Towards end of June 2009, all websites on sale at Sitepoint Marketplace were transfered to Flippa.com, the new home for buying and selling websites.

Boy, if you were one of those people lucky enough to read a whole load of comments prior to the change of venue, one sentence summed it up.  A whole load of resistance.  From sellers, buyers, on the fencers.  As for me, who has sold a couple of websites on the original Sitepoint Marketplace, I haven’t any opinions yet on the new marketplace, Flippa as I haven’t used Flippa to sell my websites yet.  I supposed I should try out.  I must admit however, that initially I have reservations doing so, as all things new.  Having said that, after browsing the new Flippa listings for sometime and using the filters and so on to get a hang on the feel of the new place, I have a few good things to say.

1) You get to see the domain name of the website for sale  – directly underneath the listing line.  Why? I was taught by Saj P’s The Site Rush that it’s best to look for website names that’s not too long, preferably no hyphens or weird characters, and at least a .net (best is .com)

2) The quick stats icon, also under the listing, to the right of the domain name/seller’s name, which, upon being pointed to/clicked at, opens up a stat window to show whether the website’s new, have revenue and so on (fed by the seller)

3) When you click into any of the listings, the look and feel is not too far from Ebay.com, with a Warrior Forum-style feedback/post question section at the bottom (Note: you see this only when you login.  Setting up an account is free).

I could only guess that the vibrant blue color of the background is based on the fact that blue is the color of trust.

My concern is that new users may have confused startup and established websites.  I have spotted a few sellers posting what I would consider an established site, under startup category.  Well, that’s how it looks like based on when I used the category filters for “Startup Websites”, the list pulled out some of them with revenues.  Oh and I miss having my watchlist the other way up.  It used to be the new watchlist on the very top.

Apart from that, there are new fees to think of – the sellers pay up $19 per listing and there is the success fee – like I mentioned, not too far from Ebay – 5% minimum, $500 max, and seller can opt to pay for it.  So, if you are in the look out to buy a website, do not forget to read the entire listing, thoroughly, word for word.

For now, you can access Flippa via Flippa.com or go to Sitepoint website and it will redirect you to the correct place.

I recently listened in to a web interview conducted by Adam Short and Allen Sultanic on Yaro Starak and Gideon Shalwick.  It was a great 1+ hour, even for a seasoned blogger, as there are nuggets of infos that I haven’t even heard or seen before.  What makes the interview more interesting is that Yaro and Gideon showed a couple of blogs done by their close friends and students, who are currently making steady income just blogging on what they are passionate about.

As some people already know, or just found out, Yaro makes 6-7 figures just on blogging and has been on the stage of some big IM seminars too.  So what works with him with regards to blogging, we need to know.

Having said that, one of the example blogs that caught my eye was Highonhealth.com – a niche on natural acne cure, also shown purposely for the fact that if you are not so into writing posts, you could use a web cam to post it on your blog. And don’t forget YouTube too and Twitter (for garnering free traffic, that is).  The owner of this blog has gained quite a following.  How do I know? My Compete traffic stats shows 16,504 people count for the month of May 2009.  A year ago, the count was hovering about 2-3K visitors. Ta-dah..!

In terms of monetizing the blog, Yaro/Gideon told us the owner gets the moolah from having advertisers on those cute 125 x 125 Sponsor ad/banners.  Get this – the lady also sells her own ebook on one of the ad tiles and some facial things under the ’shop’ link.  Overall, I think she’s done great, having autoresponder on the top (very essential, people, so pay attention) with a red box surrounding the “Start the Mini-Course right now” button, just like what Armand Morin had ordered.

The other blogs mentioned were Caradvice.com.au and Freemagiclive.com  – Awesome!  If I miss out mention on others, a thousand apologies..

Anyways, if you are a newbie/novice/amateur, go over to Becomeablogger.com.  Yaro and Gideon had setup 10 free videos for you.  And again, no, I’m not an affiliate, just wanting to spread the good things around.  And don’t forget to claim your FREE copy of “The Roadmap to Become a Blogger” on that page.  You’ll never know this could be a start of good things to come.

