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Understanding the Landscape

Mike sheds light on the staggering numbers that define the small business landscape in the United States. With approximately 33 million small businesses, the majority of which (80%) are owner-operated, and a significant portion (16%) having less than 20 employees, Mike highlights the critical role small businesses play in the economy. However, despite their prevalence, Mike emphasizes the lack of accurate information and guidance available to small business owners, particularly concerning mergers and acquisitions (M&A) discussions.

Learning from Experience

Mike’s journey into entrepreneurship wasn’t without its challenges. He shares the poignant story of his first business venture, which started in the mid-90s from his living room alongside his wife. Despite significant growth over a decade, Mike found himself burnt out and ready to sell. However, his initial attempts to sell the business were met with rejection due to fundamental shortcomings in its structure and financials.

The Path to Saleability

Realizing the disparity between his perception of the business’s value and its market readiness, Mike embarked on a journey of transformation. He identified key areas for improvement, focusing on generating desirable financial results and building a business that could thrive independently of its owner. This strategic shift, though challenging, eventually paved the way for a successful sale, providing Mike with a newfound sense of freedom and perspective.

Reflecting on his exit, Mike emphasizes the importance of aligning business ownership with personal fulfillment and financial security. While the monetary outcome of an exit is significant, Mike stresses the value of achieving a level of independence and satisfaction that transcends monetary measures. He underscores the need for entrepreneurs to assess not only the growth potential of their ventures but also their ability to fulfill personal and professional aspirations.

Conclusion

Mike Finger’s journey serves as a testament to the transformative power of strategic planning and perseverance in the world of entrepreneurship. His insights offer a roadmap for aspiring business owners to navigate the complexities of business ownership, with a keen eye towards building businesses that are not only successful but also saleable. As Mike aptly demonstrates, always planning for the exit ensures that entrepreneurs not only build businesses but also create opportunities for future growth and personal fulfillment.

Tell us a little about yourself. What’s your background? How did you start the business?

This website was started in 2007 by the original founder. We acquired the website last year from the founder who took a lot of convincing to sell his “baby”. My background is in advertising and e-commerce. I’m an entrepreneur and investor having established over a dozen successful startups. I’ve exited 3 companies which include another arbitrage business. Currently, my time and financial bandwidth are dedicated to GEOIQ, which is a web-based analytics platform helping advertisers track and optimize their media buying campaigns, and e-commerce company. Aside from these projects, I’m an avid cryptocurrency enthusiast and investor.

How have you marketed the product and where are your customers originating from?

All our traffic is organic (search, direct, and referral through other dress up partners).

Is the asset on your listing owner-operated, how much time does it take to run the business, who else is needed on the team, and what is automated?

Yes, Dressupwho.com is O&O and takes less than 2 hours/week to manage. The site’s operations are nearly fully streamlined. We have trained a virtual assistant to help republish partner games on our site, and our game developer produces roughly 4 games per month. Both our developer and the virtual assistant will transfer to the new owner post-sale. 

The owner spends most of the time tracking analytics (traffic performance) and revenues, as well as publishing the 4 games per month our development team delivers. The publishing of these games can also be outsourced to the development team themselves or the virtual assistant. The latter already has the requisite access to perform this task. The owner should also check up on partner sites to ensure that they are also publishing our games on their sites, this could also be delegated to the VA with proper training and establishing some controls.

What does someone need to do to continue operating the business in its current form?

At present, the only things that need to be done in order to continue operations are:

1. Check the virtual assistant’s work to ensure that he is republishing roughly 100-120 partner games per month on our site.

2. Check partner sites to ensure they are republishing our games.

3. Publish games delivered by our developer.

Can you list a few opportunities for a potential new owner to continue growing the business?

There are definitely several ways in which the new buyer can grow this business:

1. We haven’t spent any time on SEO, although a lot of our traffic is search. With on-page and off-page optimization, targeting specific keywords, traffic can exponentially increase through this medium. 

2. Expanding game distribution partnerships, i.e., republishing more games of partner sites and vice versa will help increase the game syndication to new users, and expand the overall reach of gamers and ultimately, revenue. 

3. The more games that are developed, the more traffic the site will receive. Due to our time constraints with the new projects, we weren’t able to develop more games throughout the year we managed the site, so this is by far the most quantifiable way to grow the site. Onboarding new developers will help with this as well. We work with one developer but can introduce the buyer to a second developer. The buyer could also find other game developers if substantially increased game production is the strategy.

4. Create a login for increased user engagement. Users could have a profile that allows them to select their favourite games and have a page where these can be viewed. 

5. When users create a profile, they could share their email address. Creating a functionality to email all your registered users inviting them to play a new game when it launches is a big opportunity.

6. Walkthroughs should be an entirely separate stream of revenue here. Walkthroughs are essentially video tutorials a user can watch of someone playing a game. Users watch these to ensure they’re doing everything right, or sometimes purely for fun. The largest online gaming sites have this feature, for example, a10.com; click on any game and on the top right, there is a link for the walkthrough. 

