Newbie's experience with first website flip

[Harmony]

I get a lot of great info from WF and wanted to contribute my experience of a website flip.

I got the notion to do a flip from an email from a marketer. I followed his basic directions (which are included below) plus some info from the forum. I wasn't sure about the process working, but thought 'what the heck' I would try it. 3 days later, I made $50 on sitepoint.com. A ton of money - no. More experience under my hat - yes.

So this is what I did.

1. Checked out Sitepoint's marketplace for websites that were either purchased (u can still see these grayed out) or had a few bids. My thinking - if folks were buying those niche websites that increased my chances of success.

2. Did research on the keywords based on the niches I found to be selling. This was mostly so I could select a keyword rich domain name.

3. Purchased domain name with namecheap.com - keyword related domain of course. Pointed the domain to my hosting account.

4. Created a website using weebly.com. (Wordpress would work as well) The website had four pages. Home, Books, Products, and Videos.

5. I created my own banner using Photoshop. Very simple look - preschoolers can coordinate colors better than I can.

6. Added Adsense, Amazon affiliated books, Ebay ads for the product on ebay, videos from youtube and google video.

7. Wrote intro paragraphs on the topic on the home page

8. Downloaded site from weebly and uploaded to my hosting account (I already owned an account with hostgator).

9. Placed the auction on sitepoint with a buy it now (BIN) of $50. I made the auction for 3 days. I only offered to change the affiliate links and push it to the buyer's account.

10. Answered a few emails from interested buyers.

11. Buyer purchased it at BIN, paid for it via Paypal. (No matter how much money it is, it is always FANTASTIC to be sent money.)

12. I pushed the domain to the buyer's namecheap account and emailed a .zip file of the website.

From beginning to end the process was about 3 days. A few hours one day to make the site, the domain/hosting stuff takes a day or so, and listing the auction another day. My site sold in a few hours after I posted it up.

I did make two websites but one didn't sell. ( I also didn't base that site on what was currently selling.) The non-seller I'm using as an adsense site for myself.

So total I made $33 minus cost of domain name and posting sitepoint auction. It pales in comparison to some of the $3,000 in 24 hours posts seen here on the forum. However I was able to prove to myself this process can work and can make me cash in short period of time.

There are other techniques that can vastly improve on what I've done.

Hopes this help someone 'thinking' about doing a flip (or anything) and afraid to take the first step.

[tonybhachu]

Hi Harmony,
Congratulations on your first flip! You're no longer a virgin
Keep building and keep flipping - the more experience you gain the better you'll become at it and the more money you'll be able to sell your sites for.
All the best,
Tony

[Ben Roy]

Congratulations on selling a site.

One of things I wonder about when I see people doing this is how they manage to sell new sites for decent amounts of money. Whenever I've looked at sites for sale, potential buyers all seem to want the same thing I do: an established site with a history of traffic and earnings. I'm foggy on who is paying $3000 for a brand new site with no track record behind it.

[Lindsay Brynn]

Great job. Flipping websites is really fun. Next time you might want to not have a BIN because maybe you could have gotten some more money letting some people fight over the site.

And remember that if you monetize a site well for several months you can sell your site for 12x monthly earnings or more. That's where the real money is made.

[tonybhachu]

Originally Posted by linm

And remember that if you monetize a site well for several months you can sell your site for 12x monthly earnings or more. That's where the real money is made.

Hey Lindsay - You can sell sites for a lot more than that and in fact, I've sold sites for up to 37x earnings.

Kind Regards,
Tony

[Eric X Vignola]

its ok to be eager for quick cash but if you hold out then you can make a lot more money. its hard though, i have a problem with patience as well

congratulations of course!

[Eric Lorence]

Congratulations...

With that said, that is less than minimum wage.

Definitely work on more lucrative projects in the future.

Best!

[Harmony]

Thanks all. And all the facts pointed out are very true.

Making a quick buck is fine, but not nearly as good as building a long-term business. That does require patience and planning.

I don't think flipping is for me, the period of waiting to see if the site will sell is killer. If I'm going to build, I'd rather hold the site and income for myself (for a while at least).

[Desmond Ong]

you did pretty well. once you flip more sites, you can set up your sites within an hour and sell it in the next hour.

Congrats

[mosilager]

Congrats on the sale, I hope in the next few months to be like you and no longer be a "virgin" at selling sites.

I've taken the 1st step, got my hosting at HG, and put together some easy sites using free WP themes, so hopefully I'll have the courage to dive into niche markets and see how I fare there!.

Thanks for the encouragement, it shows that even total newbs who follow good advice can make some money!.

cheers

[Zacman]

Hi,

I'm new here but very active online in general and at other forums.

I find it very interesting building sites just to flip them. Obviously if you can make some of the higher figures you mentioned that others have there is money to be made.

I wonder though, if the same energy, time and thought were put into a good content site if the income wouldn't be better. Not to mention a quality site that gets tons of traffic can be monetized in so many ways and will continue to make money with very little effort at some point for years to come.

Flipping sites seems to me to be short term income.

My 2 cents,
Zacman

[dmarze]

Congratulations! Keep building sites and remember - good sites will always sell.