-
Popular Posts
-
Like ViperChill?
Join 100,000+ who follow ViperChill via newsletter or social media.
91 Comments 
12 minutes
Whenever I’m in “work mode” I spend most of my time looking for websites to buy. I genuinely feel that the internet is one of the best places to invest your money and get a great ROI if you know what you’re doing. Not only that, the simple fact of making money on the internet means you can run your empire from anywhere in the world.
Since December I’ve spent over $100,000 on purchasing websites and I’ve made a similar figure by selling the ones I’ve built so today I’m going to cover both sides of the process in detail. In short, here’s my position: I like to buy websites I can automate through outsourcing and I sell websites that I no longer enjoy running or have a desire to grow.
Buying Websites
The process of selling websites is quite sporadic for me right now so I’m going to cover buying websites first as this what I do most. There are thousands of people who purposefully build websites to sell them (known as site flipping) but that’s not something I’ve ever gotten into.
If you want to buy a website that is making a decent amount of monthly income then be prepared to spend at least 10 months revenue to take ownership. The “work” involved in running most websites can usually be outsourced very cheaply so sellers are often selling because they want a large lump-sum that they can invest into other projects.
Marketplaces
There are a number of website marketplaces online which you can think of as an eBay for websites. People who want to sell their sites go here and list all the relevant details they feel prospective buyers need. Those who want to invest in websites browse for and purchase the types of sites they want.
My favourite website marketplaces include sites like Flippa and Digitalpoint. There are many more and a Google search will uncover plenty of smaller ones for you, but these two tend to be the most active. I don’t purchase too many sites from Digitalpoint as they’re generally too small for what I’m looking for but do find some worthwhile investments on Flippa.
There are tons of new websites being added to their site everyday so I don’t mind sharing these resources with so many people.
These marketplaces are generally the best way to buy sites but note that places like Flippa charge up to 5% of the transaction fee simply for being the ‘middleman’ in the process. If you find a site that is a worthy investment, however, the fee should be small compared to the potential income you could be making.
I don’t always buy websites in marketplaces; sometimes I’ll go to site owners directly and see if they are looking to sell. For example, if I find a site on Flippa that is ranking well for a certain keyphrase in Google and it’s making a lot of money, I might not always be able to purchase it for what I consider is a fair price — some bidders are happy to wait over 3 years for a return on their investment.
In cases like that I may type the phrase into Google and contact the owners of the sites on the second page. I know that if I can get them onto the first page of Google then I can make a lot of money and I also know the site is probably not making a great monthly income so I can get it for a good price.
I’ve only purchased 2 sites by contacting website owners directly (most will simply ignore you or ask for extravagant fees) but if you take the time to do it, you’ll find far better deals than you’ll ever see in one of these marketplaces.
Types of Websites
If you browse around these marketplaces or even the search results for popular keyphrases, you’ll see that there are lots of different types of websites out there. Some of the most common you’ll find for sale are:
- Blogs
- Clickbank ready affiliate sites
- Popular Clickbank products & sales pages
- Niche content sites
- Dropship product sites
- Forums
- Paid Membership sites
- Niche communities
The ones I have highlighted in bold are the ones that I usually go for. Clickbank affiliate ready sites are great if you know the niche and have an audience, but otherwise they’re a lot of work and you’ll need to put the time in to get a return on your money.
I also don’t want ownership of popular Clickbank products as you’ll find that slowly but surely their monthly income tends to die off, rather than stay constant or improve. The reason for this is that usually there is a large marketing campaign prepared for when these products launch and many affiliates send emails to their lists.
They have great stats initially and it looks like you may have hit a goldmine based on their recent monthly income but don’t forget about the obvious launch tactics that have been used.
Although I build blogs myself and I’m fairly good at increasing their number of subscribers and making money with them, they require a lot of work to grow. And, unless you can find a great writer who knows the industry well, it can be expensive (both financially and in time) to keep them making a consistent income.
I like communities that already have large paying audience because the income they are generating is quite safe. You aren’t relying so much on traffic from Google or social media sites for them to continue earning revenue. If you can increase the traffic to these sites then you can earn more money on a monthly basis.
Most recently I’ve been buying niche content sites as I’m very confident with my SEO abilities and can usually tell when there’s more money to be made from an industry. These have been set-up very similar to the process I talk about in Cloud Living and if you can improve or sustain search engine rankings then you can easily automate their income.
