Flipping Websites 101
The term “flipping” describes a fast investment strategy. In some cases, it can net fairly large profits. The idea is basically that the investor purchases a property of some kind, makes some improvements and then sells it to net a profit.
In the world of websites, it’s a bit different than the world of real estate. Real estate, has a lot of regulations, laws, brokers, agents, paperwork and escrow/title companies, not to mention that you have to go out and find the kind of property you want to buy. It can takes days if not months driving around looking through properties until you find the right one.
With flipping websites you aren’t tied down by all the bureaucracy of physical real estate. You don’t have to work with brokers, you can keep the paperwork down to a small agreement of sale and there isn’t a need for 30 pages of disclosures you need to sign. How great is that? In addition you can browse websites to buy online in just a few minutes and you can do it any time of the day or night.
The Basics of Flipping Websites
If you plan on flipping websites, there are some similarities to flipping real estate. First and foremost, you’ll be looking for websites that would benefit from some type of improvement and that have some demonstrable potential to them. For instance, you may find an excellent technology blog with a lot of great content but the current owner hasn’t figured out how to get traffic to the site yet. Maybe there’s a site with a lot of traffic but the current owner hasn’t figured out how to monetize the traffic yet.
In either case, a successful website flipper knows their strengths and weaknesses. If their great a driving traffic but don’t like creating content the first site above would be ideal for them. The second site would be ideal for someone who knows how to turn traffic into dollars. The keys are knowing what you are good at, what you like to do and what you don’t like to do. Then find sites that work best for you.
Finding a Niche to Flip Websites
When deciding which type of sites to buy or sell you should write out several hobbies and interests you have. Then start searching for keywords or phrases you would normal do in Google. This will give you an idea of what types of websites are currently out there in the top of the search engines and potential markets you could start flipping sites in.
If you find a market you like that has a lot of traffic but not a lot of advertisers yet that would be ideal. Not too many of those left, but there are a few. Keep searching to find them.
One thing to consider, although it’s debated in the market as to actual relevance, domains that have the keywords or phrases you search by in the domain name. I like these types of sites because I’ve found it easier to rank faster in Google for the term.
For example, if there were a cross-country skiing craze taking over the country that you were trying to take advantage of, you’d look for websites that have URLs that would allow you to capitalize on it. Domains such as ‘bestcrosscountryskiing.com
Keeping Costs Down
The most important part of flipping a website for profit is making sure that you don’t spend too much acquiring or building it. This isn’t to say, ‘More investment means less profit’. In some cases you can invest several thousand dollars to build the SEO for a site and drive a ton of traffic, which results in higher value for the site.
To conclude with another comparison to real estate flipping, website flipping can be done for very little money upfront. Yes, there are several real estate “gurus” who claim “no money down”, but the reality is in Website Flipping it’s really true and easy for anyone to figure out how to do so.
I’d love to get your feedback on what you think is the advantages and disadvantages of flipping websites versus real estate – so leave a comment below.
Crowd Funding Book by David Gass
No comments