‘Flipping’ may be a term that not everybody is familiar with. When we talk of flipping, what we really mean is buying at a lower price than we sell for. Say you purchased a book from a friend that had no use for it for £1. You then go on to sell that same book to your reading-fanatic cousin for £10. This, in essence, is flipping. You buy a product at a low price with the intention of selling it at an increased price, giving you profit for very little work.
In this sense, we’re talking about buying and selling websites. Just as is done in real estate, websites can be bought and sold for a tasty profit. Website flipping is, however, slightly more complex than simply transferring money to and from your account and involves being strategic. This is exactly what we’ll be getting into in this article.
Using Your Website
If you’re just starting out with online entrepreneurship then your starting funds are probably pretty low. Forking out upwards of £50 on a website that may not sell for certain likely doesn’t sound very enticing – or sensible! That’s why, as real estate agents may use their current house as a starting point, you can begin with flipping your own website. This isn’t simply selling your website, though, as you’re likely to lose out here. Using home-selling as an example, a real estate agent would first improve their house, increasing its value and sellability. Website flipping works in much the same way.
When acting as a website flipper, you’ll want to make your website more appealing to those that may wish to buy it. This might include ramping up your keywords and making them more appropriate/effective, remodeling your site on WordPress making it easier for buyers to use or improving your SEO.
Additionally, you could also focus more on improving the site’s ability to generate money for its buyer. A website that is able to build profit with little work will certainly increase its value. This may be as simple as adding affiliate links from sites like Amazon or implementing an AdSense scheme onto the site.
Buying a Site
Alternatively, you could buy a pre-existing website to flip. This strategy will avoid you having to create a website from scratch and could give you access to a wide audience instantly without having to build up a following. If you buy a website that’s been around for a while, its owner will likely have already put the hours into SEO and attracting attention so you won’t need to do this yourself.
Before buying a site, though, it’s crucial to do your research to know exactly what you’re buying. You could end up spending hundreds on a site that appears to be a goldmine but instead generates no money and leaves you with an empty pocket. Some sites simply just aren’t meant for making money.
Before buying you’ll need to find out:
- Why the site is being sold.
- Why it is/isn’t profitable.
- Why the site isn’t being monetised (if it isn’t).
How to Buy A Site To Flip
- Look for a site that has a large community. Purchasing a website that has forums and a sociable audience is a great place to begin. It is likely that a web-owner with a hobbyist audience is not looking to monetise their site but instead provide a platform for like-mindeds to communicate and share information. This is a great opportunity for you to buy that site and utilise this enthusiastic audience to generate a profit. Try to choose a community that will give you a decent selection of affiliate products to market.
- Buying competing sites. Additionally you could purchase a website competing in the same niche as you. Sites of this sort will already have established their audiences and generated a decent following within that field. That way, you won’t need to reshape the site to suit your chosen niche and can build off of a pre-made site.
- Search for sites that use popular keywords. Choosing a site that operates in a niche with very popular keywords is another good place to begin. If you can find a low-priced site that operates within a niche that is soon to become very popular, buying it now and selling it on later when said sites are higher in demand could earn you a nice amount of profit for doing very little.
- Buying a site purely to sell it. Buying a website that is failing simply because its owner has poor advertising skills and isn’t skilled in SEO can also provide a nice cash turnover for you. Choosing a website that is operating within a nice that’s just about to take off is a great place to begin. Buying a site that’s been poorly run, improving it to maximise potential within its popular niche and selling it on will earn you very nice chunk of money. Be sure to sell the site before the marketplace catches up and that niche becomes saturated to maximise your profits.
- Purchasing based on what you currently sell. If you already run a site/blog of your own you can direct your web traffic to your new site so long as it shares the same niche. This way you’ll be able to build generate a lot of traffic instantly that actually care about your site. Generating traffic is often the most difficult and time consuming aspect of setting up a successful website and so bypassing this step by using existing websites is a great way to save time and maximise profits.