There are companies (for example, Tubia.com) that will record walkthroughs of the most popular games for free and provide them to us. Dressupwho.com games can have a link that users can click on to view the walkthrough. While the walkthrough video is being viewed, Dressupwho.com owner earns revenue from display ads around the video, and 60% of the revenue from the video ads within the walkthrough video itself. This one is a no-brainer that we just didn’t have the time to implement but is fairly straightforward to do. 

What has been the evolution of this asset since its launch?

The original founder has seen YOY growth throughout his ownership of this asset. After we took over, unfortunately, we haven’t had the time to publish as many games as we’d like due to time constraints with our e-commerce project. There is a direct correlation between the volume of games published vs the increase in traffic. If the new owner publishes more games to the site, traffic will increase significantly. If we had extra time bandwidth, this site would have continued to grow as it did in the decade prior (this can be seen through GA reports).

How does this business make money? What are the current revenue streams?

This website generates revenue through display and video ads. We currently have partnerships with the following vendors: Snigel, Exponential, Google Adsense, and WeGooAds

What marketing channels are most profitable for the business?

Game partnerships – by expanding these partnerships, the site will see exponential growth due to game distribution.

How does the business currently acquire customers and what is your breakdown for marketing costs?

No marketing costs as game partners reciprocate distribution. We don’t spend money on advertising with dressupwho.com and never have. All traffic has always been organic.

How big is your current team? How many people does it take to run this business?

Our team is currently the developer and a virtual assistant. Currently, it takes 3 people to manage the site, the aforementioned team and the owner. As described above, it is possible to further decrease owner involvement by offloading more responsibilities to the VA and the developer.

What’s the reason for selling your business on Flippa?

We’re selling this business as we’re in the process of expanding our e-commerce operations and need additional capital to buy inventory in bulk. Dressupwho.com is in the top 5 biggest, most preeminent dress up sites in the world. If we didn’t need the capital, we’d hold onto this gem for many years.

Tell us a little about yourself. What’s your background? How did you start the business?

I run a marketing agency but I got involved with affiliate marketing around 20 years ago.  This website was just one of the many that I was running at the time.

How have you marketed the product and where are your customers originating from?

There is no product it’s poker news and information website where we get affiliate revenue.

Is the asset on your listing owner-operated, how much time does it take to run the business, who else is needed on the team, and what is automated?

Yes, I run it by myself and spend less than 30 minutes a month on it.

What does someone need to do to continue operating the business in its current form?

Answer the random sponsored posts requests from time to time. However, if you invest in building out content it will increase SEO rankings and in turn increase affiliate income.

Can you list a few opportunities for a potential new owner to continue growing the business?

Build out more content so it ranks for more keywords.

What has been the evolution of this asset since its launch?

It was initially RakeBackCodes.com which was one of the largest poker Rakeback websites. I merged it into PokerEagles.com when I purchased PokerEagles.com around 10 years ago.

How does this business make money? What are the current revenue streams?

Affiliate revenue and sponsored post-sales.

What marketing channels are most profitable for the business?

Affiliate marketing

How does the business currently acquire customers and what is your breakdown for marketing costs?

SEO.

How big is your current team? How many people does it take to run this business?

0 just yourself

What’s the reason for selling your business on Flippa?

Flippa is the go-to marketplace to sell.

Tell us a little about yourself. What’s your background? How did you start the business?

Martin Wiltshire Owner/Director of Bandanas Australia. I have owned and operated businesses for the past forty years and I have operated online businesses for the past twenty years.

Operating online commercial businesses since the early 2000’s I have developed and grown with the IT industry and have a great understanding of how online businesses work along with search engines and rankings.

I also own and am a director of Design Stuff, which is the largest specialised designed headwear business in Australia.  Started because of customer needs and grew to its own website and full business entity.

If you are an e-Commerce business where are your products made?

Taiwan and China.

How have you marketed the product and where are your customers originating from?

No marketing has been done for the product, it has been all organic traffic from the website. Australia is where customers are originating from. Currently, all business activity comes from our website alone unless they are repeat customers.

Is the asset on your listing owner-operated, how much time does it take to run the business, who else is needed on the team, and what is automated?

The site is under management and operates 10-15 hours per week.  You may want to outsource tech unless you have skills with Woocommerce, most are fully automated.  Some physical shipping and redirecting parcels through Australia Post or Couriers.

What does someone need to do to continue operating the business in its current form?

Possibly a garage size shed for plain stock storage. Everything else is done online via email or website.

Can you list a few opportunities for a potential new owner to continue growing the business?

Social Media as we have not spent a lot of time on that.  Or even newsletter, EDM marketing.

What has been the evolution of this asset since its launch?

Selling plain bandanas, to customisation of the website to sell custom bandanas to automated payment merchant that connects to accounting so we know transactions have been paid.

How does this business make money? What are the current revenue streams?

Selling plain stock bandanas through an e-commerce website and also helping customers with custom printed bandanas through production facilities overseas.

