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Make Money Online With Website Flipping
Website flipping can be a business that you begin while you continue to work your 9 to 5 job.
You don’t have to go anywhere, commit large blocks of time, or make substantial investments while you learn how to flip.
Your office is your computer, and the Internet is the source of the information you require.
All you need is an attraction to this type of work and a desire to start your own business endeavor, with the prospect of making real money and eventually becoming independent.
At the very least, adding an additional source of income will increase your credit score and ensure you don’t have to deal with debt collection agencies like the American Adjustment Bureau.
Invested correctly and it could gaurantee a comfortable retirement too!
If any or all of these ideas appeal to you, continue reading.
I’ve put together a comprehensive overview of the website flipping business to give you a good idea of what it’s all about.
How to start a profitable website flipping business
What is Website Flipping?
Website flipping is the skill of purchasing, improving, and then selling websites.
You may be familiar with the term “flipping,” which comes to us from the real estate business.
This is when an investor or investor group buys a building or a home, makes improvements to add value to the structure, such as updating the electrical system or installing a new roof, and then sells this improved property at a profit.
As an investor, you do the same when you flip a website: you purchase the site, make improvements to it to add value, then sell the improved website at a profit.
Website flipping is obviously different from website building (selling versus creating a website).
But the two intertwine. Read on for exactly how they are related.
How to get started flipping websites
Website flipping can be a profitable endeavor, but it takes a certain amount of knowledge and skill to be successful.
Here are a few tips to help you get started in the world of website flipping:
First, it’s important to understand what makes a website valuable.
Factors like traffic levels, revenue, and niche will all affect the sale price.
It’s also essential to have a realistic idea of the potential buyer pool for a particular site.
Second, it’s crucial to know how to identify undervalued websites.
One way to do this is to look for sites that are not generating enough revenue relative to their traffiic levels.
Another way is to find sites that are in declining industries or have outdated designs.
Finally, it’s important to have a plan for how you will add value to a website before selling it.
This could involve anything from optimizing the site for search engines to redesigning the user interface.
By following these tips, you’ll be well on your way to becoming a successful website flipper.
What you need to know before starting a website flipping business
Before you start flipping websites, there are a few things you need to know.
First, it’s important to understand the difference between a website flip and a traditional business sale.
A website flip typically involves buying an existing website, making improvements, and then selling it for a profit.
In contrast, a traditional business sale usually involve the transfer of ownership, assets, and liabilities.
Second, you need to have a clear idea of your target market.
Who are you trying to sell the website to?
What kinds of buyers are interested in this type of purchase?
Finally, you need to be realistic about the time and effort required to flip a website.
It’s not a passive income stream; it takes work to find websites to buy, improve them, and then market them for sale.
But if you’re willing to put in the effort, website flipping can be a great way to earn some extra cash.
How to find profitable websites to flip
Websites can be a great source of income, but only if they are profitable.
To find profitable websites to flip, start by looking for sites that have a steady stream of traffic.
Once you’ve found a few potential candidates, take a close look at their advertising revenue.
If a website is generating a significant amount of money from ads, it’s likely to be profitable.
You should also examine the site’s content to see if it is high quality and original.
If a site has thin or duplicative content, it’s less likely to be profitable.
Finally, make sure to investigate the website’s backlink profile.
If a website has many high-quality backlinks, it’s likely to be more valuable than one with no backlinks at all.
By following these tips, you can quickly identify websites that are likely to be profitable and worth flipping.
Where Can I Buy or Sell Websites?
Here’s a list of the top online businesses that buy and sell websites and an overview of each.
They all sell apps and domains in addition to flipping websites.
Motion Invest. Known as the #1 place to buy vetted content sites efficiently.
Flippa. This self-styled “entrepreneur’s marketplace” lists over 5,000 online businesses for purchase daily.
Empire Flippers. These people specialize in providing up-to-date statistics and information about their inventory.
Website Broker. This site lists “fully-developed” websites for sale and lists your website to sell.
Side Projectors. In addition to websites, you can buy and sell “side projects,” like hardware, desktop programs, apps, etc.
FE International. Brokers help you buy and sell here.
Latona’s. This company helps buyers and sellers get together, and they do not charge a fee until the website sells.
eBay. Best known for selling and buying items like clothing, electronics, and toys, eBay also sells websites. Search the site for “websites for sale.”
