Site Flipping Tips: $3000 - $6000 For Every Site I Flip - Here's How

[martinp]

Hi Warriors,

Thought I might post something to help out the site flippers here on the forum. Site flipping was all the rage last year but seems to have lost its popularity in recent times. Why? I think it’s mainly because people were building small content sites and selling them on straight away for just a few dollars - the market just got too saturated.

When I first started flipping brand new sites I was able to get up to $150 for a 10 page content site – now I’d be lucky to get $60 for the same site. That’s only $6 per article (not to mention the time it actually took to put the site together). Because of this many would be site flippers have just given up.

Anyway, I’ve had some success flipping sites so I thought I’d post a few tips. Plenty of people are doing this already, but for those who don’t it’s a nice little cash earner – and very easy to do (as long as you have a few basic skills).

What people want (and will pay good money for) is sites that have traffic and are already earning money. They don’t have to be earning a lot, and they don’t even have to be that old, but flipping brand new, no traffic, no earnings sites just doesn’t cut it anymore.

By the way this is what I do myself, so I’m not just talking out of my hat!

Here goes:

Step 1 - Find a niche

Generally I just go to Clickbank and look at the top 5 products in each category - if they have a high gravity then they’re obviously selling well so I might choose one and base a site around a particular product. I also take a look at CBTrends and take a look at the top 100 most researched/requested products.

For instance if I chose Fat Loss 4 Idiots my niche site would be based around fat loss (fat loss as opposed to weight loss as I want to keep it as targeted as possible).

Step 2 – Keyword research

I used to use Free Keyword Suggestion Tool From Wordtracker but nowadays I prefer the Google Adwords keyword tool at https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal - both are good though.

Look for keywords that correspond to the product you’ve chosen.
E.g. if I chose the product ‘Reverse Phone Detective’ I could use keywords such as:

“reverse phone number look up” – according to the Google keyword tool that exact phrase was searched for 40,500 times in August. Our competition on Google is only 64,000 so this keyword should be easy to rank for.

I choose 10 – 15 long tail keywords that I can base my sites articles around.

Step 3 – Choosing a domain

I would choose a domain name with the keyword in it – for instance if reversephonenumberlookup.com (or .net) was available (it's not) I could use that. 90% of the time I can rank on page 1 of Google for the phrase included in the domain name so it is important to choose carefully.

Step 4 - Create your site

I generally either get a free template from Open Source Web Design. and use NVU, or I use wordpress (I like the templates at Wordpress Themes and Wordpress Themes and create it like a html site (using a static page). I start by writing and adding 10-15 articles to the site – all of them based around a particular searched for keyword.

Next add in your affiliate program. One of your articles should be a good review of this product and I always have a short presell on the main site page as well.


Step 5 - Promote your site

The first thing I do is submit some articles – I usually start with about 10. I submit the majority to Ezinearticles and the rest I submit using Article Post Robot to the top 15-20 directories. Submitting GOOD articles to Ezinearticles will get you traffic and sales from the first week. Use appropriate anchor text and link to both the home page and internal pages.

The next thing I do is social bookmark the site with Social bookmarking service. Fast tagging and posting to all major social websites - SocialMarker.com

Depending on the niche I might also do some forum posting with a link to my site in my sig. I find topic related forums at The largest Message Boards and Forums on the web!

Step 6 – Using Web 2.0 sites

I build a Squidoo lens, a Hubpage and a wiki at Wikidot - Free Wiki Hosting to provide more backlinks (and some extra traffic) for my site. When selling my site I always include the Squidoo lens but I don’t think you can transfer a hubpage or wiki.

Step 7 – Site maintenance

I always monitor each site closely to see how traffic and earnings are progressing. If they’re not, I submit more articles to Ezinearticles, do more forum posting, blog commenting etc. However if you’ve chosen a niche with little optimized competition you shouldn’t have to do too much to rank your site well. I also keep my Squidoo lens updated as well, because a high-ranking lens with lots of good unique content will add value to the sale. Generally I might only spend 30 minutes a week on maintaining the site.