What marketing channels are most profitable for the business?

Organic is really all we have used to this point.

How does the business currently acquire customers and what is your breakdown for marketing costs?

Organic visiting customers and we use some AdWords.  $140.00 per month approximately.

How big is your current team? How many people does it take to run this business?

One person managing and 1 text outsourced sometimes quarterly.

What’s the reason for selling your business on Flippa?

We have a much bigger project we are working on.

Numbers are meaningless without the intelligent interpretation of what they represent, so deciding what you track, and how to track it, remains a crucial task for any site owner. Below we list what we think are the 5 most important factors to study through both short and long term cycles, as they will tell you the most about the successes and failures of your site.

Setting Up Your Web Analytics

Have you set up your free Google Analytics account yet? All you need is a verifiable Google account (for example Gmail). You can follow the steps to activate tracking on your website through this incredibly powerful tool.

If you prefer to use one of the other metrics tracking tools in the market, you can try Coremetrics, Omniture, or WebTrends. These services incur various levels of fees but can offer immensely robust reporting systems and customer support, too.

Either way, here are the key metrics that you should always track on your site. Let’s dip our toes into the sea of information that is the world of analytics.

#1: Total Visits

Total visits are your most essential metric. This number reveals the amount of traffic your site is achieving each day. Pay attention to the trends in traffic over days and weeks, especially as they relate to your marketing campaigns. If you launch efforts to drive traffic and you’re seeing a spike, that’s perfect feedback communicating the effectiveness of your strategies. The reverse is obviously true too. When you see unusual dips in traffic, check things like your site’s stability to ensure there were no outages.

Check your total site visits daily. It’s like the heartbeat of your site, as it consistently reveals how healthy your business is on a fundamental level.

#2: New Visits

New visits show the segment of your total visit traffic that are attributed to unique views. This metric is a comparison of your unique visitors, versus those who are repeat customers. If you have unusually high percentages of new visitors (above 30%), that’s an indication that your site isn’t sticky enough to warrant repeat traffic. You’ll clearly want to optimize and address this trend by highlighting your most valuable content, so you encourage people to come back. Likewise, if you see very few new visits (in the single digits), and you’re doing significant marketing efforts to drive new traffic, you know other strategies are needed to meet your goals.

This metric should reflect a balance between your acquisition and retention attempts. A good target for repeat visits each day is around 15%.

#3: Traffic Sources by Segment

Traffic sources communicate the places that are sending visitors to your site. These include:

• Direct traffic – Visitors that access you directly through your URL, either by typing the address into their browser, or by clicking on a bookmark. These could also be sourced by untagged links from emails.

• Organic traffic – Links from an unpaid search engine listing.

• Referral traffic – This is traffic that is linked to from other sites.

Traffic sources do more than just reveal segments. They also show you how successful your SEO efforts are. If, for example, your organic traffic is less than 40%, that’s an indication that you’re not ranking well on sites like Google. Referrals should track around 20-30%. This percentage is a healthy amount of traffic coming from link-building efforts.

It’s integral that you create a nice balance of all three segments. You don’t want to rely solely on links or SEO efforts because this hardly ever results in stable, long term growth. By keeping in the know about your traffic sources, you can clearly map out your next necessary marketing tactics.

#4: Conversions by Source

Next, you need to track conversions by source. This metric reveals your current conversion rate and your total conversions from all referring traffic sources. You’ll use the same segments as you did in Metric #3 – that is, looking at your direct, organic, and referral traffic. It may be that your overall conversion metrics match up with each segment and source, but it’s likely there will be a fluctuation. These discrepancies reveal successes and failures with regards to the traffic you are sourcing, and the effectiveness of your website to convert visitors.

For example, if your conversion rate is 3% for organic traffic and 12% for referrals, you can deduct a couple of key points. First, your search engine results are not performing well, which likely means your keyword strategies need to adjust to match what your audience is actually typing to search for your services. A healthy conversion rate for referrals indicates you’re selecting ideal linking partners with demographics that match yours enough to convert well.

Your website is the single most important factor to conversions. You need to constantly study and tweak the various paths to help visitors down your conversion belt. Be clear about what you want your visitors to do next. Do you want them to subscribe to your newsletter? Buy your latest services or products? Remember that a clear call to action will increase your conversion rate.

#5: Top Pages for New Traffic and Conversions

Throughout your website, there will be a handful of pages that receive the highest levels of incoming traffic. These often include your homepage, but they can also be landing pages your marketing team is using to drive campaigns and promotions. Additionally, popular content pieces that are linked to repeatedly by other sites may also be your top traffic generators.

The pages on your site that get the most traffic are obviously the pages you’ll spend the most amount of time perfecting. If they aren’t converting well for you, the rest doesn’t matter. Your metrics will reveal both the highest trafficked pages, and their respective conversion rates. Always aim to have double digit conversions for this suite of pages.

