Investing By Buying Sites On Flippa. Good Or Bad Idea For An Amateur?

Hey BHW,

So I have been kicking around the idea of saving up a bit of money and buying some websites off of flippa. Seems like it could be a really good investment. I am 17 and don't generally have a whole lot of cash to throw around, but I am graduating soon and lots of people are sending me checks and stuff, so I figure I may as well invest it rather than just spending it on stuff I don't need. I am not particularly good with website SEO* (mostly because I only currently own 2 website - one for my YouTube channel [more of a personal site], and one about film making [which is only making like $2/mo from adsense] ). Basically I am just hoping to buy a pre-existing site for like $300, update it very occasionally, (and maybe change the graphics around a bit), and essentially make a passive $50-ish per month (which I could then reinvest). Is there anyone here who has done this/is doing this, and would it be stupid of me to continue with this idea because of my limited SEO knowledge? I'm sure that the websites that I buy will not be optimized as well as they could be, but I just really don't want to go and blow $300 on a site and then have it drop down to only making $3/mo because I don't know something or do something stupid. Also, assuming that this is a good idea, does anyone have any tips on how to find good listings on flippa? Obviously it should be something that does NOT need frequent updates, but other than that, anything else to look for? Advice appreciated!

~Luke

*I am really really good with YouTube SEO, just not website SEO, that I why I bother to specify.

Also, I would assume that looking for domain age of 1 year or older would probably be a good idea.

If you don't know what you're doing chances are you are going to lose money.

bad idea!
flippa is known to be a place where beginners get ripped off. Do a search and you will find info.
Make your own web site and learn.

Maybe I didn't do it right, but it looks like anyone can buy sites on flippa, and to sell a site you need to be established there and do your pitches right. I bought a handful a couple of years ago, and never managed to sell them, not even at a loss.

Not discouraging you or anything, just sharing an experience I had.

Bad.
Bad.
Bad.
Bad.

The problem is that the people who would seek to sell you the sites do not always have intentions as good as yours.

You're better off, in my opinion, spending more time here on BHW, learn the basics of SEO (it's really very simple), building a money site, then putting your $300 to work ranking it.

Then, if you so desire, sell it on flippa

Thanks guys. Maybe I will make a new site. I just get really frustrated, because even though I worked SUPER hard on my film making site and put hours of work into it (and $50 worth of targeted bing ads [I had a coupon ]) I have not even been able to get it to turn up in (google) search results even if you search for the exact name of the site (without the .net at the end). I mean, I am sure that a film making site is not easy to rank, but i find it really really frustrating that even after several months, you can't search "easyfilmmaking" and find my site "easyfilmmaking.net". Guess I just need to try again with a more obscure topic. (but I have no idea how to find a highly searched topic with very low competition. :/ uggh)

~Luke

Bad idea. If you are an amateur your chances to get scammed on Flippa are pretty high.