It is usually a brilliant idea to buy or sell websites that already has traffic coming to them and especially better if the websites are already receiving some form of revenue, however small.  Due to the consideration that some preliminary work must have been done to attract traffic, hopefully all via white-hat avenues, the new owners of the websites would be able to focus better on marketing and strategizing to gain further foothold on the revenue and profit charts, instead of starting from scratch.

This is definitely advantageous than having to work on a new site and domain.  Already, a huge block of time and energy would have been spent on processes such as registering a good domain name, inputting good resources and laying the foundation of SEO.  Certainly, with that foresight, looks like it is better to buy over a good existing site complete with domain name.

The marketplace of websites have grown in somewhat over the years.  There are several places to trade websites nowadays, apart from Ebay – probably the first one many look into before learning of others.  The types of established websites serious buyers tend to shop for are the ones monetized via Adsense – stable Adsense income, that is.  Apparently, the stability of Adsense income indicates among other things, such as good quality content, good SEO base or even a better pageranking.

Let’s delve further into some of them:

1. With an established website, there may be steady traffic flow.  Note: Please carry out your due diligence beforehand.  Assuming this and depending on the pagerank, an established website may have significant back links coupled with references via social site networks that will bump up the site’s traffic.  On the contrary, a brand new site will take some time to get even listed anywhere, let alone gaining decent traffic.

2. Having search engine optimization or SEO set up properly is definitely a leg up for the entrepreneur when buying a good established site. The effort and time that most web owners have to spend in order to get optimized by various search engines is such that there is a niche industry simply catering to the SEO needs of web owner’s community. Thus, having an established website would mean the base work for SEO completed for you, and you can achieve further when you just have to capitalize on that foundation.

3. Not many are aware that websites with long domain names are not desirable, so are the ones with hyphens or numbers for that matter. You may find that when setting up a brand new site, most of the catchy, short, terrific website names have been snapped up, and you may have to settle for a less optimized name.  This is when you could gain advantage by an buying established website, possibly with everything optimized in  search engines on top of a great domain name, which may be related to your product or market.

Seize The Demand for Established Websites And Sell Yours

If you happen to be sitting on a website which you do not have the energy and time maintaining or is not scoring you much revenue, why not consider selling your website and put that money to better use? On a new project, for example.  Trading websites is quite a decent way of earning income, but like all else, you need to be somewhat educated with the system to get a good deal befitting the value of your website. There are a handful of sites excellent for trading websites.  So, grab the opportunity to market to buyers who would be willing to pay for the best domain names and an established website for what they are worth.

There is a saying that says “buy low and sell high”. Have you ever heard of it? Well, the old adage is especially true in buying and selling websites. Let’s face it, there are so many people out there who can build a web site. Most skilled web developers can put up a website that looks great and is SEO friendly in about 20 minutes. How do they do this? Believe it or not, who cares? They build great websites and sell them for dirt cheap because they don’t know how to get the site profitable and sell it for big bucks. How are you going to to it? I am glad you asked. Pull up a chair and let’s get started.

Finding a site is not too hard if you know what you are looking for. If you go to SitePoint’s marketplace, look around at completed auctions. Make a list of the winners and selling points. You will have a list of website topics that are constantly raking in the cash. Now take your list over to some webmaster forums. One such forum is Digital Point. You will see tons of sites for dirt cheap. Look for those that match your “hot topics” list. Before you buy the site, we’ll go into some criteria for making a selection.

First off, does the seller have a good reputation? Look for sellers with lots of positive feedback. This won’t guarantee the quality, but it helps a lot. Look at the domain name. Domains that are at least 6 months old are desirable and I try to buy only .com domain web sites. Look at the design and content. If the content is readable, that should be good enough. For your first flip, look for something under $100.

Once the site is yours, fix all the grammar and spelling errors, fix formatting and whatever looks bad. Now, go and promote the site and get traffic and income will follow if you have great offers. You could also use Adsense to get money for surfer’s clicks.

Once the site has traffic and income, you are ready to sell for a nice profit over at SitePoint. Simply repeat the process and build your business from there.

There’s lots more where that came from. For a complete guide and free case study, look at Our Guide To Flipping Websites For Profit and get started making money today.

Buying an established website can be a great way to get a head start for your new internet business and save you a lot of time and effort. While buying an established website is not cheap, it does not have to be expensive either, and if you do your homework you can quickly earn back your money. While buying established websites has always been a good idea, now more than ever it is a great time to buy an established website.

