Flipping an Affiliate Website (Blog) In The Low 3-Digits

[Allegro]

Good evening fellow warriors!

You may remember my other walkthrough where I described how to build this kind of website. In that example I built a website using the Revolution Lifestyle theme and used PLR content to sell it for around $70.


Today I am here to show you how you can make the jump from high two-digits to low three-digits.

The following technique/blue print/secret can be found in dozens of eBooks, but today I (and you since you watch over my shoulder) am going to test it! (The following has taken place over the course of a little over a month.)

We are going to try the dating niche. I am using a domain i bought a few months ago (http://www.AboutPickup.com). I planned to use that domain for a personal project, but I didn't manage to find the time for it.

I use the Revolution Church theme, just because I have it and it looks good. Generally you want to use a magazine-style theme, they tend to make good affiliate blogs.

First, I began to build my website as usual. The whole technical stuff, code edits and so on. Then I looked up a few popular dating products. I took their URL's and pasted them into Googles Keyword tool – they have an option where you can analyze a website for its keywords. I then took the keywords with more than 200 searches monthly and checked their competition (less than 30,000). From the resulting keyword list (around 70 viable keywords) I chose 10 and ordered a pack of articles on DigitalPoint at the rate of $0.99/100 words. Ten articles with each 500 words for $49.50.

A few hours later I recieved the articles. I checked them on quality and was satisfied. So I put them up on the blog, two categories with each two articles for the small boxes on the top of the page, six articles in one category for the big box at the bottom. After I pasted the articles in, I went over to stock.xchng - the leading free stock photography site to get ten free stock photos to use with the articles. I searched a bit and selected ten which I uploaded to my blog. Then I added them via custom fields to the homepage of the website.

Now I logged into my CBProAds.com account (I don't use it to make money but to showcase the themes features) and got bannercodes to use with the integrated banner managment of the theme. I always chose rotating ads because they change every time you visit the page again. That looks good to customers. Unfortunately I don't have a Google AdSense account, but i always tell the customer in the description about the AdSense capabilities.The Church theme has an integrated AdSense manager. At last I go to YouTube and search for a related video. Since the theme has a video placement function, it is easy to copy the „embed video“ code into the admin panel.

When that was done, I went over to ClickBank and searched for a couple affiliate offers. I took those that looked good and linked them in the „Blogroll“ section.

So far I have the website part completed – there are now TEN UNIQUE ARTICLES with pictures on the homepage, one video related to the topic and two banners advertising affiliate products. Finally the affiliate links in the „Recommended“ bar.
IMPORTANT: Now there is not a single link not pointing to a sales letter. The visitor has to leave the website by typing in a new adress in the adress bar of his browser or he visits a sales letter.

Now i went to SitePoint. Since my domain is already a couple months old I created a new listing in „Established Websites“. I use a sales letter that came with Desmonds Flipping Spark eBook. I modified it slightly to fit my website better. For your own sake: read a lot of descriptions on SitePoint and take the best from all of them. I am very satisfied with the description Desmond provided – but I still modify it every time.

Now let's do the math:
$50 – Articles
$10 – URL/Hosting (I use a reseller account)
$20 – Listing Fee
--------------
$80 – Total

A good rule of thumb for me has been to double my expenses to determine the height of the starting bid. I usually take the double because the more I spend the higher the quality and the more effort I put personally in the selection and creation of the website. On top of that I am convinced that the website is worth every $$$. Then I add a few more dollars for the BIN.

In my example I use $167 as starting bid (because of the 7 at the end) and $219 as BIN – both proven values. I am very excited to see how this works out!
I usually flip websites in the high two-digits, but i wanted to test out the waters in this price class (and I am short of a few hundred bucks to pay the bills next week ). If this works as good as I hope i will definately try to flip more websites in that range.

Now go out there and try it yourself! If you are good at writing yourself, you can save the $50 for content and do it yourself.

Kind regards,
Karsten Stork


P.S.: For reference – the auction can be found at AboutPickup.com | Killer Blog Concept | Amazing Design

[Sheryl Polomka]

Looks good, I hope you do well with it, keep us posted!

[Andy1750]

Very interesting. Have read that the site flipping market is over saturated so have never tried it. Will be interesting to see if it shifts. Site does look good though.

Andy

[denharsh]

Best of luck.. though till now there is no bidder..but I'm sure we will see some bidder very soon
Keep updating us...

[Fernando Veloso]

Will check on this to see how it goes. Subscribed.

[Allegro]

So far i had to remove a few spammy comments from my auction. Two people were complaining that the page is a startup and doesn't belong into Established Websits. To clear that up: SitePoint requires websites older than 30 days to be posted under Established Websites - this is no question of interpretation.
If you encounter unrelated nonsense comments under your own auctions remove them by all means since they may leave a bad impression on a potential buyer.
The auction is set to 7 days and goes now for 5 hours, I am confident to get a bidder after the weekend.