What I’m Looking For / The Sales Process
When I’m buying sites there are a number of things that I look for. The first thing I want to know is whether I can grow the monthly revenue from the site in any way. Generally, making investments online is fairly safe and if you know what you’re doing you can see a return in a year or so. Because I have skills in this area I want to use them for maximum profits.
For that reason I generally like to buy sites which are making money, but that also have a number of things about them that sucks. This may be in terms of design, SEO or even structure, but I like there to be problems which I know I can fix or improve. The simple reason is that even if the current income the site is making were to drop, I’m still confident the changes I want to make will build that up and hopefully increase the monthly revenue.
As I highlighted recently there are a number of questions I’ll ask the seller of a website before considering a purchase. Some of these include:
- How much time do you spend on the site per week?
- Where is that time being spent?
- What are your monthly expenses?
- Will you sign a 6 / 12 month non-compete agreement?
- Why are you selling?
Often times there are listings that look too good to be true so make sure you get a clear idea of how the site is making money and learn the business inside out. If you’re going to be spending a lot of cash then this is crucial. A non-compete agreement is rarely necessary but if a lot of traffic relies on connections that the seller has then this is a must. There are a lot of scammers out there, sadly, so you have to watch out for this kind of thing.
Obviously another thing I must have if I’m spending a substantial amount of cash is at least 6 months stats and income proof. If a seller is using Google Analytics then I’ll ask to have them add me to the account. Similarly, make sure you consider any fees from Paypal or other payment processors which the seller may not have accounted for in the monthly revenue stats.
If the seller is involved in the website themselves then you should also account for the expense of hiring someone to fill their position, if you don’t plan on running the website yourself. Most expenses generally come from staff costs, hosting costs and fees from any payment processors that are used.
I will always try to speak to a seller on Skype before buying anything but once I’ve decided that I really want a site, the two options for payment I use are either Escrow or Paypal. Because I am spending so much cash I also have 3 different currencies in PayPal so I don’t lose any money with exchange rates, depending on who I’m purchasing the site from.
Escrow acts as a middleman and in essence you pay them, rather than the seller directly. Once Escrow see that the Whois info has changed on a domain and it matches your details then they will release funds to the seller. From there you receive the website files and set them up on your own servers, on that domain.
A smart strategy a friend taught me when buying large sites is to offer slightly more than your agreed purchase price but split the payment into two parts. Half will be sent upfront and the other half after one or two months, providing that the site is still making the type of monthly income it’s supposed to.
Not all sellers like this and I don’t always do it, but if they are very against the idea then consider it a potential warning sign that there may be something fishy with the deal.
A Site I Might Buy
I thought it would be useful to give an example of one site that I would buy so you can see my thought process. I opened up Flippa this morning and picked a website that looks decent. Please note that I haven’t studied this website in full or spoken to the owner so there may be hidden costs I don’t know about or something I’ve overlooked.
If I were really going to buy the site then I would check these things out in more detail. The site I found is Blog Top Sites.com and you can find the Flippa listing here.
There are a few things I like about this listing such as:
- The site has a solid earnings history
- The homepage is basic and I see ways I could improve it
- There is a strong community behind the brand (160,000 blogs have their code installed)
- The site is receiving a large amount of traffic
- In my opinion, it is under-monetised
I’m not going to buy this site as I’m just using it as an example but from a quick 5 minute check, I like it a lot. The domain isn’t great although it does get a lot of searches each month. If I took over the site, a few things I may change are:
- Changing the homepage title so you’re using that link juice to rank for something other than the site name
- Center the website (this seems obvious enough)
- Make registration clearer with reasons why
- Fix the stats page. Having a link in your top navigation that doesn’t work is not a good idea (this may have changed by the time the post goes live)
- Offer free WordPress installations for affiliate commissions on hosting
I have a few more ideas but I’m sure you also see quite a lot of potential in this one. As a disclaimer, please don’t purchase the site simply because I have said it looks decent and expect these changes to make you rich. I have literally looked at it for no more than 10 minutes just to hopefully give you an idea of what I look for in websites.
A Site I Wouldn’t Buy
Now that we’ve looked at the type of site I would buy, let’s look at one I wouldn’t. I don’t want to use an overly obvious example (e.g. a site making $500 per month and the owner wants $50,0000) so I have tried to find a site that may look fairly decent on the surface. The site I will use for this example is Admintasia (Flippa Listing).
