In one of the comments Peggy asked how to price a basic blog to sell, you can read my answer in the reply where I also linked to two sites I sold: A basic blog sold for $127 and a premium niche blog sold for $297.

Moving from a basic blog flip to the more premium level blogs is a great way to offer more to potential buyers and subsequently increase your chances of selling at a higher price point.

There are so many ways to develop web property and you can create your own unique combination of what you offer for sale. A blog with a forum integrated is a nice extra touch or including a reasonable quality PLR ebook with customised graphics is another great way to add value to your packages. When you are more proficient at building out blogs quickly you can build two at once that compliment each other and either sell them together as a type of bonus offer or put one up for sale and offer the other to the same buyer.

If the basics such as the site transfer are still haunting you then go over to Josh’s blog and read my guest post and comments where I’ve covered off a lot, including this response to Paul’s question regarding the amount of technical work involved:

@Paul There are technical aspects to this and when it’s stepped out on virtual paper it looks and sounds long and cumbersome, but when you have a little bit of experience you can be in and out of a site transfer in 10 to 20 minutes. Of course there are exceptions but in the main it’s relatively quick and easy.

Check out Website Flipping 101 – 10 Steps To Quick VRE Cash.

Dave Slutzkin General Manager Flippa.com and Luke Moulton Marketing Manager Flippa.com

It was great meeting the guys in person and we managed to discuss a lot of topics but there was one thing in particular I really wanted to put to rest and here was my chance to hear it straight from the source, in person! (Yep I’m lucky I live in Melbourne. )

So what was the one thing I was most keen to get answered?

My question was whether or not Flippa were actively trying to move the low end of the market out of their business. The short answer is no.

Do they want to do away with sites that are complete junk? The short answer is yes.

What becomes problematic for Flippa is determining what is or isn’t junk. What I believe is junk might not be to the next person. You know that old saying, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, so it’s a delicate balance for Flippa to be impartial to a degree on what they encourage to appear on their listings page.

I know a lot of people’s perception is that the low end was being forced out due to the high cost of doing business with Flippa. That might be true in a couple of cases such as:

1. You want to offer junk sites that sell for $50 so therefore it’s not worth your trouble due to the fees.

Well I’m sure you would agree that if higher fees results in the number of junk listings being reduced, then great.

Or

2. You are new to the game and everything takes so long to learn,  it’s very difficult to produce sites fast, they don’t sell quickly because your trust rating isn’t established and you generally are flying blind making the whole exercise one that returns a very low hourly rate at the outset.

You perhaps can relate to this second point and yes it can be like that, but everyone has to start somewhere. So why would you start out selling websites at Flippa.com if it’s going to mean your costs are high compared to starting out on a free or very low cost marketplace? In fact Sakana made a comment pointing out the alternative marketplaces on my Fee Squeeze At Flippa post. Here is the comment I left in response to Sakana:

Michelle commented:

As you’ve quite clearly shown, alternative marketplaces are a dime a dozen, each of them with their own set of pros and cons. (I warn anyone considering any of the above sites to give due diligence to assessing the pros and cons/risks of those marketplaces.)

I’ve had great success with the Flippa marketplace and just because I’m vocal about their policies does not mean I suggest walking away from them. They are an industry leader and their impressive results speak for themselves.

Flippa Stats As At Dec 4 2009:

* 1,117 Listings Open Now
* 1,137 Bids Last 7 Days
* $186,770 Sales Last 7 Days
* 40% Listings Sold Last 3 Months
* $28,643,898 Sales Overall

As I’ve mentioned above, I am vocal about Flippa’s policies and in no way consider the marketplace perfect but along with the cons of Flippa there are a great deal of pros. Let’s get the cons out of the way first.

• The marketplace in its Flippa incarnation is young and with that comes teething problems.
• In an attempt to quickly improve things decisions are made perhaps without enough forethought and at the end of the day don’t really hit the mark.
• The business is still finding its feet in terms of how to please a very broad customer base, which in the cold light of day translates to upsetting at least one segment of their user base when they implement certain changes. (Yep, they’ve upset me a time or two.)
• The constant changes, although often for the better, can be confusing and or difficult to keep up with.
• The fees eat away a not so tiny percentage of the net profit of a successful listing, in particular when selling at the lower end of the market.

