As web site and blog owners, we have a lot to deal with. If we have an established authority site that thousands of people are reading every day, we can appreciate the time and effort it takes to build up a site to that level.
With that said, there are plenty of new, scrappy and established web sites and domain names being sold on after markets, expiration services and auction sites like Flippa.com every day. Being able to look through these lists of sites for sale and knowing which have potential and which shouldn't even be an after thought, is the difference between bringing your business to another level… or potentially falling a few steps back.
Let's take a look at some of the key factors in deciding if a new web site or domain name purchase is right for you and your business, and a few things you need to keep an eye out for.
Do You Know the Niche Market and Audience?
I'll be scrolling through the most active listings on Flippa all the time, and I will come across some real gems! However, many of these sites are in niches and areas that I really don't know too well. Anyone who already has a successful web site will truly appreciate the value in knowing everything about your niche and how to be awesome at it.
If you end up purchasing a new web site that looks like a great deal and a solid business, you may end up biting more than you can chew, as you will have to learn a whole new business model and effective practices. Some buyers may even find they are losing hold of their established business as they aren't focusing on what's currently making money, while trying to learn the day to day operations of a new site.
Buying Blogs with Stats, Revenues and Growth
When looking through web sites and blogs that are for sale on the open market place, nothing is more exciting than seeing a web site up for sale that you already visit and read every day. This is exactly what happened when I saw Blogging Tips for sale on Flippa a few years back. I already knew the owner Kevin from a few emails we sent back and forth over the years, so I knew a little bit about the owner of the site, but no idea on the actual revenue/profit numbers until the actual auction posting was up.
With all of that said, this is all important because when sites are listed for sale on an auction there is a lot of options for things to change quickly. In between the auction time, by now prices and other bidders possibly winning a site you are interested in, it's important for you to have a good idea on how much money you can make with a web site, if all of their revenue/traffic stats are correct and lastly, how much you can bid and afford to pay for a site.
Knowing When to Act on a Solid Opportunity
As mentioned, Flippa is one of the most active places for buying blogs, web sites and domains… and there are thousands of listings live on the site at any given time. With all of those opportunities at hand, it's important to only act on the best ones that make sense for you, your business and your budget.
In addition to Flippa, there are also plenty of domain name after market services that will monitor and grab domain names for you when they expire. NameJet and Pool are two of the most popular services out there, and you can actually make a list of domains that you would like them to monitor and grab, should they ever expire.
I monitor these sites every day and look at what domain names are on the chopping block and potentially up for grabs. This is how I was able to secure one of my latest blogging adventures, which is a ppc blog and quickly becoming an authority site on it's own, as we continue to add new content and features to the site daily.
I never initially had plans to build a pay per click marketing blog, but since the opportunity came up to secure the domain name, and it's already focused in a niche that I'm extremely knowledgeable in, it just made sense. This is the perfect example of an opportunity that comes up that you MUST act on.
Online Business is All About Reach and Scalability
As we all know, building a business online is as much about your service or product, as it is about how many people you can reach. Whether your site is ranked #1 or deep in the results, there is always room for improvement. If you can continue to expand your business by buying up new properties and established web sites, that is excellent! However, it's just as easy to get side tracked and start buying up sites that take away time for your real business and make you lose focus. This is something you have to stay away from. Stay within your niche and what you are good at, and don't be afraid to wait for those golden opportunities to come to light!
Have you ever thought about buying blogs or websites to expand your business?
Do you look to buy websites with great potential or that are already set-up to crank and you just tweak as necessary?
Thanks! This is something I’ve never considered as I still try to build my own site.
Ryan H.
Hey Ryan,
I found that I learned the hard way… simply that I will browse Flippa and have picked up a few sites that I thought would be fun to develop and grow, then I lose interest and let them die out and just waste money on them.
For all future buying, I make sure that the site is somewhat established and that it can be blended in with what I am currently working or, or in my current niche. It’s much easier to grab a new site and add occasional content and link it within your own network of sites versus buying a site that has no relation at all.
