Michelle Adams

42 Responses to “Flipping Untangled”

1. Michelle Green (2 comments)
   

   13. Jan, 2010

   That’s interesting you bring up creating two similar blogs. I just built a designer handbag blog and I am planning on building a designer shoes blog to sell with it. I highly recommend that strategy to other flippers. I also suggest they start a mailing list of buyers that they can broadcast new blogs to for quick prospects.

   Michelle (232 comments) Reply:
   January 13th, 2010 at 6:29 am

   That’s a good combination Michelle….oh and I love designer handbags.

   I’ve covered list building in my previous post here: Making Your Sales More Profitable.

2. Stef (14 comments)
   

   13. Jan, 2010

   How do you define the difference or
   How do you biuld 2 sites one of which is
   -a basic blog and
   -a premium niche blog?

   Thanks.

   Michelle (232 comments) Reply:
   January 13th, 2010 at 7:13 am

   Stef yes, you could build a basic and a premium site and auction the premium blog and offer the basic as a BIN (buy it now) buyer’s bonus. Or you could simply offer the two as one great deal. Of course you can build two premium sites or two basic and sell them as a pair too, there really is no limit to what you can offer.

   In terms of what I specifically mentioned above regarding building two sites that compliment each other; that is more about the niche. For example I built two sites on blood pressure, one specifically about the top reading and one about the low reading. I sold one first and then offered the other to the same buyer, he snapped it. I caution that you shouldn’t bank on this happening every time, it’s simply another way of increasing the chances of success.

3. Kiran (7 comments)
   

   13. Jan, 2010

   Hey Michelle,

   I read your post on Josh’s site yesterday, top post and great value you provide as per usual

   Kiran

4. Michelle (232 comments)
   

   13. Jan, 2010

   Hi Kiran, great to see you here again and I’m glad you liked the post.

5. robert (5 comments)
   

   13. Jan, 2010

   Hi Michelle,

   I realise this is slightly off topic. However, you have mentioned before you are part of a mentoring program or have a mentor and this is one reason why you had done so well, I checked out the josh spaulding’s program and unfortunately he is not taking on any new subscribers … which is a pity for me. I would like to ask if you could kindly recommend any similar type of mentorship program?

   Regards,

   Rob.

   Michelle (232 comments) Reply:
   January 13th, 2010 at 11:40 am

   Hi Rob,
   Yes I’m sorry to say Josh is not taking on more students but you can learn a lot from him via his blog and the products he’s written.

   I would be hesitant to pick a name out for you when I don’t know what it is exactly you want to learn. Can you share a little about your goals and current knowledge base?

6. Stef (14 comments)
   

   13. Jan, 2010

   Thanks Michelle,

   What I am trying to figure out is what is “a basic site” and what is a “premium site”?

   Cheers,

   Michelle (232 comments) Reply:
   January 13th, 2010 at 12:56 pm

   Oh sorry Stef, I get it now.

   I linked to two examples in one of my responses to the guest post at Josh’s blog. Here are another two examples:
   Basic:
   http://www.pilatesworkouts.net/
   Premium:
   http://www.howtoconceive.org/

   Basic is what’s covered in my free QuikCash ebook.
   Premium is unique content, customised premium theme, high end graphics, at least 10 articles, stronger focus on niche selection and SEO foundations..that would be the bare minimum.

7. Peggy (3 comments)
   

   13. Jan, 2010

   Hi Michelle,
   Thanks for providing the two site examples. They’re both good-looking blogs! I’ve analyzed them to see what you’ve included and how they’re different from each other.

   Thanks,
   Peggy

8. Loren Jaslyn (5 comments)
   

   13. Jan, 2010

   Michelle,

   I definitely have been following along in regards to blog flipping and I have downloaded your E-book. All of this seems very interesting. I haven’t flipped any sites yet (not sure if it’s out of some kind of uncertainty or not), but you will be the first person I turn to when I make that final commitment. Thank you very much for the information.

