Hi to all forum members, From Yorkshire UK

[DoGGz]

Hi to all on the forum
My name is Dave and i live in East Yorkshire, UK. I currently work as a full time building contractor but my passion is to earn a full time income through internet marketing.

For the past few months I have been teaching myself, IM, wordpress development and coding and can now build a full WP theme from scratch which I hope will help me in developing websites to sell.

To get my online business alive and kicking is what I drive to achieve, I wanted to start out with site flipping as this looks to be a good business model for a beginner?.

To start with i will be building small niche sites from scratch and hope to learn some SEO and traffic generation skills to get them ranking high and making money.

I hope to receive some guidance and input from other forum members, with the best way to acheive this.

I am looking forward to meeting other people on the forum whom I might be able to work with on this and other projects.

Well thats about it from me

Regards

Dave.

[Kay]

Hi Dave

Welcome to Experienced People. Thanks for making a good introduction. Dig in and enjoy all the info we have here.

So, you're going to start with flipping websites? Interesting. There are lots of us on here who are a bit sceptical about that as a business model, especially for a beginner. Have a read of some more threads on here. There's quite a lot of discussion about newbies selling stuff to other newbies, which it sounds as though it's what you're planning to do. Why did you choose to go down this route? Was it something you read somewhere perhaps?

[DoGGz]

Hi Kay, I had originally bought a report about website flipping and it was a good read and it said it was the easiest way to get started with online marketing. What advice do you have then about this, do you think it is not the way to go?

Bare in mind it is an interest of mine so could you suggest another route for me involving this kind of business venture?

Regards, Dave

[Kay]

You could start by reading some of the topics we have on the forum dedicated to site flipping.
http://experienced-people.net/forums...-Site-Flipping

Flipping isn't something I'm experienced with so I'm not the best person to advise you. However, if you look around on here you'll find that a lot of EP members are sceptical about flipping but know that it's something which is frequently sold to newbies as being the easiest way to make money online.

Care to share what report you read to convince you that flipping is a good business model for newbies?

[DoGGz]

Yeah sure it was a report call "Smart Flip Business" I got it from the warrior forum.
It was a case study about selling new websites on flippa, I found it a good read.

[Clinton]

Hi Dave, and welcome to experienced-people.net.

Is the plan to build these site to hold or to sell on?

While free SE traffic is great, do bear in mind that new sites get an artificial boost in the SERPs for a while and then drop back down again. I believe it's not a good idea to rely on SEs for traffic.

[akirk]

It is worth remembering:
- a business online has the same basic needs / inputs / etc. as an offline business

- most offline businesses are set up to make money out of being run as a business
- offline businesses which are sold are usually ones which have previously been run successfully as a business
- buying offline businesses to sell on at a profit / flip is a very specialist area
- very few offline businesses are set up just to sell

- apply all the above to online businesses...

i.e. if setting up a website - it needs validity / business plan / purpose / etc. then it might one day be in the right place to sell...
buying / setting up websites just to sell on at a profit (flipping) can be a very shallow business and you are as likely to not make money as to make it - ensure that you have a strong business focus to what you are doing and you have a much stronger chance...

Alasdair

[crabfoot]

Sithee, lad, greetings from The Capital of the Wolds.

Bearing in mind that I've never flipped a site, I'm asking myself why I feel qualified to offer advice. Truth is, I always seem to recognise opportunities after they pass me by.

Most people feel that buying an established site can represent better value than starting one from scratch. If you can buy a site and rapidly improve its performance, why would you want to sell that profitable entity?

There is one rational answer - because you don't have money, you do have time.

Example: If you get a fast performance increase, you may be able to flip a site for 10 times your purchase price after 4 months.

You have to put a lot of work in to do that, and if you've done your work right you could wait for about a year and have the purchase money in the bank while you still own the site.

If, in the meantime, you have found other sites which you can transform, selling that first site could be the key to being able to buy the other sites and turning them around in the same way - but you need confidence and a reasonable certainty that you have the abilities to make it work.

Changes in the way that Google works, a lot of competition in the marketplace for the sites that are worth flipping, and several other factors have made the prospect of "flipping" a lot less attractive than it was a year or even six months ago.

This website business changes faster than any other. Eighteen months ago, with the right knowledge, flipping was a reasonable prospect for someone with low capital and time on their hands to build capital and get into a better position. Some of our members used it to build themselves into self-sustaining web entrepreneurs. But it is a self-evident fact that if you sell a site to someone, they expect to make money from it, and you could hang on to the site and make that money for yourself.

Most of the E-P members have skills in building sites up, but they prefer to hang on to them and take the profit when the sites they own have become low maintenance moneymakers. It's the same skillset you need, either way.

Flipping can move you forward IF you have your opportunities lined up - you can flip a site to give you money to live while you build up two or three others, or to give you cash to buy sites that you believe you can improve.

Trouble is, the opportunities to buy flippable sites are harder to find today than they were a short while ago. Then again, if you have limited cash and time to look, it might still be a good way to get started - but most people are agreed that it is better to hang onto the sites that are earners.

[DoGGz]

Thanks for the responses guys,

I do believe that it is a lot harder to get in to the flipping business now-a-days as IT IS a lot less attractive. But my idea isn't to make quick money as i have a whole business design idea set around creating my own sites and buying sites with the potential that i can see and then build up in to a good solid better ranked, better potential for profit and income, even if it does take 6 months or a year, that's the hard work i will do; those business strategies like any business has to do to provide a good end product/site for the customer.

Just a quick one for Clinton;
Hi, would you mind telling me the way you think is best for sources of traffic as you previously said;

"I believe it's not a good idea to rely on SEs for traffic."

Cheers, DoGGz.

[Kay]

Just in case Clinton is a wee bit busy right now, have you seen this thread about ways to get traffic?
http://experienced-people.net/forums...etting-traffic

The problem with relying on SE traffic is, "Now you see me. Now you don't". There are several of us here who've seen traffic figures slashed by a sudden change of algo. Do you want to rely on it to pay your bills?