Determine what you want to buy, how much you want to spend, if you will need help (and how much) in buying, and other factors such as cost before choosing one of these services to help you.
How Much Money Can You Make With Website Flipping?
Forbes magazine indicates you should sell a website at a price between 24 and 36 times of the monthly revenue it generates.
In hard numbers, this means that if the website you are selling brings in $1,000 per month income, you should sell it for between $24,000 and $36,000.
Referring to the nuts and bolts of buying and selling websites (see next section), you need to consider the main factors involved in buying a website or websites.
This includes the investment in purchasing the website; the cost in time, money, and effort it takes to improve it; determining a selling price; and finally finding a buyer, perhaps with the help of a website broker.
Keep in mind that some of this activity involves spending additional money on your part after the initial outlay of buying the website.
Think fees for content writers, brokers, and backlink builders — tasks you may not want or know how to do yourself.
You will subtract these additional expenses from the money you generate from the sale.
How To Make Money With Website Flipping
First, decide whether you want to create a successful and profitable website yourself, and then sell it.
Or if you want to buy a successful website, improve it, and then flip it.
About the first option, many people ask, “Why would I want to sell a website that I worked hard to create?”
That is a question you need to ask yourself.
Do you want to go through the process of research, creation, and making a website successful only to sell it?
You can ask a similar question for the second option- “why would I want to sell a website I bought that is successful and making money?”
The objective is to be a flipper of websites, not a website creator or maintainer.
So, if you are sure you want to flip websites, you can move forward.
Most people focus on buying websites and flipping them instead of creating them and then flipping because it’s easier and less time-consuming.
With this in mind, your first task is to find a website that is performing well, then improve it.
Find a Website That is Doing Well
Find a website in a profitable niche, such as food and cooking, travel, business, wellness and health, or technology, that is making money every month.
The more money the site is making, the better.
If you can locate a site about which you know something, through job experience, training, or hobbies, this knowledge can help you shape your marketing approach and the content.
- Is the traffic going up or remaining stable?
- How much does it earn monthly?
- What are the different sources of monetization?
You can see the history of the content for an established website using a tool like Archive.org.
To investigate anchor text, referring domains, and the quantity of backlinks, use the Site Explorer Tool from Majestic.
If referring domains come from fake websites, i.e., blank page sites, phony brand sites, etc., ditch that site and find another.
Check ban history.
You do not want to invest in a company banned from the Google search index.
Other areas you want to be aware of are:
- Respectable monthly visits
- Consistent publishing of content
- A good-sized email list
Also, search for websites owned by one person.
They are almost always cheaper than the big, corporate-owned sites for sale.
Negotiating the Price and the Sale
After you’ve found a website you want to purchase, you can research how much it is truly worth.
Analyze and compute to determine a reasonable price.
Then approach the owner, either through a broker or website marketplace, to work out the sale.
The process can be lengthy, especially if other offers are on the table.
If it is taking too long and the process is way drawn-out, move on to another opportunity.
Remember, there are millions of website flipping prospects out there.
Improve the Website’s Appeal
After you’ve purchased the website, improving it is relatively simple if you concentrate on these four main aspects:
- An outstanding theme
- Best quality content
- Backlinks
- Revenue stream
A good place to find a customer-attracting theme is Generate Press, if you are using WordPress.
If you are not, you can improve the site by using SquareSpace or Wix.
They offer templates that you can customize as needed.
When it comes to a website’s success, just having a great theme is not enough.
Your website should have an appealing, mobile-friendly design that captivates the visitors’ attention.
You can work with qualified Experfy web designers and make your site look more professional.
To create powerful, sales-generating content, hire a professional writer from sites like Fiverr, PeoplePerHour or Upwork.
Backlinks are somewhat difficult to achieve.
However, you can contact professional backlink builders on sites like PeoplePerHour, Freelancer, and Warrior Forum.
For revenue streaming, consider partnering with Amazon Associates if you want to start an associate marketing site that provides commissions on all sales that you provide to a company or brand.
Check out Google AdSense if you are seeking advertising income.
Determining the Website’s Worth
Arguably the most significant factor for flipping websites is how much you sell them for.
Consider that you are selling the website as a whole.