9. Warren (2 comments)
   

   13. Jan, 2010

   Thanks Michelle:

   Enjoying your input to my on-going education about on-line marketing.

   I’m interested in selling websites but after I build them I hate to see them go.

   I’ll get over it I’m sure.

   Thanks again.

10. Stef (14 comments)
    

    14. Jan, 2010

    @Michelle

    Thanks, that was what I was asking for but when 1000 questions at once come in my mind, I have difficulties wording them

    Thanks for the 2 other examples. How long did it take to setup your amazon pilates shop?

    I understand how to sell a premium site to the buyer of the basic site, but let me first try and get my basic site sold

    … Or build it to start with ! When you use PRL content on your basic site, do you change it a bit and call it original when you sell or you just use as is? Would you use ezinearticles on a basic site and if not, why not?

    Thanks a zillion!

11. Stef (14 comments)
    

    14. Jan, 2010

    @Rob

    What kind of mentorship are you looking for? As I am starting a free mentor-site myself based on my experience in making extra money online.

12. Michelle (232 comments)
    

    14. Jan, 2010

    @Peggy You’re welcome for the examples. Wonderful to see you taking so much initiative with your analysis of the sites and the Just Sold tab at Flippa. I think you’ll do brilliantly.

    @Loren Glad I can help and thanks for following along.

    @Warren Lol. Good to know you care about your web property so much. It’s also good to know you’re enjoying yourself.

    @Stef In regards to the pilates Amazon store, to be honest it was quite a while ago and I don’t remember exactly; I would say maybe 15 minutes. I tend to only place a widget now rather than an entire store as it adds too much time to the after sales process setting it up again with the buyer’s account. You can see an example of the widget only option on the store page in the How To Conceive site I linked to above.

    If I was to build an entire store into a site today it would be much more comprehensive than what you saw on the pilates site and I would price the site higher to allow for the extra time to change the store over to the buyer’s account.

    No, I would not change PLR ‘a bit’ and call it original. I would change it to a degree where it passed copyscape with zero matches, that is original. If it’s straight PLR that’s what it should be defined as in the auction listing.

    Filling a site with Ezine articles is something I’ve never done and I don’t sell to others what I’ve not tested and proven to earn money for myself first.

13. Stef (14 comments)
    

    14. Jan, 2010

    Thanks Michelle,

    I downloaded demo of the tool you describe in your ebook for creating WPthemes and thougt: let’s see if I can mimic your ‘basic’ pilates site (dream on stef…)

    Anyways, brilliant tool! The top pilates pic in your header: is that from the tool or from yourself (as I don’t know how much pics the demo offers compared to the full version).

    And if possible, where in the tool do I adjust the text that always seems to wrap around pictures, just to start below pictures? (I do know, what I want, is not necessarily what the buyer wants, but would be great for my own sites)

    Thanks for your answers,

    Stef

14. Ruth - Web Career Girl (14 comments)
    

    14. Jan, 2010

    Good luck to anyone following Michelle’s guide – it really works

15. Peggy (3 comments)
    

    14. Jan, 2010

    Thanks, Michelle. I’m loving Artisteer! I made a blog to flip – but I’m still adding content, and I redid one of my own ugly blogs.

    I’m a PLR writer and I’m looking at flipping as an excellent way to use PLR for my customers. But I want to make sure I know what I’m talking about first.

    I’ve seen some people add value to the sites they want to flip by submitting articles to EZA. I would think that would get kind of messy because you either have to promise you won’t ever touch the articles, or you have to set up yet antoher pen name and give them access. Wouldn’t it be better just to offer new articles as a bonus so they can add them to their own EZA account and//or the blog?

    Thanks,
    Peggy
    P.S. Hi Ruth, it’s nice to see you again!

16. Missy (from Kindle Owners Blog) (1 comments)
    

    15. Jan, 2010

    Off to check it out. How does one go about scoring a guest post on Josh’s awesome blog? No easy feat, i’m sure.

