Hey guys,

Seeing as I requested this section, I thought I better kick off with a short guide. It's also my 250th post, so thought I should share something useful. I’m not really a fan of ebooks so most of this is my own experience in the industry. I’m by no means an expert but can hopefully give a few tips to help you out. You may find some of my posts on other forums, but please note this is all mine and not rehashed.

Firstly, why I think it is a good way to start out for noobs (please note, you need to be able to afford at least a domain and hosting, approx $20) is because it’s a fantastic way to learn a little bit about every area of IM: web design, programming, servers, content creation, marketing, finding the right products, SEO etc. If you can build and sell a site for profit, chances are you can do most methods on the forum.

Depending on your budget there are a few ways you can start.

• Noob/poor man - $20, buy domain and hosting, use free software to build site, use PLR content
  
• Mid-level - $150, buy domain with some PR and hosting, outsource everything
  
• High roller - $any, buy an established site, spruce it up and sell it

For a start, with every site you build and expect to sell, install Google Analytics and make sure you can track your specific income for this site – whether it be channels in adsense or whatever.

Now personally, I like to buy established sites cheap from places like DP, but I’ll start with how to do it from scratch. I’m not going to explain the technicalities of building a site, that’s what Google is for :P

There are loads of different types of sites that sell but here are a few ideas for noob/mid-level:

• Do some keyword research, find a good niche, get a domain, throw up some articles (tons of tutorials in the adsense section)
  
• Buy a tool, learn to use it, offer as a service on your website. When you get bored of service sell the business
  
• Write an ebook, write a sales page, buy domain, sell some ebooks, flip the site when sales start to drop
  
• Buy a domain with page rank, add some content and sell (people love PR)

As a rule of thumb, don’t expect much for a new site – DP you won’t get much more than $50 whereas Flippa you might get $200 but have to pay the fees.

I would recommend starting out on somewhere like DP where there is no listing fee and learn how the business works with a few small transactions etc. If you can use escrow for all transactions, it is a lot safer than Paypal and at some stage you will get stung using Paypal (plenty of threads complaining about them)

Now for most of you that will be nothing new or anything earth-shattering so let’s move on to bigger fish.

For bigger sites (anything over $200) I would always recommend selling on Flippa. It has the most traffic of standalone marketplaces and a large number of qualified buyers with cash on hand. There is still a lot of crap listed on there, but that’s not a problem as you are selling a site not buying one.

Flippa require you phone verify your account. If you’ve ever been banned (guilty) then you’ll need a new one. To make an easy PVA just add a 0 to the end of your number and it will go through their system as unique and still ring you

What I tend to do, is browse DP for sites selling cheap (look for 2-3 months revenue as price), do all my checks against their stats (chances are if their stats don’t add up, they are lying so move on to something else no matter how good the deal sounds)

Once you’ve chosen your site and paid for it, got the domain etc time to get to work. I tend to buy sites that I feel I can add most value to. So if you’re specialisation is monetisation and you feel you can double the revenue, you’ve got a perfect site. If you can make kick ass designs, pick up an ugly site, spruce it up, happy days. If you’re a good writer, buy a site with no content, add content. You get the drift.

It’s not rocket science but I would recommend starting out small as it does take a while to get used to, and ultimately it comes down to judgement and experience not clever tools or checklists.

I would recommend doing some good SEO on the site once you have it. I tend to have a blast with scrapebox although SEO is by no means my speciality. Sites that sell well on Flippa tend to have organic traffic and earnings through adsense.

This is important: if you have bought your site on DP chances are the site/auction has got indexed for the site name. So if anyone looks up your site they will see the auction, and where you bought it. This isn’t good

Make sure BEFORE you list on Flippa you can’t be found in search engines, or you’ll have problems selling.