In the end, I prefer buying something that is more established and paying the premium for it. Hope this helps!
you want to purchase sites that have sufficient organic search engine traffic and revenues that you think you can improve without increasing the traffic.
i’d like to add that buying a domain is an excellent waste of $10.87 (namecheap) if you have some idea of future traffic coming your way. an example is when i bought a domain (getraspberryketones.com) after Dr. Oz said on his show that it can help people lose weight and it has been sold out in every health supplements store on the west coast.
Expanding is a turning point when you are blogging. You need to find what suits you best and what your readers are looking for and we better make a lot of research before we choose domain and other things presented here. Thank you for sharing these valuable information.
Great article. I think the idea of buying other blogs and domains is an idea that is far under-used. Whether you are interested in creating a new website without the hassle of starting over, or just trying to expand your income, there really isn’t a way to lose. They are already popular and some already have some strong weight inside of Google.
I sometimes wonder, although I’m sure it won’t be incredibly productive, whether or not buying domain names that have a reasonable amount of traffic already and forwarding them to your own website. If they have spent time accumulating backlinks, the traffic won’t ever stop completely. It might do more harm than good, though. The traffic will be [generally] very untargetted and will probably help you very little.
The concept of buying already established sites and blogs can be a great model, especially if you know how to master outsourcing and can pass off the writing and management of these new sites. As the CEO or main person behind the network of sites, it would then just be your job to monitor and maintain quality across all of the sites. This would of course also take some investment/funding money, as you would have to buy already established sites and outsourcing… though it’s a great model once you get the hang of it.
I used to look for aged domain names with PR power, but now I mainly look for established sites and generic one word exact match domains that are up for expiration.
Zac, this a revenue I am probably missing. I admit I would not be able to identify good sites too well. I would probably be like you and get bored with the subject.
It’s a process that takes some time and playing around with. Buying sites is always a big investment, in both time and money.
great idea of buying. pre established. sites. to turnout to be pro in blogging..
you get enough ranking. to play with it. and try your own methods..
rather then implementing. a new 1 and wait for few months. with the same method to make it popular..
Its quit easy to handle with the already running sites…..
experimenting. 1 new project…. with same….idea.
Thanx. for your views..
Great article. I think the idea of buying other blogs and domains is an idea that is far under-used. Whether you are interested in creating a new website without the hassle of starting over, or just trying to expand your income, there really isn’t a way to lose. They are already popular and some already have some strong weight inside of Google.
While starting new web sites and blogs is always fun, it takes a lot of time and patience to grow them out. Buying up somewhat established sites can speed up the process heavily.
Online business is increasing day by day. It is not only blogging, officiate marketing etc. I also think buying blog is a good idea. Generally a reputed blog gives benefit with your other business
Thanks for discussing this point Zac. I was not aware of this and now will be considering…
Paul Harry.
I think it would be foolish to concentrate more than 1 niche at a time, When you establish your authority in one niche then you can move on and start focusing on more niches. This will avoid distractions and give you more solid results as well.
Expanding out in your niche slowing by purchasing sites that are somewhat related, but moving towards a new direction is always a good idea.
Hi Zac!
Nice post. All the points that you have explained here should take into consideration while buying any blog , website or domain. We must be caring about it. Thanks for sharing.
I worry about the massive cost that *could* be associated with buying a domain that already has some growth and potential.
If you are going to be spending more than five figures, you will be doing a lot of research on the site before buying. You should always use ESCROW for larger sales as well.
Hi Zac,
Great post. I am fully agreed with Ammara. We should take into consideration while buying any blog , website or domain.
Becase buysing domain or blog is not easy job.
Thanks for your superb tips.
Thanks, glad you liked it. By the way, your avatar always grabs my attention because of the Google+ colors on top of it. Nice branding attention!
He He 🙂 Thanks Zac 🙂
Right now I feel like it’s a bad time to buy website. So many website have lost backlinks and rankings in the last few months that it’s possible the site owner is just dumping it on the open market.