Over to You

Website analytics isn’t rocket science, but it does require an overall understanding and a commitment to consistent tracking and analyzing. As you make changes and watch how your traffic responds, it will get easier and easier to decipher what a dip or jump in traffic or conversions is actually communicating. Regardless, these metrics are your friends. Get to know them as well as possible, and they will point you to your greatest successes.

How do you use analytics to track your progress? Please share your tips in the comments.

Thanks to Wolfgang Staudt for the image!

If you haven’t, check out Winter Coats for Women. It’s a great example of a micro niche site. It’s micro because it has just a handful of pages and it’s niche because it focuses on a specific keyword.

Creating micro niche sites has been one of the most popular ways to make money online. That’s because they are extremely easy to make. All you have to do is pick a specific set of keywords to target, find and purchase a matching domain and set up a WordPress site in 5 minutes. You then populate the site with a few pages of content related to the topic you have chosen.

The trick is you have to find something that will rank high very quickly on a search engine. With Google’s Keyword Tool you can find long tail keywords with a fair number of monthly searches and low competition. Then, with a matching domain and specific SEO articles on the topic, you can get some organic traffic from search engines. Once you have traffic, you can start monetizing with Google AdSense.

Sounds simple, doesn’t it? You can set up multiple such sites in a single day. There are enough and more guides out there with step-by-step instructions on how to build micro niche sites.

So the question is, what’s the catch? Do micro niche sites work? Did they ever? Let’s dig in and find out.

Can You Really Make $1,000+ a Month from a Micro Niche Site?

You may come across people who claim they make over $1,000 a month on a single micro niche site. It’s hard to determine the accuracy of these claims because they are made on various Internet forums by anonymous people. There are, however, some well documented micro niche sites that have done well.

Let’s take a look at some examples.

Eric from My4hrwourweek.com has done a case study on micro niche sites, building one from scratch and monetizing it.

Tung Tran of cloudlivingjourney.com started a micro niche site and made it rank #1 on Google in 38 days. He ended up making a loss on it but he documents how he did it and what his next steps might be. Edit: Tung’s post was amended to detail his eventual profits after this article was published.

Maneesh Sethi talks about how he makes passive income from his micro niche sites in his video. He makes enough money to live a nomadic lifestyle and donate time and money to the community.

While all these guys have made money off micro niche sites they really don’t make a lot from a single site. There may be the odd example of a $1000 micro niche site but that happens once in a blue moon. The average earnings one can expect from a micro niche site is $1 a day. If you do it well and target the right keywords you might even make $100 a month.

So to make a decent living off micro niche sites, you need more than one. If you are looking to earn $1000 a month, you’ll need at least 30 sites to get you there.

From $0 to $1000 in 30 sites

You can see why micro niche sites are tempting. They are very easy and inexpensive to set up and manage. You can buy a domain for less than $10 on GoDaddy and decent hosting for $3 – $4 a month. WordPress is free and takes 5 minutes to set up. The only ingredient left is the content.

Content might seem like something that could take awhile. Don’t you need to be an expert on the topic? It turns out that for micro niche sites you don’t. Because you are picking a keyword with low competition, even mediocre content can get you a good rank. In Maneesh Sethi’s video he pulls out a random keyword and sends it to his writers, knowing nothing about the topic or what’s eventually written for him.

With a quick search on oDesk, eLance or any other freelance site, you can find writers who will produce decent 500-1000 word articles on a given keyword for just 1 cent per word. $20 will get you 2-4 SEO articles, which is all you need for a micro niche site.

Maneesh Sethi wasn’t the only one to automate the entire process. With enough experience, anyone can batch and automate this, outsourcing all but the most important task of picking out the right keywords. Work a couple of hours a week, pick out some keywords you know nothing about, send it to writers and marketers in the Philippines and India, and sit back and enjoy the moolah coming in. Sounds like a dream come true, doesn’t it?

Well, let’s look at an update that changed everything…

From $1000 to $0 in 30 seconds

Before the first Google Panda upgrade in 2011, it was very easy to build a site and get it to rank #1 on Google in a short time. You could do exactly what Maneesh did and see some quick returns.

There were people creating hundreds of micro niche sites and earning a few bucks from each site through AdSense every month. When Google Panda hit them, those earnings literally vanished overnight. People went from earning $1000+ in a month to $0.

With subsequent Penguin and Panda releases, Google continued to crack down on these low-quality micro niche sites and started favoring authority sites.

You see, what these people didn’t realize was that their entire income stream was dependent on Google’s algorithm. The moment that algorithm changed, they started floundering. Google even cracked down on AdSense accounts associated with micro niche sites and blocked them.

Now, in 2013, if you try to do what Maneesh did, you’ll only get your AdSense account blocked.

The Shift to Authority

Pat Flynn, widely regarded as the guru of online passive income, started securityguardtraininghq.com as part of a challenge. It started off as a micro niche site but grew larger and started earning more than $1200 a month in less than a year.

In Eric’s case study which we saw earlier, he discusses growing his micro niche site into an authority site and increasing his earnings from it.

