Bought My First Website - Good Decision?

I forgot to mention it came with 450 subscribers list, an android app, Facebook account, and twitter. Also all the traffic is free seo content. I just want to make sure I should hop in for sure and follow through with the investment or just buy a domain, get hosting, and have a site built to which I can add content..

Ultimately it comes down to what it would have cost you to build all of that yourself and get it to the level its currently at. Also factor in the time savings.

There's a lot of variables when it comes to price valuation. If you only keep it at $200 per month in profits you will make back your investment within a year, which is not a bad payback period.

If you are able to find higher quality affiliate products that convert even better and are able to add quality content and use some marketing techniques to pre-sell your affiliate offers I would think you could do quite well with 13,000 unique visitors per month.

I've got websites that make $200 per month on less than 1,000 unique visitors so it sounds like you may have something you can work with. The REAL key for you will be to work hard and follow thru and test everything to make sure your "improvements" actually achieve what you want.

Having a site already built, along with an app, subscriber lists, etc. can give you good leg up to help you get moving faster, but as you gain more experience you may find you can do better building your own sites from scratch. It's just a matter of how much work you want to do upfront.

Good move if you can optimise it. Improve the content and the layout and place appropriate affiliate links. If possible add social media to the mix. Its great for SEO and building traffic.

I you really focus aon adding more content, engaging more people and building a bigger list, then it's definately worth the money you paid for it.

I wouldn't necessarily focus on adding affiliate links though (unless it's a review site), and more focus on bringing down the bounce rate, and maybe find new traffic sources. The dating niche is huge so shouldn't be a problem imo.

Good luck!

Seems like a well thought out purchase and have/getting some great ideas on improvements. Definitely do your research on the history of interactions with the list and keep them engaged. If you have your own style you want to bring to that engagement you may want to see how closely it aligns with the current relationship and alter over time as you grow. A drastic change in the relationship may disconnect you from some of the investment you just made and that would suck....

Best wishes!!!

I am sure that you didn't make a bad decission. It might have cost you $2000, but with that kind of traffic you should easily be able to make it back within 2 to 3 months if you monetize your site right.

I would recommend setting up a lead capture on the front page, so that you can start building your list and perhaps make some quick cash with some PPL (Pay Per Lead) programs.

That way you are making money at the same time you are building out the site

This strikes me as a situation where it's not a clear-cut case of right or wrong. Even if it "fails," it still could've been a sound speculation to begin with; not every venture succeeds.

As for if this specific investment is a good idea, I'll with-hold my response ... because without doing a more in-depth analysis, and comparing it to other options available, it isn't clear if it was an appropriate investment. Generally, no investment can be evaluated in a vacuum. Comparing it to multiple choices allows you to get a better feel for your options. It gives you a benchmark against which to understand each individual investment more clearly ... and the value of each.

With that in mind, I'd simply advise that you focus on refining your ability to analyze which businesses to buy in the future. Find ways to compare multiple options, and then select the best one to go with.

Also, your hard-won experience in buying, and building businesses will help you fine-tune this selection process over time, of course.

This is the problem - sounds like you’re a newbie so you won't have the experience of growing sites. but good luck with it.

You need to bring the site to next level and that is where the real potential is. I believe you are a beginner so be sure to build the site up to next level in all ways.

Sounds as though you have a pretty good opportunity for learning some valuable lessons.

Several good ideas have been offered up too.

I would add, with the traffic you have coming now, what ever changes you make - do them slowly. And one change at a time.

You want to have a good feel for 'manipulating' the traffic with your change. Before the change you determine to make, decide what your desired outcome is off the change, and then allow your traffic to be the test whether or not you made the right decision.

With a whole bunch of simultaneous changes you won't know what was good vs. what wasn't. And really waste your time.

Another thing, do you know where the traffic is currently coming from now? If you mentioned I missed it above. Knowing your traffic source might help determine where to start change(s) for testing and tracking.

Doug

Excellent advice Doug! I hadn't thought of how making a bunch of changes at once would affect my ability to determine what was good and what wasn't. Also, basically all traffic is currently coming from google I believe. There are a few keyword phrases where it's actually #1 on google search. My first plan was to change the look a bit, needs some color and layout changes. After that I figured I couldn't go wrong with adding more quality articles personally written by myself, as I have a lot of knowledge to offer on the content. Once I've effectively added better content and made the site better looking and user friendly, thus making for a better bounce rate, better seo, and page views, then I will focus on the business aspect of improving the ctr and percent of viewers that actually purchase by adding better products along with quality reviews, my own ebook, and begin focus on using Ppc and paid Facebook advertising. All one step at a time, in order to turn this into a steady stream of income. Keep in mind I am going to be focusing on this full time, and I'll add more sites as I learn more and become better. Does this sound like a solid strategy?

Doug shares an excellent point. Think of it as a conversation with the viewer. Each page picks up where the last page left off. If you test more than one at a time, you can't be sure if the improvement or decrement in results is the cause of the changes on the page ... or due to the different frame set by the page before it (which also changed). End-to-end testing of it as a continuous conversation being preferable.

If it was making a consistent 200/month then it would have been worth $2000. However, if it is really only making $30/month then it was only really worth $300.

You said it made an average of 30-200/month...I don't know what that means because that's not an average. You should have found the actual average monthly earnings before negotiating price.

You bought it so it must have seemed like a great deal to you. If you can make it profitable, great. If not, then consider it a lesson learned.

Every website has it's price. $2000 can be way to much for certain sites and not nearly enough for others. I've purchased a handful of sites from Flippa, enough that I have silver buyer status (whatever that means).

I believe that the #1 factor when looking at a site with existing traffic is the traffic sources and more importantly the backlink profile. You wouldn't believe how many sites have a terribly bad backlink profiles. It's just a matter of time before the site stops ranking.

When I go through the Flippa listings, a lot of the sites have 5K visitors a month then you look at their traffic stats and they immediately shot up from 0 visitors to 3-4K 2 months ago, then up to 5K the last month.

Do you realize how tough it is to legitimately and organically build up subscribers in a 2 month span? Not many people can get a jump like that overnight.

It doesn't have many back links. I can work on that though. 81% of traffic is google/organic. 15% is direct. I am wondering if anyone knows the easiest method of getting yahoo and bing organic traffic?

seems interesting really

I'll keep everyone updated, we're still working on transferring everything into my accounts and should be done in the next day or two. Once everything is transferred I will begin work and keep you up to speed on my progress.