That’s one way to look at it, but it can also be a good time for anyone that hasn’t been affected by the loss of links, or has even gotten a jump in the rankings because of it.
Frankly speaking Flippa is the best marketplace for both buyers and sellers and I have sold a couple of sites there on Flippa and had quite a Good experience.
But, I would love to get a buyers point of view and what aspects they look at your site when they buy your blog ?
Flippa is crazy huge. As a buyer, people are looking at the age, rankings, traffic and mainly the revenue/profit numbers. It’s also important that the site is well established and has actual traffic flowing to it. The better these figures, the higher the premium you can sell a site for.
Thanks for insight ,thinking of selling something big 🙂 in the coming future so this info will help me for sure 🙂
Informative blog posts you have in here. I think also that buying a site similar to the niche of your business is important. In buying, do we also need to consider the page rank of the site that we are about to buy? I would prefer a rank 4 up site to begin with. At least it already has its reputation.
Thanks!
Jacob
The higher the page rank, the more the site will cost. I would aim for getting one high quality and established site over a bunch of smaller ones.
Nice post! But beware if buying sites on Flippa. There have been many instances where sellers have been able to inflate stats to make their sites appear to be more valuable than they really are…
Always use Google Analytics verified stats… and if it looks too good to be true, it almost always is.
interesting article, ive often thought that buying other blogs and domains is a viable option, it saves the hassle and hard work of starting over again, some of them have a good rating with google too
Buying sites can be a great way to make some extra money, the important part is really realizing what is a deal and what isn’t. If you can understand how to take a site to the next level, or recognize those great deals, this can be a huge one.
Good post Zac, I’m sure a lot of people will be in the market to buy websites after these recent algo changes. Everybody got hit pretty hard.
Yea definitely, it seems to be all of the buzz today.
I am a big fan of expanding, I currently run a total of 12 blogs and I am looking at increasing that figure next month. 🙂
This method will be out of my reach for a while now. Due to the lack of funding I would stay away from buying blogs, but I will consider it in the future.
Hi zac,
Yes, I agree with the point that ” If you read and know the blog very well, then go and buy it “.
If you are in the market to buy a blog or site, coming across one of your favorite sites for sale is a real gem. This happened a few times while I was looking through Flippa.
You bring up a lot of good points here. I always get nervous about the cost of the domain, because sometimes they can be super expensive! I try to make it as straight-forward as possible so that people know what to look for and make it easy to remember, so that new and old clients will always know what it’s called!
The domain one can be a crazy one, though you can occasionally find some great deals here and there. Just the other day I wanted to get a new domain name and I looked it up through GoDaddy and it was a “Premium Domain” for sale for $10,000. Then I made a simple variation to the domain name… even though the new term I was looking for still came up as another “Premium Domain” through GoDaddy, it was only priced at $129. I quickly bought it and was still amazed with the deal I walked away with.
Great post! I think that if you have the money and you know that the site has the readership…. then go for it! It can help you learn and expand your business in ways that you may have never known was possible. It’s also great to work with other bloggers and see if they have some things up their sleeves that maybe you hadn’t considered before.
Websites need to be treated as a business just like brick and mortar or service. Make or buy. I’ve started businesses from scratch and it is very difficult. I’ve watched others do it as well. You need to work at it.
Definitely. So many people think just because a business is a blog or web site, it should be treated differently… or it’s so easy to build and manage. That simply isn’t the case.
Great article Zac,
I recently started looking at Flippa and looking at the top selling websites to see what makes them so special and why people are paying that much for them, it’s still difficult for me to spot winning websites but it’s getting easier.
I wasn’t interested in buying websites on Flippa, I however am interested in creating websites that do end up getting sold on Flippa for a decent value, let’s say 1k-2k.
I know how to program and create attractive sites but I suck at getting traffic which is what most people on flippa are looking for, sites with traffic.
