In this episode, Ryan smiles at the camera, Danny spills the beans on Ed Dale and his guitar skills, and Dave shows us his Jazz Hands!

Great news! The first podcast that me, David Jenyns and Danny Batelic created was such a hit that we decided to create a second episode! In fact, it has been such a success that we have managed to capture the eyes of Flippa themselves, and they have offered to send a few goodies our way to offer to those who watch the podcast, who want to participate.

So, apart from the usual banter this time around, me (Ryan T Malone), Danny and Dave managed to talk about a few things along the lines of:

• How The Challenge is going to affect the site flipping market
• Whether or not Flippa’s pricing is fair
• Ed Dale’s creepy “home alone antics” (no, seriously!)
• The 3D domain name craze

… and a bucket load more that I could mention here, but what would be the fun in me giving away all the good stuff?

Buying And Selling Websites Podcast – Episode Two from david jenyns on Vimeo.

You Have Heard People Say That Content Is King, Right? Let Me Prove That Theory…

Let me put it bluntly. Your content is a reflection of you, what it is that you do, and how you do it. So, the question goes, does the content that you create on those websites that you are creating really matter all that much? Cant we just auto generate some content and hope for the best? Well, you can if you want, but I don’t see this getting you very far considering that content is what sells. Think about it for a moment, without content, what do you really have?

1 Post 1 Purpose

This is a rule that I live on. Regardless of the content that I am creating, each little piece of content is created for one specific purpose, and usually falls into one of the below categories:

• To educate my visitors on a topic
• To tempt them to join the mailing list
• To purchase that affiliate product
• To send traffic to another of my sites

Naturally, in order for you to get any kind of benefit from that website that you have sitting idle, this is the same methodology that you are going to have to think about, right? It is this simple, a website without purpose just sits idle, and doesn’t really gain any momentum.

Consider Your Visitors Needs And Desires

If you have done any back end research before launching your website, you will have taken down a few basics about your intended visitor. When you have drawn up a few basics, consider this visitors desires, their needs, their problems, and how exactly you can fulfil those needs. This little spot is exactly where you can monetize a website, and is also exactly where good quality content comes into play.

If I can take something from the ProBlogger workshop that I attended last week and deliver it to you, it is this. The very crossover of your knowledge, and the knowledge of your visitors, that is exactly what you want to write about. That is where you will meet their needs, and be able to provide them with a solution.

Consider The Role Of The Search Engines

Why do you search for things in the search engines? Apart from wanting to know the answer to your questions, most of the time it is because you want to know what to do next.

Consider someone who is dreaming of a holiday in France, they are searching for France in Google. Even though they are not specifically searching for a buying phrase in Google, they are in need of being told what to do next.

Lets now assume that the searcher has just entered the keyword “Accommodation In France”, and consider how impressionable the searcher is. One could assume that they are just window shopping, and wanting to see what kind of accommodation is available, however, through well written content, it is now your role to push that user to take the action that they want to take, and book that accommodation.

Search engines exist to direct a user depending on their needs, and you exist to guide the user to taking that specific action which serves both to please the visitor and monetize your web assets. This is where the quality of your content, regardless of the site that you create, needs to be as high as possible.

How Do You Create High Quality Content?

I am going to teach you the basic guideline that I follow when creating content. It is pretty basic, and makes a lot of sense.

1. Pin point a problem or desire that your visitor has
2. Create a piece of content that answers their dilemma
3. Suggest a course of action that will fix their problem
4. Suggest a premium course of action that will fix their problem even more (monetization)
5. Use a call to action (get them to take the step)
6. Optimize the post so that searchers can find your content in Google

Sounds simple doesn’t it? Truth be told, I am about to release a small free course over at www.ryantmalone.com that covers content creation, monetization, and much more. It should be live within a matter of weeks, so your best bet is to go and sign up at the mailing list to be notified when you can sign up.

So, get to it! Start creating that killer content!

David Jenyns has managed to chase down Simon Johnson from Domainer Income for an exclusive one on one

Looking back a year ago, the idea of buying and selling domains was something that I had always promised myself I would become more involved with, and it was not until me and Ryan started working on clearing our my website portfolio that I discovered that this was going to very quickly become a part of the direction that I wanted to take my business. Since then, a lot has happened. We purchased Flipping Awesome, we infiltrated Flippa, and there is plenty more coming down the pipe as well.

