Website Buying Experiences

First Website Flip!

2010-05-03T22:52:00.000-07:00

After months of fine tuning the EbookReadGuide site, I finally sold it for a cool $16K. This is my first sale and I really got lucky. Just to recap, I got the site back in December of 2009 and the first buyer actually backed out and I had a second chance to buy the site. I guess you can say I was destined to own the site.

I've learned a lot in terms of SEO and how to market the site. I own most of that to the original owner who taught me wordpress and a few things about article marketing.

My next project is to bring another site (My iPad News) I recent bought and ride the iPad wave. The niche will be very competitive, but I'm confident that I can make another successful flip!

The take away from my experience is to write good money articles and starting pointing relevant links at it. This was the most important thing that I've learned through the process and I intend to use the same techniques for other sites.

Checking If Site Is Banned By Google

2010-03-13T17:38:00.000-08:00

Sometimes a website can be banned due to using blackhat strategies which violate Google's policy. Before bidding on a site, you should check whether it's been banned because you can't participate in there adsense program. To check a site, just entered the url at IwebTool.

If a site is relatively new, then perhaps it hasn't been indexed by Google, but if the site is established, then it will show up on the results.

You can still buy sites that are banned, but it limits your earnings potential as most search engine traffic is from Google. Other options include using other pay per click (PPC) advertising/publishing sites (e.g. Adbrite).

It will also be tough to resell the site if it's been banned, so make sure you research before buying a site with page rank of 0.

Does Commenting On Blogs Improve Traffic?

2010-02-14T09:02:00.000-08:00

Google seems like to blogs and ping them more often than 'normal' websites. That's why it's important to comment on blogs (ideally w/ high PR) that are focused on your niche. Many blogs allow html tags within the comment, so use it wisely! Also keep in mind that some blogs are no-follow or that the link will not count in google's eyes, so make sure it's a do-follow blog. One way to do it is highlight the text and then right click to view the source. Anyway is to get Firefox's free nodofollow add-on and start commenting to increase traffic today and ranking!

3 Way Link Exchange

2010-01-23T23:17:00.000-08:00

We all have heard of link exchanges, but what is the best way to do it? One of the simplest forms of exchange is asking someone else's site to exchange links (2-way link) to your site. This has worked in the past, but google has caught up to the scheme and the latest exchange idea is called 3-way link exchange. How does it work you ask? The best way to think about it is to assume that you have two websites (one w/o a page rank (site1) and the other a high page rank (site2)). The idea is to get links to your site1 site by leveraging your site2 site. Let's say you want to exchange site1 links with another site (site3). With 3-way, you would link site2 to site 3 and then site 3 in return would link to site1. Sounds complicated? It's really not if you think about the real purpose behind the shell game. The idea is to fool google so that it can't determine the relationship between the sites and make it seem like the links are natural (i.e. result appear to be 1-way links). Right now, I'm negotiating with someone (PR4) to link to my PR2 site (Ebook Reader Guide) and see if that will improve my page ranking. Try it out yourself!

Kindle Covers and Cases

2010-01-12T08:56:00.000-08:00

One of the best articles on the Ebook Reader Guide site is an article by the original owner on Kindle accessories and continues to perform well after the holidays. If you are one of the lucky individuals who received an Amazon Kindle for Christmas, then make sure you protect it with a cool Kindle cover!

You don't have to spend much and at minimum get a screen protector which only cost a few dollars. Depending on how and where (e.g. at home/office/traveling, etc) you use your Kindle, you should consider get a nice protective cover or case. They come in variety of colors and some are even hand made! For a top list of Kindle covers check out this link: Top Kindle Covers and Cases!

Exciting Times for the Ereader Market

2010-01-10T15:03:00.000-08:00

Ebook Reader Guide site has been performing pretty well during the Xmas rush and continues to provide decent flow of customers who bought the Amazon Kindle. Most of the traffic are people looking for Kindle accessories (e.g. Kindle covers and cases).

I've also been trying to keep up with posting a few times a week. It's a lot of reading to prepare for an article, but it's getting easier. What keeps me going is the thought of providing useful information for those interested in the eReader. The Consumer Electronic Show (CES) this week has provided a glimpse the competition. This year could define who controls the market going forward and everyone is eager for Apple to enter the market with an eReader/tablet (rumored to be named iSlate). Exciting times!

HOT New Niche - Ebook Readers

2009-12-19T07:20:00.000-08:00

I've just completed another transaction by investing in the hot e-book reader niche. The Ebook Reader Guide blog is a wordpress blog and since I am a newbie on this platform, the original owner was very helpful during the whole transfer process. I would say it's the best experience by far!

I was the 2nd highest bidder on the original auction, but the 1st bidder failed to follow through, so my gain (or loss)! Only time will tell. As for revenue, I'm optimistic on the remaining X-mas days and don't expect much traffic after the holidays. My hope is to hold it until next X-mas and cash in on the hot ebook reader market.