    I’m in serious guest post mode, so i’m making the rounds.

    Cheers,
    Missy

17. Stef (14 comments)
    

    16. Jan, 2010

    Hi Michelle,

    Pictures question to add in a blog to sell:

    You wrote above: “Premium is unique content, customised premium theme, high end graphics…”

    How do you define “high end graphics” and where do you get them?

    If you use high end graphics for a premium blog, then what kind of graphics you use for a basic blog and where do you get those?

    Is in your pilates site the header pic of the woman and mat 1 pic or 2 pics?

    Is it rule of thumb to say that in a basic site, you don’t put images in the articles?

    And the images/logos in howtoconceive.org articles, how did you make or find them?

    Thanks,

    Stef

18. Rebec (4 comments)
    

    16. Jan, 2010

    Forgive me, Michell. This is totally not related to site flipping…well not yet anyways. :0 but can anyone recommend (per personal experience) a good/best/free PDF writer w/ text & fotos?

19. Stef (14 comments)
    

    16. Jan, 2010

    @Rebec

    For Free: PrimoPDF : only downsite is that it doesn’t add hyperlinks different than a http URL.

    Michelle (232 comments) Reply:
    January 17th, 2010 at 6:44 am

    @Stef I make my own headers. There are two images used in the pilates header. As far as the text wrapping around pictures in Artisteer, I’m not sure what you mean. My guess is that you need to tweak the html once you’ve installed the theme on your site. I always include images in the articles. The articles with images on the pilates site are what I included in the sale. The new owner has not added images to the new posts.

    High end graphics is really about the quality of the graphics and how much is put into them. For a premium site I will spend more time on the graphics than for a basic site. I create all my own graphics with Photoshop.

    @Ruth Thanks!

    @Peggy I’ve bought some of your PLR before, it’s good quality and suggesting it be used for flipping is a great idea!

    EZA articles might have been submitted prior to the seller thinking about selling the site, in that case I would say the buyer has to trust the articles would stay as they are or gain access to them which I’m not sure would be easy. Given the buyer is most likely not going to have access and they are never going to be certain the articles will remain, well the articles themselves could be perceived as low value. I agree offering articles as a bonus is a good idea.

    @Missy I suggest you read David Risley ’s blog post “A Blogger’s Checklist for Guest Posting On Other Blogs.” Personally I feel number 2 is very important: it’s about forming relationships.

    @Rebec Give Open Office a try.

20. Stef (14 comments)
    

    17. Jan, 2010

    Thanks Michelle,

    Where do you actually source the images from like the woman and the mat on your pilates blog?

    My question: how do I make sure when I take a picture of a yoga mat from somewhere on the Internet, and put it on the site I am selling, I am not selling something that has a royalty?

    Wrapping text around pictures like on the left above here : your comment avatar and the text that starts at the right and then continues at the bottom. Most likely as you mention: if I want the text only below the image, I need to change the style.css.

    Thanks, I think it’s getting time to put things to the test, make a site and head over to flippa to sell

    And : what software did you use to make your free ebook into pdf?

21. Stef (14 comments)
    

    17. Jan, 2010

    Oops, 1 more question: how did you manage to have the pilates youtube videos within a purple frame: Artisteer, plugin or html coded, or another way ?

22. Rebe (12 comments)
    

    18. Jan, 2010

    thanks, Stef and Michelle. appreciate your time to reply.

23. Warren (2 comments)
    

    18. Jan, 2010

    Michelle: Thanks for the responces! I shows how much you care.
    Back to the site to flip, The site would still retain the links that were produced by EZA or Social Marking or any other means, wouldn’t it? You just change the Name Server code and everything else stays the same. Right?
    I like the idea Peggy had about giving extra PLR or other articles to the buyer so they can get started to promote the site. Cool!

24. Kiran (7 comments)
    

    18. Jan, 2010

    Hey guys,

    Regarding the EZA articles… I sold a site, and part of the deal would be was to leave the 10 live articles in my EZA account. It’s not a problem, it helps with your author status, and helps the buyer of your site with the traffic and back links.