This includes the domain name, the site’s content, its income, and the idea that originated it.
Websites typically sell for two to three times the amount of revenue they bring in every year.
Therefore, if your website generates $1,000 per month, or $12,000 per year, you can expect to sell it for a price between $24,000 and $36,000.
Use these numbers as a guide to formulate a value for your website.
Listing the Site
While you may get a direct offer from a buyer, chances of that are rather slim.
It is better to list the site for sale on one of these popular marketplaces:
- Flippa
- Trademysite (for selling ecommerce websites)
- Afternic
You can either auction off your website or sell it at a fixed price.
Experience determines the best choice, which you will come to recognize in time.
If you have a solid idea about the value of your website, and you have the time to wait for a buyer, you can set a price and put it on the market.
If you think your site has great potential, and you feel it is a site for which others may pay big, you can offer it at auction.
However, at auction, you risk selling it for less than what you have put into it.
A general rule to flip a website is to begin small and work slowly.
Buy a reasonably-price site, for example, between $1,000 and $10,000.
Don’t stray outside your comfort zone financially while simultaneously putting the time, research, and effort into making the website function better and making it able to generate more income, so it is more attractive to a buyer.
Then you are on your way toward making a sale, providing a good investment for the future owner, and making yourself a profit.
Is Domain Flipping Still Profitable?
In the commercial world, a domain name is a character string that computers use to direct potential buyers to websites.
As the owner of a domain, you receive exclusive use of this string of letters and numbers so you can register it and employ it for selling, trading, or other activities.
When you create a domain name that no one is using, it’s yours to use freely.
If no one owns a domain name that someone has already created, you can purchase it outrightly.
Check out whether a domain name is available by searching domain name availability.
After you create or buy a domain name and register it, you have sole use of it.
When you flip a domain, you buy it from someone (or claim it if it is not in use), and then sell it for more than what you paid for it, (which is zero if you are selling one that was not previously in use).
You do nothing to the domain before you sell it; you sell it “as is,” so you make no improvements as with website flipping.
To answer the question, is website flipping still profitable?
It is, if your timing is right and you know what to look for when researching domain names to buy and resell.
For example, the domain that sold for the highest recorded price was www.cars.com which put more than $800 million into the bank account of the seller.
A domain name must be relatively inexpensive to purchase and potentially profit-making to sell.
So look for domain names that have potential, now and in the future.
Flipping a domain name for a website about buggy whips is not going to bring much profit.
A domain name for smartphones or electric cars might.
Evaluate whether the name is “search friendly.”
In other words, check if people can find what they are looking for easily using the domain name.
Also look into whether the sales of similar domain names have been profitable.
If you take these variables and conditions into consideration, do your research, and use reasonable judgment, you will find that flipping domains can be profitable.
The risks and rewards of flipping websites
While website flipping may sound like an easy way to make money, there are also several risks involved.
For one thing, it can be difficult to estimate the true value of a website.
Without adequate research, it’s easy to overpay for a website or sell one for far less than it’s worth.
In addition, flipping websites generally requires a significant amount of time and effort.
Even minor improvements can take hours to complete, and it can be challenging to find buyers who are willing to pay a fair price.
Despite these risks, however, website flipping can be a very profitable venture for those who are willing to put in the work.
With patience and careful planning, it’s possible to earn a great return on investment by flipping websites.
Website Flipping: How to Make Money Building, Buying & Selling Sites
last updated on MAY 12, 2022
Finance, Legal & Tax Disclaimer
The author is not a finance, legal or tax professional. He is a self taught entrepreneur, sharing lessons learned. Expect this article to contain inaccuracies. Always consult a professional before choosing a course of action.
If you start looking at websites as assets that can be built, bought and sold — your (internet) worldview changes. At least that’s been the case for me.
For far too long, I wrongly held the view that websites could:
- make some extra cash each month from display advertising or affiliate marketing, and
- were only really worth something to me.
Both of these couldn’t be further from the truth.
Imagine if you could buy a website for $5,000 and sell it a year later for $100,000 (or more). It’s not out of the realm of possibility.
This process is known as “website flipping”, where you buy a website that you deem to have potential, then unlock that potential and sell it for a profit.
In this blog post, I’ll cover how you can flip websites for a profit and some important things to consider before you get started on this journey.