Step 8 – Sell your site

I only sell on Digitalpoint and Sitepoint – maybe I’m only limiting myself because I haven’t tried any others but they work for me. If I’ve had a steady income for 3 months in a row (or a steadily increasing income) then my site is ready to sell. Generally I get 6-10 times monthly income (a lot more for Adsense though), which may not seem like a lot, but because the site is still quite new it’s probably reasonable.

If you wanted to keep the site longer then you would probably earn more, but I like to sell my sites in between 4-6 months.

The whole setting up the site process should only take you a day or two at most – much less if you outsource. Plus you’ll get quicker every time you do it.

Although this is basically what I do written out in the simplest of steps, it’s still necessary to have some marketing skills - good article marketing and preselling being the main ones, plus of course the ability to create a simple website.

It actually isn’t that hard though – this is all information that you probably knew, it’s just a matter of putting it into practice. If instant cash is what you’re looking for this may not be the method for you, because although you’ll have earnings from your sites you won’t get the big sale payout for at least 4 months.

Just think though – if you built one site per week or more (and kept it up week after week), in a few months time you could be earning a 6 figure income from site flipping!

All the best,
Martin

P.S. Why not try setting up a site now and try selling it in a few months for a bit of extra cash for Christmas!

[Terry Kyle]

Sincere thanks for your generous sharing Martin.

A post in the best spirit of the WF.

[Jeff Hope]

Thank you Martin - I wish we had far more of this type of post and far fewer of the self-promotional variety that seems to be running rampant around here these days.

[Kat Bartone]

Martin,

Thanks for the informative post. I have a quick question...

What's involved in transferring the HOSTING of the flipped site?

And do you ever use addon domains for this? Seems like it could get pretty pricey paying for hosting, esp if you want to flip a lot of sites.

Thanks,

Kat Bartone

[martinp]

Originally Posted by Kat Bartone

Martin,

Thanks for the informative post. I have a quick question...

What's involved in transferring the HOSTING of the flipped site?

And do you ever use addon domains for this? Seems like it could get pretty pricey paying for hosting, esp if you want to flip a lot of sites.

Thanks,

Kat Bartone

Hi, I use Hostgator reseller hosting at $24.95 per month. I've had up to 100 sites at one time hosted with them for that price. All I do to transfer the site is send the site files and push the domain (I use Namecheap) to the new owner. They just set it up on their own hosting themselves afterwards. It's very straightforward. Wordpress is a different matter though and isn't quite so straightforward.

[Paul Buckley]

Well that's too bad. I like building WP sites :P

[Amy Bass]

Wow thanks for sharing! Some great advice here.

[Nixter]

Nice one, thank you for that. Just a question, if someone buys a site like this how long will the traffic stay at current levels without doing more promotion (i.e. writing new articles/content etc.)?

[macchiavelli]

This post is filled with great information and could easily be made into a report to be sold!
But my main thing always is: if my website earns me good money, why sell it?

But then again, a bunch of cash upfront is always sweet.

I never got any successfull sales out of DP forum, I did with sitepoint.
I sold 1 site with no revenue just a great ebook on there for $1900...I was so happy!

[k0zm0zs0ul]

Great post, thanks for that. I use hostgators baby hosting so I would probably need to upgrade in order to do this, correct? Also, why is wp more difficult..any tips on what makes transferring wp different, and how to go about it? That is primarily what I use.
Thanks
Cori

[Chris Hunter]

Yeah, I'd like to know more about transferring WP blogs to a buyer.

I guess a lot of problems happen because of the MySql database, huh?

[Jeff Hope]

Also, why is wp more difficult..any tips on what makes transferring wp different, and how to go about it?

Mainly because WP uses a database to store both content and settings. The database must be created on the buyer's server, and the tables & data restored.

Chris - not necessarily problems. It's not difficult, but is more involved than transferring plain HTML pages.

[Chris Hunter]

Originally Posted by Jeff Hope

Mainly because WP uses a database to store both content and settings. The database must be created on the buyer's server, and the tables & data restored.

