Put simply, blog flipping is the act of buying and selling websites or blogs to make money.
Notice that we do not differentiate between non-blog and blog websites in the definition. The reason that we don’t is that the process is all the same. Some sell products online via their blog, supported by relevant content, while others may have a non-blog e-commerce website to do the same.
Either way, the purpose of most websites is to bring in traffic and eventually convert readers into buyers or loyal readers. People have found many ways to make money using the internet. You can sell tangible goods like t-shirts, jewelry or makeup. You can also sell intangible products like digital ebooks, excel tools or application games (building and selling apps).
When the website has great traffic and is making money, you can “flip” it, or sell it to someone in its current stage at a price that reflects the quality of the traffic and the potential profitability in the future.
If you want to buy and sell websites, it’s essential that you understand the many factors involved.
Blog Flipping vs. House Flipping
When you think about blog flipping, you may notice that the idea is very similar to house flipping. You’ve seen people in the housing market buy land or property, hold it for some time then sell it at a future date for a profit. The same can be done in the digital world.
People buy website domains, hold them for years, then sell them for a profit when those URLs increase in demand. In fact, there are people with “URL portfolios,” like stock portfolios or real-estate portfolios. They hold a list of 100+ (at times 1,000+) URLs, then sell them after some time for thousands (sometimes hundreds of thousands) of dollars.
Selling Websites
A more recent venture in the digital world, however, is selling websites. To be honest, people have been buying and selling sites for years. There have been websites for sale for as long as I can remember. The difference between then and now is that individuals are turning sites around at a higher frequency.
In the past, selling websites was usually done on a one-off basis. Often, someone would have a website that they were running, and they would decide that they no longer had time for it or no longer had interest in owning it for one reason or another, and would sell it to someone who could take it on.
The person buying the site would purchase it because they know that they have the skills to make more money from it than the money they are paying upfront for ownership.
It’s a win-win: the person selling the website wins because they get money for their hard work, and the person buying the site wins because they now have a website with an online history that will now have a better chance of ranking with Google in a shorter period.
Today’s world of buying and selling websites
In today’s world, people are flipping sites in the same way as flipping houses. They are doing it deliberately and not as a means of desperation. Meaning, they may build a website today with the sole expectation of selling the site six months to a year from now for a profit. They are not necessarily creating the site because they love the topic; they are creating the site because the niche has profit potential – but only if they know they can add real value to it. It’s a long-term commitment.
And it’s a business.
There are two ways to flip a blog/website just as in house flipping.
1. Start a blog, build it then sell the website
2. Buy an existing blog, add value/re-build, then sell the website
Start a Blog, Build it, Then Sell the Site
Creating a blog from scratch is the longest and most challenging path. However, it can also be the path with the most profit potential from the website flip. To do this, you need to buy a domain. After purchasing a domain, you need to set up the domain with a hosting provider. To learn more about setting up a website or blog, click here. The provided link goes into great lengths about what to do after purchasing your domain.
After your site is up and running (assuming it is self-hosted), you now need to fill the site with valuable content. If it is only an e-commerce store that sells stuff online, then it needs to be filled with the goods.
A good rule of thumb is to choose products that can be easily transitioned to someone else if the goal is to put your website up for sale. Don’t choose a product that can only be handmade by you. The buyer needs to be able to take the project on and run with it as is.
It’s ok to have a product that is made by a team you have selected. Just make sure you set yourself up for a smooth transition and that everyone on the team knows that they may need to transition to a new owner at some point.
Buy an Existing Blog, Add Value/Re-build, Then Sell the Website
This is pretty straight forward. Think of it in terms of house flipping. You buy an old house that is preferably undervalued, fix it up, then put it back on the market to sell it for a higher price. The trick with this method is making sure you can see the beauty in the old house that can’t be seen by others. The same can be said with buying a website that isn’t doing well from someone else, adding value to it then selling the site to finish off the flip.
This method can sometimes take a very long time because you must find the right website that is being undervalued by the owner. Meaning, you need to find a seller who is either tired of working on their website (that has potential) or someone who does not have as much knowledge as you about website growth and monetization. Of course, the niche must be in your favor. Meaning, you can’t go buy a website on a niche that you can’t add value to just because the site may be “cheap.”