Free Keyword Ranking and Traffic Tool

2009-12-12T08:05:00.000-08:00

One of the better and up-to-date tools for finding keywords and position on google is SEMRush. The rank position actually match the most recent google results! I'm still trying to unraveling how updated the google results are, but that's another story.

Lately, I've been trying to submit to directories using FastDirectorySubmitter. The values of these links aren't valued by google as a couple years ago, but it's still good to improve the link statistics. My plan is to submit just to the ranked directories. There are a total of 2600+ directories in this tool and about 400+ are ranked. New users can get a test drive of this tool and submit to 80 directories for free.

On the auctioning front, not a whole lot of quality websites for sale. I'm keeping an eye opening for tattoo sites related to Tattoos Designs and create a network of these sites promoting each other.

Recommended Tools for SEO

2009-12-04T11:14:00.000-08:00

I recently bought some SEO Tools to help promote my site and research sites before buying.

The SEO Elite tool is great and I've been using it to evaluate potential sites for sale. I liked the tools for the following: research and building links, track page ranking for keywords, and keep track of exchange links. It's a bit pricey around $150, but worth every penny.

I also invested in a tool called Fast Directory Submission for about $20. The free version allows 150 submissions and the paid version is over 2600 plus. To get a 15% discount, just cancel your first order (before checking out) then you get a prompt for the discount!

My next goal is to increase one-way backlinks and that seems to be the toughest of the tasks. I may have to resort to paid services.

Trying Article Writing

2009-10-23T21:46:00.000-07:00

The previous owner suggested FreeTrafficSystem to get free one way back links to get ahead on the google page ranking. I just wrote my first article on tattoo ideas and tattoo designs tips. You get a couple of backlinks with a 450 word article. Currently the article is going through the screening process which is read by real person to ensure it's authentic and not duplicated, etc. We'll see how that works. I'm currently just using the free membership, but you can sign up for a life time (about $400) or month-to-month (about $37). Check it out! I'll try anything to start moving up on the rankings!

One downside to this tool is that you don't have control over where your article is published and usually it's to a blog. Once it is published, you can do a simple search on a phrase from your article and see where it landed.

Settling Down

2009-10-10T22:02:00.000-07:00

This week, I'm trying to promote my site through directory submissions, exchange links, and social networks. Not sure if there's any impact to the traffic, but got to start somewhere. I've submitted a few exchange links request to a few high ranking tattoo sites, but no luck so far. In the meantime, I'm tweaking the code behind the website to allow for exchange links. I finally got that working after a few hours. Check it out: Tattoos Designs. If you are interested in exchanging links, please email me at info@tattoosdesigns.net! I also appreciate any advice on improving the site to be more user friendly.

If this manual process (directory submissions, exchange links) doesn't work, then I may have to resort to the paid automatic services out there. I read somewhere that the automatic process is not as good as the manual. Ok, back to trying more ways to promote my site. Oh, forgot to mention that someone wanted to buy my site for $12k! I'll keep it for now and see where things go. Originally, I figure that the return on a website is better than putting money in bank CD's for a measly 2%!

Not So Easy

2009-10-04T22:43:00.000-07:00

The past few days has been nerve racking and the lack of sleep doesn't help either. I keep thinking that I'm getting duped by the seller and he's not helping by making the transfer painful. I got the domain (Tattoos Designs and Ideas) transfer initially and that was suppose to followed by the website (contents and all). In short, it took 24 hours! During that time my site was down and my brother-in-law said that the ranks could be affected, etc. Anyways, everything is in order now, I just got to learn the business of promoting the site. I'm getting some pointers from the original owner and my brother-in-law. I know that it'll take time and energy, but I think it'll pay in the long run (in internet terms that's probably a year!) because in my opinion the internet will be the ultimate real estate market! Best of luck if you decide to pursue this course. I do suggest buying something small first (unlike me) and understand the process from beginning to end.

Painful transfer.

2009-10-01T22:32:00.000-07:00

The seller gave me some instructions to set up my account at godaddy and really screw it up! He told me to set up a linux account when in reality I need a windows account. Anyways, I should have known from the listing that it was windows since he posted a note about aspx pages. I don't know how this guy gets by with all these mistakes! I should be really really mad and just not go through w/ the transaction, but I'm the kind of guy that don't get mad really easily. As of now, the seller is also trying to fix the site since he changed the name server before all the transfer steps were completed and the site has part pages per my brother-in-law. I feel helpless that I don't know some of these technical stuff, but live and learn! I'm loosing hope, but still have a feel that we continue this deal...

I won!

