- Image by TheAlieness GiselaGiardino²³ via Flickr
I have been building and selling websites since October last year and although it has not been that long I have learned a lot and it has become a nice way for me to diversify my business.
I have found that it is a relatively simple and and a good low cost way to start making some cash using your blogging skills. In this article, instead of just theoretically talking about how you could do it, I challenge you to put some time down and do it.
Your success cannot be guaranteed but I will say that most of my new build sites sell for at least $100 profit. If you want to see some of my sales just check out my profile on sitepoint.
Like I said, I want you to try this and I will be here to ask questions, critique your site before sale and give any other advice that you may need. Now onto what you need to do….
1. Go to the Sitepoint Marketplace section “Startup Websites For Sale” and take a look around. Look at what seems to be selling and have a read over some of the sales copy to get an idea of what is going on. Then sign up for an account, it’s free.
2. Based on your readings and what you are comfortable with, pick a subject. Things like economy, frugal and green living seem to be doing well but if you want to try something wacky you never know it may sell for a great price.
3. Write 10-15 articles on your chosen subject. Alternatively you can buy the articles but this will reduce profit. If you want to outsource then ask a friend or try Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. You should be able to buy an article for around $3.
4. Buy a .com or .net domain that is catchy and related to your subject. Setup hosting pointing to that domain and install wordpress. I advise Godaddy for domains, discount coupon codes can be found at Fatwallet. And I advise Hostgator for hosting. I use a reseller account that allows me to create separate accounts for every site that I create all for $25 a month.
5. Find a suitable Wordpress theme. You want a clean and professional looking theme. Premium themes can help push the sale but I have had success using many free templates. More recently I have been using Hybrid News from Justin Tadlock. Install your theme, add a few plugins that you feel are needed. I normally keep it to a minimum but Google Sitemap, a Social Media plugin and Featured Content Gallery are good options.
6. Now you need to create a custom header design and any other graphics that you want. It needs, again, to be clean and professional. If needed outsource this, Mechanical Turk could be a good place to start. Then add all your articles and make sure they all have their own image. I find using free stick from Sxc.hu gives my sites a professional feel. Make sure you have the right to use ALL images.
7. Finish the site up. I often add adsense and affiliate ads so that they buyer can see how the site could be monetized. In some cased I re-brand a PLR ebook as added value . Also just tidy anything up that looks messy. You want to provide value for the customer as the hope is that some of these guys will become repeat customers.
8. Now go to sitepoint and list your site. I suggest setting the BIN (Buy It Now) price for a new site at somewhere between $150-$190 and I also through in a few bonuses such as free transfer ( My post “Move A Wordpress Blog” shows you how to transfer a blog after a sale). and often a few free banner designs. You could offer free articles, some PLR extra content or whatever your creativity decides! For your listing text use other sales as inspiration and honestly sell the value of the site you have created. For a small sale like this I would also normally just accept Paypal, however there can be risks with this so be diligant and make sure you trust the buyer before handing over the site. Bigger sales can be secure using Escrow.
9. Hopefully you will start getting bids, comments and messages. You may even have someone buy the site at BIN. Just answer everyone, be courteous and make sure you are quick to respond when someone has purchased the site. Get onto closing these sale asap and make sure they are happy. An important part of buying and selling sites is back-end sales. Make sure you take their email (with permission) and start to make a mailing list. Offer them discount hosting (I offer a $15 rebate if they buy Hostgator hosting through me) and anything else that you feel may benefit them and you.
That is really about it. I tend to buy my articles these days so spend around $35 and about 3 hours of my time for a $100 profit and a possible future client. So why don’t you give it a try?
If you need any help just ask. If you want me to critique your site and offer advice, take a look over your sales copy or anything just let me know.
I can be contacted privately via gmail. Forest.Parks@gmail.com.
Good luck, I’m off out tonight so i’ll raise a glass to your success.
I’ve been a subscriber to your Random Forest blog for quite some time, but never got around to putting any of your money making tips into practice – but this one caught my eye.
I already have a reseller hosting account and tons of Wordpress experience, so I picked up a couple of promising domains this afternoon (really cheap too, only $1 each!).
I’ll get them up and going by the end of the week and keep you posted you on how it all turns out.
Your faithful reader,
David
David that is absolutely awesome. Sorry for the bulk emails today….. I just switched the feed from the Random Forest over to Real Blogging Tips as I am writing on this blog a lot more recently.
Please if you have any questions get in contact with me.
Also your $1 domains…. Are they .info’s? I personally would try and stick to .com’s or .net’s if you can. However I have seen .info blogs sell well before.
Forest,
The domains are .info’s, but they’re pretty good ones (and they go well with some content I already have lying around.)
I noticed some .info blogs on Sitepoint that sold pretty well, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed. At least my investment will be pretty minimal if they don’t sell…
David
I’m looking forward to seeing what you can do. I don’t like claiming how easy people can make money. But I believe in this method and use it often myself so thought it was worth introducing to some other people.