[Robert43]

Nice process and explanation. We'll be watching and wishing you well. thanks for sharing your method and your experiment. (Nice job with the site - I just love the Revolution themes)

[VegasGreg]

Originally Posted by Allegro

So far i had to remove a few spammy comments from my auction. Two people were complaining that the page is a startup and doesn't belong into Established Websits. To clear that up: SitePoint requires websites older than 30 days to be posted under Established Websites - this is no question of interpretation.
If you encounter unrelated nonsense comments under your own auctions remove them by all means since they may leave a bad impression on a potential buyer.
The auction is set to 7 days and goes now for 5 hours, I am confident to get a bidder after the weekend.

Actually, if you read the guidelines in more detail, you should have listed it in the 'Startup" section. If you have NO traffic and No income, it is still considered a 'start-up', no matter what the age is.

An established site has established traffic and established income.

Sites like yours seem to be hit or miss at the moment. 6-12 months ago they would sell at your asking price very quickly. Now (in my experience) they are hard to fetch $100.

Best of luck. I will be watching and rooting for you.

[Allegro]

I sold smaller websites in Established Websites in the past with success. They had neither traffic nor revenue, but were sold within 12 hours.
They go for below $100 though (I tend to go for $67-77 per website). I used the exact same description for them.

VegasGreg you are right with the "hit or miss" in the current markets. But i found that a few niches are still performing good, for example "Work From Home" including eBay and such. The dating niche though is performing low for me. AboutPickup.com was my last dating related domain, so I thought I try it with that domain to end my business in the dating niche (for now).

[metafever]

Thanks for the great post . . . I will book mark it and leave you a swanky comment.

[Leonard Holmes]

It seems like a lot of work for not too much money, but I can see how you have a formula that works if you do it over and over. How much time does this take you right now? You have $80 of your expenses in it and sell it for $200 or so. (In other words - How much do you end up making an hour?)

[kayelex]

I wish you the best of luck with this flip. Hopefully you can command enough bids to where your profit justifies the time you have spent on your blog. I know after doing a few of these that you can build them faster because you know where all the tweaks are in the templates and plugins and don't have to go hunting for them anymore.

I'll keep an eye on your site too to see how the flip plays out for you. Good luck

[AlexCurtis]

I am a newbie and love this forum. Please excuse my ignorance, but this seems like a lot of expense and work for little profit.

[Desmond Ong]

I'm not trying to be rude or meanie here but from my years of selling sites, I can say that you probably paid too much for your site and worse of all, you overpriced your site.

Okay, again, I'm pointing out something that everybody can learn. No personal offense.

Firstly, $50 for articles? Really? Too expensive.

Secondly, NOT THE FREE CHURCH THEME AGAIN? It's way too saturated. Customize it. If you can't customize it, at least get the Featured Content Gallery to work.

Thirdly, boring auction listing. Try to use HTML editor to make better listing with colors, cooler fonts etc.

Fourth, boring logo. Get something more exciting and professional.

Fifth, there's a piece of something right below your video.

Sixth, no about page? No contact page? No video gallery page? No store page? Dude...

Obviously, you overpriced your site on SitePoint and you will hardly get any bids for it.

Check out this blog I built last year for reference : Counter Depression

[definitive]

Originally Posted by Desmond Ong

I'm not trying to be rude or meanie here but from my years of selling sites, I can say that you probably paid too much for your site and worse of all, you overpriced your site.

Okay, again, I'm pointing out something that everybody can learn. No personal offense.

Firstly, $50 for articles? Really? Too expensive.

Secondly, NOT THE FREE CHURCH THEME AGAIN? It's way too saturated. Customize it. If you can't customize it, at least get the Featured Content Gallery to work.

Thirdly, boring auction listing. Try to use HTML editor to make better listing with colors, cooler fonts etc.

Fourth, boring logo. Get something more exciting and professional.

Fifth, there's a piece of something right below your video.

Sixth, no about page? No contact page? No video gallery page? No store page? Dude...

I agree, those few extra things can make a lot of difference. Logo is a good example, you can get a really nice one on DP for $10 in the contest section an that can make a world of difference. same with the colors and fonts in the sales thread.

[Allegro]

Originally Posted by Desmond Ong

I'm not trying to be rude or meanie here but from my years of selling sites, I can say that you probably paid too much for your site and worse of all, you overpriced your site.

Okay, again, I'm pointing out something that everybody can learn. No personal offense.

Firstly, $50 for articles? Really? Too expensive.

Secondly, NOT THE FREE CHURCH THEME AGAIN? It's way too saturated. Customize it. If you can't customize it, at least get the Featured Content Gallery to work.

Thirdly, boring auction listing. Try to use HTML editor to make better listing with colors, cooler fonts etc.

Fourth, boring logo. Get something more exciting and professional.