2009-09-30T23:08:00.000-07:00

Today was the end of bidding for the website that I've been eyeing and since I wasn't able to participate in the last hours of bidding, I decided to just buy it now. I'm the proud owner of Tattoos Designs! Please give it a visit and check it out! It's been a fun experience. I've learned alot about how to research websites before buying and learning a little bit about search engine optimization (SEO), etc. I get 3 days through Escrow.com to evaluate the site that I bought and determine if the revenue/traffic was for real before finalizing the sale. There are a few things that need to be transferred and I'm both excited and worried at the same time! Wish me luck in making the transfer happen!

Buy it now?

2009-09-26T21:58:00.000-07:00

I've been keeping an eye on a website (tattoo site of all things!) and the seller just changed the end date so I can participate because I'll be on vacation when it ends. I thought that was a nice gesture. He also added a buy it now price which he's been sticking to since the beginning. One thing that's disturbing is that the domain (under godaddy.com, one can check who owns a website by checking whois.net) still had the previous owner info and everyone on the question board for this listing are thinking twice about whether it's legit. Anyways, the seller did get his name changed, but left all the other info un-updated. I mentioned to the seller that the old email was still there and he just say leaving that to be updating for the new owner. I've been also trying to get ready only report for google analytics to his site and have been unsuccessful. Apparently, you need a google email account (i.e. gmail), so I had to set one up right away and asked the seller to add my again to gain access to the analytics. So far, I had to set up the following accounts:

-google account (adsense & analytics)
-google email
-escrow.com (to protect myself)
-aweber.com (for marketing)
-godaddy.com (for domain and hosting)

That's the basics and I'm sure there are more. Well, the auction ends in a few days and I'm kind of excited to think that I can own a website! I do have reservation about whether the traffic and revenues are as claimed by the seller. So, I'm a little worried and excited because I just don't want to get ripped off on my first website. Anyways, wish me luck and until next week.

Weekend doldrum

2009-09-20T07:44:00.000-07:00

It seems like weekends are a little slow on the website auction listings, but maybe it's just early in the day. It's 7:45am on Sunday as I type this blog. I had to get up early since my daughters (toddlers) get up like around 6:30am everyday. I don't know where they get all their energy from since they sleep around 11:00pm!

I spotted a posting that leads to another tool for evaluating websites. It's called Estibot.com and provides info on the values of a domain. So far, I see a few components as I navigate and learn my way to buying my first site. Here are some components to consider:

-domain name (better w/ the ad words in the name and great w/ .com, but not necessary)
-age of domain (the longer the better and it contributes to the Alexa ranking)
-content/theme of website (is the sector competition/satuarated)
-traffic (uniques and page views/month)
-revenue (adsense/affiliate promotions)

I'm sure there's more, but those are the most important. You can gather info from various websites and put a value to the website you're trying to purchase with a formula. I would rely on the google adsense to be the first value since that's verifiable and easy. Depending on the site, a 2 year multiple would give an good estimate (e.g. month adsense times 24) for the adsense part. And then estibot for the domain name itself plus the other revenue (more conservative value relative to adsense depending on the reliability/consistentcy of the revenue stream). Enough for now, I got to go make some breakfast for the little ones.

Bidding on my first website

2009-09-19T21:14:00.000-07:00

Hi, I just wanted to share my experience in trying to own a piece of the net. My brother in-law got me interested just recently. Actually, he provided some useful info a couple years back and I didn't follow through. I kind of regret it now knowing what could have if I started earlier. Anyways, enough thinking of what could have been.

What I got me really excited was how much my brother-in-law made from selling one website (he got it for a few hundred dollars and sold it for over 6 figures)! Hey, I thought he can do it, I can too! The family didn't have a high regard for my brother in-law because he didn't have a job or anything and was still living at home (he's 30!). We all thought he was a slacker, but he built quite an ownership of websites (15+ at the last count). That's not bad for someone who hasn't finish college and never held a steady job!

I opened an account at www.Flippa.com (use to be called website market place I think) and started to doing some research. I made my first bid on a website just two weeks ago! Hey, I thought to myself, this is easy...just like Ebay! Actually, it's alot of work in trying to filter through all those listings and figure out which auctions are good to own (for the long term). At first, I focused on the revenue details, but as my brother-in-law reminded me, that it's the space you're in that matters the most (e.g. is it a fad, costs to entry, etc).

I made my first bid on a car info site, but got really concerned when checking out the stats through www.websiteoutlook.com and turns out that most of the traffic was from Pakistan!? The seller said there was some kind of mistake and not too worry about it. Anyways, I didn't win that site. The 2nd site I got interested was a site on designer hand bags. Hey, that would be cool! What every women wants...new handbag to carry everyday. I can't go wrong with that. Well, it was sold in a matter of days as I was wrestling with how much to bid and whether it was a good sector. Anyways, I moved on to another site that caught my eye. I can't say what it's since I'll still bidding on it! So, look for my next post on the outcome. My ultimate goal is to retire and not work by owning a whole bunch of website to replace my income. Hey, can't a guy dream!