Flip That House Site

Dave Hermansen did not own a bird or a cage when he bought bird-cage.com, an online store, for $1,800 three years ago. He simply saw a website that was “very, very poorly done”, and begged the owners to sell it to him. He thereupon redesigned the site, added advertising and drove up traffic. Last December, he sold it for $173,000.

This article caught my attention considering it got me thinking about my own online ventures. I am constantly scanning the Sitepoint Marketplace looking for deals, solid sites in low competition niches, and topics that interest me. Is website flipping the new house flipping?

Anytime I buy a site it’s considering I have a lengthy term vision for it so I can’t say I fit that description entirely, but it is a great way to earn a living online. whether you have experience with growing websites, it is entirely possible to compose thousands of dollars a month by flipping websites.

Here’s What I Would Do

I’m more of a lengthy term kinda guy, so I doubt I’ll get into that, but I thought I’d use a real life example from my own experience in case you are thinking about giving it a try. I just bought a website on SitePoint that I’m exited about growing and running (i’ll give the url once we’re all done fixing it up) and

I’m confident we could form atleast 3 times the purchase price with less than two weeks of work. Here are the key ingredients to assemble that happen from start to finish:

1. Research and find a niche that does not have a clear front runner, is underserved, or could use some high quality entrants
2. Scour the site listings at SitePoint, check eBay, put up want-ads, contact site owners, and do whatever you need to do to get a pre-established site in that niche for a good price
3. Revamp the site adding in features you know consumers in that niche will want
4. Ensure existing search engine placements and rankings are preserved (if not improved)
5. Redesign the site, refresh the logo, and get it up to professional web standards
6. Resell the site for millions

Ok possibly not #6, but 1 through 5 are precisely the steps I follow, and I’m confident that with my new site I’d get atleast 3x my investment. whether you’re like me and you’d rather have steady regular income versus lump sum payments you could replace #6 with ‘market & monetize the site’. Finding ways to manufacture money from your newly improved site can do wonders for your wallet expanded term. 

Anyone out there have experience flipping sites?

Orginal post by WhyDoWork