Usually dot info domains don’t do well with buyers unless you have a good revenue to show them, or high traffic stats.
Yep I said the same thing to David but….. I am hoping he gets back to me and let’s me know how they are going. Recently I have been having some great search results with one of my .info domains.
Hi Forest,
Maybe you could expand on the outsourcing part of getting articles produced as this is the area that would take me far too long. I can buy a domain, install wordpress and plug-ins in 30-40 mins but then id be ages trying to put content together.
Pointers on this woudl be good – how to go about it, single or bulk, how you exhange payment etc. Catch my drift?
I’d like to know more about this as well. I picked domains related to topics for which I had some personal knowledge, so I could probably whip out 4-5 short articles fairly quickly. But 10-15 would be a tall order and the time involved in writing all of them myself would severely diminish my profitability.
I set up an account on Mechanical Turk, but stopped short of actually setting up a job (HIT). Just wasn’t sure of the best way to entice someone to write an article for $3…
Hey Guys…. Here is some more info about how I deal with articles.
Sometimes I do just write them myself. 10 articles can be easily be done in a few hours still making the site profitable. First I go to google and browse a few similar sites…. Then I write down 5-10 titles and literally start writing for the ones that I can write unaided my research.
The hard part is when you run out of personal knowledge. So for those times just find some PLR content or articles that are on some of the bigger websites and literally rewrite them. The research is done, the content exists and as long as they articles pass http://www.copyscape.com/ then Google sees them as unique.
Now for outsourcing…
I don’t use Mechanical Turk myself but recommend it because I have a few friends who found their trusted article writers and graphic designers through setting up a few hits. On further research it looks like only US residents can set up hits.
So an international place to find a good writer http://forums.digitalpoint.com/forumdisplay.php?f=76 (digital point). I have used this before by setting up a WTB post (Want to Buy) and stating my price, asking for people to contact me privately.
Always ask for a sample first so just order one or two articles. Read them over and check that they pass copyscape.
The final place that I use for articles was the place I was first going to recommend. However they are currently really late on some articles for me. But overall they have been very good for me and have been the source of my articles for many projects. They are: http://cyberhubonline.com.
You shouldn’t focus too much on the articles. Their main purpose at the early stage of a blog is to give some unique content to get Google to see value in the website. Most new owners will get to work right away adding new articles and sometimes amending the old ones to suit what they need. I have known flippers to get great prices for blog using only 5 articles….. But I have yet to try this.
Let me know if this explains it any better, or if I have missed the point.
Thanks
Forest,
One last question from me-
Is there a certain amount of time I should wait after I get a new blog set up before I try to sell? (In other words, do I need to worry about it getting indexed by Google first?)
David
Not with this method…. In this instance you are just selling a website package as such.
There are more advanced methods, which will net you more cash, that involves building traffic, income and other things. If this is a popular subject I will talk a little more about it in future.
Oh my ForestParks, this is really some excellent tip. You literally taught me on how to flip a site
This deserves some link mclovin
Thanks a lot,
Meg
Thanks Meg. I just went over to your blog and it looks like you have enough knowledge to do this whole thing so I hope you try really soon.
Let me know how you get along.
How about flipping twitter accounts?
They’re quick to set up, easy to get thousands of followers, and have a reasonably high value if they’re marketed right.
I have never tried…. It could work I guess. A lot of people sell blogs with a twitter account as an added extra and it can bump up the value.
Hi..
this is really some excellent tip. can you taught me on how to flip a site
Sure, follow my guide, as me some questions and give it a try.
Yo friend,
great and simple site flipping tips there.
You too gotta be more active in site flipping!
I know, I know, but there are only so many hours in the day
I’ve heard of quite a few people who buy and sell websites now and it does seem to generate a lot of income. I take it you really enjoy it as well, which is a huge bonus. I’m going to look into how to buy websites and hopefully in the next year or so, I’ll become a lot better on the internet and be able to boost a website
If you want it can easily be a full time income. I don’t think its a good idea to start buying sites until you become comfortable creating and selling sites so you know what sells and what does not.
Let me know if you have any questions along the way.
It seems really very interesting and exciting too. You can say a few people are doing this and also getting good amount behind that.
Yep they are doing great… although you have to produce good value and quality for the buyers.
Never done this before.
How long should I develop a site and how many back links till I sell a website.
Hi Paul,
With this method you just sell the site right away. Often I put a site up for sale the day I made it. you are selling a startup site.
However if you build traffic to a site and backlinks over a 30+ day period you can sell it in the established sites section and earn a little more cash.
I don’t have a reseller account. Can I still sell a website without buying a reseller account?
Nope you don’t need a reseller account. I just find it a lot easier to have one.
You can host it as an add on domain or on it’s own account as well. Then when sold the site gets moved to their hosting.
A good tip is to offer to do the move if you think you can handle it. I also try and sell on hosting using my affiliate link and offer a rebate.