Authority sites are simply larger sites with quality content and real backlinks. No spammy articles, no black hat techniques. As Google keeps updating their algorithms, it’s clear that they are moving towards these types of sites.

Authority sites can still be niche. Nerd Fitness targets the niche of nerds who are into fitness. However, Steve Kamb spent months building it up, writing quality, well-researched articles himself, and using the right marketing techniques.

We are seeing a shift from micro niche sites towards authority sites. Pat and Eric still started off with micro niche sites, but not with the intention to quickly monetize it and jump to the next one. They started small to test the waters, and when they found a market they decided to invest more time and money growing their sites over a period of months to become successful authority sites.

The great advantage about authority sites is that you aren’t dependent on a single source of traffic. You can tap into social media and build a fan following and you can create e-mail lists and harness the power of e-mail marketing. Building your own assets protects you against sudden changes from Google.

You can also diversify your earnings with authority sites. AdSense and affiliate marketing are just the beginning. Many authority sites develop products like e-books and courses, subscriptions, tools, consulting and other services.

Sure, it isn’t a quick win like the golden days of micro niche sites. It will take you months before you start seeing even modest returns. It’s a long-term plan but if you do it right you can see huge returns in the future. Over a year, one authority site can make more money with less risk of going bust than 100 micro niche sites.

As Spencer Haws of Niche Pursuits says, you can still rank with micro niche sites, but with all the time and effort you need to do it, you might as well make it an authority site and collect larger returns.

The Verdict: Play for the Long Run

So the verdict is, forget about building multiple micro niche sites with minimal effort. If you want to earn money through a site, you have to be willing to put in the time and effort. You can’t expect quick returns, but if you do the work you can expect large returns.

The new model is to pick the keywords that you are interested in but also ones that don’t have too much competition. Setting up the site is still very easy and cheap but you need to invest more in quality articles. You can still outsource articles but make sure they are excellent and add real value to your readers.

You also need to spend more time building quality backlinks and optimizing your site for search engines. Integrate social media into the site and interact with your readers, building a consistent fan following and traffic source.

Follow Pat’s journey to see how he grew, and still grows, Security Guard Training. Spencer also has a live project where he details how he intends to create a niche site from scratch and grow it into an authority site that can earn him $500 a month within six months.

The possibilities with authority sites are only limited by your imagination. Just remember, with great authority comes great responsibility!

Over to You

How are you building authority online? Do you know of any good case studies that talk about how to build authority sites? Please share your thoughts in the comments.

Photo credit: Mouin M.

1. Selling your  own products
2. Affiliate marketing
3. Selling a service
4. Advertising

Of course there may be other ways people make money with websites, but even if you have to stretch the idea a little, you could probably fit it into one of these four categories.

Today we’ll look at how you might help a WordPress site make money in each of these four areas.

1. Selling Your Own Products

Selling your own products can mean selling either physical or digital products. It can also mean selling access to content.

Physical Products: Of course selling a physical product can mean selling anything from baby strollers to sports equipment to heavy duty machinery. In order to do this with WordPress, the main piece of the puzzle you’ll need will be some type of shopping cart, and so you’ll need to look for a WordPress e-commerce plugin like MarketPress from WPMU DEV (this plugin also lets you sell digital products).

Marketpress Plugin

Digital Products: Selling digital products would include selling ebooks, audios, videos, images, etc. If you are not going through some third-party service that will handle your downloads for you, then you’ll want to pick up a digital download plugin like Easy Digital Downloads  to help you do that right through your site.

Access to Content: Selling access could encompasses membership sites, training seminars, webinars, plain news or information, etc. The easiest way to do this with WordPress is to pick up a membership plugin.

2. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing (i.e. getting a commission when selling another’s products or services) is one of the most popular ways to make money online. While some sites do run their own private affiliate programs, most people end up selling through the larger players such as Amazon, Commission Junction, LinkShare,  ShareASale, Clickbank, etc.

While there are different types of plugins out there to help with affiliate marketing, many of the top affiliate marketers often say that what works best is good, solid content and a good ol’ simple link.

But no matter what you’re linking, the one tool that should be in any affiliate marketer’s toolbox is a redirection plugin such as Pretty Link Lite or Simple URLs.

What these plugins do is turn long, ugly URLs into clean, short URLs that look like they are going to another section of your site. They also track those links for you.

So, for example, if you link to Amazon with a URL that looks like this:

amazon.com/xyz-water-bottle/ /dp/PWWOUE329/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1367729447392&sr=8-1

You can turn it into a link that looks like this:

mysite.com/xyz-water-bottle/

The prettier link will likely be less of a turnoff to those who look at where the link is going by mousing over it first. But even more importantly, it will track those clicks for you. That means you can do things like set up mysite.com/xyz-water-bottle-1/ for one link and mysite.com/xyz-water-bottle-2/ for a different link (both going to same Amazon page), and then compare which link is getting more clicks. Once you have some stats, you can start analyzing and tweaking. No more guessing involved.

