Buying a profitable website
 

Hi Guys

I'm looking to buy some profitable websites.

Does anyone follow this approach?

If so I would really appreciate any advice with regards to evaluating websites, and their potential worth.

I'm looksing for sites that earn around $250 to $500 in profit per month.

Re: Buying a profitable website
 

I have been thinking about this, but I came to the conclusion that I want to know how to make a profitable site before I start buying them. The reason for this is to, basically, avoid getting scammed or not "looking under the hood" properly. Same reason I would take a mechanic with me to buy a car.

For a site earning around 250 a month, you can expect to pay about 2.5k+. Flippa is a good place, just make sure you do your DD. The reason I'm waiting is because I don't really know what that DD is yet.

Re: Buying a profitable website
 

If you want to buy a profitable website make sure you know how you can keep it profitable for a long time.

When it relies on SEO factors and such, it can be extremely hard to maintain!

Re: Buying a profitable website
 

I did buy a site 4 months ago (well I actually inherited it) and it has gone well. I have taken the net profit from 50pm to 200pm. I have an idea what to do with seo etc.

I'd like to get a website that's doing around $250 and try and push i to much more - it would be a big challenge! My idea is to have about 20 of these sites in the end, using the profits to buy more sites as I go on!

Re: Buying a profitable website
 

Flippa I believe is the leader of the pack on where to buy. If I were you, I would check compete.com and alexa.com to get a snapshot of the traffic trends.

Re: Buying a profitable website
 

Hi Op,

Well I think buying websites is a great way to go, but as others have mentioned, you need to know what you are doing and then on top of that, there is always a risk.

You could have a bad deal or the site could not be as advertised or down the road (possibly not to far), the traffic or the way the site is monetized could dry up because of unforeseen circumstances.

That said, it's a solid way to get in the game or just to make some extra cash. If I was starting all over buying sites again, I would buy low and buy a few of them and let them build. I jumped in looking for the most bang for my buck and not all of them worked out.

I think I spend around 10K within 3 months and my ROI was around 2K per month 3 months later. That said, a lot of the $ dried up after a while because the methods the sites used to operate were not viable or profitable. I saw too many $$$ and went after that.

So my approach now would be to grab up a few sites that have proper KWR or monetizing methods and a base of traffic already with minimal earnings - like say $20 - $50 per month. Maybe buy 1-3 of them and take them as projects where you use proven methods to develop the sites and build traffic to increase profits.

Success with doing this? Then I would move ahead and do it again, either buying more of the same types of sites (earning wise) or larger sites.

Final piece of info I would share is do not get emotionally involved. It's a business decision. Emotion will lead to over bidding and other bad decisions. Make a plan and stick to it. Start small and scale.

Re: Buying a profitable website
 

Apart from flippa, where else can I look???

Re: Buying a profitable website
 

Flippa has little to no competition at this time so it's something you should check out, however, you need to do due diligence to avoid getting ripped off. I did a guest post for Flippa on it that may help you to know what to look out for.

http://flippa.com/blog/guest-post-th...due-diligence/

Re: Buying a profitable website
 

I checked that site but they seem not to have a good database.

Re: Buying a profitable website
 

If I were you I would look through high traffic blog sites with potential for affiliate marketing. A lot of bloggers don't realize the true value of the visitors they are receiving and so you could often take a quality high traffic blog off their hands for quite cheap and still retain a lot of their original followers.

Re: Buying a profitable website
 

The bigger question to ask before buying is, "If the website is profitable, why would they be selling it?" You might have better luck approaching people that don't have it listed for sale and make some offers. It never hurts to ask. Additionally, if you have a strong, concise domain name, your potential for profit increases because it's more memorable. So starting something from scratch is still a good idea.

Re: Buying a profitable website
 

Whilst I agree 100% that due diligence is required when purchasing websites I'm not sure the "Why would they be selling?" question works at all here. There are literally hundreds of reasons why people might sell otherwise great profitable websites, rather than keeping them.

Maybe they need a lump of money fast, maybe they are called Justin and Joe , maybe they don't want to do IM anymore, maybe they wanted to focus on other projects, maybe they were sent to afghanistan on duty...i mean who knows honestly. In short, if it seems too good to be true - it probably is, but dont spend too much mental focus on trying to guess why people are selling - you won't guess it :-)

Re: Buying a profitable website
 

I don't know that we're disagreeing Chris. Perhaps I wasn't clear enough. Certainly questions should be asked rather than to just assume that everything is OK. I was just making the point that "truly" profitable sites don't go on the market as often so it behooves the individual to be on guard and to know that there are other options.