The domain market is a buyer’s market in that there is a wide selection of domains available. You can find very specific domains targeted toward a niche and funky, original names you can use for almost anything. The internet is no longer like the Wild West and a good many internet entrepreneurs have developed and then abandoned sites for a variety of reasons.

The domain market (or rather the domain aftermarket) is a buyer’s market in that due to that great selection and availability prices are down. You can easily acquire an established domain for a few hundred dollars and if you pay a higher price you can feel confident that benefits will increase accordingly.

Finally, now is a great time to buy an established website because there are so many forums, services, and tools available to help you not only refine your search so you know what you are looking for but also help you gauge the right price range you should expect to pay. In addition, there are services and tools to help you find the right establishes websites for you to buy, determine the fair market value for the property, and then help you negotiate the best price.

If you want to start your new internet enterprise at the head of its class then you should consider buying an established website rather than developing a new site from scratch. Now, more than ever, is a great time to buy established websites for sale.

Deanna Mascle has been developing websites since 1999 and is currently offering a small selection of her personally developed established websites for sale at http://renaissancewomanonline.com/domainsforsale.php

Read this article and you will understand how to increase buying web site traffic. Before anything, you need to do your market research. This comes before product and most certainly comes before generating web site traffic. While it’s true you can begin to build a list before you develop your product, you need to pinpoint exactly who your buyers are in terms of niche market before venturing into either one. Here’s how you can do that: You can get yourself a thorough, deep digging keyword tool. There are plenty on the market and most are only around a couple of hundred dollars. That’s one area you don’t want to go cheap, because the more accurate and robust your market research tools are, the greater advantage you have over potential competitors who are using inferior software for their research.

In the places where it counts is where you want to invest to set the foundation. After you have found a good niche with several hundred thousand searches each month with very few competitors, you want to obtain from your software a list of a good 20 keyword phrases you can use or at least 10. This way you have consistent searches for your target market. Going to sites which feature the ability to search for questions asked by people who are associated with your keywords, you can discover what kinds of issues they are having or what their hot buttons are. If you get a good cross section of people coming up with the same problems, issues and hotbuttons (interests), then you know exactly what the demand is and have a great idea on how to proceed with your research. Some people say search engine optimization is not important. I however, disagree. Although certainly we can’t base the success of the business on the shifts of the algorithm, it is beneficial to at least understand the basic fundamentals in order to optimize your site for the most relevant keywords as possible in order to provide the most seamless experience for the visitors in your market searching for your site.

This way, your buyers are happy, the search engine is happy and you are happy too. When purchasing a domain name and when naming the title of web pages to be hosted on your server that the domain is pointing to, it is a good idea to use your most profitable keywords to name your domain and the sub folders which are the web pages or sites you have created for it with those keywords. This means when they are crawled for indexing, the content on your site is relevant because it contains the same content as your page titles and domain titles as well as the keywords your buyers are looking for. You yourself know what it feels like to be in a “buying mood.” It’s where you know what you are looking for or at least the main idea of what you are looking for. Your buyers are doing the same thing.

You want to target those who are in the market and in the buying mood for the products you have in that niche. Now this can greatly aid you in the product creation idea brainstorming, creation and development phases as well as they all integrate as a system together. It’s a great idea to find out who the market leaders are in your niche who have the largest market share and databases of customers who are also mostly the most aggressive advertisers in that niche because they have determined the cost of customer acquisition as well as the lifetime value of each customer. You will want to contact them, buy their products, study their marketing processes and get to know how they run their business as well as propose a joint venture to them where you offer them a high and generous commission for recommending your product to their list of buyers who are in that niche.

The more of these “big players” you locate in your respective niche, the more reach you will have. These are strategic alliances because when you offer them commissions on products their customers would otherwise buy straight from you, you are allowing them to profit off what would otherwise be seen as competition and are ensuring you get a nice foothold in the marketshare too as you have several partners. Remember, being as generous as possible on the commission, will go to great lengths to encourage your partners to promote your product even more because they know they stand to make more money by doing so. You may also offer commissions to those customers to become your affiliates as well.

