new site

changing my flipping style

My 3 sites a week challenge worked for a good while… it was hard work, but it meant i was able to create and sell sites for fun I then had my repeat maths exam to prepare for and sort of had to devote my time to it instead. So the 3 sites a week challenge died a bit, even though i have recently started churning out a few sites again.

What i’m finding though, is that this ‘quick flip’ business is getting more and more saturated. You can no longer put together a partially unique design, some unique content and expect a few hundred $$$ in cash… you will see profit - don’t get me wrong, but not as much as you would have done 6 months ago.

So i’m now going to have to adapt to this change and added competition and view ‘flips’ as longer term work. New kids on the block want to make money and make it now, so they’ll be happy to flip sites for instant profit… in my eyes, that market is drying up now and site flippers have to hang on to sites longer and develop them further before selling.

So i’m issuing myself a challenge for the month of September;

• I have to create 1 new site
• I must create 15-20 quality blog posts for it myself
• I need to drive as much traffic as possible to the site
• I must then sell it at the end of the month for as much as possible
• If it makes sense and the site is super hot, i’m allowed hang on to it for a while longer

So rather than the usual quick flips you guys are used to seeing from me, you’ll now see me work at a different level. If this proves to be successful, i may well continue it every month.

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why can’t i do this every day?

I have to admit, i love the feeling of ‘completing’ something. Whether it’s an assignment for college, a to-do list, a blog or a website…. it’s the same feeling and it’s a fantastic feeling.

I’ve managed to put together my first niche site in quite some time - managefuel.com.Expect to see it up for sale shortly. I’ve just been so busy recently i’ve struggled to make any sales or flips.

Believe it or not, i have about 40 of these sort of sites to develop and sell. I WILL get through them all… it’s just a case of how quickly.

I can’t automate building a site from start to finish, it must always have unique content and some sort of custom design/logo. But what i’m starting to do now is outsourcing content creation. I’ve had mixed results with it in the past, but recently i’ve found one or two really top class writers at decent prices (not talking about the managefuel.com content by the way.)

Content creation is a huge drain on my time and it’s not something i enjoy doing (apart from this blog). If i can pay someone to do it and still make a healthy profit from it all, it makes sense to outsource. So that’s what i’m starting to do as i’ve basically been forced in to it (as i’ve no time).

So that’s one down… about 39 to go

$5610 worth of domains for $76.15

A couple of weeks ago i said i’d grabbed $1940 worth of domains for $32.50.

Today, i’m now sitting on $5610 worth of domains which have cost me a grand total of $76.15. I’ve no doubt i could sell all of these domains for more than what i paid for them - no doubt at all.

My most valued domain comes in at $1,200 and i paid $9.95 for it - just today. I’ve another valued at $1,100 which has over 230 million results in google for it’s keywords.

So although i’ve not been busy the past week or so selling sites or making money, i’ve still been keeping an eye on things.

As i’ve said before, there’s no way i can sell all of these domains for their estimated value - which now stands at $5610, but some of the domains are fairly attractive and combined with a unique design and some unique content, will sell for quite a bit

I now have 12 undeveloped domains which i’ve bought in the past couple of weeks, so they’ll keep me busy for the next month or more. Once i get this maths exam out of the way, it’ll be full throttle again at flipping sites. I have my eye on a new ‘netbook’ (ultra-portable laptop), plus i’m toying with the idea of launching a huge competition / giveaway type thing in combination with my potential skydive.

Exciting times ahead but this damn maths exam is holding me back for now

Banned TV ad

I’ve mentioned bannedtvad.com a few times, but never in much detail and up until today the site was still under construction.

I’ve spent the day adding 25 videos to the site. For anyone using this theme, you’ll know that’s no easy task. Making 25 blog posts on a normal wordpress blog is hard enough, but with this theme, you must add 4 custom fields to each post, a custom image, categories and tags.

Being a perfectionist, i had to resize the images to suit so it took a few hours to do all that. I DEFINITELY think the site is worth something though… i’ll try to build up traffic and maybe get some free ads.

My aim is to get 100 videos on it - i’m 25% there. It’s a really beautiful site and with some more customization it can be one to be proud of!

Some of the videos are also hilarious - this one my personal favourite.

content sells

I’ve noticed most of the sites that sell on sitepoint, are sites full with content. I’m talking about huge databases with thousands of entries… the buyers also have a 4 or 5 page copied pasted sales pitch and set a price of about $297 or something spammy like that (yes - even a price can be spammy e.g. $47, $97 generally anything ending in a ‘7′). Probably took 30 minutes to create - stock template, no web 2.0 effect, poor domains hyped up as ‘premium’ domains

Anyway, i thought i’d get in to the content buying a bit, so i’ve bought a database with over 3000 entries on ‘dreams’ I’ve *almost* got it working with wordpress, there’s a problem with the tags that i just can’t sort out… i had to manually edit tables to get the categories working, but the tags thing is a nuisance…

So that’s what i’ll spend my day doing. You can see how the site develops at truthdream.com - i’ll be selling that for over $200. By the time i’m finished with it, it will probably have over 3000 indexed pages in google

Bannedtvad.com is also looking VERY slick (not live yet)… hopefully i’ll be able to get that up by this evening too. It too will be running wordpress and will come with a hefty price tag over over $300 i’d imagine.

So i’ve ’slowed down’ a bit, but that’s because i’m working on larger scale stuff now hoping to sell them for a bit more… selling a site for $100 is great, but really, i’d need to be doing that daily to make a living online.

That’s quite demanding and not quite the cushy life you’d expect from working online But 2 or 3 sites per week selling at $2/300 - that’s much easier to do as you’re not in a rush and you’ve some sort of flexibility.

I’m already seeing the benefits of blogging so openly about my new sites - i’ve had my first request to design a logo for someone my portfolio is here for all to see on this blog so it’s juts another advantage of blogging… i am planning on setting up a ‘portfolio’ page though or perhaps on a subdomain.

At this stage i’ve created dozens of logos and a few unique template designs. I’ve also sold several sites and know a thing or two about SEO so rather than let those facts get burried in this blog, i’ll have to make sure you all know about them

Not so much to get more business, but to help people ‘trust’ me when it comes to buying a site from me or wanting to find out past info on me…