Now a few tips for Flippa:

• 100s of sites get listed, so you need to stand out. You have to SELL the site to them, so use catchy titles with good selling points such as “meathead1234’s site, 5 years old – NO RESERVE” – you get the picture.
• Buy auction upgrades. Don’t be tight, get a front page listing! You will get 10x more traffic and 10x more likely to sell. Not to say you can’t sell without it, but if you think about it in monetary terms: with 10x more people viewing your listing, will you get $30 (cost of featuring) extra back? The answer 9/10 is yes
  
• Write a good description. Put as much [good] detail in your listing as possible. Make sure you are transparent with stats – Google Analytics (or at least awstats) and as much historic revenue as you can.
  
• If you can, avoid telling people you bought the site 3 days ago! People like to see a consistent history with a site so no need to ruin that for them :P
  
• If you have a unique traffic/revenue source – DO NOT tell people in the auction/by PM how it works. You lose your unique selling point and premium you can charge.
  
• Flippa buyers like page rank and alexa rank – don’t ask me why, but they do.
• Unique is good – unique content, unique design etc, adds a lot of value to buyers.
  
• There is lots of traffic in the “most active” section of Flippa – so if you can get the bidding started (hint: low starting price, multiple accounts for “bidding” etc)
  
• Offer free hosting/free transfer with the site – either let them take over your hosting account or buy a reseller package with Hostgator and charge them 10 bucks a month to host with you (most won’t bother moving to their own server, especially at lower end).
  
• Incentivise the BIN price – offer some free articles, SEO services, hosting, support, other crappy domains etc if the BIN price is reached.
  
• Don’t worry if you’re site doesn’t get bids early – the number of watchers is the important part (over 20 is very good). People like to see the auction run, and don’t like to make the first bid, so get a friend to bid early on to get it moving :P. Most sites on Flippa tend to sell for BIN (in my experience anyway) so be patient. If bidding is made towards the end of the auction, it is extended by 4 hours to prevent “sniping”.
  
• Don’t auto-accept bids. Especially if it is a BIN. If the buyer doesn’t pay then it takes time and effort to relist. Check the buyer out (join date, feedback etc) and if in doubt PM them to confirm their bid is genuine. See Bryanon's excellent post here for more on this topic.
  
• Selling price: general rule of thumb – sites with search engine traffic, age and adsense earnings will go for anything between 10-24 months revenue. Newer sites: 2-3 months revenue. Brand new sites: depends on design, content etc – aim for around $200 on Flippa or $50 on DP.
  
• Answer questions honestly and promptly. Whether in the listing or by PM answer them today not in 5 days time, you never know who is serious or not.

Most of my flips are relisted in a couple of days, and will be up on Flippa in no time. Work fast, and you should be able to make a good profit and all you need to do is answer questions and see the money come rolling in.

Anyway, let me know if you have any questions, this is by no means an exhaustive list of tips and tricks and I have missed out a ton of good content.

Excellent post, meathead!

Definitely an extremely good read for all of those planning to get started in the flipping business.

There are some areas that your 101 didn't touch (such as flipping PLR products) and some that need a bit more attention (such as how to choose whether to accept a bid or not - given the extremely high amount of scammers to be found on Flippa lately) so I'll soon mock up a few similar introductory articles myself.

Let's get this section off the ground! :-)

Yeah, this is no means a complete 101 it just sounded like a good title.

Just a little taster but I'm sure there's some good stuff in there for the noobs and possibly even more experienced members.

Fantastic first post for this new section. Thanks for sharing your experiences.

I have experience of website promotion and I'm thinking of doing some flipping, rather than having to deal with offline clients.

Do you find that some sites tend to sell better than others, such as eCommerce sites, clickbank sites, adsense sites etc?

To be honest, anything sells. It's just presenting it to potential buyers properly.

Anything unique sells really well. There will also be certain buyers in each niche. For example if you are selling adsense sites there are some people who will only buy adsense sites etc.

The more eyes that see your site, the more likely you are to find the right buyer. Don't worry too much about what will/won't sell. If you present the traffic and revenue stats, explain the potential and are honest and upfront, it will sell.

Originally Posted by marbles97

Fantastic first post for this new section. Thanks for sharing your experiences.

I have experience of website promotion and I'm thinking of doing some flipping, rather than having to deal with offline clients.