Those points are how I see things and I’m sure there are different pros and cons for different users, I’m only sharing the way I see it.

And the pros?

• In the last seven days there were 1,195 bids and sales to the value of $178,682. Over the last three months 39% of listings sold and right now there are 1,063 listings open. The overall reported sales volume is $28,828,896. Those are no small figures and if you ever needed social proof that this is one marketplace worthy of transacting in then there it is. (Yeah, I’m not the only one who sells there. )
• A higher fee structure sees less junk being listed (unfortunately not zero junk ), which in turn gives the marketplace a better name, the probability of a more genuine user base and a thriving marketplace.
• Although it’s not fool proof, and probably never will be, Flippa are going to great lengths to find ways of making your transactions as safe as possible.
• Flippa have proven many times over that they are willing to listen to their customers, they are a young and vibrant business who have proven that they are not only flexible but nimble in their attempts to improve things based on customer feedback.
• And last but not least, you know who you are dealing with! Flippa is a sister company to SitePoint and 99 Designs, two businesses that are far from small.

The last bullet point needs your full attention. Why? Because when you’re considering selling web property you are more likely to focus on the costs of a marketplace rather than who is behind it. You need to know whether you’re dealing with a solid business or a fly by night set up or a marketplace where it’s pretty much a free for all! I haven’t operated in any other marketplace so I cannot confidently give you a run down of the pros and cons of the myriad of sites out there, just be sure you do a lot of research before jumping in to anything.

If you’re serious about buying and selling websites I highly recommend you get familiar with Flippa.com, check out the listings, see what’s selling, see what trends you can find in the marketplace and get to know the business a little. When you jump in I’m sure you’ll love it but remember, not every site sells first time every time so don’t let a few of your unsold auctions scare you away.
If you haven’t grabbed my free ebook on setting up basic blogs and selling them on Flippa then go and get your copy now, plenty of others have and they’ve already sold their first sites! You can grab your free copy of Virtual Real Estate QuikCash here.

If you had a chance to talk to Dave and Luke from Flippa in person, what would you want to ask? Let me know in the comments box and I’ll be sure to set up a time to chat to them again and ask on your behalf.

Here’s Kiran’s question:

Hey Michelle, awesome post!

I was just wondering, even though you have every criteria in place, some sites may not sell. So, do you recommend re-listing them for 30 days on flippa now? The free listing has been taken off by flippa.

At least with the 30 days, you stand a chance to sell the site.

Initially, I list my sites for 7 days.

Your thoughts would be much appreciated

Thanks

Kiran

As discussed in my reply to Kiran, I’m disappointed that Flippa removed the free relist entirely. Sure, there was a need to clean up the new listings page as it was quite messy with new auctions and make an offer listings all mixed in to one, but I’m not convinced that more fees is the answer.

Here’s Flippa’s reasoning for removing the free relist:

Automated Private Sale Listing Remove

In an effort to keep the focus on quality new listings in the Flippa market place, we have recently removed the automated private sale listing functionality. Up until last week, if your website didn’t receive a successful bid by the time the auction completed, we would automatically change your auction to a private sale listing for free.

From now on you will have the option to either re-auction your site or list it as a private sale listing for half price, a $9 listing fee. A private sale listing can be active for up to 6 months.

I covered a little bit about the odds of selling in my Fail To Succeed post and I emphasized the fact that your sites won’t sell first time every time. Even though I’ve pointed out the reality that not every site will sell, that doesn’t mean you can’t aim for and actually achieve a better than average sell through rate. Flippa’s average sell through is 35% but it is just that, an average. There are some sellers averaging a sell through of 50-80% and some less than 20%!

In this post I’m going to cover the things I believe you need to focus on to increase your chances of a high sell through rate on your Flippa auctions for start up blogs.