- Flipping as a Business Model
- What is Website Flipping?
- Site Flipping: To Buy Or To Build?
- How To Flip Websites: A Complete Breakdown
- Flipping Websites: An Exercise in Confidence
Flipping as a Business Model
Back when buying things online were still perceived as risky, I used to buy brand new cycling and mountain biking products online from the USA, use them for a while, and sell them for a profit in Australia.
Yes, I bought them new, sold them used, and made money. I’ve done the same with automotive parts and (albeit used when I purchased them) complete cars from Japan.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was creating value by:
- seeking out the best prices,
- taking on the risk of using a credit card online, negotiating foreign exchange rates with banks and navigating escrow services,
- working out how to get products shipped to Australia (surprisingly difficult back then),
- making it easy and safe for a local buyer to purchase a product they could see in person.
You might not have done it consciously, but you’ve probably done the same in the past. I know people who buy antique furniture, watches, or classic cars, give them some much-needed love, and then sell them for a profit.
The issue with bike components, antiques, watches and cars are that they take up space, need to be kept safe while you own them, and need to be transported.
So why not do the same with websites?
Websites can be built, bought, and sold from your home office. They can be moved across borders. This makes them location independent, allowing you to live in a different location to the business that earns you money.
Barriers to entry are about as low as they get — as long as you have an internet connection and can afford some half-decent web hosting (like Flywheel), you’re good to go.
What is Website Flipping?
Investing in websites that are already making money, improving them either by increasing the amount of traffic that visits the website or making more money from the same amount of website visitors (or both), then selling the website for a profit.
That’s website flipping for you.
Of course, this is an oversimplification. From selecting the right website to putting in months of work to improve its search rankings — a lot goes into the actual process.
While there are some “off the shelf” (or out of an eBook) processes that you can follow, if you want an edge in this space you’ll want to spend some time finding a process that works for you.
What I love about site flipping is how it can be done on both a big or small scale. You might buy a website for a few hundred dollars and sell it off 10 times what you bought it for. You might be surprised to learn that the same inputs and processes could grow a $50,000 website to $500,000.
Oftentimes, the larger the site, the less work you need to do, as the work you do on the site scales further, though the stakes are obviously higher.
Invest the profits back into buying more websites to flip and you can end up with a large chunk of change after a few years.
Site Flipping: To Buy Or To Build?
There are two main approaches to site flipping: buying an existing site and then improving it, or building a new site from scratch.
Each approach has its own set of pros and cons.
Buying an existing site is often less expensive and time-consuming than building a new one.
However, you may have less control over the final product and there may be hidden costs associated with the purchase.
For example, the previous owner may have used sub-standard materials or shortcuts that will need to be corrected.
Building a new site from scratch gives you more control over the final product, but it is typically more expensive and time-consuming than buying an existing site.
You will also need to put in more work to get the new site off the ground and generate traffic.
However, if done correctly, you can end up with a higher-quality, more valuable site in the end.
Ultimately, the best approach for you will depend on your budget, timeline, and goals for the project.
If you want a quick and easy flip with minimal upfront costs, buying an existing site may be the way to go.
If you’re looking for a higher-quality product that you can put your own stamp on, building a new site from scratch may be the better option.
Deep-dive into website flipping with The Website Flip
The Website Flip course is the perfect way to learn how to make money by flipping websites.
The course includes everything you need to know about website flipping, from finding and buying websites to selling them for a profit.
The course also provides valuable insights into the world of website flipping, including how to find and assess potential website candidates, how to negotiate deals, and how to maximize profits.
Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced flipper, The Website Flip course is an essential resource for anyone looking to make money in the website flipping industry.
What Next?
Flipping websites, like any business prospect, is an avenue to success for those who truly enjoy the type of work that is required and who put forth the effort to make it happen.
Now, you’ve learned enough about the website flipping business to see if it’s right for you. Now it is up to you to decide whether it’s something you’d like to explore further.
While no one can guarantee success and profitability, learning from others can save you time and resources as you make your first inroads toward owning and operating a business you created.
More Website Flipping Articles
The Website Flip Website Flipping Course Review
Full Domain Privacy & Protection
The Difference Between COM And CO
Investing In Websites For Maximum ROI
How To Buy A Domain Name Permanently
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