Website Flipping

Website Flipping
Website flipping is the process of purchasing an existing website with the mission being to sell it for more than you initially paid for it. Flipping websites is a thing because websites are a form of real estate. In the same way you can make money buying and selling homes, there is great potential for profit from investing in online real estate. Besides, it is far easier to get into the business of flipping websites than most other assets, because the startup capital requirements are much lower. While there are a lot of similarities between buying and selling houses and websites, there are also many differences. Rumour has it that website flipping began when entrepreneurs were inspired by the concept of house flipping. A good website flipper will find a website that is underperforming and purchase it. The flipper will then improve the performance of the website and then sell it for a great profit. Think of website flipping as an investment. You will need some capital up front to purchase a website. It is a rather simple business model. Simply put, you buy an existing website, improve it, and then sell it for a profit. The business model is so simple that really anyone who puts in an effort has a decent shot at creating a successful business for themselves.

As mentioned, the start capital is low. If you’re building a website from scratch you only need a couple of dollars to get started. However, you can also snatch existing websites with good profit potential for a few hundred dollars. Think of it as real estate business. You buy a broken-down property and put in the work to turn it into valuable real estate. You basically put in the work developing it into a financially attractive virtual real estate and then sell it for a profit.


Simply put:

• Buy the website
• Transfer ownership of the website to yourself
• Improve the website
• Sell the website
  
  

Just like in real estate, once you have improved the profitability of your website, it’s time to sell. Websites are mostly valued by the amount of profit it makes each month. It’s common for the valuation of a website to be around 20-30 times it’s monthly profit. For example, if a website profits $300 per month, it has the potential to sell for around $6000 to $9000.

Whilst most website flips make the flipper who renovated the virtual estate a few hundred or few thousand dollars on their original investment, some flippers have been know to cash in six to eight figure profits. One of the benefits of website flipping is, the platforms that help you sell your virtual property. There are specific marketplaces for flipping websites. Platforms such as Flippa allow you to easily list your virtual estate for sale and find potential buyers in just a few clicks. You can even hire a broker on the platform to help you successfully navigate the tricky parts of selling your website. There’s a good demand for websites that generate income. Individuals as well as companies are willing to pay top dollar for a well performing website.

The Essentials

Before you start flipping websites, you want to dig into a few important elements:

• Domain name
• Design
• Content
• SEO
• Traffic
• Conversion Rate

Keep in mind, that if all of these elements are already great, the current owner probably won’t be interested in selling the website. Even if they were, there wouldn’t be much space for you to turn a profit. Say you were trying to flip a house. You’d be looking a property with a issues that you can quickly and cheaply repair and sell it on for maximum profit. The same principle applies for your virtual property.

Choosing Your Niche 

There are infinite options to pick from when flipping websites. So, establishing a niche you want to work within helps narrow down the possibilities. Choosing a niche in advance will also make the purchasing process less confusing. You’ll know what to look for when acquiring a website. Some of the more profitable niches to consider include:

• Digital Marketing
• Finances and Investing
• Health and Fitness 
• Personal Development
• Technology
• Food and Cooking 
• Travel
• Blogging

I would advice you to pick a niche you are passionate about or are interested in. It will make it much easier for you to create quality content.

Buying or Building 

The first major decision you are face with is whether to buy or build a website. Each option has its advantages and downsides. Building a website from scratch is cost-efficient. You only need to pay a couple of dollars for the domain. You can then create the entire site yourself if you have the skills and know-how or hire a freelancer to do it. Another advantage of building a website from scratch is the freedom. You have full control of picking a domain name, the content and monetization. However, I highly suggest buying a website to get things started. It’ll help you get a sense of success faster. Building a website from scratch for a decent amount of profit could take up to two years. Also, an existing website is already indexed on search engines. For a brand new website it can take a while before it even shows up on Google search results.