If you have any tips on selling winning sites please share 😉
Still learning, we’ll see how it goes. Awesome article though Zac, thanks. 😀
The Flippa game is quickly changing for making web sites that sell for $1-$2k, simply because Google is killing off the link networks and the “made for adsense” sites that the majority of people are running on Flippa for quick profits. Take a look at adsenseflippers.com, it’s a pretty cool site about making sites to quickly sell on Flippa.
Thanks Zaz, gonna take a look at it.
I have purchased a number of sites from GoDaddy for SEO purposes and when you purchase them before they expire they keep page rank for the most part. I included them in blog networks after adding a couple of my sites to the sidebar. That has been a mixed bag with Google de-indexing certain networks. But overall buying through Google for page rank works quite simply.
Great domain names are always good to have. The future of link building and how Google ranks these web sites and domains is still up in the air. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.
I have no courage to sell my site either it is earning or not as I am injecting my blood in my sites.You have introduced a good for all those that are interested in it.
Buying blog sites I have found is very very similar to buying a share of a company or a whole company. That is after all what you are doing.
I think there is a clear difference between sites. Sites that require little work and maintenance are gold mines, while sites that need to be updated regularly are a great comitment.
Zac, how does one establish site authority? PR is but just one factor…there are many PR0 blogs with high quality content and business potential. And how much does site visitors and site earning (if it’s monetized already) matter in selling a site?
I would consider “authority” as being a well known source of information and having people link to your site and content often. Authority sites can usually sell their traffic/banner space at a higher premium and are in higher demand. Usually authority sites will sell for 20x+ earnings on Flippa, if not more.
There have been times that I thought about selling a few web sites. I don’t know what all is involved with the selling process, which is what worried me the most. Like actually getting the money, and then transferring it without getting ripped off or the buyer somehow reversing the payment like if they paid with a credit card. If I understood that process better, or knew there was a safe way of completing a sale I would look into selling a few of my own.
Using Flippa is easy. Just select the payment method you want (check, paypal or escrow). For bigger transactions used escrow, and they will hold the money until both parties are happy with the transaction. It’s pretty easy to do sales through Flippa.
Thanks for the tip and suggestion Zac. Escrow sounds like it would be the route to go since I would be concerned about losing the money and the domain name.
Hello!
How many blogs do you think you can manage at the same time?
I currently manage something more than 3 big ones and 3-4 small emerging ones.
I think I might need to hire webmasters and more writers (freelancers etc).
I am asking because I think it might be a good idea to buy some established blogs I found in your link for Flippa.
Thank you!
I currently manage several. It all depends on your work ethic and how well you can manage sites. You can hire a full time virtual assistant for $500-$1000 per month to write and manage your blog networks if you are looking to get some help.
I think it is best to find a blog who has potential. In this way you can buy a blog at low costs and if you did your research right, you know how to make it big.
Buying a big blog with revenues will cost wayyy to much in my opinion. There are enough opportunities when buying a small blog. Given that you know how to do the SEO
There are a lot of low end sites getting listed on Flippa, which is bound to happen whenever people find out there is money to be made. However, there are still some great listings on the site every week. As always, if you are spending more than $1,000 on an auction, take the time to do the necessary research.
I think buying blogs or domains is a good idea. Then you can just develop it to suit your business requirements, or to your own design. But as you say, losing interest and leaving it surely costs some. So choose only the one which you will truly develop and stick with no matter what.
I think many sites will be for sale after the last Google update. Lots of people complaining about lost rankings
Blog flipping has become a huge industry over the last couple of years. To create decent revenue from using this you have to create a blog that has some income potential and a high ranking in the search engines. I do like the idea of page rental that is a new one for me but well worth a try.
Hi Zak, I believe I am already subscribed to your newsletter.
I’ve not spent time looking for old domains to buy, but it sounds like you have it figured out. Maybe I should pay more attention to this type of thing. Thanks for a though provoking post.
