Have you heard of flipping a website or blog? Like buying a home, remodeling it and then selling it – same concept, except the market is probably better. Monica of Healthy Green Moms and I bought a website last December, after Monica did a ton of research on key words and back in December or 2009 organic baby products was a hot key word. Monica did found a great website hosted on WordPress with the URL we were looking for and some great content that was search engine friendly. As an experiment we decided to do a redesign and use what we knew how to do well – build the website to have revenue potential, a great Google ranking, decent Alexa and content SEO friendly content. Our goal was to spend as little time as possible, write in general terms so that any new owner could easily be seen as the author and to profit. Yes, profit and when we started we had hoped to keep the website for at least 6 months to one year but Monica was pregnant, I started getting busier and we decided to experiment with selling the website and seeing what we could get for it.
We launched the website in January of 2009 and in March of 2009 we successfully sold the website via Sitepoint for $1200 after spending three months and $300. An estimated 25% profit margin – time not included and for our first go at it flipping a blog, I was satisfied. What was learned from this process of flipping a blog or websiteis the following:
1. It is possible to buy a website and flip.
2. The potential buyers were all interested in revenue potential with spots to sell advertising and affiliate links already built into the content and set up.
3. A Google Page rank of 3 or higher and Alexa that was below 500,000.
4. A low bounce rate and proof that there was an increase in page views.
5. Social networking sites already set up, like Twitter and Facebook.
If flipping a website or blog peaks your interest here is my advice:
1. Set a budget and timeline and stick to it with solid goals of having at least 50 posts, a Google Page rank of 3 and a monthly revenue stream of at least $25 or more.
2. Be legally prepared to sell the site and list what is included in the sale. Transferable revenue, inventory of intellectual property rights, agreement to compete or not compete with the new owner and will the writer stays on to write for the website?
3. Use a safe payment option such as PayPal or Escrow and have a verified Sitepoint account.
4. Consider having your website or blog appraised or using someone to help you negotiate the sale if the dollar amount is high.
5. Be prepared to consider the time and money you will invest. Consider the blog design cost, hosting, etc.
Monica and I truly believe that had we kept the website for a longer period of time we could have made a better profit but since we’ll never know maybe I’ll have to try again. For some great advice on flipping a blog consider, ProBlogger or Entrepreneurs-Journey.
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