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No, this post has nothing to do about flipping blogs. Although blogs are one of the startup websites you can flip, they’ve perhaps because a little saturated. It’s harder to sell a brand new blog for the money it went for a month or two ago, although it’s definitely still possible if you do it right.
This blog post is about how you can take advantage of traffic discrepancies between website selling marketplaces to make money for you.
You see, there are quite a few places to sell websites. However, not all of those places have the same amount of traffic, and so not all of those places have the same amount of buyers.
The basic thing you will be doing is l0oking for bargains on low traffic websites, buying and then relisting these on higher traffic websites.
You can often find websites where there are quite a few sellers but no buyers. You can take advantage of this.
Due to there being no interest in the websites sellers are trying to sell on low traffic marketplaces, they will often get desperate and lower the price. Maybe they don’t know, don’t have the funds or can’t be bothered to list at higher traffic marketplaces.
Here’s where you can find these bargains, from low traffic to high traffic:
1. Small webmaster forums
These forums may not be small on the whole, but their marketplaces have a relatively small amount of buyers compared to other websites.
I’ve used the first three to great success. The fourth one is actually the first webmaster forum I ever signed up at and the last I’ve heard good things of as a friend. Note that I have not used the last two for website flipping but it doesn’t hurt you checking them out.
I’ve found that NamePros and TalkFreelance are the best places to find absolute bargains. Custom script websites for $50, blogs with 10,000 uniques per month for a couple hundred, bargains like that.
All of the above have little buying traffic compared to the sites in the next step… which is why they’re great places to find opportunities you can take advantage of.
2. Digital Point and eBay
Digital Point has a shitload of traffic. However, that traffic tends to be of the cheaper mindset.
9 times out of 10, if you listed the same site on Digital Point and on Sitepoint (the below resource), the listing on Sitepoint would get a higher bid.
The great thing about Digital Point is that there are loads of sellers. Perhaps more than the all of the forums in 1. have combined. This is balanced out by having more buyers of course - you have to think faster and move faster to get in on opportunities.
It’s easy to find a site on Digital Point going for <$50 which you can turn around and sell on Sitepoint for $100 or more.
Ebay… I personally haven’t used it all too often. Tried it out a few times, sold a few sites but found that other marketplaces were easier to make sales on.
It is a high traffic website though and there are quite a few websites listed there… a quick search today showed lots of websites getting bids and the ones that sold tended to (most) be around the $20 mark. If they look good to you (see below to determine how to tell this) you can turn around and flip it.
Note that you can buy sites at 1. and sell them at 2. (from the first category to the second category). However, what works best is buying from both and selling at category 3…
3. Sitepoint
Although it’s saturated as hell, Sitepoint is still one of the best places to sell a website.
Your best chance of selling a website is in the Established Websites for sale section, even if it has little / no traffic. Sites there tend to sell a lot better and your list stays on the front page longer than if it was listed in the Startup Websites for sale section.
So, what you do is buy from the one of the first two categories and sell at something higher than that. So buy at Namepros, sell at Digitalpoint, or buy at Digital Point/TalkFreelance and sell at Sitepoint. You get the idea.
Now how do you know what kinds of websites you should be looking for? Here’s the type of websites that are doing best at the moment, in order.
1. Custom scripts; basically, websites setup with custom, unique scripts, usually created by a programmer. For example, Twitter applications are hot right now.These kinds of websites tend to sell best, especially if they have the potential to go viral. Look to pay around $50 - $150 max for this kind of website.
2. Blogs with traffic / revenue; Blogs with traffic, revenue or other developed metrics can be found at one of the first two categories fairly easily. Look for ones that have enough (5,000 uniques per month or more in traffic, for example) and that are available for a cheap price. You should look to pay around $50 - $400 for these kinds of blogs.
3. Custom product websites; Products with a custom done sales page sell well. The absolute lowest you’d be able to sell it for is around $300 on Sitepoint (assuming graphics are fairly decent, the sales copy and product are unique and well done and the domain isn’t too long) so spending anywhere up to $200 is okay for this kind of website. Most times a custom product website will be an eBook, however you may also find script websites.
Now, once you get these bargains you can do one of two things. a) Sell immediately, or b) Promote a little and then sell. You can do a bit of the first to get started and then work on the second once you have start up capital / depending on how good your marketing skills are.
For example, I could buy a custom product website for say $200, promote it for a bit to make 20 - 30 sales and then flip the whole thing for $1,000. I’ve done it before. A look at the front page of Sitepoint will show you that product websites with revenue sell, and sell well.
Some tips for you to make the most out of this…
- Look for websites that look good. Generally, buyers rate a website most using a) design and b) revenue / traffic. Of course if b) compensates for this it’s fine (you can buy and flip a shit looking website as long as it’s making money) but for startups, looking good is key.
- When buying, contact the seller privately to see if s/he’d be interested in selling at a lower price. Don’t always assume you’ll have to pay the price listed publicly in the thread. Often with low traffic marketplaces, sellers will look for a quick sale if their auction goes a few days without getting bids. Offer around 60 - 70% of the sellers’ wanted price via private message and don’t be afraid to haggle.
- Sales copy is everything. Sometimes you’ll find a website listed on a marketplace with rubbish sales copy… no proof displayed, little information and so on. If you prod the seller for more details, you’ll find that you might even be able to buy and sell a website for a higher price on the same marketplace just by rewriting the website auction sales copy. Don’t go too long, but make sure you cover everything and include extras (free transfer, hosting, consultation, support etc).
That’s it for now. Ask any questions you have in the comments area. =)
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Tue, May 12, 2009
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