Chris - not necessarily problems. It's not difficult, but is more involved than transferring plain HTML pages.

Jeff,

Thanks for the explanation.

So if you make a database backup before transfer, the buyer should be able to simply import the database and be off and running with the site, right?

[Jeff Hope]

Originally Posted by Chris Hunter

So if you make a database backup before transfer, the buyer should be able to simply import the database and be off and running with the site, right?

Pretty much that's the case. Remember though that a lot of buyers may not be comfortable with, or even know how to carry out, that process. It may be something they want the seller to do - perhaps for an extra fee, not sure about that.

Also, WP won't display properly at the new location until the domain name resolves there (due to some of the WP settings). The buyer may worry that something is wrong, etc. Plus, you won't really know if the installation went well until it's resolving - may have to go in & tweak things, etc.

On the other hand, because WP is so popular, and buyers know they can make their own updates, etc., I have to wonder if the extra hassle for the seller will make sites that much easier to flip. We have to sell markets what they want, and if buyers want WP, then that's what we should sell them.

[bmac]

Hi Martin, I am doing this, but I'm using the ireporter tool. It's costing me $10 bucks a month to have this blog and I still don't have complete control of all the space, I have a question...Once I have chosen a domain name is there a FREE blogging service that I could host my domain on.

[Michael D]

Originally Posted by bmac

Hi Martin, I am doing this, but I'm using the ireporter tool. It's costing me $10 bucks a month to have this blog and I still don't have complete control of all the space, I have a question...Once I have chosen a domain name is there a FREE blogging service that I could host my domain on.

Yes there is a free blogging script and it is widely used called Wordpress. For less then 10 dollars a month you will have complete control over your blog. There are thousands of free themes and plugins that you can choose from. Your initial investment will be a domain name (you can find coupons for GoDaddy and Namecheap to get a domain for about 7 bucks. After that your hosting will be the only cost which would be cheaper then 10 dollars a month. The biggest benefit is the full control over your blog.

[motivated]

Another solution if you don't know how to move a Wordpress blog is to include hosting in the sale. I do this and use a hosting company that provides end-user support - i.e. they provide hosting support to your customers as if it was coming from you.

It's a solution for the short term if you don't want to learn the technical Wordpress stuff. With ebay you can charge monthly hosting fees too but saying that it's getting a bit more difficult to sell sites these days on Ebay. However I'm hoping it's just the summer slowdown and it may pick up towards winter.

[Mark Riddle]

When creating a site to flip, make sure that you are creating a site that has long term potential.

Especially if you are wanting to build a business building and selling sites.

an Olympics site will have a longer term value than a China 2008 site.

Mark

[napoleonfirst]

A good service to get cheap domains with much traffic is Domainersedge.com. What you can do is buying domain names that are related to your topic, and add the traffic to your main site using redirection. Also you can sell the domain in the aftermarket of godaddy.

[Ephrils]

Post Favorited. I'm looking into Site Flipping and will definitely use this outline later. Thanks

[Ricky Ticky Toc]

hey read the part about the reseller hosting account you have and pay $24.95 per month im currently in the process of flipping sites, i have only done 4 so far but i make extra money from the hosting telling the people that buy them from me that i will also offer them hosting for just $8 a month with unlimited everything, and i only pay £2.50 about $5 for my reseller account.

[bauger]

Great article
It was very informative. I'm surprisedthis wan't made into a report and sold fora few bucks

[Frank Bruno]

Hey Martin, very nicely laid out flipping strategy that you shared here.

But just think about how much money you would be making if you held on to all those sites long-term?

Then one day you can sell all of them in one giant bundle in your portfolio for huge amount of money. LOL

Frank Bruno

[Christie Love]

Hi Martin,

Very well put. I've come across a few people who only want to buy sites that are generating income. Good point.

[Ron Killian]

Great post Martin.. Thanks! We need more like these..

I had one question if you don't mind. Did I understand you right, sites running Adsense ads are usually worth more?

