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Author Topic: Grandiose idea or idiotic?  (Read 46 times)
erics_dad
Newbie

Posts: 7


Grandiose idea or idiotic?
« on: September 20, 2008, 01:55:26 PM »

Hi all,

I actually wrote Bryan a couple days ago asking his opinion and he kindly answered. I thought I'd post my idea and see what response, ideas, thoughts I'd get.

Firstly, I've never flipped a site and only really started looking into it about a month ago as I wanted an "exit strategy" for my sites I'm building. Anyway, I'll explain and apologies in advance if it's a somewhat long post.

OK, basically this is what I'm doing:

1) I'm building up 60 blogs. Why 60? Cause I've had many domains lying around about to expire and thought I'd try to do something with them before they do. But, 60 is proving to be a HUGE undertaking lol

2) All sites are in the finance area: loans, insurance, mortgage, debt, etc.

3) All are .com/.co.uk etc. no .info's

4) All blogs but 59/60 are wordpress. These aren't "pretty" sites. They may even fall under "MFA" sites but the idea is the "ugly sites get clicks" kinda thing. Hey, at least I'm being honest lol. A typical wp theme is the Adsense theme by popular blogger Dosh Dosh

5) Out of the 60, only about 25 right now have anywhere from 3 pages to 450. Most are only a few pages. The other 35 only have a couple pages like "contact us" etc. It's because I'm still gathering content or writing articles to populate the blogs. Wow, 60 is a friggin' chore! lol

6) My monetization will be two-fold: Adsense and selling text links to "the network".

7) Started the "network" about 1 month ago, maybe 6 weeks. But, was sidetracked with another project. Anyway, took several weeks just setting up each blog, tweaking templates, adding plugins, robot.txt, etc etc.

Earnings so far: about $150-$200/month Adsense, actually sold 1 link in network despite 35 blogs having next to no content so I guess you could say avg earnings so far is about $300/month

9) Projected earnings: $1000-$3000/month Adsense, $1000-$5000/month link sales. I could be dreaming but I think it's possible.

10) Traffic: Well, there ain't much to be honest but finance clicks pay decent

So, after reading the basics above, what do you all think? I want to sell this whole network in either a) 2-3 months from now, b) when I've sold enough text links, c) when/if I reach my goal of $3000-$5000 or so in earnings.

Thinking optimistically here, if I reach say $5000/month (possible but will take work) how much should/could I sell it for? 12 months worth? More? Less?

Thanks for reading and feel free to comment. Call me an idiot if you want lol. 60 blogs is tough to do alone but I can do it with lots of preparation. Getting there little by little.

Cheers
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Ted
Newbie

Posts: 8


Re: Grandiose idea or idiotic?
« Reply #1 on: September 21, 2008, 01:25:45 AM »

60 blogs... Wow !
That's a lot. If I were you I would take the time to develop each blog and sell it separately. Selling the whole network would be tough. Why don't you sell it by networks of 10 blogs. You could get more money by selling networks of 10 blogs instead of selling everything at once. If every 10 blogs sell for a couple of thousands you could end up making more instead selling everything. At least this is my opinion so don't listen to what I said, I am still a newbie and don't know much 
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erics_dad
Newbie

Posts: 7


Re: Grandiose idea or idiotic?
« Reply #2 on: September 21, 2008, 01:41:07 AM »

Hi Ted

Thanks for the response and I think your idea is actually quite realistic and a good one. I too am a complete noob to this so I'm very open to suggestions.

My only problem I see with this, although it may not be one afterall, is that my original intention of the "network" was to sell backlinks to finance sites as I too used to run my own and would pay for backlinks myself. Then, the idea of site flipping came about as an "exit strategy". I realise this goes against Google's TOS. Apparently you can still sell backlinks but they must be no-follow I think.

So, I thought if I had 60 blogs and approached finance companies and/or SEO companies who might want to sell links to their clients then I've got a wide market to approach. I would make my links very affordable if they bought into the network.

Anyway, if I sold 10 at a time then I'd be selling a part of the network and if some people paid me for all 60 blogs, ie for backlinks, then I don't think I could sell 10 if that makes sense.

I think the monetization potential is more in the selling of backlinks than Adsense.

But, you bring up a good point Ted. It could be very difficult to sell a "network" of sites. My first goal though is to earn enough per month to even have anything worth selling lol

I'll keep this thread updated because I'd like to sell by say the end of November. My goal is to make enough to start on much MUCH smaller site flipping projects lol 60 is way too much for little ol' me

BTW, any experienced flippers like you Bryan or any others than can offer their insight into trying to sell so many sites as 1 package? Am I looking at an uphill battle?

