There are one thousand and one ways to make money online and flipping websites is one of the most viable methods.
The idea of website flipping is to grow niche websites from the ground up and when the numbers are adding up, you sell the website.
And if you have a lot of cash, you can immediately navigate the investment pathway of web flipping by researching and finding profitable and potential niche websites, buying and nurturing them some more to add more value to the website, when the profitable numbers are better you can then resell, sounds amazing right?
Let’s explore further how to sell a website or how to create a website that sells.
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How to sell a website
If your plan is to start flipping websites, you need to understand what potential niche investors are constantly looking for in a website. Below, we will consider a few important tips to pay attention.
#1. Create a monetizable website
Niche website buyers are not looking to buy a website for the fun of it, they’re buying it for profit. They are looking for promising websites that can give them a quick start and in return make a profit.
In light of this, you must be able to create a website that is monetization-ready. It must be a contentful website with a unique idea and a fool-proof monetization strategy, be it affiliate, display ads, and any other ways to generate revenues from the site must be clearly feasible and sustainable.
#2. Financial report
This is a direct follow-up on the above point, if your website is making money, show it! A good financial report is an important element when it comes to successfully selling a website.
It is important to document your profit and loss journey. You can use simple tools such as Google Sheets or excel to track the financial performance of your online business.
Your profit and loss statement should clearly illustrate your net profit after expenses are deducted from revenue, this way the intending investor can have a clear-cut idea of what they can expect in terms of expenses and revenue.
Here is a free profit and loss statement done for you and provided by Flippa, you can also learn more about this subject here.
#3. Performance tracking from day one
Several website owners are having their websites undervalued because they did not put in place analytical tools that can give them real-time insights into their growth patterns.
Niche website investors are interested in the performance of your website from day one, they want to see how the website is fairing from inception.
Setting up Google analytics and Google search console is a reliable way to showcase your growth processes and also point out future explorable opportunities for the buyer.
#4. Elegant and Professional-looking site design
94% of people will mistrust a poorly designed website. Creating an elegant and professional-looking website is critical to not only your prospects but also to the site users.
It goes a long way to help your SEO in terms of good first impressions, bounce rate reduction, great user experience, and engagement.
An aesthetically pleasing blog or website can be achieved even if you’re not a web designer, you can use a premium theme or have a professional web designer handle the design of your website.
#5. Brandable
A good niche website is brandable by being able to communicate practical values and build an emotional connection with your audience, starting from the website’s domain name, font and colour choices, content strategy, and use of imagery must be approached meticulously.
#6. Site automation
Web automation helps to automate time-consuming processes and activities on a website.
Web activities such as social media marketing, email opt-ins, and traffic banking processes should be well automated. This will help the intending buyer to set the ball rolling as they figure out what’s next for the project.
#7. Publish great content
One of the ways to quickly establish your blog as an authority in its chosen niche is to publish great content and do it consistently.
Based on the SEO principles of E.A.T (Expertise Authority & Trust) creating valuable content will help immensely to attract followers and readers that keep coming for more.
Also, loads of great content is needed to drive traffic to your website, and attract a loyal readership that can be consistently nurtured through email and social media marketing.
In-depth, well-researched, resourceful, and creative content has the potential of attracting a huge number of web users with the potential to go viral.
One of the many virtues needed to grow a blog to success is the tenacity to keep providing well-put-together content without derailing from the interest of the target audience.
#8. Activate traffic banking methods
From day one, you need to put together a feasible traffic banking strategy. Traffic banking is a chain of processes that is used to repeatedly attract old and new site visitors to the website over and over again.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is at forefront of this strategy, with SEO you will able to attract new visitors organically, to make them repeated readers, you can leverage social media content automation, guest blogging, and participation in online forums such as Quora, email marketing automation for list building and sending out regular updates when you publish new contents.
More like it is also, push notifications, you can send push updates directly to the devices of your organic visitors through their mobile or desktop devices.
Push notifications have been proven to be an effective traffic banking tool when used responsibly.
