FP - Hydroxatone.net Auction! NO RESERVE. Hoping for a HUGE turn out!

[Thomas]

Good work guys. I also think you got a good price and would second most of Bryan's comments above.

It goes to show that on auctions <$10k the $1 start, no reserve tactic still works well and means you get a nice active auction.

[Ryan Sorensen]

Thanks for the advice Bryan and props Thomas (and for your props too Erik) - yes I definitely feel having more clear earnings data would have made a difference. We worked with everything that we had and squeezed out the most money that we could. We're happy with the end result.

Some of the most important things that we learned from this is to extend the $1 no reserve bid strategy as long as possible before accepting any high dollar bids. By doing this early we discouraged quite a few more lower bids which would have gotten us more near the top of the most active list instead of the bottom (we still got there tho

Also I was reminded that the more people that can make money from your site the better, whereas with CPA it is oftentimes only available to people living in certain countries. People love adsense because it's available worldwide and feels less risky.

I tried Brent Jacoby's suggestion to thank every bidder and let them know I'm there to help, but I did it a little late and it didn't seem to have as much effect if I did it right after their bids.

Also next time I'm going to take the time to make a video detailing all of the traffic and revenue data. It'll increase trust which is one of the biggest factors behind solid traffic and income.

It's also really important to communicate with serious bidders, preferably before accepting their bid. As soon as it comes in pending, send them a quick message and say something like, "Thanks for your bid ____, Before accepting your bid I wanted to make sure that everything was clear in the auction listing. Do you have any questions? I'm here to help. Thanks!" That way you're able to kind of screen them to see what kind of buyer they'll be. I'm sure many of you have had your own "interesting" buyer experiences.

Now we're in the middle with after sales stuff which can be pretty stressful but part of the game. Just have great communication, be helpful and things will be fine.

Thanks to everyone else who commented on this thread, appreciate the support. You should learn from every experience, but the key is having experiences to learn from. Sitting on your thumb won't do you or anyone else any good. Remember that nothing will be perfect no matter how much of a noob or expert you are, just keep trying to get better.

I also wanted to let everyone know that Erik is a great guy and super easy to work with. He knows his stuff and is willing to help people out any way that he can.

[Erik]

Thanks for the comments guys. I have to say I am happy with the results. Well, I will be once the transactions are complete. My hopes were for 2500 but considering the weirdness factor of the earnings 1600 is a great price.

The way this earned money over time is really wonky, I'll admit, but the amounts given are accurate. I guess it comes off as odd considering the breakdown that was given. Basically, there was a long stretch where the domain just redirected directly to the offer. I pretty much forgot about even buying the domain name. At the time, I had no idea that the product would become popular. Then I heard a radio commercial for it, and I figured it was time to put something together. The site made a few hundred during this time.

After the site was done, I worked on some backlinking, and other various SEO stuff. The jump in the rankings earned some more. Then the site started it's google dance, which brings traffic in bursts. Still making some money though. The offer disappeared from the main network so I tried another smaller network. Continued to earn some money. Tested a PPC campaign. Made a slight bit and could have done better with a great lander, which I didn't feel like paying to have made. Then this smaller network started making changes without notification. Redirecting the link to other offers. I was checking the stats and was wondering why I wasn't getting any more conversions, only to find out the link was now pointed to some BS offer. So I went to another one. Earned some more money. Tried a few other twists. But ultimately I decided to go back to my normal tier one networks and left the final product up to see how it did. That even earned a bit bringing a final sale the night before the auction ended.

The site currently is still jumping, but traffic is improving monthly. Continued SEO will stabilize the search results which should almost certainly leave it with a front page ranking. There's also the potential to expand it into a full fledged eye cream review blog which they can push multiple items. Other than that, the owner will just have to deal with the smaller networks and keep an eye out for any shenanigans from them.

I'm uploading the buyers zip file now. I've included a ton of bonus goodies that should help them to improve and profit from the site. I hope they appreciate the gesture and agree to a quick paypal sale so that I can push the domain to them. Again, I'm happy with the results. Learned a lot. Had a great time working with Ryan.

On to the next project...

[tim1505]

As a newbie, I would like to personally say thank you to Ryan and Erik for allowing me to see this Auction from near enough the start to finish. Even though I have only been on this forum for a week or so, this thread was the most educational.

I like the way that you’ve shown the amount of monthly visits for the keywords that you were attempting to rank for, and your position in the serps for those keywords, and that alone has shown me how you go about ranking these kinds of sites. Can I produce a site like this myself? I’m certainty going to try, and I feel that finding the right CPA lead along with good keyword research is the key here.

I also like that you featured the listing straight away as by gaining a lot of bids the site appears on the first page of the most active section which I’m sure gets a lot of traffic on its own.

When you added the buy it now for $5000 I was shocked and thought that you must be mad, but after thinking about it, it was a way to tell your bidders “hey come on guys, the site is worth more than this” and I had only realized that when you had reduced the buy it now in the last few hours.

I have only just started out on flippa, and it’s great to see how you experts do it.

[Ryan Sorensen]

Hey tim thanks for the response and I'm really glad that you were able to get something out of this auction. I would reread the last couple of posts after the sale was over, take in some of the all-in-one threads on other people's auctions, and come up with your own plan and to just do it. Think of websites along a line. You have your unbuilt sites, brand new sites, and established sites. You can build or acquire a site at any point along the line and make money with it, it's just a matter of doing so that will be the smartest investment of your time and money. If you enjoy building sites from scratch and are good at it, then do it. If you'd rather buy a site that's established but poorly optimized for traffic and income, sold for lower than market value, or just has really bad listing copy, then by all means by it and sell it somewhere else.

there's money to be made all over this industry. Go out and get some!

[fredddyflips]

Hats off to Ryan and Erik for this lesson in selling a successful site. being able to follow your every step gives me a good checklist and I have also picked up on the idea of using CPA offers. Off to do some research on a few offers, lets see what can be built and flipped in 90 days.

Cheers.

[Xflipper]

I don't know how effective it is to list all the free wordpress plugins that buyer will get? I mean, isn't it obvious such things the buyer can get for free at wordpress website?
nice auction and good price, btw

[Ryan Sorensen]

@ xflipper Thanks. Something that buyers like to know is know is which plugins, whether they are free or not ,have been installed since the site was first created. Although many of them are free it's nice to know that the work has already been done and that the plugins have been doing their job for sometime.

[Frankie4Fingers]

Hey guys, congrats on the sale.

Out of curiosity, was Ryan just the broker in this operation? Can I ask what percentage of the final sale did you get? PM of course if you don't want to share it in public

[BrettM]

Hi F4F,

Ryan was the broker, and was selling the domain on Erik's behalf. Ryan's been burning it up since then. Unsure of the brokerage fees, so you'll have to wait for Ryan on that one.

Enjoy!