I thought I would write a slightly different article to my normal affiliate marketing related articles, have you ever said to yourself “I know about affiliate marketing, but are there any other sources of income I could tap into?”

It was a question I asked myself some time ago and a question that I am sure many others have asked. This article looks at Flipping websites and earning money from rapidly developing websites to sell to others, this can tie into your skills as an affiliate or online marketer and get you some extra income.

I have had some moderate success flipping websites with sales of anything between £200 and £5,000, so it can be done and can make decent money.
If you are just starting out, this article describes one method of rapidly creating websites that you can later flip for a profit.

What is Flipping?

Flipping is creating or buying a site with the specific intention of selling it on within a short period of time. Some people just flip domain names, buying domains from the after markets and then selling them on to other parties, hopefully at a profit.

Flipping a website can prove more profitable then simply flipping domain names as you can, with a little work, add value to that site more easily. The problem with flipping websites has always been that there is a certain cost involved with creating the site in the first place which is why many steer away from flipping sites and flip domains.

The Datafeed Import Plugin for WordPress allows you to cut down the cost of developing  a site and as such the potential for profit in flipping a website much more likely.

What is the datafeed Import Plugin for WordPress?

The datafeed import plugin for WordPress allows you to create a website based on WordPress in a matter of minutes. The power of WordPress means that you have a backbone to your site and are able to ad functionality through plugins, and you have the ultimate power to change the look and feel of your site through themes so you can make the site suit its subject very easily.

The power of the datafeed import plugin for WordPress allows you to create a site from content published on the web either from RSS feeds or affiliate (or other) Datafeeds.

10 steps to flipping a site for profit

Here are some simple steps to flipping a website using the datafeed import plugin for WordPress.

1. Domain name

The domain name is one of the most important aspects if you plan to flip a site for a profit. It is true to say that the domain name will hold value in its own right, but unless you are really going to get into the world of dommaining, then it is likely that you will have to settle for slightly les good domain names and add value to them in some other way like creating a site, promoting it and then flipping it. Even if the end user has different plans for that domain name that you have with your project, a history of use is of great importance, especially if that domain has some link backs and the website associated with it holds some page rank.

You need to select a Domain name that has good keywords, a good keyword ideally a single word but also can be a short phrase of two to three words, where the exact search term has a high search volume.

You can find the search volume for searches for your phrase on Google using Googles Keyword tool, enter your keyword or phrase and then search, you will also need to change it to show exact search term volume, using the tick box on the left of the interface

This will then tell you a Global and a Local Search volume. Local for me is the UK so if I cam buying a UK domain this is what I pay attention to. It depends on what domain TLD I am buying as to what search volume I want for a domain, for me in the UK I have the choice of co.uk, org.uk and me.uk. I tend to go for the following local search volume for each of those domains:

co.uk  1,000+
org.uk 10,000+
me.uk  100,000+

This reflects the research that shows Googles opinion of each of these TLDs with only a few me.uk domains ranking highly.

You also have the option of using the domain after market. This means buying domain names from people who already own then, Sedo, DomainLore and Acron Domains are all good places to start, although it can get expensive and add costs to your project, it could also mean that you can secure a better domain with a better intrinsic value so you are starting off from a stronger platform.

Domains that have already been used may also have had some of the work done for you, if they have had a website on them previously then they may already have link backs, some history with Google and indeed the very fact that they are aged domain names gives them an added bonus.

Once you have secured the domain name you want, you are ready to start adding value to it

2. Setup WordPress

I use WordPress as the platform for most of my sites, weather I am going to use the datafeed import plugin for WordPress of I am going to build a simple site.

The reason I do this is that I know that WordPress has a solid backbone, it has many of the features I need already built in so I do not have to start coding things, better still it is free!

WordPress Themes allow you to change the way your site looks so that you can make it suit your chosen subject.

3. Install Analytics

Google analytics is critical for any site for you to monitor its performance, traffic sources, keyword used on searches to get to your site and a whole realm of useful features.

It is all the more important for flipping website as we are going to need to prove the visitor rates for our site, indeed, Flippa which I will describe shortly links into Google Analytics to extract those visitor stats to be shown on the listing of your site that you are selling.