On the surface this actually looks like a great deal. The site is making $2,000 per month with monthly expenses at a tiny $14 and the owner even has a BIN option for $17,000 – less than 9 months revenue. The first clear issue, in my mind, is that most of the income is generated by clients, rather than products sold on the site directly.
This means that there is an obvious expense missing for the skilled worker who will need to perform these tasks if you want to outsource the work. I actually think this would be a great buy for a designer or simply someone who can afford to spend a lot of time growing the income, but neither are the situation I’m in.
To really promote this I think you would have to connect with the top design bloggers and programming communities in order to raise your profile and hopefully get people talking about you. The traffic is coming from Google so the brand obviously has some strength, but that could very easily die down as the site is fairly new and could have had a lot of early promotion.
Selling Websites
I’ve sold around 6 websites in the last few years which isn’t a lot but I do feel I know enough about this subject from selling and buying sites to give tips in this area. Most recently I sold PluginID, a blog with 6,500 subscribers, for a mid-five-figure fee. Because of the way the deal was structured I can’t reveal the exact amount but it was definitely fair for both parties.
I’ll first state that while there are a number of people who make their living by building websites and selling them (flipping) I personally don’t get involved in that industry. For the effort you put in I believe there are much more lucrative opportunities to make money with your skills.
The first thing I do when selling a website is make sure I…
Know What I Want and Why I’m Selling
By “what I want” I simply mean the kind of money I want to get for the site. To those of you thinking you can sell a site making a few hundred dollars a month for a six figure sum then snap out of that thought right now. Unless there is a lot of untapped potential, you have an amazing domain name or get very, very lucky, it just isn’t going to happen.
I never buy websites on “potential” and most people I know don’t either, so don’t expect to sell a site on one. You should know how much money your site is making and the amount of time you have invested to have a good idea of a fair amount that you want for the site.
Make sure you set this in stone because a lot of sneaky buyers will attempt to convince you your site is worth a lot less. It’s very possible you have overestimated the value of the site, but don’t let arrogant buyers persuade you that their low-ball offer is the true value of your site.
I think a fair price to sell websites for is around 12 months income, depending entirely on how much time you put into the site for that income to continue. If the site is running on complete autopilot then you may be able to get 2 years revenue or even more.
There is the odd exception – BloggingTips.com recently sold for $65,000 while making $1,000 per month – but that’s usually when buyers already have a large audience in that niche or see some very clear ways to make a lot more money from the site.
Also be very clear that you want to sell your site because usually, once it’s gone, it’s gone. After running PluginID for 3 months I sold it for $1,500 because I wasn’t happy with the slow growth of the site. I quickly realised my mistake (I still loved writing there) and pleaded with the buyer to give me the site back.
Luckily, two weeks later, it was mine. Make sure you’re not going through a dip in enthusiasm or selling because of impatience. If you see yourself getting back into a similar industry or running the site again in the future, it might be worth letting it die down for a month or two while you build up your enthusiasm again.
Take Yourself Out of the Equation
The last thing any buyer wants is to take over a site which involves the sellers connections or audience for it to continue making money. If you’re selling a blog with only one author and most of the audience is there for your unique style of content, then you’re not going to have an easy time selling – at least not with smart buyers.
Before you do put a site up on the market try to find other ways it can be run if it is originally growing simply because of the work you put in. When I sold PluginID I had the idea of Bud Hennekes taking over the writing as a lot of his traits are similar to ones I had when I started the site. This made it very easy for a buyer to purchase PluginID and have it still running smoothly.
I also worked out a unique deal whereby I agreed to continue offering support for Cloud Living (which was semi-included in the deal) for free based on a larger payout over the course of the deal.
It may be the case that the site your selling doesn’t require your involvement because it earns money through search engine traffic or it has a thriving community which does not revolve around you. If that’s the case, then you don’t really have to worry about this.
If you are an integral part of your website, see how you can plan to minimise that side of the equation before selling so that you can squash any doubts a prospective buyer may have about losing the money the website is making or traffic it’s receiving.
Selling the Site
If you sell a site via any of the popular marketplaces online then be prepared to be faced with tons of questions. Often you’ll receive the same ones over and over again. Do yourself a favour by taking the time to prepare proper income and traffic stats for a long period of time before listing the site for sale.
Additionally, try to answer the questions that I had above on the actual listings page. Many people are going to want to know your reasons for selling the site, what expenses are involved and whether you plan to build a competing website.