Anyway, back to the story… At the time, we were selling websites, however my attention has been pulled more into the area of domaining, which for those who are not all that familiar with the term, this is no different to buying and selling sites, but with the focus more on domains rather than selling a website or online business.

Truth be told, when it comes to buying and selling domains, I am far from an expert, so in true form, I have dived headfirst into the market, and gone straight to the source to learn more about this market. By change, whilst I attended Ed Dale’s Coming Home seminar in Melbourne, I ran into Simon and Anna Johnson (from www.domainerincome.com), a married couple who have been making a full time income selling domains for quite some time now. After talking to them for a bit, it was very clear to me that I had to get at least one of them into my office, and in front of a camera.

The result of all of this is the short interview that I have posted on this page with Simon. To recap a few of the things we covered in the interview:

• The difference between buying and selling domains and websites
• The benefits of parking vs developing
• What the easiest way to discover expired domains is
• The big news with ICANN

Anyway, there is plenty more in the video, you can watch it below.

While there is no magic list of things to add to your site in order to guarantee a sale however this list will lead you in the right direction.  Make sure you next site/auction has some (or all) of the following 4 foundations:

Foundation 1 – Visuals

• Customize all the ads to match your sites color schemes
• Don’t go too extreme with the colors (bright pinks and lime green)
• Graphic logos are nice, if you created one  set up a CafePress store and have t-shirt with the logo on them
• Text logos are easy to update for new site flippers
• If you’re including a Twitter account spend 10 minutes and customize it to match the site

Foundation 2 – Monetization

• People will buy a site from you because it can make money, add as many revenue streams as you can
• Keep the ads tasteful and professional
• Offer to help the new owners out by adding their ad code to the site for them (this should only take 10 minutes to do)
• Use plugins that automatically add ads to new articles without the new owner having to add them manually

Foundation 3 – Content

• If you have original content make sure that is prominently mentioned in your auction listing
• If the site is full of re-published make sure you link to the original source at the bottom of each article
• Ensure your buyers will have fresh content by creating an auto-posting blog with no plugins

Foundation 4 – Auction Sales Title & Copy

• Remember your auction title gets people to read your auction  copy
• Use action/buzz words in your title like ClickBank Ready, Traffic Generator, High End, Make Hundreds Per Day, etc…
• Break up your text with bold headlines, paragraphs, bulleted lists, colors, etc… nothing turns people off like an entire page of black text that looks like on big sentence
• People want to buy something form YOU – include some of your own personality into your listing (don’t be a robot)

Just remember that you should always be learning new techniques and trying different things with your site flipping.  For example we’ve flipped a one-page site that sells an ebook (no articles), we’re almost done with a site that autoposts for one entire year and we’ve sold everything in between.  Some sell – some don’t sell right away!

Is there something that you like to add to each and every site you flip?
We’d love to hear about it!
Type your response in the comments below.

As the new owners of Flipping Awesome (even though we still need to update photos and the such), we are privileged to bring out first “How Much Is My Site Worth” post. So, here’s the deal… Bishwajeet has contacted us about a website that he is selling on Flippa, which both myself and Dave have had the chance to look over, and we have both got estimates of what we think it will sell for.

However, before I get into that, I will allow you to make up your own mind. The auction is located here.

So, the first things that strike me when I look at this auction are the domain age (1 year old), and the total revenue that the site receives. With the total number of uniques per month being at around 500, this says to me that the quality of the traffic that arrives on site much be very very good. This is a huge value add as it stands, and has boosted what I believe the site would sell for.

Now, the site sells an e-book that helps bloggers increase their RSS subscribers and revenue. Not a bad idea for a product, one that I could see there would be a bit of demand for as well. Looking at the conversion rate based on the total copies sold to meet the total gros revenue as well, that would mean that 34 copies would need to be sold per month, which means that 6.8% of the traffic is being converted. Now, that is quite a good amount, considering that if the new owner simply promoted a little harder, increased traffic by 50 – 100%, the total revenue that this site would generate would be quite decent.

Looking at how the site is being promoted as well, it would seem that it is all done through Digital Point, plus through the marketplace where the item is actually being sold. This is great, as this means that the new owner can literally buy today and monetize tomorrow.