Thanks for subscribing, that’s great to hear. Keep an eye on those sites mentioned and make a dream list for any domains you might want… you never know what might pop up!
Blogging has never been easy in the beginning! It all depends on the owner of the blog. If he/she is patient enough, there’s a lot more to come on the way! That includes much of good stuff 🙂
Nice post, by the way!
Thanks glad you like the post. The beginning phases of a blog are definitely the slowest and longest… especially if it’s not your first blog. This is one of the big reasons why people are so happy to buy an established site at a premium rate.
I’ve never actually thought about buying a blog. That Flippa site is news to me. I actually didn’t know you could sell a blog! That’s really interesting. I’ll have to look into it. 🙂
You’d be surprised at how many blogs sell. Some of them sell for MILLIONS of dollars… such as TechCrunch.
I was not aware of the fact that we can buy a blog from someone. It is great idea which can save lot of effort and time.
Buying Domains and Blogs is a good idea for internet marketers to give a instant boost to their Business. But Make sure those domains and Blogs are having the Organic traffic or only referral traffic. Give the importance for PR and daily traffic. If you consider all these things when you are going to buy some domain or blog, you’ll success with this tactic.
Organic traffic is always a huge plus when buying and selling sites… now you have to be really careful after the most recent Google search rankings shake up.
Wow, where do you come up with all these interesting things? I had not known about this service, although I do hear many times about people buying and selling blogs. It never occurred to me to ask how 🙂 Although maybe you shouldn’t have told me because this sounds like fun… I like writing and would probably be like a kid in a candy shop… oooh, I want that blog! And that one! What’s a little debt, more or less?
I’m sure it would be really important to evaluate the profit potential and readership and of course the quality. Thanks for the insight!
After 15 years and you’d be surprised how much you know about the internet, marketing and running a business online 😛
Do keep an eye out on Flippa and see if anything interesting ever goes up for sale that you might be interested in.
Hey Zac,
It’s been a long time, I use to visit your blog a few years back when I was a little more heavily into affiliate marketing. Great to see you here at Ileane’s place.
I’ve written about Flippa in the past and know a few people who have built sites and sold them there but I’ve never considered it or thought about purchasing a site or blog. I don’t know, I prefer learning how to do all of this on my own. Maybe in the future it would be a smart idea to actually purchase one with some history and profit status. I can definitely see the potential there.
Thanks for sharing all the scoop here.
~Adrienne
Thanks for reading that blog, that’s always great to hear.
It’s definitely fun to start and grow sites on your own, it just takes so much time. If you are looking to expand your reach without the year or two it takes to grow out a site, buying is always a great option. The most important thing is finding a blog sale that is perfect for you.
Interesting post.
Well I can’t say that I have ever considered buying up an existing domain – I am a relatively new blogger (just over a year) but have really enjoyed the journey of setting it up and learning how to drive traffic and do a bit of SEO.
I wouldn’t rule it out in the future though as I move into a slightly different direction, but this looks like a good idea!
Thanks
Nicky
Excellent, congrats on finding success in the blogging world. Keep an eye out for any related blogs going up for sale on Flippa that are in your same niche. It could be quite fun and beneficial to expand out a bit.
Interesting read. I’ve actually bought around 5 domains.But i hardly get time to develop each of those.What do i do? Should i opt for autoblog??
what would you recommend Ileane ?
Autoblog is really never a good solution. Google most likely won’t index the sites and the duplicate content won’t be of much value to anyone. I have 400+ domains but only have developed a few, just focus on what matters and building them into real sites and businesses.
nice idea Zac, i think now it’s better to buy small sites and grow them with seo and grow our business so it’s best for small team companies.
Great article, very interesting read.
I’ve never really thought of buying existing domains or sites, never used flippa either. Will definitely take aloof round and see what’s available.
Thank you for this wonderful post. Admittedly, I have thought about this a few times. But I am just too scared to go through with it. Mainly because it will be very disappointing if my site suddenly dives down because of plugging a crappy website.