Do you find that some sites tend to sell better than others, such as eCommerce sites, clickbank sites, adsense sites etc?

Originally Posted by meathead1234

To be honest, anything sells. It's just presenting it to potential buyers properly.

This quote alone can be considered a piece of gold.

Seriously, contrary to the popular belief, site flipping isn't any different from selling a product, and your listing text isn't any different than any sales page. And there are oh so many lousy products that sell extremely well just because they're well presented and the sales page is top notch.

Basically, the way you present your site (your listing copy) often enough defines if you get 1 bid or 25 bids - as simple as that.

I vote for a sticky!

This is great information :]

Interested in helping each other out on Flippa?

pm me.

I got your PM, I'm not really interested in it at the moment, sorry. Let's keep the thread on topic

Sure, I'll start a new thread.

Working on a site.I setup the site today morning And its a gaming arcade site.
The keyword i am targeting has about 8,000 Searches Each month.Did Some
static backlinks and my site is standing 3 on google for that keyword heheh

When the site begins to make 50$ per month gonna flipp it

This section is really appreciated...thanks for the info above also.

Looking forward to the hints, tips and info flow here.

I have 5 sites I am working with now, will flippa them in about 3-4 weeks...

jaybird

My only successfull flip was a product site. And I wanted to get rid of it quick so just around 100$ in profit, but I have thought about seriously stepping into siteflipping

Interesting, glad to have a section for website flipping inside BHW.

BTW this links might helps too:

Code:

http://flippa.com/blog/selling-websites/website-selling-strategies/

how long should you keep a site that you bought from dp before selling on flippa?

Originally Posted by shocinvibes

how long should you keep a site that you bought from dp before selling on flippa?

Well it depends on a lot of things.


If you buy a site from DP with ugly graphics and you slap some smoking hot graphics on it. It has already a higher percieved value.

If the site isn't getting a lot of traffic wait until you have it recieving more traffic than when you bought it.
Say you bought a site recieving 1000 visitors a month and it takes you a month to get it to 5000 visitors.

Which hopefully should improve the revenue. Then flip it after that.

If you literally don't want to touch the site and are going to put it straight on Flippa, I'd usually wait at least 5 days - so its well down the list of sites sold - and auction is not on the first page of google for the domain name.

If you are going to change it/improve it etc then you can spend as much time as you like on it - I generally don't keep anything much longer than a month though

Originally Posted by shocinvibes

how long should you keep a site that you bought from dp before selling on flippa?

Nice post! Thank you!

Good read.Thanks

I havent sold a website on Flippa but have sold a lot on DP.DP is a good place to sell things.

But with new rules at DP the threads dont stay at the top very long.So you need to your action words correct as the OP has said

Thanks for the post, 1 question tho, do you site flippa's use premium wordpress themes that you have downloaded from BHW or some nulled site and then just do custom work on it and sell it as your own theme?

Cheers

Originally Posted by Jammy13

Thanks for the post, 1 question tho, do you site flippa's use premium wordpress themes that you have downloaded from BHW or some nulled site and then just do custom work on it and sell it as your own theme?
Cheers

I don't use nulled themes for flips - never a good idea as buyers can kick up a lot of fuss.

You can get a really decent one designed and coded for $100 if you outsource - and it adds far more than that in value when selling.

Quite often I will use a readily available template and do a lot of customisation too - depends on the site really.

I'm at the stage now where I don't build many sites from scratch - I tend to buy, improve and sell..

Excellent post. Although I have been flipping for a while I just started in Flippa and so far so good. One thing at the moment is that I cannot decide whether I should add BIN immediately as I list. I usually put it at $1 no reserve without a problem. Whats annoying at the moment is that by not including a BIN early on I am excluding the impulse buyers and possibility of the site being sold before the auction ends. However with BIN you lose the chance that the site could end up in a bidding war which has happened to me, also as Im selling the same type of start up site if I set up a BIN I will have to stick to the same BIN throughout my auctions for the same type of site otherwise it will look amateur.