[Chuck Underwood]

Martin,
Thank you so much for sharing.

This type of info is what I love about this place.

Chuck

[ibringjoy]

Thanks, Martin!

Step-by-step instructions like this are so very useful!

I really appreciate it.

Kathryn

[derekwong28]

Thanks for the info.

"If I’ve had a steady income for 3 months in a row (or a steadily increasing income) then my site is ready to sell. Generally I get 6-10 times monthly income"

This is the problem, why would you want to sell a site for a seemlingly knockdown price? Unless you have reasonable expectation that the earnings of the site will go down quickly over time. Of course this happens all the time with new sites and I have been had before. But this will affect your reputation in the long run if your sites perform poorly in the long run.

-Derek

[terryd]

You mentioned that you would earn more for a adsense site, how much more?

[williamtan]

Hi Martin,

Just wondering if you will be earning more, in the long run, if you hold on to your sites?

Regards, William

[braver55b]

Thanks Martin,

When I first began reading this post, I was about to dismiss it as something I already knew, boy was I wrong especially step 6.

Well done

[martinp]

Thanks everyone for the positive feedback, I really appreciate it. Here's a few answers to the questions I came across.

Just a question, if someone buys a site like this how long will the traffic stay at current levels without doing more promotion (i.e. writing new articles/content etc.)?

If someone buys a site like this I always advise them to give the site a blast of promotion the first week – submit a round of articles etc and I give them a list of things they can do, plus I give them advice on what they could do over the next 3 months (with a disclaimer) – often my sites tend to be bought by newbies who unfortunately don’t know much about SEO.

I use hostgators baby hosting so I would probably need to upgrade in order to do this, correct? Also, why is wp more difficult..any tips on what makes transferring wp different, and how to go about it?

I’m not familiar with the baby hosting so I’m not sure, but from what I’ve heard reseller is best for doing this type of thing. I always have to look for instructions every time I transfer wp (I just Google something like ‘transfer wordpress blog’). Plus I never set it up on the new owners server (and I stipulate this in the listing) because I’m afraid something would go wrong.

Another solution if you don't know how to move a Wordpress blog is to include hosting in the sale. I do this and use a hosting company that provides end-user support - i.e. they provide hosting support to your customers as if it was coming from you.

That’s something I must consider – although from what I’ve seen of my buyers (even though they’re often quite new to SEO and IM) I’ve never come across one without hosting. The guys that pay money generally tend to be webmasters already. When I used to flip brand new sites they did need hosting.

But just think about how much money you would be making if you held on to all those sites long-term? Then one day you can sell all of them in one giant bundle in your portfolio for huge amount of money. LOL

Probably, but I don’t build them for my own long term use so there’s no attachment. My main business model is actually product creation, I flip sites for a bit of discretionary money.

I had one question if you don't mind. Did I understand you right, sites running Adsense ads are usually worth more?

I don’t make as much on Adsense sites (usually $1000 - $1500) because it’s much easier to build fast affiliate earnings than Adsense (which I find takes a lot more work). However in my experience of selling sites, buyers are willing to pay a lot more times monthly income for Adsense.
Here’s an example of two sites I recently sold:
Adsense site earning $60 per month sold for $1300 (21x monthly income)
Affiliate site earning $900 per month sold for $6000 (6 ½ x monthly income)
Both were about the same age so affiliate sites are still a lot more profitable for me.

This is the problem, why would you want to sell a site for a seemlingly knockdown price? Unless you have reasonable expectation that the earnings of the site will go down quickly over time. Of course this happens all the time with new sites and I have been had before. But this will affect your reputation in the long run if your sites perform poorly in the long run.

Whether or not sites perform poorly in the long run will be nothing to do with me – it’s the new owners responsibility. The earnings would only drop if the new owner did absolutely nothing with the site. I build very good quality sites that are there to be developed, and this is only spending money for me, it’s not my primary business model. It’s not a knockdown price for a reasonably new site – sites only gain value with age.