I personally think that setting a lower starting bid is better because it entices more people to take a look at the website. If you want $10,000 for a website but set the starting bid at $9,000, people are probably going to think that you want a lot more. If you set a BIN (Buy It Now) price then don’t enter something ridiculous in the hope that someone will snap up your site and you’ll make a fortune.
It will probably put off most people who were interested in giving you a fair amount of cash. Be polite with anyone who gets in touch or asks you questions but don’t fall for anyone offering you a lower amount of cash and trying to convince you that’s all your site is worth. In other words, be nice and be smart.
You can list auctions for 30 days on Flippa but I personally think setting them for 7-10 days is better. Most bids generally happen in the last few days of an auction (unless you set a BIN price) so by shortening the auction you can expect to get a good idea of how much people are really willing to pay for what you’re selling.
Another option besides selling on marketplaces is to contact people who you think may be interested in the site. That’s exactly what I did with PluginID. I had listed the site on a marketplace and received a few offers but they were quite a bit less than what I was looking for.
Instead, I contacted people in the personal development industry who I knew might like a community or blog similar to the one I was running. I also got in touch with a few smart businessmen who would know that the site was really worth what I was selling it for. This worked for me, and it may work for you as well.
If you follow these steps then you should get a fair price for whatever it is that you’re selling.
How I Made $550 in 30 Days
Although I don’t build websites purely to sell them, as I have stated, I did once start a website completely from scratch and sell it for $550 at the end of the month. It was a news site that I updated 3 times per day, every day, around a certain topic. Because I was writing so much content (90 posts in a month) I was receiving a lot of traffic from Google blogsearch as the niche was very popular.
I did not monetise the site at all so certainly didn’t sell on any form of revenue, but because I had put in the 2 hours or so of work each day to grow the traffic, a webmaster saw potential to monetise the site. $550 is not a huge amount of money but it wasn’t bad for a 16 year old who could have been playing computer games instead.
You shouldn’t expect sites that have no form of revenue to bring in a lot of money unless you do find the rare buyer who is looking for exactly what you’re offering. More often than not, people want to buy sites which are already making money.
If you have any questions, I’m happy to answer them in the comments.
91 Comments
Enjoy this post? Please leave a comment below...
Comments are my number one indicator as to which posts people enjoyed the most, so your feedback really does help me. If you have any questions, feel free to ask those as well...
$1.4M Case Study
Community
Copyright © 2016 ViperChill, a Marketing Inc. Company : Contact / Privacy Policy / Earnings Disclaimer / My personal blog: Glen Allsopp.com
Love this one Glen, I’m love surfing around Flippa, its a fun way to take a break as well! Super pro tip on making offers to similar sites in the SERPS after recognizing the profitability of a new niche via the revenue listings. Definitely going to implement that.
Thanks Dan!
Glad you took some good info from the post
Hey Glen,
Very cool! I’ve seen some of the sites you have bought recently and all the things you have done and changed to make them more profitable (for anyone who does not believe that Glen has spent $100k on websites in the last months).
It would be interesting to see a comparison to what businesses seel for in the real world. I know for instance that businesses here in SA go for 2-4 times monthly turnover (so a business that is selling 5 million a month would sell for 10-20 million). An online business is very much like a real business in that sense, except that you have to be very careful and know what you are doing. What if you buy an expensive site that depends on rankings and all of a sudden you get banned from Google or your rankings drop massively.
Great job on the article as always!
Hey Diggy,
I don’t think revenue is always the fairest way to buy a website (sometimes they have a huge audience and it’s really under-monetised or not at all) so someone could really sell themselves short.
Usually though, it’s a good indicator of what a fair deal would be.
You definitely have to be careful. Usually the potential outweighs the risk if you make a good investment
Thanks buddy!
Woohoo!
I finally arrived early to the party!
Nice. I never read the post Glenster
cos it’s too advanced for my brain-meats
right now but just wanted to spam
you and say….
Welcome back to FB.
LOL
Such a geek bru 😉
I dig the honesty haha.
Fantastic as always Glen. I’ve been waiting for this post as the process of buying and selling websites is quite foreign to me. To get insight from someone with actual experience was a great read, even if it was at 8am and my day hasn’t quite started.
When you first said you sold a site for $550 I was shaking my head all like seriously? But in context as a 16 year old, it’s quite impressive. More so when I compare it to my own history where I was splitting my time between yes, playing video games and dreading the manual labor of a landscaping job.
Cheers!
Hey Neil,
Thanks! Yeah that was one of the first website I ever sold. I also sold some proxy websites for thousands of dollars back in the day.