Be sure to provide them with plenty of marketing creatives or affiliate promotional tools and make it as easy and rewarding as possible for them to promote for you. This will help you get major momentum with consistent, targeted and buying traffic to your web site as your joint venture partners and affiliates are helping you to advertise and only get paid from a portion of the profits they create for you. So there you have it in a nutshell…how to increase targeted, quality, buying web site traffic.

For more solid how to on how to increase traffic of quality buyers to your web site register for the increase web site traffic course by clicking on the following link now Increase Web Site Traffic

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If you want to buy a site, flip it and make money, there are two ways to acquire a site name. You can make up and register a brand new domain name, or you can buy a site name from someone, which may even include the site with it.

Buying a site that already exists may get you some existing web pages, traffic, and maybe some pagerank. Pagerank is measure of site’s popularity used by Google that is determined by the number of links others have created to this site.

Expired sites may also have traffic and pagerank. And you can capitalize on this value. There are sites and brokers on the Internet that will help you locate sites (usually for a fee, of course).

Site names, or domain names, have value on their own. Acquiring domain names is very inexpensive. So if you can make up a new domain name that is clever and has value to someone, you can re-sell it.

Expired domain names may also have value if you can locate the right buyer. Existing web pages, or content, adds value as does traffic. You can expand traffic via social and social bookmarking sites such as Facebook, Propeller, Diggit, and others.

So what is domain flipping? Well, you can add more value to a site or domain name by creating more content. That is, you can add pages to the web site. You create these pages yourself, or pay to have them created. You can also add content through links or news feeds, such as RSS feeds. You can make audio files or videos, or have them them created. Perhaps the existing graphics do not look professional. Again, if you have the skills you could do it. If not you could use a freelance contractor to create new or improved graphics.

Presumably the value you add can be recaptured (with a profit) when you sell the site. That’s what domain flipping is all about.

You should approach this process in a business-like way with a budget. I think the first step is an estimate of the price that you can sell the domain or site. Then estimate your costs to buy a website or domain. Then calculate the costs to rehabilitate the site. What will it cost to add content? And don’t forget — what will it cost to hold and sell? If selling price exceeds the rehabilitation costs, then you can proceed. Otherwise move on to the next potential deal!

So do you want to make money on the Internet? Click here to find out more about how to buy a site and transform it into a niche website.

Mike Furlong

Site Flip, PimpMyFlip, websiteflippingsecretsexposed, siteflipincome, flippersvault, siteflipgurus, flipidol, flipmastery -  are just some of the names of websites that have come out in recent months to cater for the popularity of the subject.

No offense to the owners, but most of the ebooks or course hype about getting good income quickly by selling or flipping websites without cautioning the readers or members to check for latest trends of website buyers’ needs, not allowing the them to stand out from the rest simply by leveraging on their strengths and leading the understudy to commit themselves to the same paths as the gurus.  This is the internet, after all, where yesterday’s news could hurt someone’s income drastically.

Most of the flip site subjects are written based on owner’s or people’s experience.  One urged people to do Clickbank-Ready websites, complete with ebook/course that could be sold more than $500.  The other explained the virtue of selling image hosting sites. Yet another person recommended blogs complete with premium themes.  All because they showed proofs that they have been able to do so.  Word of caution, though: if there is picture proof of the websites being sold, check for the listing/completion/payment date.  Was it like 2 years ago or something? I would only recommend anything which is at oldest, a year old.

In reality, it is getting harder and harder to achieve similar to the gurus, simply because as the word gets out, the competition hots up.  No doubt, it is good to have competition to ensure every seller step up the quality of their websites to match the top tier sellers, but there will be losers along the run.

Get yourselves educated on the subject properly.  And mind you, it does take time to let all that you read and learn to sink in. It might be wise to combine a few resources to complete the whole picture.  Among a few that I have gone through is SiteRush.  I’m just a fan, not an affiliate.  Well, Saj P really gives you a good foundation to lay on, and a lot to think about in his 250-page book.  You will find that reading it, is like drinking water from a fire hydrant, so to speak.  But then, you will be able to form a better judgement on the types of websites that you could make money with, be it via flipping or keeping.  Having said that, if you need the nitty gritty details like – how to transfer my website from seller’s current hosting to my own or other’s hosting sites, then, you need to google or youtube that up.  Plus, when you get the hang of it, it’s quite straightforward to do too.