#9. Watch out for toxic backlinks
One of the toughest things that can ruin your SEO and even has the potential of sending your niche blog to its graveyard is toxic backlinks. No niche site investors will invest in or buy a site that is packed up with toxic backlinks.
Most search engines out there have an antispam algorithm that penalizes and de-ranks websites with spammy backlinks. A blog can lose its credibility, authority, and trust in a short while due to toxic links.
Therefore, you need to constantly keep an eye on your Backlink profile and make sure you’re actively removing toxic links as you discover them, this way you can help your blog to keep its ranking potential and ward off the risk of getting penalized.
#10. Create a SOPs
Standard operating procedures (SOPs) is another key document that every website flipper should create to ensure the long-term success and value of the website are preserved. SOPs help in the smooth transitioning of the website and the management procedures after each successful sale.
You don’t want to leave the new owner of the website to themselves trying to figure it all out.
You can use an SOP to provide clear guidelines to the new owner on how to keep the website consistent. An SOP can also help in the aspects of outsourcing.
To create SOP, you can make use of platforms like Asana, and ClickUp or you can use a simple document maker like Google Docs and word.
#11. Affiliate links
If you have an affiliate blog, then you need to cloak your affiliate links properly. Simply because affiliate links mostly look unnatural, lengthy, and not clean enough, cloaking your affiliate link can help to preserve your commission, reduce the risk of getting penalized by Google for sponsored posts, foster link trust, track best-performing products and ultimately improve user experience on the website.
It will also boost your SEO and CTR, help you avoid spam filters, and effectively maintain a consistent brand. Some affiliate link-cloaking plugins are Pretty Links, ThirstyAffiliates, WooCommerce, Simple URLs, Easy Affiliate Links, URL Shortener Pro, and more.
#12. Create Important pages
An important one on your website launch checklists is to create important pages for the website.
Pages such as cookie policy, privacy policy, earnings disclaimer, and terms of service are very important to show that your website is legally compliant. They are required by laws, for example the European Union GDPR policy.
Failure to add these pages to your niche website could land you in legal issues. Also, having these pages in place portrays you to your readers as one who is trustworthy and committed to transparency.
#13. Have a solid marketing plan
Every Business needs a feasible marketing plan, this can help the niche investor see the future of the business and project your business as a valuable one.
#14. Big SEO
It can’t be overemphasized that you need to be big on SEO if you’re going to be a successful website flipper, especially if what you’re creating is a content blog.
#15. Get a broker
Well-established online businesses are better sold using the service of a broker, they can help you to streamline the sales process, connects you to a network of potential buyers, prevent you from getting scammed, and access valuable guidance when it comes to maximizing a website’s value.
Flippa Stats
Flippa is one of the most popular online marketplaces for selling Websites, not just websites, including domain names and other viable online businesses. Flippa marketplace was created in June 2009 by Mark Harbottle and Matt Mickiewicz. (Wikipedia).
Today Flippa prides itself on having sold over 300K+ digital assets including niche websites, domain names, online businesses, and more.
The websites listed monthly on Flippa altogether are worth more than $40+ million US dollars and have over 3 million users across the globe with over 1M+ visits monthly.
One of the biggest sales ever facilitated on Flippa is the sale of Planetrx.com, which sold for $1.2 million. (firstguide.com)
With these few stats about Flippa, you should begin to have the idea that flipping the website on Flippa is a very lucrative business when approached properly.
People are ever ready to part with their investments in exchange for profitable websites. Also, there are tens of website flipping platforms like Flippa where you can sell your websites and domain, either starter projects or well-established websites.
How to sell Websites on Flippa
To start selling websites on Flippa you need to have an account on the platform, you can create an account using your email, and you’d need to provide some personal information to fill up your user profile on the platform.
Also, before you can list a website or domain for sale on the platform, you’d be required to provide valid proof of Identification for verification purposes. Once your account is all set up and in a credible state, you can start listing your assets for sale.