I’m playing with the big boys now 😛
Thanks for the comment!
Wow Glen,
This is all very new to me. This post must’ve taken you a while to compose is pretty rich with content. I will have to give this another read to let it all sink in thoroughly. I checked out Flippa once but felt overwhelmed since it is new territory. I’ll be checking it out again.
Keep churning out content like this, I’ll always read!
Hey Moon,
Yep, I definitely clocked up a few hours on this one.
Will do my man!
Great article.
I am not sure if you touched upon this in any previous articles, but do you have any examples of websites which you have bought, outsourced and which now run automated making you income. I would love to to see an example of a successful site which you own and run.
Also can you recommend any e-books, guides or blogs to buying and selling websites online?
Thanks again, your articles are fantastic!
Cheers
Hi Michael,
I used to reveal sites in the past but would instantly see a flurry of people building websites in the same niche (even if I just mention it in comments here) so sadly I’ve stopped revealing specifics. It’s a shame, as I want to be as transparent as possible, but I make my living by doing this and I don’t want to jeopardize that.
I don’t know any guides. What else would you have liked to see from this one?
Thanks buddy!
I really really loved this article. I’m not quite to the point where I’m able to find and buy a website on Flippa as I’m currently working on my first (hopefully cash-flow positive) website, but once that is stable and bringing in a steady stream of income I will definitely start thinking about branching out and buying an existing website. Thanks for all of the great info! I really enjoyed your article about getting backlinks (which helped me a lot). I would really enjoy reading about using keywords – though I’ve already read your article about how you’ve ranked for 66,000 visitors worth of keywords. Could you perhaps direct me to an article that goes in depth about using keywords in your site? I guess my question really is, do I just put the keywords in a meta tag and then get a bunch of backlinks to increase my google rating or do I do that but also use a lot of those keywords in the content of my website?
Sorry, maybe this wasn’t the best post to put this comment…..I kinda went off on a tangent there! Anyway, just wanted to say how much I enjoy your site and hopefully, one day soon, I’ll be able to come back to this post and use it’s info to buy a great site!
Hi Richard,
I think on-site SEO is a good idea for the future, though my post on WordPress SEO does cover most of it in detail.
Make sure they’re in the copy, title tag and preferably an H1 tag somewhere on the page. Just make sure you don’t overdo it. The links matter far more than how many times the phrase is on your page.
Another great instructional article, Glen and one that is very useful. I always learn a lot when I visit you.
I’m wondering if you’ve ever regretted selling one of your sites and afterwards kicked yourself for selling something that could have made you a lot more money. What’s your thought-process involved in selling the sites? Is that you are just not interested in that area anymore?
Also, have you thought of in those instances perhaps providing consulting services to those people who would be interested in the sites that you don’t have time for (or interest in), but where you’ve already done the homework? There must be a few ‘B’ type sites that would be a good initial investment for clients.
Thanks,
Karen
Hey Karen,
I definitely kicked myself over selling PluginID which is why I bought it back. I totally made the right decision the second time around, though.
Generally it’s when I lose passion for the site or just want to decrease the size of my portfolio. Even if a site is only taking up 2 hours a week of my time, if I don’t love that work, I’ll either outsource or sell.
I’m still buying quite a few sites so that probably won’t be a good idea for me right now. Maybe in the future though
Thanks Karen!
Very well written post Glen. I am always looking for additional revenue streams, so thanks for opening my eyes even further!
Awesome,
You’re welcome.
Hey Glen, more great information as usual. This is a topic I am especially interested in as I do some buying and selling of sites too. In fact, I got one for a steal recently by directly contacting the owner and asking if he wanted to sell. He sold it to me for a heck of a lot less than I expected. That was about a month ago and I have already earned the amount back that I payed for it without doing anything except writing one new post and updating a few of the existing ones that were on there. So doing it that way can definitely pay off.
Last year I sold a site for $48,000 on Flippa so that was a nice pay day. And have sold a few more for a lot less than that but still a good amount. Site flipping can be a great way to make money that’s for sure. And the information you have given here will be very helpful to those interested in getting into it.
In fact, I own the #2 ranked “Blog Flipping” blog on Google so I will put a link to this post of yours in the next post I write on there. I think more people need to read this post!
Hey Trent,
Very impressive!
Thanks for the future mention 😉
Glen,
Thanks for all these really, really informative posts. You are constantly surprising me with the detailed information you’re putting out there, and I think it’s really admirable. Most people would guard these details and be secretive, but you just release the hounds every time
Thanks for all the great info. We’re learning lots from you.
