Buying and Selling Web Sites With Little Effort

by JPAndrews

Let's talk about the 800 pound gorilla in the room, the one that you never want to address the one that deals with you not being happy with your job. If you are like most people then you already know deep down that you absolutely hate your job. The constant annoyance of your boss standing over your shoulder. Well I am here to give you good news, I am here to tell you that you can quit that 9 to 5 job and go to work for yourself. How is this possible, well I will tell you all you have to do is go into the business of buying and selling websites and within no time you will be making a comfortable living.

Of course, I'm fully aware that you're having some serious doubts about the whole idea, and wondering how on Earth anyone can really make money with this business model. Well, rest assured that it is more than just a pipe dream! The internet has grown to encompass more and more of our everyday lives, and website realtors are a reality whose time has come. Best of all, you need but a fraction of the startup costs of a brick and mortar business - just enough to purchase your initial website.

So here is how to get started, first you will need a site upon which to try and resell. This can be a site that you buy the domain to design the site and find a host for it. Another option is that you can find a site that is for sale. One great way of doing this is to use a service called Site Snipe, this service will tell you the latest domains that are for sale in a particular niche. Lets say that you are looking to sell a website that has to do with dancing poodles. Then Site Snipe will give you the list of any websites that are available that fall within that criteria. I would recommend that you use a service such as this in the beginning steps of your quest for internet reselling.

Now that you are ready to acquire your website to flip you will now need to decide on the niche that you are going to try and place your domain in. You will need to decide as to where you want to compete with the other sites that are out there to try and make money. Lets say that your business plan has you selling surfboards, you will want to make sure to have a site that reflects this niche and describes you and your business. Lets say that you are buying this site from a person who previously owned this site then you will want to know the stats that the site has to offer it's potential buyers. Things that you will need to keep in mind is the SEO ranking of the site as well as the number of visitors to the site each month. The reason that this information is so important is so you know what you are buying before you actually buy. The last thing that you want to do is to buy a site that never see any traffic because of poor SEO ranking.

Because of that, part of your research will entail getting the necessary information and documentation on the website's traffic patterns. Most owners should be able to provide you with that information, but if not you will have to resort to doing your own keyword searches. You can accomplish such a search by determining how high the site appears in the Google rankings. Even if the owner provides the documents and statistics you request, you should still test the site yourself to ensure that the information is accurate.

Now you have bought the site and you now own it outright. Now comes the time to design the site in a way that will make it pleasing to a potential buyer. Now I know you are sitting there and saying that you have no knowledge when it comes to programming and site design. That's ok you don't need to remember all the code in the world to have a good looking site. All you need is a little imagination and the desire to take your ideas and apply them to your site. There are several ways that you can design a great looking website and not have to be web savvy in order to make it happen.

Now we have acquired a name, designed a site now comes for the cherry on the sundae finding a host that you can host your site on. This is the easiest step out there as there are several upon several hosting companies out there that offer hosting plans that fit every need and every budget. Everything from free hosting, to moderately priced hosting. In my personal opinion I would go with a hosting company that offers you a good deal on hosting with the option to have several sites hosted at once, after all this is your new found career. If you are going to do this then you will need and want to do it the right way otherwise you will wind up failing and end up with that dead end job that you hate or even one that is worse in the long run.

About the Author:

JP Andrews is an experienced professional on website flipping and is the co-creator of SiteSnipe, a tool to help research and analyze information to buy websites.