Fifth, there's a piece of something right below your video.

Sixth, no about page? No contact page? No video gallery page? No store page? Dude...

Obviously, you overpriced your site on SitePoint and you will hardly get any bids for it.

Check out this blog I built last year for reference : Counter Depression

Every help is greatly appreciated! Thank you!

[Allegro]

Well all in all I spent 4 hours total on that website. So should it sell at minimum bid ($167) I would end up making $20 per hour. Better than flipping burgers for $10/hour

With my next flips will definately work on the things Desmond said. Plus i will lower the price and only outsource the logo i guess. Not this weekend though, i will challenge myself from monday on.

[Desmond Ong]

Anyway, nice domain name though. Great 2 word domain with keywords. Good job on that.

To calculate how much money you should make in an hour for flipping sites, you have to take all the value of the things (in numbers. eg. $100,000 car) you wanted and sum it up.

It can be Lamborghini, seaside mansion, education etc. Then divide it by 365 days.

Then you will know how many site flips you should be making a day.

[clare1982]

Originally Posted by Desmond Ong

I'm not trying to be rude or meanie here but from my years of selling sites, I can say that you probably paid too much for your site and worse of all, you overpriced your site.

Okay, again, I'm pointing out something that everybody can learn. No personal offense.

Firstly, $50 for articles? Really? Too expensive.

Secondly, NOT THE FREE CHURCH THEME AGAIN? It's way too saturated. Customize it. If you can't customize it, at least get the Featured Content Gallery to work.

Thirdly, boring auction listing. Try to use HTML editor to make better listing with colors, cooler fonts etc.

Fourth, boring logo. Get something more exciting and professional.

Fifth, there's a piece of something right below your video.

Sixth, no about page? No contact page? No video gallery page? No store page? Dude...

Obviously, you overpriced your site on SitePoint and you will hardly get any bids for it.

Check out this blog I built last year for reference : Counter Depression

No offence intended Desmond, but the blog you showed here for reference isn't all that much better.

The only customization I see here is the logo.

The about page is just the standard about page that already comes with the wordpress installation.

Your images are all different sizes.

More importantly you have no privacy policy.

I really mean no offence by stating this, and I have seen the types of blogs you sell on Sitepoint and they are brilliant .

So why not show one of your better ones here for reference.

Clare

[Yudha Andika]

If you good at English...you can write your article yourself[ you cost to much to your article, but its OK ]. For my experience, website without proof of earning [ or already make money] its hard to sell today....I don't know why its saturated or just because effect of global recession. But, I hope that you can sell your site buddy , waiting for your good news

[Desmond Ong]

Originally Posted by clare1982

No offence intended Desmond, but the blog you showed here for reference isn't all that much better.

The only customization I see here is the logo.

The about page is just the standard about page that already comes with the wordpress installation.

Your images are all different sizes.

More importantly you have no privacy policy.

I really mean no offence by stating this, and I have seen the types of blogs you sell on Sitepoint and they are brilliant .

So why not show one of your better ones here for reference.

Clare

Hi Clare,

I made each blog in just an hour so yeah, back then I was looking for quick money.

Plus, that site is sold so I have no idea what my buyer did to the site. The reason I showed that blog is because that is a newbie-friendly blog that is good enough for any newbies to generate quick bucks through quick blog flipping.

I can show more sophisticated ones like FitnessKeep.com and many others but sometimes I even forgot some blogs that I sold.

[Swastik]

Hi Karsten,

Best of luck with the auction. :-)

As VegasGreg said, sites like these are a hit and miss. This one might sell, another similar one might not. A few months ago, these would easily sell for your asking price, but today buyers want much more value for their money, and it's completely reasonable.

To sell such sites regularly at your asking price, you need to stand out - offer more value. More value can come with added assets to the website, such as a product, an autoresponder series, a sales page, a custom theme etc. They'll add to the real value of the blog, and you'll find it much easier to sell at your asking price.

Also, if you can get some revenue and traffic going, it'll add a lot more to the value of your website.

Once again, I wish you best of luck with your auction. :-)

[sbucciarel]

Good luck with your auction. My observations are pretty much the same as Desmonds'. No customized logo, overused theme, boring color scheme for that niche, spent way too much money to produce this blog ... Need to stand out from the crowd ... not blend into the crowd.

[cashcow]

I'll have to add my 2 cents and agree with most of the above. These sites just are not selling. I've put up several that I used to get over $200 for all day long 6 months ago but can't even get a nibble for $99.

I also think you might be marketing it to the wrong crowd in the Established section. As you can see by the comments, the people shopping that section want sites that have traffic and/or earnings.

Having said that, I do wish you luck - you never know when someone who wants a site in that exact niche comes along and falls in love with your site!

Lee

[Elizabeth26]

Thanks for the walkthrough! It's really interesting to watch someone go through the process of flipping a website and the learning process. I wish you much success with your websites.