Finding a website to flip isn’t that hard. A quick look at popular webmaster forums like Sitepoint and DP are guaranteed to turn up more than a few sites available for cheap that you can easily sell for over twice the cost of acquisition.

If that’s all you’re going to do, though, you’re not going to maximize the inherent profitability of the business model. Sure, picking out a $25 site, tweaking it a little and letting it simmer for a few weeks before turning it over for $200 is a good way to make a small profit. However, it’s neither going to make you rich nor is it a real foundation to a sustainable business.

Experienced website flippers always go beyond “cheap” when looking for properties to turn around. They also don’t restrict themselves to places where websites are normally traded, such as webmaster forums or auction sites like eBay, where competition can prove fierce. Instead, they turn to search results and other avenues, evaluating websites to go after based on their merits and potential.

Finding those sites that are not on the market but may be available requires you to really search deep into the web. The more familiar you are with a particular industry, the more likely you will be able to scope out those under-performing properties that hide within its confines.

Big sites that show up in the first page of search results for that industry are obviously out of the question – they’re too expensive and well-managed on their own that changes you put in may actually be detrimental to it. What you’re looking for are those niche properties that have received some actual attention from their owners but are now being neglected for the most part. Maybe they’re good sites that are badly-optimized, content sites with no structure or decent products that weren’t given any promotion – if they actually carry some value but could use a little more work to make their mark, they will be your target acquisitions.

Take some time and go beyond the typical sources for websites to buy and flip for a profit. With a little work and patience, you can chance upon some real treasures.

-Brett

ps. if your interested in getting started or bettering your website flipping skills I highly suggest site flip academy

Shopping For Websites: What Makes Them Valuable

When evaluating whether you want to flip a particular website, you want to look for certain qualities that will make it a potential hit. Many times, you’ll come across sites with one or more of these factors going for it, with its owners simply unable to capitalize on them.

1. Backlinks

Despite all the  pages upon pages of SEO advice written across many books and blogs, nothing still helps a site up the search rankings better than solid backlinks.  When evaluating a site for a possible flip, check its backlink profile.

If it has many links from social media, adding an authority link from two or three popular and respected sources in its industry will probably be enough to turn it into a goldmine.  The more natural and authoritative links that it already has, the more valuable it should be to you as a potential site for flipping.

2. Pagerank

While many now discount the importance of pagerank, there are few metrics as easy to see that will give you good indication of where a site is at in Google’s graces.   People still pay good money for pagerank too.

3. Community/Users/Subscribers

An existing audience makes a property extremely valuable for any site flipper.  Whether it is a blog with RSS subscribers, a forum with members or an ebook sales website with a mailing list, having built-in users you can leverage right from the get-go makes a site brimming full of potential.

4. Professional Work

Check the layout, the design, the backend, the scripts and other tangible components that comprise the actual website.  Are they professional-grade or low quality patchwork?  Do the articles and databases look like they can be worth a decent amount?  Is it running some custom scripts or CMS that can be worth a good amount on its own?

5. Domain Name

How valuable will the site’s domain name be on today’s market?  Is it brandable and memorable?  You might recognize a site’s name to be related to a popular brand, for instance, on a totally different niche.  If you can buy the site, you can easily overhaul it to  serve that market and sell it for much more based on the name’s value alone.

If you are interested or want to learn more about website flipping check out Site Flip Academy

Quick-Flipping: Buying and Selling Websites for Immediate Profit

Most people involved in website flipping take an under-performing site, put some development work into it and seek to maximize its potential before deciding to sell it.  A few, however, may not have the same desire to spend as much time on the properties they buy, looking instead to put it back into the market immediately.

Quick Sale

Some sites sold around the web simply go for less than what they’re worth.  Whether it’s due to plain ignorance of their properties’ actual value or a quick need for liquid funds, the owners are putting it up at a price that makes it a veritable steal.  Knowledgeable website flippers can identify these opportunities, sweep them up and list them up for resale at their actual value, earning a profit with absolutely no work.

Adding Value

While it’s always nice to make a quick buck from directly arbitraging a website without any work, adding a little more value to the property can raise its stock in considerable ways.   In fact, that’s how most seasoned website flippers will approach this same situation.

A few tweaks in some key areas like on-site SEO, backlinks and flagship content can easily double a cheaply-acquired site’s resale value.  If you can quickly implement these changes before the market renders it obsolete, you can be looking at a hefty revenue.

A Challenge

While that may all sound easy, the reality is that quickly flipping a website at a considerable gain is one of the hardest things to master.  The web, after all, is one of the fastest-changing industries in the world.  Unlike the stock market or real estate, your hot new acquisition may only stay that way for the next two months.  If the buzz fizzles out before you can capitalize, you can end up with just another loser in your portfolio.

-Brett

ps. if you need help getting started in website flipping I use and recommend siteflipacademy.

Website flipping is obviously a word derived from the terms “website” + “flipping”. The term flipping in this word is in turn, derived from the lingo of real estate industry which literally means buying a property (website in this case), enhancing it and then selling it on a higher price.