When building start up sites to sell (sites with no traffic or revenue to speak of) I like to aim for the site to appeal to as broad a range of potential buyers as possible. If I can appeal to a variety of buyers then my chances of the site selling are markedly increased.

Just like a restaurant who offers kids meals, vegetarian options and meat lovers pizza will appeal to a wider audience, so too will sites that show off great graphics, reasonable amounts of content, attractive domain names etc. The key is ensuring that the sites you build tick as many of these boxes as possible. Some buyers are only interested in the site looking good whilst others want the site to look good and to be in a very hungry niche. Other buyers will be looking for great domain names and some will want the whole package including high quality unique content.

If you solely focus on selecting a popular niche then you are limiting your potential buyer pool. If you focus on design and unique content but put the site on a .info domain then your site won’t be all that appealing to those buyers looking for good domain names. There is a time and a place for narrowing your sites for sale down to one type of customer but for the dime a dozen start up blogs that many sellers offer, I suggest you try to focus on appealing to a broader range of buyers. In other words offer kick butt graphics, premium themes if you have a license, .com domains, unique content and even a PLR (private label rights) ebook sold from a mini sales page within the site.

I’ve had buyers who were attracted by the ‘complete’ package and that is very satisfying knowing they can appreciate all aspects of the offer. But I’ve also had buyers who took the site to pieces and the only recognisable part left was the content. It can be frustrating to think you put in a lot of effort into a design only to see it tossed out, you wonder why you bothered when the site would have sold without it. Well in hindsight of course you can say that, but the thing is you can never be certain what types of buyers are browsing the listings at any given moment. I had a buyer toss out unique content, but that didn’t mean I would create all future sites with PLR because if I did I  would cut out those buyers looking for unique content.

At the end of the day you really need to consider the following points and aim to appeal to the various buyers who focus on one or all of these aspects:

• Domain Name
• Design
• Market/Niche
• Content
• Monetization
• SEO

Here is an example of a start up blog that I aimed to cover all of the above components: Meditation Mindfulness. And now an example of a site where the design was not premium and the content was PLR, subsequently I priced this site at around a third of the meditation site: Healthy Eating.

It’s very easy to fall in love with your sites as you build them and to convince yourself that they’re worth hundreds and hundreds of dollars but not everyone sees and or appreciates the opportunities you’ve built in although that being said it’s VERY important to have effective sales copy in your auction listing but more on that another time!

If you over price your listings at the outset you miss the opportunity that being at the top of the listings page brings which is more eye balls! All too often I see people panicking a day or two into the auction realising that the site could be over priced for the current market conditions and then adjusting their reserve and BIN. Don’t worry if this sounds like you, I’ve been there too, it’s not an exact science (I’ve said that before right ) but don’t work against yourself by putting up very unrealistic prices and then trying to play catch up after the horse has already bolted. But don’t get me wrong, there are no guarantees no matter how much you do and often you will need to adjust prices as you go along but hopefully not by $100 increments. The idea I’m trying to get across is that there are things you can do to try to increase your sell through rate. Thankfully at Flippa, any unsold sites do move into the private sale listings at no extra charge.

So now you’re probably thinking: “Oh come on! If I put all this time and effort into these sites and try to tick all these boxes I’ll end up working for less than minimum wage! Forget it!” Well that can be true at the outset. If you’re learning FTP, WordPress installations, transferring sites and pretty much a newbie to either Internet marketing and or selling web property then yes, the rate of return per hour of time invested can be low. This type of thinking will undo you, see you quitting and believing that selling sites isn’t profitable. Everything takes time to learn and if you don’t have the time or inclination to dedicate to what you need to know then you will find it unpleasant and unprofitable indeed.

If on the other hand you feel you want to invest in your knowledge, practise what you learn over and over and gradually increase the speed at which you work then you’ll have a good chance of making money from this model.

Remember that I’ve covered only one type of site in this post, there are many variations of web property that you might like to sell and I’ll cover some of those in future posts.

