Site Flipping University

If you have no clue as to the meaning of my headline, please refer to my post about my blog flipping challenge.  Well my friends, the challenge has been accepted, and here’s how it’s going to play out.

I don’t have any free time until Friday to do this, due to prior commitments and the fact that I need 24 hours straight of work time.  So here’s the deal.  I’ll build 5 sites using Wordpress, and then attempt to sell them for as close to $1,000 as humanly possible.  I think I’ll actually go a bit over $1,000, but I did carefully word my proposition by saying that if I don’t make 1k, I’ll get pretty close.  So, for arguments sake, let’s just say I have to make $1,000 in 24 hours.  Impossible?  Maybe, but I’m pretty confident that I can do it.  It’ll be impressive no matter what happens, because the blogger that accepted the challenge doesn’t think that these will go for any more than $20 each. (more…)

I have to say that one of my favorite new finds in the blog community is IMwithJoe.Com - dude is hilarious, and he has a totally new take on internet marketing.  Add that to the fact that he is 100% transparent with his readers, and you’ll see why I can’t get enough.  After reading through one of his posts the other day, I spotted a link to an article titled - “Make Money Online By Flipping Blogs For Profit”.  I have to admit, my first thought was oh great, another guy that made $90 flipping a turnkey site and now he’s an “expert”.  But the article wasn’t what I thought it was.  It was well written, and quite informative to someone who wouldn’t know what site flipping was really all about.  But there were several pieces of mis-information and I’m going to stand up and bring on a challenge. (more…)

It’s come to my attention in a few forums lately that Yahoo might just be the death of all internet marketing campaigns.  Shocking, I know… I thought for sure it would be Google that killed all of us, took over the world, and raised primates to use as slaves.  Yahoo?  I expected so much more.

What the hell am I talking about?  Yahoo teamed with McAfee and formed a formidible roadblock to earch engine marketers that they are calling Site Advisor, otherwise known as The Masters of the Universe Club.  And no, you aren’t invited.  It seems the two giants decided to go collaborative and make life for us marketers, even tougher.  I waited a bit to post on this one, because it seems they are still testing it.  Sometimes these results appear, and sometimes they don’t.  Here’s what I’m talking about. (more…)

Well folks, at the end of the day I have to say that I enjoy the company here more than at any other site I visit.  I have a great group of readers, and the conversations generally get pretty active in the comment area.  It excites me, and drives me to continue pumping out great content.  Well, you’ve inspired me to do even more.

Lately I’ve had my had in more than a few cookie jars at the same time,  and it’s left me very litle time to post here at SFU.  Well, that’s all changed.  I offloaded a few time killing sites, hired a few great people to do some writing for me, and worked out a deal with a few others to do a revenue split on my flips, in exchange for some quality posting.  What’s this mean to you?  More updates here at SFU! (more…)

More often than not, flipper don’t take into account the money they SHOULD be making while flipping a blog.  Monetizing some niches is harder than others, granted, but with creative monetization, you can monetize anything.  What’s creative monetization?  It’s using your brain to figure out something you can sell in your niche that isn’t being offered yet.  Or if it is offered, you can offer something better.  In short, selling your own products would be the number one way to creatively monetize any blog. (more…)

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been researching this article heavily.  I’ve scoured every marketplace looking for transactions of $10,000 plus, and a blog.  I’ve learned a lot, and I want to pass this on to you so that you can see just how easy it is to make over $10,000 with one blog flip.  Blog flipping isn’t for everyone, but it’s obviously profitable in this case.  Let’s take a look.

I found over 40 sites that sold for $10,000+ last month, with the winner going for $90,000.  Not a bad day at the office right? (more…)

After some late night calculations, the winner of the blog flipping contest is….

Frugal Zeitgeist!

It’s actually quite amazing because Forest didn’t even “flip” his blog.  He still owns it.  But, after looking over the contest rules, and the statistics… I didn’t say that the blog had to be sold.  He did miss out on the bonus points for the listing and the sale of his blog, but he had enough points from RSS subscribers and traffic to walk away with this one.

So congrats Forest.  I’ll be getting in touch with you soon, and we’ll find a way to get you your prizes!

Second and third place go to Jay and Missy.  Congrats everyone, and thanks for taking part!

There are often two distinct ways to make money site flipping.  The frontside model, which is of course the sale of the site, and any of the revenue it generated while you had it.  And then there is a backend model in which you try to squeeze out even more cash from the sale of your blog.  Instead of trying to re-invent the wheel, I want you to check out a video that Justin Brooke of Site Flip Academy made.  It covers a pretty solid backend model that I started using in January, after pulling my hair out trying to figure out how to tweak every last dollar from my buyers.  My plans were to make a video, but I remembered seeing a video on the topic a month or so ago, and it explained everything nicely.  So Justin, thanks for the great video.

First, let me explain a backend system.  Selling the site is where most site flippers stop.  Had they continued their quest to make money flipping websites, they’d realize they are leaving quite a bit of money on the table by doing this.  The idea is to provide services, or products that you think the people buying your websites would need.  I monetize mine with various affiliate programs such as Bookmarking Demon, Article Submitter, Directory Submitter, Wordtracker (keyword research), and generally a few different hosting options.  Some of these hosting options pay me recurring commissions, so it’s not all that uncommon for me to make commissions now, for sites that I’ve sold months ago.  It’s a great system… check out the video.

All those taking part in our communal site flipping experiment send me an email.  Hope to get started next week!

Also, send me your top 5 niche’s that you’d like to blog about.

bryanclark82 at gmail dot com or use the contact page above!

First things first, I want to thank all of the new forum members for stopping by and sharing their knowledge with others.  It’s becoming a great place to share tips, tricks, strategies, and cool finds with other bloggers that happen to read SFU.  That said, the forum is officially out of beta mode, and it has a fresh redesign.  It’s clean, simple, and it above all else - FUNCTIONAL!  Check out the Site Flipping Forum now!

Next item on the agenda is the contest winner.  I apologize for not announcing it yet, as I’ve been super busy trying to work on my flipper blogs, get the forums running, post on a semi-regular basis here… and then there’s my life outside of the internet.  Hectic!  I’ll go over the statistics sometime this week, and we’ll announce a winner as soon as I find one.  A couple of my sponsors have become unreachable, but we’ll figure out a way to make the winner happy, even if I have to pay for the stuff myself.  The winner will get his/her prizes! (more…)