Buying Website for $3000 On Flippa - Need Your Advice Please

Here are my answers. FTW...

1. What business model would you recommend me to buy for $3000 which would be the most reliable and long-term profitable business? (I'm thinking of HOSTING, WP PLUGIN, IPHONE UNLOCK, any ready business/company)

Whatever business model you understand the best. The main thing is working out if you will get your $3000 back and more over the next year, including being paid for any effort you need to put into the site and any additional expenses. Some sites and business models may have a high risk of flatlining after a couple of months, especially if there is something black-hat going on so beware.

Ones to avoid are where they sell a generic site and the 'secret traffic generating method'. They will say something like "I made $1000 in a week". But what they are really doing is reselling a site template and the same method over and over again. They are basically selling you a job, and why bother when you can get one of those for free (see local newspaper!)

2. How to protect myself against fraud on Flippa or DP forum while buying a website? I know various tips, including escrow. But I would like to hear from you any other tricks if you are aware of.

Escrow is good for a $3k site. I wouldn't settle for anything less unless you live in the same country, can do some due dilligence on the person and get them to sign a contract.

3. I want the maximum monthly profit for my hard-earned $3000, therefore I don't want to buy adsense sites with $200-$300 monthly income. So what would be the smartest and the most profitable business with good monthly income? I need this passive income to quit my job and then to move abroad with my family.

I wish I knew the answer to that. I'd go for the business model you understand the best and therefore you can judge whether they are doing it well.

4. Before buying the website what I should learn from the seller? What questions or info I should get from him?

Make sure they accept escrow. Always ask for read-only access to their web analytics so you can verify traffic. If you expect traffic to mainly come from the US then verify this. If it is claiming SEO traffic check the keywords in analytics then double check by searching in Google. On Flippa you can see if they are new or have participated in other transactions, so check their history.

Also if they are in too much of a rush to sell then don't buy. Don't be rushed into anything. I have had so many sellers say stuff like "I need to sell this immediately, I need the cash, I wont take Escrow, this is a bargain price because of that". They will try to trigger your emotions to buy now, but if they won't accept your payment terms and speed of doing things then just walk away. Plenty of other sites to choose from!.

5. For security and reliability, should I buy a website from Flippa or DP forum?

I think Flippa is the best because of the detailed history of people - you can see what they have done in the past. DP is OK but you will need to do more legwork for the due dilligence.

If you know how to code, a wp plugin site can be very lucrative. I would never buy Iphone unlocking business though.

Your best bet would be purchasing an authority site. Or, you could go with any sort of ecommerce site or clickbank product. I would stay away from iphone unlock, social media likes, and seo services.

Use escrow.

You can't expect to purchase a site for $3000 that isn't making much more than $200-$300 per month. You either need to be willing to spend more or expect less. If you see sites claiming they make much more than $300 per month and are only selling for $3000, they are most likely scams.

How the site receives traffic, any SEO done to the site, income claims from as far back as possible, any list included with the site, etc. Just think about the most important features of the website you are buying and ask questions about those features.

Flippa is much better, but can't protect you from everything.

For the amount of $3,000 it is unlikely that you will be able to buy a legitimate site that will enable you to quit your job and move abroad. It could happen, but it's unlikely.

When you buy a website on Flippa that is earning money, it is typical that it is being sold for a multiple of anywhere from 6-12 months income that it generates. The earnings from a $3,000 site would likely not amount to a full time income.

Here is a post I did as a guest post on Flippa on due diligence that tells you what to look out for.

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

Also be careful if you are buying a site with established rankings, ask the owner to provide proof of where the backlinks are coming from and any methods they used. A site recently sold on Flippa that had very impressive earnings and I think many of the backlinks came from a private network blog which has been recently deindexed so most of the rankings will drop over the next few months.

Is $3K your entire capital?

If it is, you may want to only invest like $2.5K right now- save the rest for backlinks, content writing, etc.

@prof_writer
There are a stack of good tips here already. You should also read our pro guide to buying websites: https://flippa.com/guides

Would also suggest taking your time if it's your first purchase. Take the effort to set up a relevant search for yourself at https://flippa.com/search and save it so that you get alerted to new listings. Also click the watch button on a few auctions that you would otherwise be interested in to see how they go. It will all be time well spent.

stay away from Unlocking Sites now the New baseband software makes most the sites for sale useless

Thank you for all our comments!

So how do you think, except adsense sites (with $200/$300 monthly income),what kind of reliable, long-term online business model I can buy for $3000?

Any site that's pulling in good money via Amazon products is most likely a good choice. Unless it's seasonal related or trend based, since you want long term profits. Before you even consider buying any website make sure to do your homework, whois the domain and if it's not at least a year old ignore it, also check its backlink profile too, if it's using a obvious backlink service i'd tred very carefully. Google has announced they're about to release another major "over optimization" penalty update, so many sites can lose their position, indefinitely.

If you want my advice as to what to really do with your money, don't buy a single site for 3k, buya couple smaller, cheaper sites that are pulling in a decent amount or have potential and see how that goes. As you said your 3k was hard earned, no sense taking that and dumping it into a single site in hopes it'll be a big producer(it most likely won't be). Flippa is increasingly getting more scammers and non-sense sites, so you really have to be careful.