If you have any questions about this particular model or anything to do with developing virtual real estate leave a comment and I’ll do my best to answer it for you.

Making your sales more profitable can be achieved by cutting costs, although it’s not always the ideal way to make more profit but when you have a plan to sell high volume at low prices then it becomes a  critical leverage point. To list a site at Flippa.com is a minimum of $19 and that’s a good chunk of your sales revenue if you’re selling around the $100 price point.

So what do you do? You build a list.

I know, I know, it always comes back to list building doesn’t it! Well as I’ve mentioned elsewhere on my blog, list building is talked about so often because it works. If you set up one page where you can send buyers to sign up for notification of your up coming sites for sale you can offer sites to them for a set price and avoid the auction marketplace fees altogether.

You can see how I have my ‘name squeeze page’ set up at Internet Business Headstart. I created my squeeze page using Artisteer and the form is generated in my AWeber autoresponder account. Over time I’ve had existing buyers and potential buyers opt-in to my early notification list and this gives me the choice as to whether I simply notify them of an up coming auction or offer the site to them prior.

Of course there is a lot more that you could communicate to your list too other than just the sites you’re selling and you could very well find yourself with subscribers sending you requests for certain niches and custom orders.

If you haven’t started building a list yet then now is the time to start. Create a simple squeeze page and then tell people about it via your forum signatures, Twitter etc and of course tell all your current buyers too!

Working from home selling virtual real estate is one of many quick ways to make money but it’s also a way to build a substantial income too.

The site in this particular example was one I built myself in a matter of hours and then sold for $250, pocketing $218 in profit. That’s $218USD which converted to around $280 Australian dollars at the time.

I flip a variety of sites but in this particular case I built a basic blog and matching Twitter account. Given the site was all about Twitter I felt it made perfect sense to add a Twitter account to it.

So why did I decide to build a site about Twitter? If you’ve done any type of niche marketing you know there are opportunities to be found in new markets that are hot/taking off. Twitter is becoming so popular that it seemed obvious to me that this was a niche worth considering.

If you’re considering building or buying a site to flip then analysing the sites that are selling is a great way to get ideas of what markets to focus on.

After deciding on the market to build the site around I then needed to purchase the domain name. I won’t ever risk a trademark issue and would advise you not to either although plenty of buyers and sellers don’t think twice about it. A little bit of creative thinking to avoid the word Twitter, and I came up with www.TweetChatter.com.

For a unique touch I built the site using Artisteer, created my own header graphic and purchased two images at $5 each; one I used in the graphics and the other for post images. If you’re looking for a great place to purchase images for your blog posts or graphics you should check out Dreamstime, they’re my favourite and you can even get some images for free.

Setting up the Tweet Chatter Twitter account was quick and easy and a few simple graphics added a nice touch to the entire package for sale. During the time from set up to the final sale I sent out a few tweets and followed other Twitter fans which built up quite a nice following in a short time.

Offering for sale a virtual real estate package that is brimming with loads of extras can really help your sites stand out from the crowd.

To beef up the value of this site further I visited my trusty PLR (private label rights) membership and found a product on Twitter for newbies. I used the PLR as a guide to write my own ebook from. This took the most time out of the entire site build but with a base to work from I had it done in around an hour and a half complete with graphics and images. I also used PLR as a base to write the blog posts. Lastly I added a few affiliate programs and free Twitter buttons.

Using a template I created for my auction listings I edited the relevant parts such as the url and monetization methods and placed the site up for sale. The site sold for its reserve price of $250 and was purchased by someone who had bought from me before. It’s wonderful to see the site sitting on a PR3 already and starting to get some ranking for its targeted keywords after only 6 short weeks. And wonderful that the buyer has set up a replica site and Twitter account in French!

Although it sounds ‘busy’ the above example was an absolute cinch to build. Over time you can become very efficient at building web property and flipping it for sizable net profits.

You might see this type of money making like others often do; as no better than a JOB because it doesn’t seem to offer passive income but rather like you just have to keep repeating the build, sell, build, sell cycle.