Keep up the fantastic work
Dave
Hey Dave,
I hope life is good.
You’re very welcome. Thanks for your support as always.
Glen thanks for being so detailed on this subject. I have considered buying sites for a while but just didn’t know where to begin. I know I can always count on you to provide very valuable content. Thanks!
Thanks Jonathan!
Good to see you here.
Hi Glen,
Another great post. I constantly look forward to seeing a new Viper Chill article in my reader
I had a few questions about some of the terms listed on Flipper and was wondering if you could explain them either in the comments in a new post. Below is what I copied off the site BlogTopSites:
Site Statistics (from UrlTrends)
Google PageRank: 3
Alexa Rank: 10,548
Links in Google: 4,170
Links in Yahoo!: 67,539
Site Statistics (from Compete.com)
Compete Ranking: 23,192
Unique Count: 79,830
Trust: Trusted
Site Content (from Copyscape)
Possible Copies Found: 2 (view)
So what exactly do these stats mean?
Like, what is page rank? I understand it is your rank in Google, but for what keyword? is it a bunch of keywords? An average? or your man keyword?
What are the basis for the links? how can you tell the value of those links? ie repeats on different sites and quality of links?
What is compete ranking and unique count?
Your help would be most appreciated!
Thanks again for a great post!
Hey Vinay,
Thanks buddy.
Google pagerank is more of Google’s view of your website, rather than rankings for any phrase. How many links your site has (and their ‘value’) determines pagerank.
You can’t give the links an exact value but with pagerank, how many links there are to that site, and relevance, you can get an idea of how valuable they are.
Compete is a guesstimation of how much traffic sites are getting. Similar to Alexa it gets it’s info from installed toolbars and a few other sources.
I hope that helps
No joke, this is the only blog that I truly look forward to what you’re going to post next. It’s full of WIN. Keep it up!
Great to hear. Thanks!
What about Blog Explosion. Would you buy that?
I’ve never heard of it to be honest, Anne
Hi Glen
I am a new comer to this field and you posts are next to bible for me where i can find a huge number of relics governing the religion of internet. You have shown me the true potential of internet and i am taking this field very seriously. But i wish i could get some personalized training from you so that i could learn the things better but i am happy with your blogs and my aim is that if not more i want to be 2% of what you are.
Cheers
Ankit
Awesome article Glen. A lot of great info in there for buyers and sellers alike.
Hey Luke, great to see you over here again (Luke is from Flippa, everyone).
Thanks Glen,
Great advice. This is stuff I will be able to use further down the line once I have built up some revenue. It’s really good to hear your thought process, as most of the time people just write about techniques without giving their audience a strategy to implement them.
Good point Alex,
You’re welcome, and thanks for the comment.
Hi Glen,
Great Article. We’ll certainly be linking to this in our essential reads post.
I think the Admintasia site has been relisted for a third time now, so it seems many people share your views on this one!
All the best
Awesome FF, thanks!
I thought I had it seen it before but wasn’t 100% certain. Thanks for clarifying.
At 54 years young and learning online for 3 years I’ve not seen this before.
Coming from “old school’ networking I retired 6 months ago online thank God and my hard work.
I’m far from my goal and looking at ideas like this is intriging and interesting.
I noticed your blog is pr5 also.
Impressive.
I need to learn here.
Thanks
Looks like you’ve got a few ideas for new articles here and maybe even an ebook:) I wonder if there are people who sell sites like real estate agents do houses. Probably. Maybe it would be a good thing to get into or set up a separate blog for it if interest you. Maybe you pushed the price up a bit on the blog directory? Heaps of room for improvement there you’re spot on.
Haha, the auction has received tons of clicks from this post so I wouldn’t be surprised if I’ve started a bidding war 😉
Glenn,
Great post as always; you seem to have a knack on getting to the point quickly and in simple terms. I would love to see a post on your link building methods; especially, outside of guest blogging
Cheers,
Mark
Hey Mark,
This should help: http://www.viperchill.com/link-building/
Hey, Viper:
I’m a pro site flipper as in someone who creates sites to sell, and I do so via Flippa. Your primer on buying and selling sites is thoughtful and pretty thorough. But I would add the following to your article.
Many will pay good money for a brand new site with no traffic or revenue, if it has other attractive features. Such as a good design, a hot niche, original starter content, initial onsite SEO, initial offsite SEO, etc. The way I look at it, is that some prefer to pay someone a few hundred dollars to have a READY MADE SITE. A site that they can just start promoting and or building out further.
