Website Flipping

Sometimes, all you need to look for in a website to make a profitable site flip is a good domain name.  This is especially useful when you’re starting a site from scratch with an intention to put it in the market after a small amount of development.  Even if you’re looking to buy a built site, though, the domain name will play a heavy factor as far as its future marketability is concerned.

These are the things you generally want to look for when choosing a domain name.

1. The shorter, the better

A shorter domain name will be easier to remember, faster to type and easier to brand.  As much as possible, stick to within three keywords or less.   If you can get away with it, do limit the character count to 19 or fewer as well.

2. Stick to the major TLDs

For purposes of flipping, keep the domain name to within the three major TLDs, namely .com, .org and .net.  If you’re considering purchase of a site with a different extension, see if you can buy a major TLD of the same before going through with the transaction.  Otherwise, you may just want to pass.  The majority of people default to .coms when they hear about a website, so as much as possible I grab a .com domain.

3. Cram your keywords into the domain

Having the main keyword in the domain automatically brings SEO value to the site, as well as slapping those vital words right on the brand.  This brings major points once you throw the site back on the market as keywords are among the first things buyers look at when looking for online properties to invest on.

4. Avoid trademark violations

Always check whether a domain violates any trademarks.  The last thing you want is to invest all that time and energy developing a site for flipping, only to have buyers refuse to even come near it for fear of infringing on other companies’ legal properties.

Stick to these few guidelines and you’ll be off to a good start in the website flipping proccess.

WordPress blogs are among the most popular types of properties that site flippers love to turn.  With the wealth of extensions available for the platform, turning a blog from a standard install to a multi-faceted website can be done in a very short time, without requiring a ton of work.

While the number of existing RSS subscribers will likely be your future buyers’ main concern, there are a few other things you can do to give the blog a better chance at making a successful sale.

Add A Premium Theme: Throwing in the license to a premium theme, along with a few well-placed customizations, adds plenty of immediate value to a WordPress blog.  If your custom changes really manage to set the blog apart, the design alone can be a major selling point.

Create Flagship Content: Pay a really good writer to develop some linkable, attractive and flagship content.  These types of features will give the site the timeless content edge that majority of blogs lack, giving potential buyers a major incentive to invest on it.

Add Regular Content: Give your blog momentum by having regular content appear on its pages.  Whether you schedule articles, hire part-time bloggers or produce some short videos, a busy blog offers a more lucrative purchase compared to the lot of sparsely updated WordPress installations peddled on the market.

Get Some Quick Links: Try and get some quick, low-cost inbound links to your site from other blogs.  Hire cheap labor to post a few comments on do-follow blogs, join carnivals and run a couple of social media campaigns to highlight your flagship content.   The more links you can manage to eke out before rolling the blog back out to the market, the more profitable the venture can be.  I usually use this to build some quick, high quality links.

So get started doing the following tasks and see how much value is added to the blog when you cash it in for that payday.

-Brett

ps. site flip academy has some great resource for flipping all types of blogs and website, so check them out here.