Great Information… Just out of curiosity how has the latest changes with Google affected your acquisition on additional sites?
I have actually looked through this site, but also I should warn that people create duplicate sites to sell too. I use to run a coupon site and eventually got rid of it because I no longer wanted that headache. Eventually I saw others like it (I recognized the template) and saw all the false claims for this so-called blog had.
What I noticed is that they elaborately created a niche site around coupons, made the site live, and also created multiple sites like it under different names to unsuspecting users.
It is a great site for other valid businesses for sale, but I would be careful to make sure the site you are purchasing is truly “unique” and not some crafted over used template of the same look and design.
Great post Zac,
I have never purchased a site, but I’ve heard of some people who did and really made good on their purchase. I also know a few affiliate marketers who build sites, generate traffic and revenue with them and then sell them.
I guess if you know what you’re doing and have the money for it, it’s a good move.
Great article Zac. It is very informative. Now, I know how to boost my revenue online through buying site. I want to try it so that I can be able to distinguish if it is true. I heard a lot of this from other people who are doing this scheme and I think they are successful.
I have never thought about buying domains but many domains are dropped by the owners and there is a software to identify those. If one manages to get a domain with a PR then there is some good scope. As you said you can always one from Flippa.
I’d tried to sell my blog some time back. But found that buyers look at the revenue NUMBERS. Because I did not implement any Ads or other method of revenues, people were not much interested to pay the amount I was expecting. Anyway, will still build up the blog, will grab some numbers to show off on revenue and put the site again in Flippa.
Thanks for the post. It clarifies lot of buyer’s side of psychology! 🙂
Great post. I’m always on the look out for related niche blogs, and think they can be so powerful when it comes to driving traffic. If it comes to selling a service, too, having traffic coming from all angles can really help boost sales.
I looked at Flippa a couple of times.. I am just starting out so I am not sure what to look for but I didn’t see much there with potential. Most sites it seemed like did have a little were expecting way too much.
I was looking at buying some domains for my blog from Flippa but a bit of research showed that it was full of scams. Not to mention that a lot of the domains seemed to be focused on keywords. I actually bought a keyword domain for my blog at first, but then decided I wanted to create a brand. Good thing because then Google Penguin came along and hit all those over SEO’d sites.
blogs and sites are very important now days for the business.because now days most people like to make online orders and make online business for saving his time.and its a secure way for business.
thanks for the post nice post by a great author……………….
Hi Zac. I would like to ask you a question – is it a must to buy blogs/sites/domains to expand your business? I mean I am not a big business owner. However, I do want different and many ideas to expand my business as much as I can. Thereby, I will make an effort to use this strategy, hoping it works for me. Thanks you for your help.
I’m soon planning to buy a few domain names and going to start niche blogs! Of course, starting it slowly and early would help me in the future! Thanks for these tips! Cheers
Fairly succinct and without fluff. Good article, Zac 🙂
The key point here is to know the niche your are targeting. It makes much of the research and hard work out of the equation!
I know this post is aimed at targeting blog nices but one thing to avoid with all niche markets is a wall of text for a sales / info page… It’s the quickest way to drive sales into the ground. As always, quality wins over quantity.
Thank you for giving advice for buying the blogs and domains for improving the business online. I will use this strategy on my website. Thanks………
I say go for it..
Providing you know how you are are to monetise the traffic.
If you’re just buying to redirect the traffic I’d say
Don’t do it.
As you are missing a big opportunity.
I have never thought of buying a site form Flippa, just because I would like to grow it myself.
If you have the funds to get a start up from someone else, then fine, go for it. You then would have to further find the ways to grow it some more.
I’ve always eyed buying well-established blogs but sadly I don’t have that kind of money to drop on a whim. Perhaps I’m not as confident about my traffic-generating/conversion techniques. If I could buy a blog or two, I could definitely save the all time it takes to start from the bottom.
Thanks for the nice article. It is a good idea to buy a site and maintain it rather than starting a new one and having trouble in maintaining it.