Thanks
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Ted
Newbie

Posts: 8


Re: Grandiose idea or idiotic?
« Reply #3 on: September 21, 2008, 02:03:09 AM »

Nice ideas mate but I will stick to the 10 blog network idea.
If you can develop one by one networks of 10 blogs you can still get money by selling links.
I don't know about you but I need at least one afternoon to surf 60 sites. I can't imagine how much time you would need to update all of the 60 sites.
But if you split them by groups you can focus on one group for say one day, update with content, bring traffic and the next day do the same thing with the next group of blogs.
If you could like organize the blogs in a couple of categories- debts, insurance, loans and etc.
Don't you think that it would cost more money to buy a link at a blog network of 10 blogs that are focused only on one subject for example debt than to buy a link at a blog network of 60 blogs that are focused on many different financial subjects?
I think this is a good option but lets leave the last comments to the professionals.
Cheers !
« Last Edit: September 21, 2008, 02:04:53 AM by Ted » Logged
erics_dad
Newbie

Posts: 7


Re: Grandiose idea or idiotic?
« Reply #4 on: September 21, 2008, 11:43:12 PM »

Wanted to ask what people think about the importance of blog themes? Maybe this should be its own discussion/thread.

From looking at a couple people's blogs here that have either sold or planning to sell, I find a couple themes nice looking.

1 Free - http://cssace.com/free-wp-premium-theme-is-here/
1 Paid - http://www.woothemes.com/2008/04/fresh-news/

Now, the "designer" in me says to put something nice on all 60 of my blogs. Going paid would obviously add expense and I may not be able to sell the network at all so I'd be out of pocket. The "free" choice is a strong contender lol

However, I'm using this theme on some of my blogs http://www.doshdosh.com/prosense-adsense-ready-seo-theme/ and to be honest, from a "visual" point of view it's NOT attractive at all lol

BUT, as I don't get much traffic to that blog much yet (most was 10 clicks or so a day) I did at the same time earn pretty good money with so little clicks due to how "ugly" it looks.

So, my "business mind" says keep the ugly themes cause the content gets the visitor, the Adsense and lack of attractive theme gets the clicks. The "designer" in me says make my blogs look "perty".

Personally I think this is a somewhat important topic because I think a blog can sell far higher if it looks good, as opposed to something that looked like a 2-year old put it together. But, it doesn't mean a nicer looking blog will earn more Adsense income. Sometimes, I feel a blog that looks too good just makes the user want to click around the site and not the ads. Am I right?

Thoughts?

Cheers
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Blogtacular
Newbie

Posts: 3


Re: Grandiose idea or idiotic?
« Reply #5 on: September 22, 2008, 04:15:27 PM »

In terms of theme selection, my approach depends on my objectives for the site.  If Adsense clicks are a priorty then I tend toward grimy, minimalist themes with optimized placement of ad blocks.  If user experience and bookmarkers/subscribers are the goals, then I go with the shiny 2.0ish themes. 

My experience is limited to having sold 2 sites and this was before I ever seriously considered it a lucrative business model.  I did find it much easier to sell the site that was the uglier but more profitable of the two.  Small sample size so YMMV.  I'd love to hear from someone who has sold a more significant number of sites.
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erics_dad
Newbie

Posts: 7


« Reply #6 on: September 22, 2008, 05:11:04 PM »

Hi Blogtacular

Your experience is more than mine, even with 2 sites.

When you say you found it easier to sell the site that was uglier/more profitable of the two, does this mean you still got top dollar?

See, after my last post I went ahead and added the "prettier" theme by cssace. No custom logo or anything and I still have 3 Adsense channels or whatever they're called but overall compared to Dosh Dosh's ProSense theme, it looks a lot better.

I like nicely designed sites/blogs but that doesn't always translate better when coming to a sale. I "assume" this based on logic as I've never flipped a site. However, I also think that if you can combine the too, ie a nice looking site mixed with a good Adsense earner then I reckon you could get that much more for it.

Heck, I even went and added this cool flash tag cloud - seen here http://techie-buzz.com/technology-buzz/talking-to-a-robot-on-msn-chat.html - middle right lol

Oh, just wanted to say/ask one more thing. I think it even helps to have a nicer looking theme when it comes time to leave comments on other people's blogs, or joining sites like Blogcatalog and the like. If a site looks too much like an MFA site then I think you have a harder time getting backlinks.

Cheers
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