3. Selling a Service

Selling a service could involve all sorts of things, from selling SEO services to selling cleaning services. Different niches may require different approaches, but no matter your market, when you’re selling a service, you have to make getting in to contact with you easy.

Believe it or not, WordPress does not come with a built-in contact form. Not to worry, however, there are plenty of plugins that will do the job for you, and do it well. One of the more popular (but also simple) contact forms is the Contact Form 7 plugin.

If you want to take getting in touch even further, you could include a chat plugin like Quick Chat. Or you could even add a Skype widget to your site like Skype Online Status. This plugin will let your visitors click a button and call you on Skype right from your website.

Selling a service can also get into many other areas, such as using the Multisite function available in WordPress in order to run a site like WordPress.com, where you let users sign up for free and then place ads on their sites, or let them upgrade to premium services and then charge for them. Or you could do both, of course.

Other options that fall under the “services” banner include running a classified ads site or running a directory. In either of these cases, you can get both plugins or themes (with functionality built in) to help you do that. Also in either case, you could open up free to the public and then run advertising, or you could run a premium service and charge users per listing. Or, once again, you could do both.

4. Advertising

And finally we come to advertising. Advertising comes in many forms. Some of the more common are …

• CPC – Cost Per Click (like Google’s Adsense)
• CPM – Cost Per Thousand Impressions (M in this case is for the Roman numeral for 1,000)
• Time Based Ads – Ads that stay up for an agreed upon time
• Sponsor Ads – Things such as paid reviews or just general sponsorship of content
• Text Link – Selling links in content

Advertising is like real estate in that location is one of the most important aspects. If your running Google Adsense, for example, then you want those ads to be in front of people so they’ll click on them. If you’re selling banner ads directly, then the advertiser is going to want the ads to be in front of people, or they aren’t going to buy from you.

All that makes sense, but it’s not quite as simple as it seems. If you rely on search engine traffic from places like Google, then you can’t just cram the top half of your site with ads so people will see them and click on them.

Well, you can, but you’ll likely lose your search traffic if you do that. You see, places like Google have page layout algorithms.  And so what that means in the real world is that search engines don’t want to send visitors to sites that are nothing but ads. They want to send visitors to sites where the content is up front and easy to find.

Because of that, advertising plugins can be especially handy. They can help you do things such as inject ads into the middle of content, show ads to some visitors but not others, automatically randomize ads, and more.

Here are a few you may want to check out:

• AdRotate – Show random banners, use Google Adsense, get stats, get email notifications, and much more.
• WP-Insert – Lets you insert ads in all sorts of way: before you content, after your content, in the middle of your content, to the side of your content.
• Google Adsense Plugin – Control parameters of your Google Adsense ads right from your blog – size, color, type, positioning, etc.

While there are obviously lots other types of plugins that may help your site, it’s always important to keep in mind how your site makes money. With the loads of plugins available for WordPress, you should be able to optimize that approach, no matter which it is.

Joe Foley is a writer and editor for WPMU.org (http://wpmu.org) and WPMU DEV (http://premium.wpmudev.org). He specializes in helping WordPress users learn how to better manage their sites, as well as keep up with the latest in themes, plugins, and WordPress related services.

Photo Credit: Images_Of_Money

Watchers: 96

Bidders: 9

Views: 14,033

We see hundreds of websites listed on Flippa every week, but once in awhile a particular website grabs our attention. When I saw the auction for TheLooksForLess.com, I knew the seller had a gem of a site. Bidding for this site quickly took off, and the price more than doubled in the last 12 hours of the auction. The seller, Jennifer, was thrilled.

Turns out it wasn’t the only big thing happening in her life: Jennifer gave birth to her first child days after the auction, and was getting ready to move into a brand-new house at the same time. I had a chat with her to see what it was like to sell what started as a personal blog for more than $25,000.

Can you tell me a little bit about why and how you built TheLooksForLess.com?

On a Friday afternoon in 2009, I was talking to my fellow web developers at my university day job about a new (at the time) application getting a ton of buzz, WordPress. As a geeky developer, I thought it would be fun to expand my skill set by creating a blog. I was pretty savvy at coding PHP and CSS, and knew just enough about database management and web hosting to get started.

I went home that evening, signed up for a hosting account, installed WordPress, purchased a domain, and connected all of these technologies as I watched the sunrise Saturday and Sunday mornings. I was instantly obsessed and my blog, The Looks For Less, was the perfect way to combine my love for fashion and technology.

On Monday morning, I went back to work and shared with my coworkers my brand new blog complete with a theme, logo, and 5 “celebrity look for less” outfit posts. They were shocked at how quickly I was able to put everything together and it became the topic of many exciting conversations over the next couple of years after what started as a hobby, quickly attracted a following of loyal readers and was picking up endorsements from top brands as well as invitations to New York Fashion Week.

Once I got started, I thought about my blog morning, noon, and night. I watched the sun come up often working on post after post. I kept up this momentum for 3 years, yet found the pace difficult to keep up with when my husband and I decided to expand our family.  My priorities had changed.