This makes everything transparent for the buyer and seller, it is no-good you going out and buying 10,000 links for $20 as these links will be junk at best and spam at worst, yes they will generate a whole bunch of traffic, but useless traffic and the buyer will see that in the stats from Google Analytics.

4. Find some datafeeds

You can find datafeed of all sorts all over the place, the main ones that I use are affiliate datafeeds, try:

Tradedoubler
AffiliateWindow
Commission Junction

However, the plugin will take any CSV, XML or RSS feed, and as such you can syndicate content from many sources.

I would advise affiliate datafeeds as this gives you the opportunity to earn some commission, a site that is already earning commission no-matter how small will always sell better than one without any income, but be prepared to prove that income to potential buyers.

5. Buy A license for the datafeed import plugin

Although the datafeed plugin comes with an unlimited license this is for the owner of that site, if you are flipping sites you will need to get a license for each of those sites. You can buy bulk licenses up front at a substantially reduced rate, please contact me for more details.

6. Create your datafeed site

Create your site using the datafeed import plugin, I have tutorials covering this subject on my site so I will not go through it again, but once you have it created and all the posts created in your site, it is critical that you add some unique content to your site, it is this that adds value. There is no shortcut to this, thus far, I have given you hints and tips of doing things as quickly as possible and automating where you can, but the writing of the content has no such shortcut. It is time consuming and takes a great deal of effort, but then you did not expect to be getting money for nothing did you?

Remember that content can be more than just words, images, videos or audio can be added to all add value to your site. Make sure that this content is useful to people and contributes something to the community and to the subject you are working with, otherwise why would someone give it a monetary value?

7. Promote and build some links

Promotion of your site is where you are going add the most value, the content we talked about above will help you in this regard, after all promoting something that is useful is far easier than promoting nothing.

There are many ways in which you can promote your site, it is all about building links and natural traffic. I have covered this in detail elsewhere, but briefly here is a list of things that you should be doing:

• Twitter – Sign up for a twitter account specially for this site, you can add value to the site by including this in the sale. Tweet about your site, new products you have added, new reviews added and extend this into following news in your subject, for example if your sites is about Car Insurance, tweet about the news that insurance premiums are set to go up. Build up a follower list, which will also have value to your potential buyer.
• Blog Comments – Posting on other peoples blogs is a good way of generating links and traffic, do not just post a Spammy link, engage in the discussion, post something useful and you link will be followed.
• Forum posts – The same as blog comments, engage in the discussion, become known as a good poster, put your link in your signature.
• Blog posts – sign up for a WordPress.com or a blogger.com blog and blog about your projects, what’s new, new products, new reviews etc.
• Ask for link backs – email other webmasters and ask for link backs, you will get knocked back 99 times out of 100 but you may get that one gem link that will make it all worthwhile.

There are 100′s of ways in which you can promote your new site, make sure you stay on the right side of spamming, and I would not advise paying for any link building services as most of them are simply a con, any that are not will cost you a great deal of money, and they are only going to do the legwork that you can do yourself.

8. List site on Flippa

Flippa is the biggest and most well known website for flipping or just selling websites and domain names. You could also use Sedo and there are many others. You do have to pay a small fee with Flippa, but as this is your biggest shop window I would advise that this is a price well worth paying.

Some people also flip websites via Ebay, I have personally never done this as I think it is hard to make your site stand out from all the poor quality sites they get listed on there, but you may be able to make it work. I would be interested to hear from anyone that has had success flipping websites using Ebay. The advantage of Ebay of course is that you could have the sale and transfer of the site almost completely automated using something like  idev-DigiEbay 3.0 which i do use for other purposes and is very good for selling digital goods on Ebay.

9. Sell Your site

Selling your site will not be a case of leaving your listing and then collecting the money. You will need to be on hand to answer questions of potential buyers.

You should also not forget to continue to market your site while it is listed for sale, the last thing you want is for there to be a drop off in visitor numbers which could potentially damage the sale price.

Be open, honest and friendly, talk to potential buyers, find out what they think and work with them to get them to a position to make you an offer.

10. Spend your money!

Once you have sold your site, enjoy yourself, and start thinking of your next project! Why not tell me about your success stories, perhaps, what you learn will help others.

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