Originally Posted by shankyblue

Excellent post. Although I have been flipping for a while I just started in Flippa and so far so good. One thing at the moment is that I cannot decide whether I should add BIN immediately as I list. I usually put it at $1 no reserve without a problem. Whats annoying at the moment is that by not including a BIN early on I am excluding the impulse buyers and possibility of the site being sold before the auction ends. However with BIN you lose the chance that the site could end up in a bidding war which has happened to me, also as Im selling the same type of start up site if I set up a BIN I will have to stick to the same BIN throughout my auctions for the same type of site otherwise it will look amateur.

I always set a BIN because as you say you want the impulse buyers.

Also bear in mind that people want some kind of yardstick - if you're BIN is way too high they won't take you seriously.

I tend to start with a high BIN and then lower it as the auction goes on...

Would be interesting to see what others think, but has worked for me.

Im sticking a BIN on it right now. Its really nagging me the fact that somebody could want it right now.

Great info - I am new to this.

Am I correct in that no reserve means no minimum bid price is set?

And if so are you obligated to sell to the highest bidder no matter the price?

I f not will that hurt your reputation in trying to sell other sites?

No - reserve and minimum bid are different. Minimum bid is the lowest amount they can start bidding for and no reserve means any valid bid would get it.

Although generally if you have no reserve, you also have a min bid of $1.

And yes - you are obligated to sell. There are ways around it (e.g. bid on your own auction through a proxy) or make up an excuse but it's not a good idea longer term.

Rep wise, it is important to keep a clean slate. I've had a few issues in the past so have setup fresh accounts as it is easier.

Hope that helps.

Originally Posted by older_guy

Great info - I am new to this.

Am I correct in that no reserve means no minimum bid price is set?

And if so are you obligated to sell to the highest bidder no matter the price?

I f not will that hurt your reputation in trying to sell other sites?

Meathead - can you go into a bit more detail on buying from DP to sell on. What sort of price and niche sites do you usually pick up. I had a good look there the other day but I could not find anything worth while. As I said somewhere else sellers give very little details in the thread so it seems like I could spend all day long emailing people back and forth.

Originally Posted by shankyblue

Meathead - can you go into a bit more detail on buying from DP to sell on. What sort of price and niche sites do you usually pick up. I had a good look there the other day but I could not find anything worth while. As I said somewhere else sellers give very little details in the thread so it seems like I could spend all day long emailing people back and forth.

I'm not going to lie - I spend a TON of time researching sites to buy. It is the most important part of the whole process. I might go weeks without buying anything from there, and other times I might pick up 5 in a day.

I generally look for sites that would sell well on Flippa (organic traffic, high page rank etc). Price wise I keep most of my purchases below $2k as I found that the market on Flippa is pretty active until about $5k and then you hit a new level of buyer. If you can sell one of those a week at $3k profit you are doing okay

I guess there's no real way to teach (although myself and bryanon will soon be working on some kind of flipping course) - it comes with experience, time and a lot of cigarettes

I myself would stick with BIN pricing unless you are pricing over $1000 on flippa. Tried it both ways - BIN & Make offer. Make offer resulted in slower sales and lots of questions.

Found limiting auctions to 3 days works best.

Pricing is basically dependent on apperance and your auction copy when it comes to new sites. I have sold new site with PLR ebooks for $500-$700

But you need new to make graphics and write an original sales letter to get those dollars out of PLR.

can I verify my flippa account by using k7 voicemail or bueno like AC account verification ?

Originally Posted by apktntaj

can I verify my flippa account by using k7 voicemail or bueno like AC account verification ?

Their verification system doesn't seem overly complex. As long as you have a phone they can ring (you will need to be able to listen to the call to get the code) then you shouldn't have any problems.

Great guide, I have three questions if you don't mind.

1. What is the best way to transfer the domains and site?

2. Should I have all three major extensions (.org .net .com) or will the .com suffice?

3. Can I sell a website with a free theme/template? Or should I make/buy a unique theme/template?

Answers are appreciated.