Well I talked about the whole dream of leading the passive income lifestyle in my Make Money From Home post and how indeed it is great to build passive businesses. Meanwhile though, if you want a way to work from home earning money quickly, then to flip a site or two every week might be just what you need.

Perhaps you’ve lost your job and just need quick cash, or you need to prop up your online income a little while those more passive models grow; site flipping is a way to achieve that.

All that being said, there is a way to build passive income into site flipping and also ways to make even greater profits with not too much more effort than I’ve outlined above.

Once you get a taste for the size of the profits you can make from one site flip and the passive income streams at the back end you could very well catch the site flip bug!

It can be quite a rude awakening when you finally realise that your online million dollar bank account just isn’t materialising as fast as you’d like and is also taking much more effort than you’d imagined. The sooner you move past the shock of that realisation the better.

So whilst you’re working on building strong businesses that can lead to the ultimate ‘passive income lifestyle’ you might have a need to generate some quick cash. Well there are many quick ways to make money online: writing articles, designing graphics or even programing if you have the skills.

Another way is to flip websites which is something I like to do. What are the pros and cons of website flipping though and where do you begin? Well you need to begin by recognising that site flipping doesn’t hold any guarantees unlike writing articles, for example, where usually payment is up front from the buyer or on delivery of the order.

Site flipping is typically a case of you buying a site cheap that you can make-over or building one yourself and then flipping it quickly in an auction style marketplace. Site flipping can be quite profitable and isn’t hard to get started in especially if you’re willing to put in plenty of effort and quality workmanship.

Have you flipped sites before to generate fast cash? If not have you considered it? If you have considered it then what’s holding you back?

Leave a comment below or even email me if you like, with your thoughts and questions on site flipping, I’d be more than happy to help.

If you’re at all familiar with this market you probably know that the SitePoint Marketplace is the number one location when it comes to buying and selling websites, however there is change afoot and many sellers are flipping out over it.

SitePoint have announced that their marketplace has finally been moved to the new flippa.com domain as of today. Like many, you’ve probably just seen a picture of a dolphin in your mind’s eye, it’s hard not to. All jokes aside, many people simply hate the new name not to mention the new interface and increased fees.

So why did SitePoint move their marketplace? Well for the full story you can visit the flippa.com blog. For the ‘in a nutshell’ version, the SitePoint Marketplace has outgrown its home at the marketplace.sitepoint.com domain and warrants its own identity and dedicated service to its buyers and sellers.

SitePoint have received a tremendous amount of negative feedback during the beta phase of the flippa.com launch, mostly around the new fee structure but also about the name and the design. There was positive feedback given also although, as the SitePoint representatives pointed out, the positive feedback was delivered privately.

Going out on a limb and showing support for a decision that a large number of people are up in arms about is not easy to do. I have some very positive views on what SitePoint have done and those views come from a very business focused mindset, an appreciation if you like, for what it means to run a business profitably and taking the hard decisions to change even in the face of overwhelming negative feedback. Of course it’s very important to listen to your customers’ feedback and be not only willing to change but also have the business structure and know-how to be able to change as the business needs arise.

Those that are flipping out over the changes seem to be most concerned about the new fee structure having a greater negative impact on the profit on sites that sell for between $50 and $200. The listing fee is almost doubling from $10 to $19 and the newly added ‘success fee’ is set at 5% of your final selling price capped at $499.

Flippa.com have defended the increases in all manner of ways, referring to improved security procedures, better service in resolving transactions that go awry and generally offering a better place to buy and sell; the response has been mostly one of distrust that flippa.com won’t deliver improvements to the tune of the sizable fee increases.

If you’ve used the previous marketplace before you would be very aware that it was far from perfect although not everyone sees it that way, many believe it was working perfectly just as it was. Many also believe that flippa.com is doomed and they could very well be right, only time will tell. I for one won’t be walking away from the new look SitePoint.

Michelle Adams

Carpe diem!