Flipping Websites

Flipping a website can be a rather lucrative business when you look at returns.  Real estate investing is considered successful returning a 20% profit.  Stocks can bring between 10% to 15% annual profit.  Even highly volatile stock options infrequently return 40%-plus within just a couple of months.  But rarely will any of those match the possibilities of flipping a website where you can see great returns of 100% easily.

Flipping a website is not much different than flipping a house.  Perhaps even better.  Flipping a house requires investor financing and special loans.  The difficult work requires hiring licensed professionals.  Turnaround time can be as fast as three months but is usually much longer.  After selling for a profit and reducing costs profits from real estate investing typically average 12% to 15%.

Flipping a website requires a knowledgeable programmer, designer, search engine expert, content-writer, or just yourself.  The market is loaded with tons of websites that typically sell under $1,000.  Most of these websites have what I would consider severe issues but issues that are very easy to fix.  They may have very poor search engine relevancy.  For example, many may not rewrite URL’s. They may consist of a member-base with well under 50% returning over the past several months.  This is typical in forums.  They may see a lot of new visitors but have a bounce rate into the 90th percentile.  Websites that fit that category are typically content blogs Digging their articles.  All of these scenarios make website flipping a very intriguing, potentially lucrative yet highly unexploited industry.

Part of the reason flipping websites can be so lucrative is that it’s still in it’s infancy.  It’s not as sexy as buying stock options or real estate.  When was the last time you even saw a television show that focused on flipping websites?  Granted, real estate investing requires significant funding.  However, anyone can get into stock options for the same price of an established, yet unorganized website.  However, there’s an appeal of excitement that comes with real estate investing and stock options that just doesn’t flow with website investing.

Flipping websites has it’s roots anchored with the success of the Internet medium.  It’s quite clear the Internet will not disappear.  The days are here where anything you hear on the radio, see on television, and, of course, read in print cal all be found on the internet.  Even mobile phones rely on the internet now. Websites are built not by large media companies owned by the Ruper Murdock’s of the world but by basement geeks who write algorithm’s to develop the world’s most dominant search engine, photographic storage system, or networking must-have.  Many webmasters are unable to find the funds, time, or knowledge to take their websites to the next level.  They don’t understand basic fundamentals of building a website and marketing it correctly.

You can explore the Sitepoint Marketplace and find plenty of great deals.  Look for the websites that fit within what you know.  For example, if you’re a golf fanatic, see if there are any golf websites for sale.  Of course, you may find a website that doesn’t fit what you know but certainly one you can handle such as a blog on television series.  Explore the websites in detail.  Look at the traffic statistics you have available.  Find out the website’s search engine relevancy.  Nine times out of ten you’ll find the websites have great potential hidden by ugly graphics, overdone advertising, slow-loading pages and poor search engine optimization.  If the Buy-It-Now is what you feel the website is worth, go in for the kill.  You can find yourself with a great established product needing some TLC that will quickly return your costs.  Then you can consider selling and seeing a nice profit of 75%, 100% and even more.  You just can’t do that in real estate or stocks…in any economical market.