    Aswell as starter sites, I have also started to develop traffic and income to sites and sell them for even more profits, and article marketing and bookmarking etc will be needed for this. Just keep it all in tact and sell your site as normal.

    Everyone wins.

25. Stef (14 comments)
    

    19. Jan, 2010

    @Kiran

    Once you make the effort to develop traffic and income to the site, why do you still sell them?

    And how is the selling price related to the average monthly income of the last month and the last 4 months?

    Any example site you sold you want to share?

    Thanks,

    Stef

26. Clinton (2 comments)
    

    19. Jan, 2010

    Michelle, you do a great job of explaining to beginners how to get started with making money online.

    It’s a refreshing change from all the scam artists out there peddling myths about quick bucks and “insider secrets”.

27. Peggy (3 comments)
    

    19. Jan, 2010

    Thanks for your kind comments, Michelle, and thanks for being such a helpful and giving person to me and everyone here who’s asked you questions.

    I appreciate it.

28. Kiran (7 comments)
    

    20. Jan, 2010

    Hey Stef, how’s it going?

    I have a handful of sites I maintain for long term passive income for my business.

    The other side to my business is site flipping. This includes selling new sites, as Michelle teaches. And, if I want a bigger return, I will develop the site for around a month, and sell it from around $500 onwards..

    Why do I do this you ask? Well…a few reasons… this instant money gives you big buying power to invest back into your business. e.g. Say if the site I sold made me around $100 that month, I’d have to wait 5-6 months for the same return.

    Another reason is, I just love to develop a site and sell it, the site flipping model is great, I enjoy it. Maybe it’s because I’m in real estate developing, similar principle

    Another reason can also be, that I won’t have the required time to develop a site to its potential, so I’d much rather sell it to someone who can develop it, while I get good cash from the sale to invest back into the business, both win-win.

    Currently, it looks like sites are selling 6 times their monthly revenue. You can sell for 10 times, but you may have a little longer wait for the sale.

    Hope that helps.

29. Forest (21 comments)
    

    22. Jan, 2010

    Hey Michelle, sorry for the late jump in here. I read the post on Josh’s and as always it’s excellent.

    Flipping really is simple and you are doing a lot to show people this.

    I have only flipped one site so far this year as the market does seem a little flooded and slow but it always is around now…. Things should be a lot better next month and the month after so if people start building quality sites now it will be a great time to jump in.

    Revenue getting sites as always seem to still be selling like crazy.

30. stef (14 comments)
    

    27. Jan, 2010

    @kiran

    Thanks! Things are going fine hope the same to you.

    I see your reasoning, it shows that I’m in real estate renting out and you in real estate developing, and my principle is: once I find a property that’s easy to rent out with good return, I won’t flip it.

    That’s why I was wondering: why sell a good site when it can bring good monthly income?

    But I see your reasoning and Michelle’s “build in hot markets” where “I am used to build for myself”, which like in real estate doesn’t mean what I like, is what the customer likes.

    Anyways, didn’t get the email notifications, so slow in reply. In March will do some real flips with Michelle’s tips from her free ebook

    Sites selling 6times their monthly revenue, which month are we talking about (first month, 13th month?) as a new site obviously hasn’t got traffic that can make income.

31. Donnie@Chattanooga Web Design (1 comments)
    

    31. Jan, 2010

    I’ve been reading your blog for a while. I did give selling on Flippa a go. I think the higher the price tag is on the site, the harder it is gonna be to sell. So, you shouldn’t spend too much time making the blog better and better. Find your profitable cutoff.

32. Lloyd Pinto (4 comments)
    

    01. Feb, 2010

    Hi Michelle –

    I’ve developed a niche blog which is generating some decent traffic and is on pg 1 of google for its primary search term. The thing is I’ve a used a licensed plug in for building this blog. The person I sell this blog to needs to buy this plugin as well to fully own the blog – Is this a detriment in any sense – as I need to make two sales pitches in a way?