Just wondering if you will be earning more, in the long run, if you hold on to your sites?

Sure, if I held onto them for a year or two I’d probably earn a lot more. For a few days work though this suits me fine and gives me plenty of spare time to get on with other projects.

[Jon Alexander]

great post, Martin. VERY informative.

care to show everyone an example of a site you have sold? After all, it doesn't belong to you anymore, and the new owner will probably be glad of the traffic.

[Tuzic]

Hi,

yes thats a good way to make money, but you have to know exactly what your doing as you do since youve clearly outlined how you could make money online by site flipping & for others it may not be that easy.

[clare1982]

Hiya

It is a great post Martin however......

I currently make and sell brand new sites and they usualy go for between $150-$299. I know that is not much but it's more than the $60 you mentioned. Although you are definately right about keeping the site for longer and people wanting and willing to pay more for a site that has traffic and is earnings. This is something that I am working on now, but whilst I am waiting for a few of my sites to grow, I am also still selling the turnkey sites for the extra boost of income.

Also I didn't think you were able to promote a site you were planning to sell by writing articles for ezine articles. There was a post a few months ago on the old forum where a guy sold his website that he had promoted by writing articles for ezine articles. Once ezine found out the site no longer belonged to him they suspended his account.

I don't mean to bash your post at all, because it does give some excellent advice, I just wanted to point those two things out.

Thanks
Clare

[Nicholas Ho]

Are there anyone who flip a site that earns and have traffic under few days?
I saw a guy did it before.

-Nicholas Ho

[martinp]

I currently make and sell brand new sites and they usualy go for between $150-$299. I know that is not much but it's more than the $60 you mentioned.

Thanks for your comments. It's probably nearly a year since I last tried to sell a new site so maybe the market's improved a bit - I don't know. I was talking about the 10 - 15 page basic sites that were popular here on the forum about a year or so ago (JD Swanson type sites). How much work do you actually have to put into a site to earn that much though eg what would your hour rate be? I'd be interested to know.

Also I didn't think you were able to promote a site you were planning to sell by writing articles for ezine articles. There was a post a few months ago on the old forum where a guy sold his website that he had promoted by writing articles for ezine articles. Once ezine found out the site no longer belonged to him they suspended his account.

I know the post you're talking about but I've never had any problems. Plus there are hundreds of sites sold there every week with links from Ezinearticles. It's not something I advertise in my listings (links from EZA) but maybe it's something I should discuss with them as I wouldn't want to lose my account.

[remodeler]

Really good post.

One of the biggest reasons for selling the sites instead of holding onto them is because money upfront is always better than "possible" future earnings. This is the Internet and you never know what may happen tomorrow to affect the site. Google may make one small adjustment and your site tumbles in the rankings, or something happens with the affiliate product, etc. There are lots of different things that can easily happen. When you can get that kind of money upfront for a site it's a good business decision to sell.

I've been on both sides of this. I've sold sites for 20X earnings...and I've also held onto sites thinking they would really be massive earners, only to have Google change its algo's and the site went down.

It's definitely a fun and exciting business model. There's nothing like getting a deposit from escrow.com for several thousands of dollars.

[anup.mahajan]

Martin you have shared some very good information.

One point I would like to mention here is you can also submit your site to lots of directories to increase backlinks.. It involves some work but the rewards would be fabulous.. One way links from high PR directories would help while you are selling your site as well.. I know lots of people are vary of this kind of hard work but they don't see the potential rewards...

Cheers,
Anup

[clare1982]

Thanks for your reply Martin

The type of site I make is a wordpress site. I usually make it using a static front page, so it works and looks like a normal website. It can take me 1-2 days to set it up with about 10 PLR articles, product pages with products from amazon, and sometimes a forum attached, and a few other types of pages.

I have listed a few and some of them did not even get a bid, but majority sold for in between $150-$299. Sometimes I think it all depends on what niche the site is in also, as to wether it sells or not.

I would also like to mention that the sites that sold for the higher prices were sold on sitepoint and not on didgital point, I have tried to sell brand new sites on digital point for the higher price and it just wasn't happening lol.