Factors that Affect Website Flipping

a) Website to flip – This is a big determining factor in website flipping. You should buy the right website to start with.

b) Website Development - This is not just an artistic thing, but also a witty step that must be done carefully. You should generate good contents for the website. This will pave the way to high traffic and conversions.

c) Website Marketing – This is the part wherein you have to market the website at a higher price. Normally you could start marketing the website at the same site where you first bought it. Of course, you should sell it in a higher value and remember to keep it at a reasonable price too!

Forms of Website Flipping

a) Set up Website Flipping

Fundamentally this is to create a website from scratch, do some marketing and then sell the site once it has traffic. This category takes more time but gives higher control on choosing the direction, setup and contents of the website.

b) Long-Term Website Flipping

This engages buying a website for its income and utilizing it as a long-term investment. So you investor will hold onto the site for multiple years profiting with its income capacity and then selling once the site reaches its profit boundary.

c) Standard Flipping

This is the universal website flipping – real estate model. As defined above, buy the right website, improve its contents and market it at a higher price.

Ways to be a Good Website Flipper

Being a part of the website flipping business requires a sense of uniqueness for you to give a good innovation on the sites that you plan to buy and sell. An alternative way to get into this trend would be hiring a professional who has a broad knowledge on getting a highly profitable site to trade in the most cost effective way. Whatever way you would decide to use, a good research on website flipping would still mean a lot.

Learn and Practice the Website Flipping System

Online business is now greatly occupied by traders and “website flippers”, these are the ones who practice systems that are very similar to real estate and stock trading wherein they buy and sell in a short time then produces a swift profit from it. This system is well-established and serves a very great way to have a constant income.

As a starter, you must first choose the right website to invest for. You can do this by selecting a website which is highly marketable on the time you foresee to start selling or marketing it.

My guides for getting a profitable website are as follows:

Determine the website’s target market.

If you have a product that you’ve already started getting profit from, then this would be very helpful for you to find a website that fits your target market.

Find a website loaded with good contents.

This would mean just a simple rewriting of the contents and then proceed to optimizing the advertisements to get high conversions.

Venture for day-trading websites.

These are websites which has both good target market and good contents but not excelling in online marketing/promotions.The only thing you should work on this is maximizing its online presence and creates appealing promotions.

Community-centered websites means high profit.

These are websites which has well-established target markets thru their forum communities or networks. Be sure to select the site with high value to advertisers and has a wide list of affiliations where you can establish good marketing partnerships.

Consider the current and the foreseeable popular keywords that give a high impact to the online market.

If you have an idea about the current trends that’s booming around, then you have an idea of the current keywords that produces good results. Find the sites filled with good keywords to ensure that you’re competitive enough with the latest trends.

If you can’t beat them, join them!

Why would you compete with the high ranking websites when you could be one of them by simply joining their circle? This would lead you to finding a website which may be characterized similar to a circle of high ranking sites that you could offer partnership and once you’ve done this, voila! You’ve started a stable online investment!

Now, here are some tips that you can use when innovating the website that you’ve chosen to flip.

Make use of effective Adsense campaigns

Start Search Engine Optimization

Monetize with the use of purposeful blogs and articles

Tweak the articles/blogs with highly used and profitable keywords

Engage in affiliations to increase its value

Take Advantage of the Opportunities Ahead!

Once you’ve realize how easy it is to start a website flipping business. You’re now ready to take advantage of the opportunities that the World Wide Web is offering, provided you’re serious about it and knows how to deal with it.

Hosting And Domain Provider

So what’s up with this… Today I was on the Wealthy Affiliate forums and was helping a newbie pick out a domain and hosting provider. He said he was checking out this one domain provider and it was $15.00 for a domain… WHAT! Thats ridiculous… I hope no body is doing this. So I figured I would go over some providers I have used and my experiences with them.

With Website Flipping you will be buying a lot of domain names and will need a reliable hosting provider to keep your Website Flipping business going. There are lots of places out there to choose from, so here are my favorite Hosting And Domain Providers.

GoDaddy:

So when I first got my website up I got both the domain and hosting from, still my favorite place, Godaddy. To this day I have not had any problems with this hosting and domain provider. I still have brain-farts to this day and forget how to do something and I will call them up and they will help me within minutes. Also, there prices are pretty reasonable, they have $0.99 .info domains and $9.99 .com domains, but I have codes to get the .com for $6.99 if anyone is interested. All in all great customer service, and yes, you CAN understand them! If your just starting out AND/OR customer service is a big thing for you, choose Godaddy.

HostGator:

If you ask any one that deals with websites, they will almost always recommend HostGator for your hosting. I mean it’s $10 a month to host unlimited websites, you can’t get much better than that.

1and1:

I have mixed feeling about 1and1. I don’t know if I was just used to GoDaddy but when I signed up with 1and1 I really disliked the layout after you logged in. Another thing, I have called there support and have found it difficult to understand some of the technicians and after asking them a question they always put me on hold, seems like they are looking up the answer.

Others:

I have also used namecheap.com and name.com and they are also really great for domain names, I don’t believe they have hosting but I could be wrong.

Hosting And Domain Provider – Conclusion

Well those are the companies that I have had experience with and I hope this helped some of you out. The best way to start Website Flipping is to get your feet wet. So go find your self a hosting and domain provider and start building a website!

The Best Of Luck,

Brett – WebsiteFlippingAdvice.com