Whatever you choose to do when deciding on making an income from selling or flipping web sites, get a feel of what is best for you and brand up your strength and credibility based upon that.  It should last you a long time.

When buying products, be it everyday items like groceries, or a once-in-5-years perhaps, like cars, we search for the best venue and avenue to do so.  For, the right kind of venue and avenue could save us some time and costs in the long run.

Same goes to buying websites.

Here’s an overview of a few places to consider when shopping for a website.

Ebay

With thousands of listing at any given time, wading through them can be tiring and time consuming.  First, go through Ebay and type in “website” in the search box.  Look for Businesses and Websites for Sale.  Refine your search to Internet Businesses & Websites.  There have been a few suggestions from certain quarters that the best way to sieve through the sand for the gold nuggets of a website is to section your search for ones that are selling for more than $500.  This is due to a lot of so-called ‘make-money’ websites – the ones with just pages of Amazon and Ebay auction products that are sold in duplicates, that makes it hard for owners to get decent traffic, let alone make money with it.

It has been in my experience that sellers come and go in this category.  And at times, due to the overwhelming competition, some sellers tend to lay low for some time for the competition to pan out before listing their products again.  So you really need to check out Ebay once in a while.  And on those whiles were when I was able to scoop up a few good websites, complete with .com domain names for less than $30.

Digitalpoint Forum (DP)

This is a place to buy some quality websites and it’s generally cheaper too.  Look under Buy, Sell or Trade and then find Sites.  The way people bid on the websites is by posting their bid amount on the thread/reply on the bottom of each listing.  On the downside, buyer’s protection does not seem to be as good as Ebay or at the next place that will be mentioned – Sitepoint.  Having written that, you may find that some sellers have taken to advertising their websites which are for sale at Sitepoint, for more eyeballs at DP.  Due to that, people tend to head over to Sitepoint to shop for websites anyways.

Sitepoint

Sitepoint’s Marketplace has become a sort of  go-to venue for finding various types of websites, from the Startup, to Established and Premium ones.  The trend for Startup websites right now are the so-called “Clickbank-Ready” sites.  This is where you can buy the website and get it listed under Clickbank so that owners would be able to get affiliates to help market the product.  This type of website can command more than $1000 by certain popular sellers.

If you are looking to have a website with revenue, then skip over to the Established or Premium section, where you can search for various types of websites that may just bear you steady profit into the future.

So with the above short review, here’s hoping your shopping trip would be better rewarded.

Depending on the kind of website you are looking for, or hope to achieve from buying one, online auction sites could be a great venue for getting a great bargain. There are a few, oft-mentioned online auction sites, and will be mentioned as we go along.

Here are some tips on navigating your way to a successful purchase

a) Feedback -  for Ebay, the feedback  must be at least 10; more would be better, and in terms of percentage should be at worst, a 99%. For other sites, like Sitepoint, check for at least a verified phone number, which should give the seller a 60% trusted level.  The other 40% is achieved after a positive feedback is given by a buyer.  100% trust level coupled with a few successful listing is desirable.  Do read the a few comments left for the buyer so that you get a base picture of the kind of seller you are dealing with.

b) When looking at the description, check whether the auction is for a template of the website, or include a domain name. For a domain name would easily cost $10 a year and becomes an added expense should we purchase a template.

c) Ask the seller if there would be any other costs involved in transfering the domain name and/or installing the website to your own hosting. Transfering the domain name should be free.  However, some sellers need you to strictly host with them. In general as the buyer, you need to understand that a website requires hosting, by paying on your own, finding a free hosting on the net, or paying and hosting it with the seller.  Various sellers set different offers on hosting. Some offers are reasonable to downright free, while other sellers up the rates until they are totally unreasonable and hold you on to a year’s fee. You want to be sure that you know the pros and cons of each decisions, while at the same time get your website up on the server  in a timely manner.

d) Research Prices – Before you make a purchase in an online auction site, DO take the time to do your homework. Be sure that you get a feel of the value of the websites that you are going to buy. Sometimes you may find that the seller is setting the price for far more than it is worth, and that you could get it cheaper from someone else. Cross check with other places like digitalpoint forum or sitepoint to get a better idea on the prices.

Keep these tips in mind as you navigate through the long list of website listings.