making a living from websites

[SusanH]

Hi guys,

In case this sounds a ridiculous question (along the lines of how long is a piece of string) I will start with a reminder that I am new to the forums

I saw a note from DM that he was selling two websites on flippa - one I think was bringing in about £100 per month but that might be wrong.

It got me to wondering whether there are many people who are making a reasonable living from websites - that is, sites that don't have a physical stockholding etc.
I mentioned recently that we have viewed what looks like a very good business - gross profit is six figures - but of course it is a retail operation and also has premises (rent/rates/water/power etc to pay) and SAV of over £15000.

But I wondered if there are people making a reasonable living from owning a string of the type of site that DM was selling. Obviously people won't want to divulge their earnings or even their sites but how feasible is it for a relative beginner like myself to spend about £30k max on a range of sites that would produce an income of at least that amount per year?

(I don't do web programming - I have a couple of blog sites and a letter writing site that brings me in a very small income - but obviously I have to write the letters I am okay with wordpress and I have used adsense and adwords in the past. I know a tiny amount about html since I am a writer and some of the sites I work for require me to add basic html - eg for headers, lists, new paragraphs etc.
Thanks for any help or advice
Susan

[Clinton]

Susan, there are numerous site-flipping courses that would love to sign you up and get a small portion of that £30K.

Is it possible to live off established and profitable sites? Yes, I've done it for several years. There are others here who live off websites. But I don't know if buying a lot of small sites is the way to go. Most small sites are non profitable or the profit is fake ....and it's very difficult and time consuming to sort the wheat from the chaff to any decent degree of accuracy. My advice would be to go for one or two larger sites that you can investigate more thoroughly rather than trying the numerous small sites route. The problem with that, of course, is that if you get burned you lose a considerable portion of your capital.

[petertdavis]

I was going to say the same thing Clinton just said. Absolutely do not use that 30k to buy a bunch of small sites. Not only is it far more likely that you're going to buy duds when you operate in that end of the market, but if Google Adsense is a part of your revenue strategy you should know that Google has been targeting owners of many small sites for termination.

I think the first order of business for you would be to find out what type of site you'd like to run. Should it be blogs, forums, ecommerce, or whatever else? What fits you best? If you're doing blogs, as you say, and want to stick with that, maybe you should consider putting that 30k away as a rainy day fund and just continue building the one you've already started.

[Matteo]

30k can buy a lot of development. You could use that over time to build up and expand what you have already as well as build new properties.

Have you considered partnering? I have been looking into doing that lately as I have the development / SEO skills but less so in the writing. I find that time is limited and I only have so much, so scaling up becomes a problem flying solo like I have been.

[DomainMagnate]

Hi guys,

In case this sounds a ridiculous question (along the lines of how long is a piece of string) I will start with a reminder that I am new to the forums

I saw a note from DM that he was selling two websites on flippa - one I think was bringing in about £100 per month but that might be wrong.

It got me to wondering whether there are many people who are making a reasonable living from websites - that is, sites that don't have a physical stockholding etc.
I mentioned recently that we have viewed what looks like a very good business - gross profit is six figures - but of course it is a retail operation and also has premises (rent/rates/water/power etc to pay) and SAV of over £15000.
Thanks for any help or advice
Susan

Hi Susan, glad to know my thread peaked your curiosity. I do make a living from websites and from buying and selling domains and sites, this has been my main occupation for the past 7 years. I have a bunch of adsense, affiliate revenue sites, also sites that provide some services, or sell some products. Nothing that requires keeping physical stock, nothing really big or impressive either as there are many members here who are doing much better with their site portfolios.

However most of the sites I acquired in a span of several years, after a lot of research, trial and error, so while I would encourage others to research the area and try to acquire some passive income assets, I'd recommend you approach this very carefully and gradually - don't go on a buying spree.

Start small, pick up a small site or two, see that you're comfortable with running it and can even use some of your expertise in various areas to improve it. Once you're confident it was a good purchase and it's going to pay off, or if you believe it was a bad decision, but know why and can avoid in the future - continue on to the next one.

[ScottJ]

As others have said yes it's possible and many of us do it but it takes time and knowledge to be able to find and buy the right websites that can survive Google updates and offer a return and even then things change.

If you want to spend £30k and make £30k a year from really good content sites then you really need to hone your skills fast and find and buy websites not listed for sale, you will need to find strong sites with strong backlink profiles and see potential to increase income so that when negotiating you can offer 2 years or 3 years income knowing that it should end up more like 12-16 months payback. Personally I would be looking for probably 2 or at most 3 purchases if £30k was the budget, this last 6 months more than ever I have found myself making offers blind with no income stats or traffic stats to base anything on because the old sites I am finding have not been monetised and the owners are unmotivated, it's pretty tough to throw blind £xx,xxx offers at someone based on limited data.

I buy old information websites which in one way is nice, as you say, I don't have stock and for the most part I prefer niche's where the content doesn't change much and they tick over but finding the sites takes hours and hours of monotonous work, lots of emails and lots of silence, the occasional "NO! GO AWAY" and the very occasional "what are you offering?"

Its very competitive nowadays full of traps and more and more dishonest deals I am afraid so heading to any mainstream sales site will not get you what you want, but old information sites are still out there, sometimes hard to track down owners but sites with no analytics/monetisation that can easily make £30+ per day sit waiting for a new owner.

[Nidec]

I agree with what the others have said.
I would add that if you are going to buy a site that needs updated info or regular info/articles adding to it try and pick an area were you have a genuine interest, you will find it much easier to write about something you like and understand, plus it will come across as more personal than if you just copy / rewrite stuff you found somewhere else.
Depending on how much spare time you have and what your interests are, you could consider building a small ecommerce site (use free software even). This can be done quite quickly if you dont have a huge range of products and you should learn a fair bit about good/bad site design, seo, supplier issues, marketing, etc without denting your £30k

[SusanH]

Hi guys,

just wanted to say a really big thank you to everyone for taking the trouble to reply I would use the thank you icon but, even though I've ditched AOL and moved to BT it still only appears on a very occasional post so I don't know why it doesn't work for me.

It would be great to put the £30k aside for a rainy day but basically, it came from the closure of our last business and we need to find a new business fairly quickly to produce an income - mortgage and bills to pay etc. It has already shrunk in the month since our last business closed because we have no other income at the moment

I am really glad I asked the question - I figured going for lots of small sites would spread the risk but I now know that it probably very dangerous since, as you say, it would be difficult to buy sites in the very low price bracket that would be able to produce any reliable stats etc.

I guess we may have to stick with plan A and buy the retail/online business we have been looking at. It does have verifiable income and it's something I am interested in developing etc. Unfortunately it is also retail hours and quite a distance to travel. My husband is not in the best of health so I figured if we could make enough working just from home that would be the best option.

Thanks again - this is a great forum/website !
Susan

[akirk]

bearing in mind what you have just said - and assuming that the business does what you want - buy it and look at developing income on the side gradually...
it is very high risk to jump into a new method of making money with no experience and to need income from it...

Alasdair

[Kay]

If you're going through tough times then don't forget that you can pay your bills by selling your labour. Mostly I earn from my websites but if times get a bit tough, I'll sell my labour to someone who wants to buy it. You're a good writer, so you could consider that option.

I would say not to invest much of the £30K. Maybe you could use some of it, but don't put all your savings on a punt. You could risk maybe £1K to get a feel for the market but it seems like a very bad idea to risk it all, especially if you're new to the business.