If I’m going to sell a blog, can I just move the domain to the buyer’s account and then send him the files in the email?
You can do that no problem.
However as added value I always offer free transfer. But if you are not comfortable with it… don’t offer it.
The other option is to give them access to the account and a time scale to get the blog moved…. Then point them to my post about moving a blog to a new host.
These are some great tips…thanks for making every step so clear. Pretty much anyone can do this… Approx. what percentage of domains are you able to sell for a profit doing this?
Thanks!
Hey Life Insurance (What’s your real name?),
I would say that 90% sell first time and 9% sell second time and 1% just are duds and that’s life…. Just remember if you provide a decent package and real value you will sell them.
I’ll get them up and going by the end of the week and keep you posted you on how it all turns out.If this is a popular subject I will talk a little more about it in future.
Great let me know if you need some help.
Flipping a site is one of the easy way to make money online. It takes a little bit of experience, but you can do it just fine and make 12,000+ a year if you do it right.
YEp definitely agree… I have to get back to site flipping as have been a little inactive recently.
Thanks for sharing up this article. Its interesting and informative atleast for me
. I have never been into selling blogs or site but seems to be an interesting stuff and can earn few bucks…Nice post.
Hey, thanks for your comments in my blog. I really appreciate it.
Cheers
Krish
Hey Krish,
Thank you for stopping by… I have subscribed to your blog adn will try and make sure I come by and comment every now and then.
Let me know if you decide to try and create a website to sell and let me know if you need any pointers.
I will post a link directory for sale and keep you posted on the outcome
Please do… I have never sold a link directory.
that is a good run for a small investment…
elmots last blog post..Don’t Tell Me I Don’t Value My Family!
Yes definitely… You should give it a try
Thanks for this informative post!
I’ve been interested in and slowly studying site flipping but I’m always learning.
I never thought it would be easy to make a quick site then sell for say US$100 like weekly, I’ll have a look on site point for any.
Like many other things though it can be hard to start but just gets easier, “the first million is the hardest” and all that, as after your first sale you then have capital to back up the next one and so on, where you can do your keyword research then just purchase unique articles, as the rest is easy and quick enough not really much point hiring someone to do it all for you, could also possibly give them an incentive to go off and work for themself (if you’re paying them to do all the work, and making a profit, then there’s surely more money in it)..
I’d also never thought to check my content with copyscape, I just assumed that as I usually write my content by myself from scratch or “slight” re-writing (incorporating parts from somewhere else to bulk mine out a bit more) that it would be considered unique by any stretch of the imagination. But of course, Google is a search engine, lol
I just checked through some of my sites and it appears so far only domaintools has copied, hah
Hi Scott,
Thanks for the comment. You can indeed make $100 a day if you just stick to siteflipping. I see you have a little siteflipping niche site up… How is that going for you? It’s a tough niche.
Just as a guide I recently made a site with a friend which took us about half a day each and sold within hours of listing on sitepoint for $237.
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Hey,
Well so far it’s made a bit over US$5 from adsense and appears to be getting constant organic traffic (not much, but it’s a start), also for “site flipping” without quotes its at the top of page 4, with quotes the top of page 3 so it’s dropped about 8 places for both. I’m just trying to find some more tips, learn about SEO and then either try and write some more articles (I’m not a good writer, as you can tell from the site lol) or come up with some cash to purchase some, but I’d like to research my keywords well first so I’m not stuck with something useless. Though I don’t believe it’s a very much searched for term, http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/ says there are 2 searches lol
I know it’s easy enough to get the hang of it and better to dedicate yourself but I must distribute my efforts between this, many other projects and of course RL.
That’s immense, what site was that, if you don’t mind me asking?
That’s great stuff though, you are obviously learning fast.
It’s always important to spread your earnings over different projects but don’t spread yourself too thin.
If you need any advice just comment on the blog or mail me…. Also you might want to spend some time following my case study here: http://www.realbloggingtips.com/5-a-day-adsense-site-case-study-part-1/
It could be helpful for your niche marketing.
As for the sale… I don’t want to give away the URL as it’s not fair on the new buyer but I can tell you the niche was for about Moms saving cash and I used simple illustration graphics for the header.
Personally, if I spend time on a site I own, I would rather keep it for myself. Maybe eventually you could hire a writer to keep it going on the side. Then you have a long term source of income instead of a quick $100.
Hey,
For me I like to mix it up… If you need quick income you can do this. Over a longer period you can be building niche sites and using flips to supplement your income.
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ive got an old blog that ive kind of load interest in. i has just going to leave it, but read this post i might give the sitepoint ago. thanks again for the info
Great, if you need any help let me know.
Fantastic! I’m very new to this whole Wordpress thing. A little late to game, I know. I never knew it was so easy to make and flip a site. I’m always looking for real ways to make money online, and this method sounds legitimate and fun! Thanks for that link to Mechanical Turk, too.
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No problem, please let me know if you need any help or advice.