Thanks,
thestrangefruit

replied to your pm

Originally Posted by thestrangefruit

Great guide, I have three questions if you don't mind.

1. What is the best way to transfer the domains and site?

2. Should I have all three major extensions (.org .net .com) or will the .com suffice?

3. Can I sell a website with a free theme/template? Or should I make/buy a unique theme/template?

Answers are appreciated.

Thanks,
thestrangefruit

I like to know the answers for this as well..

Originally Posted by thestrangefruit

Great guide, I have three questions if you don't mind.

1. What is the best way to transfer the domains and site?

2. Should I have all three major extensions (.org .net .com) or will the .com suffice?

3. Can I sell a website with a free theme/template? Or should I make/buy a unique theme/template?

Answers are appreciated.

Thanks,
thestrangefruit

Okay, for the purpose of the thread:

1) Check Bryanon's post on how to avoid being scammed. In short: take payment, push domain, give access to files/send files/install for them.

2) The .com is usually absolutely fine. Of course, having the other TLD's won't hurt but I've never really had a problem. If you are selling $5k+ I would recommend buying as many TLD's as possible to protect the buyer.

3) Of course, free is fine. However, unique always sells well (especially on Flippa) - so you will generally find that however much you spend on a unique theme (you can get good ones designed on DP for $100-300) you will get at least that back on Flippa. If you are selling something mid-high range ($2k+) I would always recommend unique.

Hope that helps

Hey meathead just a quick question (sorry if this has been asked before i did a quick ctrl+f search but i couldn't really find it) I have some domains, and i have a hosting package with another hosting company. If i flip a site do i sell the hosting package as well? Or can i just provide a full site + domain name.

Originally Posted by IKbentim

Hey meathead just a quick question (sorry if this has been asked before i did a quick ctrl+f search but i couldn't really find it) I have some domains, and i have a hosting package with another hosting company. If i flip a site do i sell the hosting package as well? Or can i just provide a full site + domain name.

Just sell the domain and site. Most of the time buyers will have their own servers ready and prepared.

thestrangefruit

Originally Posted by IKbentim

Hey meathead just a quick question (sorry if this has been asked before i did a quick ctrl+f search but i couldn't really find it) I have some domains, and i have a hosting package with another hosting company. If i flip a site do i sell the hosting package as well? Or can i just provide a full site + domain name.

You can sell the hosting with the site if you like. Makes it easier with bigger purchases.

Or you can transfer it for them.

Or just purchase reseller hosting and setup an account specifically for each domain so they can just take control as they wish.

Thanks dudes

Hey Meathead;
When selling on fli*ppa, have you noticed any time of day or day of the week in particular that gets you more traffic or higher bids to your auctions? I know that when I sold alot on eGay, (not websites) it would make a significant difference when I planned my auctions to end at a certain time of day and/or day of the week.

Around 9pm GMT on a Saturday works well - bid wise, haven't really noticed a trend but most of mine seem to come 12-4am GMT which I presume is just before the US go to bed.
Posted via Mobile Device

Hey Meathead:

Thanks for starting this thread. I'm working on a few sites to sell on flippa (first time). I have a question concerning themes. I've done a lot of modifying on the studiopress church theme. Should I still get a developer license?

If you plan on selling regularly I would recommend a developers license. I personally have an account at dream template (50 bucks a year) but I don't think it matters what you use as long as it is professional.

In the past I've been left negative feedback as I've sold "custom wordpress" themes which were regular templates heavily modified so barely recognisable as the original. There's always a risk, depends on the buyer and how they interpret your auction wording.

If you want to sell new sites at a premium I would always go with something unique as it adds a lot of value.

Meathead,

Thanks for the info on the theme license.

The site I'm working on is w3.breakthehabit-smoking.com. This is the first blog I've done specifically to sell. Not sure if it's ready to list or not. Any feeback would be most welcome.

Looks nice. My only feedback would be add an opt in list/newsletter/free ebook on the top right - tends to be standard with most similar sales.

Once you've done that - get it on Flippa. Time is money. $297 would be a good price. Write 10 unique articles. Offer to host it etc.