With a baby on the way, there were so many things that I wanted to share beyond fashion so I decided to start a lifestyle blog.  At FabFatale.com, I am able to document my every passion including recipes, DIY projects, beauty product reviews, and all things baby. I had every intention of keeping up with both blogs; however, this quickly became impossible with a full time job, a baby on the way, selling our house, and moving into a rental while building a new home, so I decided to sell The Looks For Less while it still had a lot of momentum.

I had no idea where to begin when I decided to sell my blog. I also had no idea to price it, so I did a search to see if there were any online website auctions available so the market could determine its value. My biggest fear was that  the right market wouldn’t find my auction, and it would sell for way less than its current and potential value.

Flippa was the first site to come up in my search and with its high Alexa ranking, I figured it was a legitimate option for selling my blog, and I literally just went for it. I listed my site and set a random reserve price of $8,000 hoping to afford a sectional sofa for the house we will be building this summer. The Premium Support team was a huge help in helping me strategize my listing and I firmly believe the they are the reason my sale was so successful.

On the last day of the auction, all sorts of chaos ensued. The listing was set to expire at 4:30 pm on a Thursday afternoon. My coworkers and I were gathered around a computer and kept refreshing the listing page as the bids continued to rise. All of a sudden, 60 more minutes was added to the clock.  It turns out that if a listing gets a bid in the last hour, another hour is added to the ending time, in order to prevent sniping.

Bid after bid came through and this pattern of “bidding and 60 more minutes added to the clock” continued throughout the night. I was literally 9 months pregnant, moving boxes into a rental house that evening, refreshing the listing on my iPhone, and shrieking with joy every time the price went up… $8,000, $10,000, $15,000, $20,000 and finally $25,500!

Wow, not only can I afford that new couch at my new house, but I’m pretty sure I can afford the room it will sit in.  With all we have going on, new baby and new home in progress, this money feels so good sitting in my bank account and will come in so handy.  With so many major life changes going on right now, the extra money allows us take a deeper breath as we keep calm and carry on.  The timing couldn’t have been more perfect and, although I’d like to say that was my intention, I had no idea that my site auction would be such a huge success.

Thanks to Dave McLearn for letting us use this photo!

Thinking of selling?

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Today’s post is by Tony Hosea, known on Flippa as SmartQuant. His profile caught my eye when I noticed he had over $45,000 in transaction value for 166 websites sold — and perfect feedback. When Tony and I emailed for the first time, I was surprised to learn that he isn’t a web developer by trade: he described his Flippa activity as a “money-making hobby”. If you’re like most people, your hobbies are a money drain, not a money-maker! Here’s how Tony does it. 

To most people the words, “money-making” and “hobby” just don’t seem to go together. Usually a hobby costs money and is done purely for the fun of it. What if I told you that you can have a hobby that you really enjoy and make money from it? With that said, let me tell you how I started selling websites as a money-making hobby.

Stressful day job, relaxing side project

My day job of analyzing global financial markets can be fast-paced, non-stop, and about as stressful as any business can possibly be. Those who are able to relax and keep a cool head in the hectic world of global finance stand a much better chance of long-term success. I’ve loved the markets from the moment I bought my first stock and have been very fortunate to have the markets love me back! With that said, I’m basically just a number cruncher who sifts through mountains of market information to find those opportunities with the greatest probability of success.

So how did I start to build websites as a hobby as I grew my investment business? I was always interested in the limitless information-sharing potential of the internet. Creating a website seemed like a great way to share my investment ideas with other interested parties. As I starting building websites I discovered something amazing… building websites relaxes me. Who knew?

See Opportunity Where It Lies

When Flippa opened for business, back in 2009, it was a natural fit for me as I was already skilled at creating effective websites. Initially I had only built websites  for my own online portfolio which was growing every day. With Flippa I saw an opportunity to share my site-building expertise with those that seeking a quality, ready-made website. I also saw an opportunity to sell some of my existing websites as I was looking to reduce the size of my portfolio and focus on just a few core websites.

If you’re thinking of developing your skills into a money-making hobby, here is what I did:

1 – Study The Flippa Site Rules and the Seller Guide

Get a smart start in your business by familiarizing yourself with the Site Rules. These form the foundation of how buyers and sellers should operate on Flippa.

Flippa’s guide to selling websites is also a good overview of the sale process, including best practices and tips. There are specifics for each platform that can be surprising before you read about them (for example, did you know about the one-hour extension when a new bid is placed? Or that you need to verify a credit card before you place a bid over $200?)

2 – Plan Your Strategy

You may have heard the saying, “If you fail to plan, then you plan to fail”. This saying holds true regardless of what you are trying to achieve, so planning is essential.

Decide why you want to build and sell websites. This may seem obvious to you, but remember that the motivation behind why you want to do something will serve as the driving force behind your success.

Decide early on how you plan to position yourself in the Flippa marketplace. Will you sell new/startup websites or will you develop websites and sell them once they are earning a healthy profit? Alternatively, will you buy existing websites, improve them, and sell them for a profit?