33. Lizzie (4 comments)
    

    03. Feb, 2010

    Hi Michelle.. all great information.. i have often wondered.. as to the labor/work involved in setting up a website.. than flipping..than costs/fees.. is there an actual substantial profit?
    also i will assume one need to be fairly fluid with all the “tech” involved…obviously I an not a candidate for site flipping

34. stef (14 comments)
    

    04. Feb, 2010

    @Lizzie

    Don’t get “frozen” by the “tech” stuff: you do drive a car or take an airplane without knowing all the techie stuff behind it, do you?

    Same with the flipping: the “tech” stuff involved in changing the sites from one webhost to another should be the work of the webhost, like flying the plane is the work of the pilot.

    Is there a substantial profit… If I need to make a pilates site like Michelle, it would take me maybe 2 days, without being sure the site looks as good as Michelle’s. But again, it took a lot of time to learn to drive a car. Same with flipping, experience makes the master or will show you that it is not as profitable for you (yet) than it is for Michelle.

    I find getting some experience on the digitalpoint forum where you don’t need to pay a listing or selling fee like on flippa, gives you the “playground” without spending money up front to get a feel about things.

    If you never flipped before, then flipping a site is as difficult as flipping a sofa (I assume you never flipped a sofa )

    At the end of the day: if you have tried, you will learn to find your profitable cutoff like Donnie says above. And when you find likewise flippers, you can ask and learn from them.

    Again: don’t let the techie part freeze you. The rewarding part is finding something somebody else finds valuable enough for your investment to have a good return that you find profitable enough for you.

35. Lizzie (4 comments)
    

    10. Feb, 2010

    Stef! thanks for the good sound advice.. i might give it a shot as the first blog i made. could be my guinea pig.. hey New Zealand!
    my son is on his way for 4-5 months in set to work on organic farms…

36. neeo (1 comments)
    

    11. Feb, 2010

    I simple love and admire all the contents whatever you have provided me on this article. And for that I

    really want to thank you.

    ………………………………….

    neeo

    Michelle (232 comments) Reply:
    February 13th, 2010 at 12:15 pm

    @Stef I source my images from Dreamstime and always purchase an appropriate license for the particular use I have in mind for them.

    Yes you will need to either change the stylesheet for the images or just edit them manually in the WordPress html editor for each post.

    I used Adobe to convert the ebook to PDF.

    @Warren Yes the site would still retain the links but if the seller has those articles within their account they could change the links to point to a different site. I would never do that to my buyers but they only have the word of the seller to rely on.

    Peggy’s idea is great, I agree.

    @Kiran It’s great that you included the 10 articles, as I’ve said though; the buyer has to trust that you’ll leave the links in tact.

    Selling sites that are established is definitely a great path to head down.

    @Clinton Thanks for stopping by and leaving your feedback, it means a lot to me especially coming from you.

    @Peggy Thanks for your kind comments.

    @Forest Thanks for your feedback, I always love to hear from you. Yep, revenue getting sites are popular.

    @Donnie Good point about finding your profitable cut off: The market is quite changeable though so the cut off point needs to be flexible.

    @Lloyd Pinto Unfortunately I would say that you having to ‘sell’ the idea of the buyer purchasing the plugin could be a little detrimental but it’s not a deal breaker. The other side of the coin though is that someone like me would be very pleased to see that you’re being honest and not on-selling the plugin illegally. Just be honest and you’ll attract honest buyers.

    @Lizzie Thanks for your feedback. Selling web property can be very profitable, yes. I can manage $40 an hour net profit on average for a fully customised niche blog.

    @Stef Not all web hosts will ‘happily’ move sites for you on a regular basis but it’s worth a try I guess. I would suggest outsourcing site moves over relying on a webhost though.

    @neeo Thanks for your feedback. I stripped the link from your comment as it wasn’t relevant to the post.