Once you have found the perfect website (similar to finding the ideal house to flip), you then take ownership, build it out, add content, grow the traffic, increase the revenue then sell the site when it’s ready. From ownership to the time it takes to flip the website, this can be a much shorter period than starting a website from scratch.
The reason that the period can be shorter is that the website may already have good momentum and a positive track record online that you can take advantage of so that the exponential growth is greater using this method.
Tips to Consistently Make Money Flipping Websites
First and foremost, it is essential that you understand and consider the basic blog revenue streams. There are several ways to make money blogging, some work better for some topics than others, but they are all viable methods that you should explore if you want to get in the business of blog flipping.
Dos
- Do keyword planning and SEO research so you can quickly increase your traffic in a short period
- Do focus on quality over quantity when it comes to content
- Do your homework (spend money on educational material and be aware of what’s happening in the blog flipping market)
Don’ts
- Don’t lie about your analytics; this is a sure way to lose your credibility as a website seller
- Don’t lie about your expenses
- Don’t lie about your revenues
- Don’t use black hat techniques on websites that are to be sold
In other words, don’t lie, embellish or deceive, period!
Sell Sites With Known Revenue Streams
Remember, hard work pays off. If you put in the time to grow your traffic and if you can prove that the website can make money, you will earn a lot more when selling your websites. Selling sites without proof of revenue is a much more difficult feat than selling one with a small, steady stream of income.
When a buyer considers purchasing your website, they are looking to see if it has the potential to be monetized and if it does, how scalable is the business?
Flipping websites is not an easy thing. Many people make it sound like it’s so simple.
Get rich quick scheme
This is not a business for those looking to get rich quick. It’s a business for those looking to educate themselves about content creation, keyword research, and other content marketing techniques. After that, you need to educate yourself on how to make at least a little bit of money with your blog/website. After you have learned the marketing side and the revenue-generating side, then you can start selling sites.
We are not here to tell you that you will be making hundreds of thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars by selling websites. However, we are here to tell you that it’s very possible if you want to put time into it. It all depends on how serious you are with the venture. Your hard work will determine the fruits of your labor, and those fruits have the potential to be quite sizable with the right approach.
Here is a realistic blog flipping example if you are interested in finding out how much you should expect to earn
First, let’s assume the following:
- You work 10 hours a week side hustling on your website
- 12 months later, you build it to 25,000 sessions (30,000 page views) per month
- You get the website approved with Mediavine (one of the more difficult ad networks to join, but one of the more profitable) and average $15 RPM
- You also manage to get a handful of product sales from the site every week (1 sale a day on average).
Next, let’s assume that your single daily sale brings in $14 of revenue each day. Also, with Mediavine ads, you get on average $15/day ($15 RPM on 30,000 page views). In total, you are generating $29 a day of revenue (~$870 a month).
Finally, let’s assume that your expenses are just basic things like hosting, Tailwind, some learning tools, etc. You can expect to realistically sell the site for twice the amount you would expect to make over one year.
In the example above, you would expect to make $10,440 in one year ($870 x 12). So, you theoretically should be able to sell the site for $20,880. The actual amount can vary quite a bit, but on average, that would be a safe assumption.
What Does This Mean as an Hourly Rate?
If you translate that to an hourly wage, that’s about $40/hour ($20,880 / 520 hours). This is only a rough estimate because there are many factors to consider. For example, when you are ready to sell the website in 12 months, it could take three months and sometimes more to close a deal. However, if your website is making money, all that money goes to YOUR bank account in the meantime.
To put things in perspective, even if you couldn’t sell the website for ~$20,000, but were able to sell it for half that amount (~$10,000), that’s still an hourly wage of ~$20. As side income, that’s a healthy chunk of change!
With that being said, if you have the time to spare, you should really consider this venture. Especially if you are the type of person that likes to write about many different topics; why not flip websites so that you can keep writing about various niches every so often? That way you don’t get tired of writing about the same content if that is something that scares you. One year you write about finance; another year you write about beauty or travel.
Blog flipping is a lucrative business that is not for the faint of heart. It certainly takes some resilience, but if you have a knack for creating high-value content, you just might find yourself raking in the big bucks.