A foundation if you will.
To those who are curious (or interested) in site/blog flipping, feel free to contact me to chit chat about the industry.
Cheers,
Missy
Hey Missy,
Great addition. I see your entire blog is based around Flipping so you obviously know what you’re talking about. I definitely like sites that are prebuilt if I want to build something around my passions. If I’m doing it purely for ROI then I’ll go for the types of sites I listed above.
Thanks!
I have always been intrigued with flipping websites but I guess to scared because of lack of education on the subject and scared of getting ripped off liked you mentioned could happen if you do not do your research. So thanks for the info I might start shopping around for some good websites now..
You’re welcome Chad,
Just pop back here if you have any questions.
Great post, packed full of useful information. This is one of a few blogs where I genuinely come away feeling that I have learned something relevant and new with every visit. Thanks for all the free info glen, you obviously put a great deal of time and effort into this site..
Hey Adam,
I do put hours upon hours into each article but I think it’s worth it. Rather that then spending the same time producing 6 articles which nobody reads
Well (as i’m sure you know) it is well appreciated. Hope to eventually follow a similar path to your’s and I glean so much information from your article’s. Hate having to wait for the latest post but it’s always worth it. Anyway, that’s enough ego stroking now! Keep up the good work spuggy 😉
Great post,
I was just thinking of buying/selling some stuff via flippa and this works great.
Recently I nearly bought a website which I didn’t really want, thank god someone outbid me by 10 bucks.. saved me 220!
Great tips (as usual)
Bedankt!
Haha. I won the auction for a nice site but didn’t realise the seller had sold the exact same design and content 10 times before. Luckily I didn’t have to go through with the purchase.
Hi Glen, I came across your blog lat thursday and have not stopped reading and taking notes since. I think it’s just an awesome resource and your openness is refreshing in an industry where people are often extremely secretive. Now I have a question for you. I come from a finance background and have had a blog for some time now that I intend to take to the next level. It is hosted on blogger but I plan to get it on its own domain etc etc. My question is: I saw a nice layout on the bottom of a blog called bloggingstocks.com ( where they have headlines from various financial news outlets) and I wanted to know how they did it so I can incorporate a similar thing in my blog. Just by looking at it do you think you could tell what feed they are using? or whether or not its something proprietary? Just reading your blog has inspired me to restart mine. The tips you reveal will now be my tools to execute a “redo” of my blog. I really appreciate your ability to break things down and clear the “clutter”. BTW: my blog is http://cowanview.blogspot.com ( if u wanna take a look at it b4 I change the address). Thanks a lot.
Thanks Glen it’s a wonderful guide on buying/selling websites. I’d been thinking about it but just didn’t take the time to find out much. This definitely did the trick! It was rather overwhelming last time I looked at Flippa, and caused me to go back to blogging right away
Hey mate recommend me a niche a newbie could start with to learn
What do you read books about?
I totally agree with this line: I genuinely feel that the internet is one of the best places to invest your money and get a great ROI if you know what you’re doing. With the internet, just as I always say, you can create a product once and sell forever.
Glen,
Thanks for the reply. Just bought your book, basically read it all in one day. It answered all of most of my questions, pretty comprehensive. Will now work on putting theory into practice.
Cheers!
Thanks for the link and the advice! I’ll be sure to put your advice into practice.
Hey Glen,
great article(s)! What is your opinion on travel websites?
Thanks, Andy
Wow Interesting. I NEED To Bookmark this.
This is great! I never knew how much of a business this could be. The internet has always been just a resource of information to me not a resource of profit. Thank-you for the input!!! This was great to read.
Glen,
Thank you for being so transparent. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your openness and honesty about your business and knowledge of the web.
I tell many of my friends about your site because the content is so flippin good…and also because you explain things exactly as I would!
very nice post and loaded with useful info as usual
Great post Glen.
This post alone can serve as another chapter in Cloud Living.
Hello,
It is interesting to hear from action taker. I have been interested in the business of flipping of website but have refused to spend a dime because most people out there are just information sellers.
I will like to know how much your book cost
Cheers. Great tips. Interested in selling my niche content site http://colorfultimes.com and your advice has been invaluable. Many thanks!
That’s an exceptionally useful article. The valuation principles alone are worth the read.
FlyBoy Wakesurf – the most technically advanced wakesurf boards.
