What do you know about website flipping? Are you a newbie or you’ve not even given it a thought?
Whatever your answer is, you’re in the right place! For about a year now, I’ve been researching website flipping as an alternative source of income for our company. Before then, I barely knew anything about website flipping. Certainly, I don’t want to hoard all the useful information about the topic. Keep reading to learn all the key information I’ve gathered over the year.
First of all, website flipping is the practice of acquiring a website, improving it to make it more valuable, and then, selling it for a profit. Similarly, you can consider it as a real estate investment or automobile investment. In these investments, for instance, you can acquire a product, improve its condition and sell it at a profit.
STAGES OF WEBSITE FLIPPING
Unlike other online businesses, flipping a website doesn’t happen overnight, it requires patience and consistency. Due to this, it’s important to know the stages through which a website flipping occurs.
Acquisition
This is the initial stage of the website flipping process where you acquire/purchase a website. This stage is sensitive because to succeed in flipping a site, you have to acquire potentially profitable sites. Website flipping is an investment therefore, it has certain risks. To make the right acquisition, look out for sites that are:
- easy niche
- under-monetized
- under-optimized
- under-valued
These sites are relatively easier to grow and sell.
Red Flags
Sometimes, it is better to build your own website and flip it. However, if you decide to purchase an existing website, you must be careful of the following red flags:
- Traffic from unusual sources (Direct, Referral)
- Traffic from ‘low-value’ countries (China, India, Ukraine)
- A website with a high bounce rate (Greater than 90%)
- A website with a skeptical backlink profile
I consider these red flags because they can affect the value/profitability of the site.
Stabilization
Subsequently, after acquiring a site from the original owner, it is important to assess it and fix all defects. Undoubtedly, this will help you build a good foundation to grow the website (increase its value). You know you can’t build a mansion on a broken foundation. Areas to consider include:
- Changing the theme
- Removing and adding plugins
- Improving site speed
- Improving site structure
- Switching out affiliate tags if any
Growth
For the most part, this is the stage where you need to invest heavily to make a site profitable. Additionally, the value at which you can sell a site will depend on how well you grow it. Some strategies for growing a site include:
- Optimizing existing content for better on-page SEO
- Adding new traffic sources
- Optimizing monetization strategies
- Adding new content targeting low-competition keywords
- Optimizing for conversion with CRO techniques
- Adding backlinks
- Improving overall site on-page SEO
Optimization
Additionally, in the website flipping industry, we can determine the value of a site by its average earnings over the last 6 months (L6M ). However, If the site is seasonal, we can determine its value by its average earnings over the past 12 months. After executing several strategies to grow a site, it is important to allow it to showcase that growth. In short, the optimization stage is a resting period for your site.
Exit
Finally, this is the stage where you make your sale. For you to secure a good sale, your site must be of high quality, on a good trend, and have good fundamentals. Buyers will be looking out for this. You can either choose a full exit by selling off the site on a site marketplace or hiring VA’s to take over daily tasks.
PLATFORMS FOR WEBSITE FLIPPING
STEPS TO GET STARTED
- First of all, you need to choose an area that interests you so that you can create rich content.
- After that, you can either find a proper niche website that fits your interest or create one from scratch.
- Also, you need to get a catchy domain name with trending keywords and select a suitable web hosting plan.
- Once you find a suitable platform to host your site, link your domain name with the web host.
- Design your site with either Template or WordPress.
- Advertise your site, you can consider Google AdSense, Amazon affiliates, Click Bank, or Commission Junction.
- Implement good SEO strategies
- Finally, your website is ready for sale!
PROS AND CONS OF WEBSITE FLIPPING
Pros
- Website flipping can be extremely lucrative
- It’s a remote job
- It can easily grow with more employees
Cons
- Making a good sale is not assured.
- It’s an investment business that can either yield profits or losses
- It requires dedicated learning and consistency.
Try something new, follow this beginner’s guide, and share your progress with me!
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