So, lets get down to the good stuff…

After Dave had a good idea at the auction (and about 3.6 minutes of umping and ahh’ing), he came to the conclusion that the site would sell for $950. He agreed that it is not a bad site at all, and it should sell for a good amount.

As for my estimation, I am keeping in mind that this site has a huge amount of potential, it is marketed through traditional methods that the new owner can do, and it is actually pulling in a good amount. Personally, if I were to purchase this site, I would set a limit of no more than $2000, but that is just me, however, I am going to go much higher than Dave, and risk everything by estimating that the site will sell for around the $2100 mark. As the auction currently has 3 days left, and the price is currently at $650 with bids coming in quite fast, I think that it still has a bit of life left in it.

Do you have any other ideas, or estimations? As always, make them known below, and we will see who has the best intuition when it comes to guessing the end price for an auction on Flippa!

UPDATE

Wow, how embarrassing! Looks like I am going to have to touch up on my skills! The site sold for $860 on Flippa, making Dave the winner of this round. A good price for the winner of the auction, and congrats to Bishwajeet for getting a good price!

Is This The Data That Will Sell Your Website?

What was the last dollar amount that you received in exchange for all that hard work that you put in to the last website that you flipped? Could you sell your website for more? Would you have liked it to be more? Were you happy with the end price? Here’s the thing. There is so much that buyers will notice about your websites that you will never spot yourself. This is not a bad thing on your part, I mean for one, you aren’t the one buying the website, you are trained to sell the site, so you can only identify what you believe will make it sell. You’re not psychic, however, I can train you to understand what some of these key things are that buyers will look for, and let me tell you, it can be the difference between a few hundred dollars, and several thousand dollars.

Look At Your Site Using Market Samurai

Whilst most of us are familiar with Market Samurai when it comes to basic keyword research, by using the Rank Tracker module, you can track in real time how your website is performing over time based on its best performing keywords.

Here’s how it works. Use the Google Keyword Tool to identify what your website is ranking for, and out of those keywords that are bringing in the most traffic (identifiable using Google Analytics), or have the potential to bring in the most traffic, load these keywords in to the Rank Tracker, along with the details for your domain.

From here, you will be able to monitor in real time exactly what your competition is doing to reach #1, and what you need to do to take their position in the search engines.

By using this method, you will be able to do two things. You will be able to identify your easy wins and traffic bringers, and you will be able to rank for those keywords by doing some good old fashioned SEO. As a side note, if you keep track of the Market Samurai file for that keyword, you will be able to provide that to potential buyers as proof of your claims, which has massive pulling power when you sell your website.

Provide An Accurate Back Link And PR Analysis

Another job done by Market Samurai within the rank tracker, you can assess the PageRank of your website, plus where all of your back links are coming from. What I want you to understand at this point is that even if you don’t use Market Samurai, you are going to need to assume that your buyers will be using it, and they will be using it to check that your back links are genuine, and come from legitimate sources.

In any case, when building back links to a website through either article marketing, social media, and so on, you are going to want to make sure that links are from clean sites, or from purely white hat methods such as guest posting, Video Marketing, and so on. There is nothing worse than selling a website, then having to deal with a refund due to your dodgy back link structure.

Will People Buy Using Your Keywords?

This is something that all too many people don’t ask themselves when adding content, and believe me, people look for this kind of stuff too. Consider this: why would anyone want to buy a website that attracts visitors that are not even slightly qualified to buy anything?

a) It means that the buyer is going to have to invest in a website that they aren’t even sure will convert
b) It also means that the buyer is going to have to work twice as hard to earn their first dollar from the website

Those of us who have been in this game for a bit will be able to tell you in a split second the difference between a buying phrase and an info phrase, however, when you have pulled up the data for the keywords that you are ranking for in Market Samurai, all you need to do is activate the OCI column, as this will give you a numeric indication of how willing this traffic would be to purchase. Although not 100% accurate, it is a good indication, and accurate enough to test.

Moral of this part of the story: make sure that your traffic is willing to purchase by ranking for a few keywords that bring in visitors that are ready to buy.

So, there we have it. As much as we will never ever be 100% certain of what exactly it is that people will be looking for when you sell your website, if you can put the above tips into action, you are going to be well on your way.

Let us know how you go! We love publishing your success stories!