess you would include that as part of your sales material too, to help the new owner when you transfer the site?

[abs007]

Hi swiftdeal
The way I see it is that the more you can give with your site the more you will make. Just go a few extra miles or add a little more value then other website sellers - once you build a name in the market your customers will buy of you blind folded as they know what to expect.

Only sell quality sites or at the least make them look appealing

[thezone]

I bought a flipped site once, damn thing had problems with foundation advertising. I really should have known! It was a .us.ca, apparently hosted in southern cali, and went through a major quake, and was riddled with termite advertising.

[JennJessop]

WOW Congrats on your sale! And that much for a .info! again congrats, glad to see your hard work is paying off!