In regards to the ezine articles I bet there are hundreds of sites selling on digital point and sitepoint that have links going to them from ezine, and they go unnoticed. I wonder how ezine articles would even know anyway.

But I would check that out anyway.

Thanks
Clare

[moneymentor]

Is it pretty easy to sell new sites REGULARLY at SitePoint or is it a lot of "hit and miss"? For example, out of every 10 blogs you put sale on SitePoint, how many just won't sell at all?

I am really wondering if I can make a full time income flipping new blogs that take a day or two to create?

[damenchoy]

Hi Martin,

I was late to see this good post. Can you give us some examples of the sites you have made and sold so that we can really understand the techniques you deployed.

Sometimes I think a few good examples is worth more than a thousand words...

Thanks

Hope we can learn more from you!

Damen

[cashcow]

This is a great post Martin - I've also found that selling brand new sites is not as profitable as it used to be. Back in 2007, I had a 100% sell rate for 10 page unique content sites at $150 - today it's about 50% and the sites are better than the ones I sold back then!

So, I too, am moving towards a model of selling sites that earn income. But I'm looking at mine a little differently. I am building them up for about 6 months at which time I will evaluate how they are doing and what i think future earnings will be.

The ones that don't meet my "criteria" I will sell off and the others I will keep for my "virtual empire". Eventually I will have a stock of profit pulling websites that take little time to maintain. That's when I am planning on sitting on the beach for most of the day and watching the money roll in. Need more money? No problem - just sell another site!

This is a vast improvement over my previous model of blasting up sites and then simply abandoning the ones that didn't earn as much as I wanted (or that I got bored with) because now every site will bring me in some money - even the ones that aren't good earners.

Lee

[vvv12]

Martin, great post.

I see that you are focusing on niches with quite a lot of searches and quite a lot of competition too. For blogs in the start up category, what would be the rule of thumb for the number of searches and competition? I see different numbers everywhere, from 300 a month to whatever. Thanks!

[Lindsay Brynn]

this is a great revived post. Basically you just need to prove the site makes money and you can make much more. Too many people put work into start up sites that make very little money. But I suppose if you've figured out a way to churn them out quickly that can be profitable too.

[jmac1031]

Great post Martin. Do you have an example of one of your own or one from someone else that we could look at?

[damenchoy]

Hi Martin,

One more question. When you said in step 2:

"I choose 10 – 15 long tail keywords that I can base my sites articles around",

how do you blend this long tail keywords into your article?

I have difficulty to do this as you know, long tail keywords are usually keywords with at least 5 or 6 words.

Just like your example, your keywords "reverse phone number look up" is a 5-word phrase. It is sometimes quite difficult to write an article that contains these words esp. if you want to repeat them a number of times..

Any clues?

Damen

Damen

[Hamida Harland]

Originally Posted by ArthurRose

Okay, and you really sell sites so simple for 3k-6k$? During economic crisis? Numbers seem way too big. Could you give an example of a site you have sold?

The post was made back in September of last year so obviously the sites were sold before the economic crisis. I've sold sites using this exact method for similar prices - it doesn't matter if a site is simple if it's making alot of money. Last summer I sold a site for $7000 with less than 10 posts (it was making over $1000 a month).

[Hamida Harland]

Originally Posted by ArthurRose

Hamida, that is really impressive, but another thing I don't get is why would anyone sell a site which is already making money? Maybe just if quick cash is needed for something.

Well I have alot of sites already so I don't mind selling one here and there - that particular one along with a few others was to increase my deposit for a new apartment, so yeah the quick cash is useful sometimes

[Desmond Ong]

Originally Posted by ArthurRose

Hamida, that is really impressive, but another thing I don't get is why would anyone sell a site which is already making money? Maybe just if quick cash is needed for something.

That's because site flipping is addicting.

And it eliminates many other risks like managing the sites risk, hacking risk, traffic drop risk and many more. It all depends on which kind of flips you are talking about.