Hi Glenn,
Awesome post! Could you also mention a few (or more :D) things that you check when you are planning to buy a site? What do you look for? How thoroughly do you check out the site? What tools do you use for that? How do you know (apart from experience) if a site is a fraud? I’m just asking because I’m kind of newbi to this area but I’m really interested. Thanks for the help!
B.
Been trying it, but haven’t had much Luck with it
You took your time to offer excellent
tips on websites flipping. Thank you.
This post is an inspiration to people who are confused
as to where to start an online business. The $550 site
flip is a simple case study that spending time to create
content pays.
hey,
some great info but you don’t say anything about retail sites?
The $550 flip in 30 days is really interesting. It means anybody
can turn his time to money in record time with consistent action
taking. Thank you
This is, by far, the best and most transparent article about buying websites that I have ever seen. Thanks a lot for all the awesome information bro.
Thanks for detailed on this subject. I have considered buying sites for a while but just didn’t know where to begin.
Great post! This was really helpful. I was looking to start buying and selling websites and I was trying to find a comprehensive guide. This was a great start. Thanks!
Nice overview on purchasing websites. Most people who start out buying websites should probably focus on a certain type of website (e.g. content website or forums or dropshipping). Each subset presents its own challenges, and you learn what to look out for in whatever niche you specialize.
Great article. I am getting into the web developing field and am looking for ways to monetize for when I have some more skills. You have some sound advice here, thanks for posting.
amazing stuff. I just love reading about website flipping. I do lot of site flipping & I think selling website is one of the easiest money making formula out there.
Wonderful source and with clarity to flip the websites. I am a beginner and would really helpful to follow your guidelines listed above.
Thanks once again.
Great info and nice job on that sale!
I’ve been looking into website flipping recently and it seems like a viable online income opportunity. I remember reading somewhere that it usually takes about 6 months to get a site up and running to its full potential, in order not to miss out on potential profits.
Though I don’t see myself flipping websites for the sake of it, I can think of a couple of projects that I would rather sell than keep. Got to touch them up to get the best price!
Thanks again for the wonderful article!
Great article, many thanks. A lot of useful information in there, and still all perfectly relevant reading it three years later.
Glad you think so!
Thanks Tristan
Things have definitely changed a bit four years later since this writeup! Are you still in the buying and selling space, Glen?
I take it someone just got a new job? 😉
No I’m not at the moment.
Heh, not brand new, but I did start with Empire Flippers about four months ago. Do you remember when I first emailed you back in August for that video? Would have been cool to have you on there, Glen!
Damn! I was just going to go pitch mode on you. 😉
Has anyone had luck selling pre-ranked websites to local businesses?
I build, rank and lease sites all the time to local businesses but have trouble selling them outright sometimes.
I have a site that ranks #1 in the plastic surgery niche in LA that brings in $2000/mo but can’t sell it for anything.
Most website buyers want a site that gets a lot of traffic and/or sells affiliate products. My site gets only 400 unique visitors/day but generates 15-25 leads per month – which is huge for a surgeon.
Anyway, just wondering if anyone has had success selling local lead generation sites outright?
Hi Glen,
Great write up and perspective. I too have dabbled in the “Buy and Sell Websites” arena but not too long after got into other fields of internet marketing doing freelance work for some local clients. That got old pretty quickly for me. Now I’m back, but instead of doing the buying and selling myself, I decided to start my own website auction marketplace where users can sell domains (new and old), scripts and even advertising space. I’m only a week into launching the website and I can tell already it’s a gonna be a long road and a lot of work for one person. Wish me luck!
Good blog you have got here.. It’s difficult to find excellent writing like yours
these days. I truly appreciate people like you! Take care!!
Nice to see the amount of money made in 30 days. Great Post. Nice way to earn extra money.
Fantastic article. I would like to add a couple of comments…
Buying and selling of websites can be very tedious and confusing if you don’t have much experience .I remember the first time I wanted to sell my website. I was a complete mess and eventually it did take me a long time to understand the working of the internet market world dimensions .
To all the guys and gals new to why a seller is selling his website it may be due to, look for the following atributes:
1. The owner doesn’t update his website regularly
2. It is usually harder to build a business than to grow it
3. Build your own ad campaign .While doing so make sure you are targeting the right section of audience be it men, women, youngsters, business men
As soon as the ranking and traffic has improved, you can sell the site. As an Aussie, I would recommend the Trademysite.com a marketplace.
Thanks