Ultimate Guide to Website Flipping for Profit

Nowadays, it’s common to find people selling refurbished stuff for profit. You buy something at a low price, conduct a few fixes here and there, and sell the product again for extra commission. 

That’s known as flipping. It can be done with anything from books or furniture, to cars, home appliances, and even houses. However, conventional flipping has recently gone virtual and opened up an income opportunity for side hustlers like you. 

Yes, instead of flipping physical items, you can buy and sell websites for profit. If you’ve never heard of website flipping before, you’re on the right page.

Read along for our ultimate website flipping guide for beginners. 

How Does Website Flipping Work? 

Mainly, website flipping works when you buy a low price website, improve it, and sell it for a high price. Mind you; it’s not as easy as it sounds. There’s a lot you’ll have to go through during the buying, fixing, and resale process. 

Nevertheless, if you know what you’re doing, you can earn some insanely good money. If you’re an introvert that likes to work alone. Then, website flipping might be your new career hobby.

You’ll start by picking a website to flip. After that, you’ll have to conduct thorough internal research on the site regarding its SEO, backlinks, traffic sources, and income sources. This information will help you assess how you can tweak the website and make it more profitable. 

Obviously, you won’t complete the process overnight. You should at least spend 5-8 months improving a site before it can bring your considerable revenue. So, if you’re taking website flipping as a passive income option, you’ll have to work on multiple sites at a time. 

Believe it or not, you can sell your flipping website for more than 50 times its monthly revenue. 

Excited? Without further ado, let’s start with our basic steps for website flipping. 

Step 1 – Locating An Ideal Website

Let us get this straight, the website you’re looking for won’t be sitting there on the first result page of a search engine. Think about it. There’s a reason the website is ranking. This means the owner is already working hard on it and will charge you more than six figures, even if he or she is willing to sell. 

So, to find an ideal website for flipping, check out the Flippa marketplace. Then rummage through the search results of your target niche to determine competition and opportunity for the site. Yes, picking a profitable niche to work with is an important aspect as well. 

Think about what you are personally good at and match that up with the website’s weakness or strengths. A few examples are:

1. Say you are great at SEO. Look for a site that has a strong social media presence but currently limited organic traffic. You’ll immediately be able to put your skills to the test and grow the website through your channels.
   
   
2. Say you are an expert at PPC. Find a lucrative niche and a site that has all the content and infrastructure built out. Use your PPC skills to drive revenue higher and build an audience.

At the end of the day, the site should have potential, even if it’s not currently performing. Do some research before deciding to see if it’s worth your time or not. Write down the opportunities and the challenges associated with the site.

Step 2 – Acquiring Your Website

After you’ve found a perfect website to flip, you’ll have to work to acquire it from its current owner. Go through the site’s entire history, or as much as you can find including search volume traffic history, commenting boxes, chat rooms, etc. 

You should find areas for growth and areas of strength in the site immediately. 

Besides looking for potential areas where you can improve the site, look for details about its owner. 

Once you establish contact, try to determine whether the website is a side venture or a full-fledged business. This will help you see how complicated your negotiation process will be. 

The trick is to be sincere with the owner, and explain how selling the website to you is an excellent chance for him to earn money. Although you’ll buy the site for a relatively low price, make sure the owner gets a good deal keeping the website metrics and revenue in mind. 

Whatever you do, don’t settle for a high price. If the negotiation doesn’t go well, simply move on to other potential sites. 

Step 3 – Complete Your Due Diligence

Upon sealing the deal, make sure you check all the details for a smooth ownership transition. All the domain registration details, along with the business name, should be transferred to your name. 

It’s a good idea to establish a legal contract highlighting all the clauses both parties have agreed to. For example, you can restrain the owner from creating a similar competitor site right after the sale. Use a non-compete agreement in this scenario. 

Besides that, seek the previous owner’s support for a few months after you acquire the site. This way, if you face any glitches or queries, you can simply ask. 

Step 4 – Revamp The Website

Now that you’re the owner of an online platform, the real work begins. You have to turn the website into a venture that you can flip for a considerable profit. 

Start by working on the design and structure of the site. Customize the color scheme and theme to fit your niche. Improve aspects like navigation and overall user experience to appeal to prospective buyers. 

To make your website lucrative, you’ll need to get organic traffic. Optimize your site with targeted keywords so that your audience can find it easily. Working on the SEO will automatically make your site rank higher on search engine results. 

Furthermore, you can add features like a mobile-friendly version, along with accessible payment gateways in case of a business website. 

Step 5 – Sell The Website

It’s time to cash your effort by finally flipping your website. The best place to do that is quite obviously Flippa. Even if your website is well-optimized, you’ll need to present it correctly to potential buyers to bag a profitable sale. 

First of all, put up all the essential information on your website listing. Detailed listings attract more buyers to close the sale. That’s because if you’re transparent, they won’t suspect any scams from you. 

Secondly, put up the statistics that make your site valuable. These include your daily traffic rate, monthly revenue, and even your email lists’ high open-rate. Make sure to advertise everything attractive about your website. 

Most importantly, be prompt with your replies to potential buyers. Answer their questions diligently and build a positive image for yourself. There’s no more significant turn off for a buyer than a non-responsive seller. 

And that’s it, once you finalize a profitable deal with your customer, you can flip your website and get your well-earned money. Boom, you may have just found a new side hustle.

Final Thoughts

Concluding our guide to website flipping, we’d have to say it’s a tough job, but a lucrative one if you’re interested. All you have to do is give a professional touch to a rusty old website and make it work. The best part is, once you get the hang of it and flip five to six sites at a time, you can easily make a six-figure income. 

If you think the prospect is attractive, but you lack the knowledge and experience, there’s a ton of amazing courses and thought process on website flipping, including my personal course called Pageviews to Profits. You can check them out to learn more about the process before you jump in.