Make money fixing up cheap websites and resell for a big profit

awesome. thanks! green given

 

very nice post, I have been looking into buying sites lately although I dont make much money so I dont have much to spend in bidding wars but I'v found this post very useful.

 

could you make a more detailed guide for us on DP because i would like more details please example links to concret sites where i can buy websites,where to buy links and how to start making my own turnkey sites and sell them for profit

 

Thanks...interesting articles. Something I was aware of but you've add some more 'meat to the bone'.

 

Great articles... thanks.

 

I would add one really economical way to do this is using myspace.

I buy up sites all the time, for pretty cheap. For instance, let's say that my niche that I'm building in is for . . . whatever. Interpretive dance.

I use adder robot, because although the site is down, the software still works. The socket version allows you to build a list of friends to invite by querying google.

So first I'll run that query and load up a list of people who have "interpretive dance" or something about it on their profile. Then request a thousand of them.

Then I just repeat. The next day I'll do a thousand for ballet. Then a thousand for breakdancing. Than a thousand for ballroom dancing, etc. ad nauseum.

After a week, I might have 3 thousand people on my friends list which are highly targetted towards some form of dance.

Then, I'll post a couple of related bulletins just to establish some rapport real easily.

After the first week or so, I'll go ahead and post a bulletin mentioning that I'm looking to buy old sites related to dance, or dancing, or something related to that topic.

There are so many people that have old sites on geocities and whatever other free hosting services that they don't maintain anymore, so I make sure to mention that I'm interested in these too.

I don't like to negotiate or do auction type of things, so I just post what I'm willing to pay.

$10-15 for a site using free hosting.

$10-20 for a myspace group with x amount of users and/or activity

$10-15 for a domain related to dancing if I like the name (like means it has backlinks, pr, etc. but I don't mention anything like that).

$x-xx for forums with x amount of posts

and so on and so forth.

I work kind of slowly when I'm building up a network around a niche, but this works pretty well for me sometimes.

If I buy something that has really worthwhile content on a free host, I'll use it on one of my anchor sites for that network and then just put links up on the free hosting or whatever it is.

Alot of this stuff is old, good, unique content, spread out over lots of ip's and if you just even suggest to people that you're willing to throw a few bucks out if they remember their geocities password and give you the site, you'de be surprised how many people will take you up on it.

I've been doing this for like 2 years now, and you often get some bunk sites, but alot of times you'll end up with tons of backlinks, interesting content, a bit of trustrank, etc. and it's alot cheaper than trying to bargain with professional or wannabe professional webmasters.

This is also how I get alot of my content. Just ask people for it with a bulletin every week or two. The thing is, I try to work in niches that people are passionate about, so they're much more willing to contribute and want to see their name attached to a bigger sized project. People aren't really that passionate about web hosting, and ring tones and credit card offers and things like that, so I don't work in the most profitable niches, but I do ok, basically.

For the site in my sig, I've gotten articles and videos and stuff from some VERY famous martial artists and pro fighters by doing this.

 

Thanks for sharing! That's a good read.

 

Thanks! That sounds great, will try it

 

Part III: Website Rehabilitation issues

After buying the site, you have to formulate an action plan based on the points of rehabilitation your site needs. Focus on Traffic issues and Content issues.

Traffic issues (you should have this information when you were considering the site for purchase):

What are the current traffic sources of the site?
Does the site get most, if not all, of its traffic from just one source?

Traffic Rehabilitation Action Plan:
- Diversify traffic sources. There are tons of sources of free website traffic. You should fully map out strategies for getting: social media traffic, link exchanges, one way links, promo article links, press releases, etc etc. You may also want to consider PAID traffic sources or pay for links.

- Determine and maximize traffic efficiency. After running free and paid traffic streams through your acquired site, determine which particular traffic source produces the best results. Google analytics helps out tremendously in doing this. Besides being FREE, Analytics allows webmasters to track the average pageviews per visitor per traffic source. Study the source and the views per visitor.

- Focus on traffic sources that produce results. Weeding out your traffic sources, focus hard on the ones that produce the best results for you. Either buy more paid traffic or, if the source is free, buy more outsourced website labor to maximize your free traffic stream.

Content Rehabilitation Action Plan:

- Test and maximize Content effectiveness: Studying your Analytics stats closely, determine which pages get the most traffic. Categorize these pages. Find other similar category pages on your site and make them easier to access. You may also want to invest in more custom content that match these categories.

- Main page tweaks. Now that that you know which of your content categories get the most traffic, make sure these categories are very easy to find from your main page.

Avoiding cost overruns:
Review the action plan you have assembled from the tasks above. Prioritize them based on cost, urgency, and (expected) effectiveness. Set FIRM BUDGETS for each action item. Make sure you set out clear guidelines for your contractors or traffic sources.


NEXT INSTALLMENT: Knowing when to sell and resale marketing tips for rehabilitated sites.

 

Nice tips (read all posts), thanks.

 

Good stuff...I'll be keeping an eye on this thread.

 

I've done this quite a bit, and even wrote about it as a chapter in my ebook on web business models. What has been said so far is right on, but I will add that you should keep the potential buyer in mind when you fix up the site. For instance, if I buy a directory, I know I'm working on building PR more than anything else. Buy a PR 5 and get it to a PR 6 and you can make a few grand selling the new site. A directory buyer is buying submissions, which are related to Pagerank.

For a blog, I'm going to work on building PR to at least a 4, but once it's there I'm focused on the design and on building traffic. Most blog buyers are buying traffic.

If I buy a made for adsense site, I focus primarily on optimizing adsense. Sometimes that means design changes, sometimes not. But I'm looking for cases where whoever built the site didn't know what they were doing with Adsense.

If I buy an unusual niche, I'm trying to figure out what a potential buyer for a site in that niche wants out of the site, and I focus my efforts on those areas. Occasionally, I get it wrong, but even then I usually still make what I put into it.

 

I think R0b hit the nail on the head. Think about what your customer will want, and what will make their life easier when they buy your site.

I see so many crappy MFA sites out there that people slap together to sell. What's worse is that people buy them, thinking they will make some dough. It really makes me mad that the seller didn't take some time to think about the features, design, and ease of use for the new owner.

You can sell brand-new sites and do well, as long as you put some thought and time into how to provide real value for your customer, and care about how the site will help them reach their goals.

 

You raise some good points. However, there are a lot of benefits to reselling refurbished older sites. These advantages range from a modicum of built up goodwill to SEO advantages of having an older "matured" domain name and many points in between. We can both agree on one point though: whether building a new site or selling a refurb--always keep your eye on the potential buyer's needs.

 

This is all great info. Thanks!

 

Very good points. Naturally the core is to have links+traffic (and ranks for directories and to some people) but it's crucial to remember who the buyer is. Good points on working on the design - not just the traffic to increase CTR!

 

Interesting stuff, I might just give this a go!