One of the more popular methods of making money on the internet is the process of “flipping” websites for profit. It’s talked about far too often, so I’d like to let those of you who are still a bit fuzzy on the details into the big secret. Before we discuss the actual process, it’s important to understand the concept of arbitrage.

What is Arbitrage?
While arbitrage sometimes refers simply to the process of arbitration (think mediating in a court of law), financial arbitration refers to the process of concurrent buying and selling for profit. Confused? Well we all know the basic idea of buying low, selling high… right? Using arbitration would be buying something and then selling it for a higher profit. Essentially any trade where you make out ahead, is utilizing arbitration to your advantage. Now enough business talk, let’s discuss flipping! ;)

What does Arbitrage have to do with Website Flipping?

A successful “flip” of a website is one that makes a profit. Therefore, website flipping is really all about an individuals ability to seek out a low purchase price on a website that allows for a higher selling price at some other time down the road. Now, I don’t like to mess too heavily in risk by putting down a few hundred dollars for someone else’s website. Luckily for us, flipping a website (arbitrage) can also mean starting up your own low-cost blog on a new domain name and getting it to sell.

The Process
Many people preach making $1000s every day by starting up a slew of new blogs and selling them the same day. This is a lie that is being permeated by fools that like to believe in these get rich quick schemes. Nobody buys a website that is one day old for anywhere north of $20… so best of luck if you are going to go against my recommendation and try anyway. :razz:

It doesn’t take much to buy some cheap articles and build a website up over time, so let’s aim for a two week turn around time. Just remember that we really don’t need to pay any attention to the blogs we are going to flip, so it’s kind of just money building up in the background.

Here is the simplified process:

  1. Register a creative “niche” domain name
  2. Install WordPress on your web hosting account
  3. Grab a monetized theme with a brandable logo
  4. Add articles and content to your blog
  5. List your blog for sale and PROFIT!
Registering Your Domain Name

Arguably the most difficult part of flipping a website is finding a brandable domain name that has a keyword in it and a .com extension. You are going to want to make sure that you register domain names with .com endings only, because this will add about $20 average onto your sale price… and that could make or break your profit margin. I would recommend buying with 1and1.com because they offer consistently low pricing and have free private domain name registration on all new names ($6.99/yr).

What makes a good domain name? Basically you want something that is easy to remember (brandable), has something obviously tied to your niche (one keyword minimum) and isn’t too long. You can have a hyphen, but anything more than two words long isn’t what you are looking for (excluding word like “the” or “pro”). Check out my domain guide for more information about this process.

Setting Up Your WordPress and Web Hosting
Obviously, a blog needs to be hosted somewhere. Fortunately for you, if you don’t already have web hosting I wrote a guide as part of my “Creating a Blog” series that will get you the best deal of your life! :razz:

I recommend installing and using the WordPress blogging system if you are going to flip a blog for profit. Not only is it the most widely used system, which will give you the best profit margin on your buy-sell arbitrage, but it is one of the easier programs to install and set up on your blog. Again, if you need help installing WordPress I have a handy installation guide for you to use yourself.

Configure a Monetized WordPress Theme with a Brandable Logo
Making your blog look great is really a lot easier than it would seem at first glance. You don’t want to pay anyone to do this for you, because there are plenty of free themes from providers like WP Theme Designer or OSWD that you can use 100% free… further increasing your margins and decreasing risk.

If you have a copy of Adobe Photoshop, it’s pretty easy to whip up a free logo on your own. You can just grab a neat stock image from a free service like Stock.Xchng or a paid service like iStockPhoto, slap on the name of your website and save it! Otherwise, why not try and hire a cheap designer off of a webmaster forum (I use Digital Point)? This will run you $5-$15 a piece, depending on quality of course.

Adding Articles and Content to Your Blog
If done effectively, the set-up will take about 30 minutes per blog. So by the time you have worked through your set-up, you should have a whole army of good looking blogs ready to go. All you need now is some unique content! You could, again, either write up articles yourself or pay someone to do it for you. I recommend paying someone, as writers will give you some good work that Google picks up well for a very affordable rate. You could end up paying as little as $1-2 for each article, a very affordable down payment!

I recommend adding anywhere from 5 to 15 articles total per website. Where can you find someone to write articles for you? Try the “content” sales section of Digital Point forums or have a look on Google. You really only need around 350 words on each article, so it shouldn’t be too costly. ;)

List Your Blog for Sale, and Take Your Gains!
Now that we have an “established” blog… or at least one that appears to be… it’s time to talk things up a bit and pitch it for sale. If you have done this effectively, you can successfully flip a blog in less than a week. However, I still recommend building blogs for two weeks before considering selling. You want to talk your website up a bit, targeting things like niche market exposure, great domain, brandable content and design, awesome start up…. things like that.

It’s pretty easy to spin off a website on Digital Point to another member, but you will usually get a higher sale price if you are using a fee-based service like SitePoint. Depending on the job you have done making the website and pitching the sale, it shouldn’t be too hard to pull in $50 to $100 for each website that you made.

Where is the “Big Money” in Flipping Websites?
So you’ve seen how easy it is to make a quick $50-$100 turn around for a blog that you make, load with content, and sell. But where’s the profitability in this? Seeing that the only real set up is day one (the rest is just putting up some easy content), you can literally do five of these websites a day and have a whole recurring train of income coming your way once things mature a bit.

Of course, the bigger money is made by picking up a blog yourself and turning it around to make a bigger profit later down the road. However, there is a lot of risk involved in this… especially if you don’t know what you are doing.

Bottom Line: By starting up and subsequently selling a bunch of niche targeted blogs you can easily “flip” for profits of a few $1000 every month. It may not be too glamorous, but now that you have the tools necessary to start “flipping” on your own… there’s nothing stopping you from seeing the money roll in! :D

-The Net Fool

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