Transfer of Ownership 

Similar to a real estate purchase, flipping a website requires you to transfer ownership of the website to yourself. Otherwise, you do not legally own the website. So just like buying a real estate, you need to create a legal contract between yourself and the owner of the website. Firstly, make sure that the seller is the actual owner of the wesbite. Then make it crystal clear what you are purchasing. Make sure that you get the entire website, including the domain name, content, images, databases, servers, and mailing lists. Don’t rush this step. It is well worth spending the time and effort to create a detailed contract for you and the seller to sign. The agreement will help clear up the transfer process and resolve any issues that might occur. It should cover critical matters like the parties involved, a detailed description of the website, price, payment plan, and details about the ownership transfer. Consider including a non-compete clause, as some experts in the field just go off and create an identical website to complete with yours. Ideally,  the transition to owning the site should be smooth. The typical website transfer contract includes:

• Full access to the hosting account
• Transfer of ownership of the domain
• Full access to all connected third-party accounts such as Google Analytics

It’s worth mentioning that Flippa (which I mentioned earlier) already has a standard website transfer procedure in place. Also, they offer escrow services to guarantee transfer of the website is done smoothly. This is another reason to opt for a “middle man” platform. You don’t have to worry about getting scammed or missing any important element during the buying process.

Improving the Website

This is the make or break step of the whole process. So, you want to pay special attention to it. Here are some of the elements you should consider:

• Improving page load speed, mobile compatibility and user experience.
• Improving design, branding, and appearance.
• Adding new revenue channels.
• Optimizing the conversion rate of the existing revenue channels.
• Building and growing email subscribers base and social media profiles.
• Optimizing the existing traffic channels.
• Adding new traffic sources.
• Automating and outsourcing as many of the website’s operations as possible.
  
  

Performing a Complete Audit

Performing a complete audit of your website will help you identify the elements you need to fix to make the site more attractive and valuable to potential buyers. With a thorough audit you’ll be able to figure out where you’re losing visitors and improve your sales and marketing strategy. A website audit will also help highlight missed SEO opportunities and identify common SEO errors. Other SEO deficiencies that a website audit can help you identify include broken links, inappropriate tags, and poor link building.

Creating Content

This step includes improving and bettering old content. You will need to post plenty of new content to enhance your website’s spot on Google rankings. Focus on a search engine optimized (SEO) content. SEO will help to drive traffic to your site and help you rank on Google. There are plenty of free and paid resources you can find online to help you learn about website SEO.

Improve Monetization

Google AdSense and Amazon ads is a great way to boost the website’s monetization. However you need to consider expanding to other monetization methods such as sponsored posts and/or selling digital products.

Improving Website Traffic

Improving your website traffic will increase your sources of generating revenue. Traffic is what will make your website attractive when it’s time to sell. Explore various options for boosting your website traffic. Use methods such as targeted keywords, writing guest posts, social media presence and email newsletters. Building up a website's number of daily visitors is a critical component of selling it for a good profit. Expert website flippers build up this statistic through marketing efforts in addition to search engine optimization techniques. These SEO techniques can include keyword targeting.

SEO

Completing an SEO audit will ensure your website visibility. With Google’s algorithm constantly evolving, it’s alpha and omega to stay on top of these changes to ensure that your website ranks up on search engine results. Performing a complete SEO audit will highlight any issues related to broken links, titles, meta descriptions and site speed. You want to ensure that visitors can actually get to your site once it shows up and that all titles and meta descriptions are relevant to the content of your website. Google’s Search Console offers a collection of SEO tools that can easily help you manage your site’s search traffic performance and fix any issues. These tools assist website owners with analyzing and identifying issues. Keep in mind, that it will take some time for SEO to show results.

Optimization

When flipping websites, it’s important to make use of all tactics available to optimize your website. By conducting an SEO audit and using industry tools to optimize your website, you’ll be able to increase sites traffic, improve performance and generate revenue growth. These are the elements that potential buyers like to see before purchasing a website. Take into account that more searches are performed on mobile devices than on desktop. Which is why it’s important to make sure all content on your site is mobile friendly. Make sure that your website content is scrollable, all images and videos are optimised and compatible with smart devices.

Time To Sell

The final step is to put your website up for sale. To prepare for the sale you’ll want to prepare the following:

• Domain name and access to the website
• Access to email inboxes
• Guarantee that the content is original and photos are correctly licensed
• Ownership of Google Analytics
• Ownership of social media profiles
• Original copies of logos and any branding

The best place to reach potential buyers is the same online platform where you bought the website. You may also want to add a “for sale” listing on your sites header or footer. Depending on the value and niche of your site and how motivated you are to sell it, you can go the long haul approach of selling at a fixed rate or just roll the dice and auction it off on platforms such as Flippa. Remember, investing in websites is like investing in other illiquid assets. You decide when to list and the market decides when you sell.