3 – Don’t Be In A Rush To Sell

If you happen to have a day job, or you own currently own a business, you are in a perfect position to create your own money-making hobby in website selling. You see, by already having income coming in you are in a unique position to not have to sell anything. When you do start selling websites you are in a position to not have to give your websites away for nothing. Unless you are a retail giant like WalMart, you will find that competing on price alone may not be the route you wish to take.

4 – Always Do Business With Integrity

It should go without saying that you should do business with integrity. For a seller of integrity, “Honesty Is The Best Policy” is more than just a saying or quote, it’s a way of life.

How do you do business on Flippa with integrity? It’s really very simple if you adhere to a few core principles:

• Create something of value – Remember that there is a difference in the mindsets of person A, who creates something just to sell and person B, who creates something to benefit the buyer.

• Creating listings that are truthful – It’s natural to be enthusiastic about a website that you have for sale. Check and double-check your listing information to make sure that you have given potential buyers an accurate description of what they are getting.

• Say what you mean and do what you say you will do – If you say you provide service after the sale then provide service after the sale. If you state that you will have a customer’s website up and running in three days then make absolutely certain that you do exactly that.

This is how I do business, and it works. Anyone who says you need to be dishonest or offer questionable value in order to succeed is only trying to justify their own behaviour.

Photo Credit: Bill Abbott

Running a small business is tough. With the flexibility of creating your own schedule and being your own boss, comes big responsibility. But not only are you responsible to your business, you are also responsible to yourself. If you don’t pay attention to balancing personal life with work, your health, relationships, and finances can seriously suffer.

A friend of mine found this out the hard way. She owns a lively coffee house, but in the beginning, she worked 12 hour days and didn’t take a single day off. She was ultimately forced to take a break when her husband threatened divorce unless she start devoting time to their family. Extreme, perhaps, but it got her attention. By prioritizing balance, learning to delegate responsibilities, and better managing her time, she got her personal life back on track.

If you’ve been burning the candle at both ends lately – or wish to avoid that trap – read on for seven tips that can help restore balance to your life.

1. Create a Schedule

Once you start your own business, you won’t have a boss to report to, and can work whenever you want. However, I made the transition to small business ownership several years ago, and my organization suffered significantly at first due to my ineffective management of time. By setting a schedule, I became more efficient, and now know when it’s okay to unplug for the day. To create a schedule, use Gmail’s Calendar. Or, if you don’t have a Gmail account, use the free software WinCalendar (available for download via CNET) or the calendar feature in Microsoft Office Outlook.

2. Commit to Breaks

You may feel guilty by doing so, but taking breaks is important. Trying to get work done when you’re not at your best can waste valuable time.

3. Focus on Personal Health

If your business is Internet-based, you may find that finding time to exercise is more difficult than ever before. Get a gym membership or exercise at home to improve your health and increase your chances of succeeding. Running a small business requires long work days, but by exercising sufficiently, you’ll sleep better each night and wake up each morning with a clear head so you can better tackle the challenges of the day.

4. Improve Your Personal Finances

Is credit card debt nagging at you? Are you struggling to pay monthly bills? If so, these nuisances can impede your ability to fund your new endeavor. It can become more difficult to concentrate on running your venture, in addition to putting unnecessary pressure on yourself to succeed. Get yourself on a personal budget and pay off your debts. By doing so, stepping away from your business to allow for more personal time becomes easier.

5. Improve Your Diet

If your day is filled with quick stops at fast food restaurants because you don’t think you have the time to eat healthier food, you’re not doing yourself any good. Take the time to switch to a diet based on homemade dishes consisting of more fruits and vegetables, and look for a farmers’ market in your area to buy fresh, organic produce for cheap. You’ll save money and potentially decrease your medical bills.

6. Get Out More

If you’re running your operation solo, loneliness or even depression can seep into your life. To prevent this, make an effort to strengthen your relationships with family or friends, or go out and make new ones. Volunteer your time, and keep an eye out for social organizations in your area. As you meet new people, try to keep business topics out of the conversation so that you may give yourself the mental break you deserve.

7. Find a Mentor

If you find yourself working too much or too little, seek a mentor. Check with family or friends for recommendations, or post your request on your LinkedIn profile. Your local chamber of commerce may be able to help too. A mentor can assist with virtually every facet of your small business, including juggling your operation with your personal life. Finding someone who’s been there and done that can cut down on the time it takes you to achieve the right balance.

Final Thoughts

According to a small business survey conducted by U.S. Bank, 45% of respondents said “their business is their life, and their life is their business.” Don’t be one of those people – always be sure to include some “me” time during every single work day. Even if it’s just watching some TV, even mindless entertainment can be an effective way to unwind and refresh. Or, pick up a good book – and not a small business self-help book. Select an author that you like and read their work.

What additional tips can you suggest to balance small business ownership and personal time?

Photo Credit: happykiddo

David is an online marketer, author, and blogger for the popular personal finance and business resource  Money Crashers.