16 December 2010 ~ 12 Comments

Buying Websites To Build Your Online Business – FA030

Audio

We have created a new format for our regular episodes.  We’ve added a Mail segment, which we answer questions or talk about a topic brought up in our voicemail line, email or in comments both on the site and on Facebook.  Also we added Picks of the Week where we each name something we like and tell you why it is useful, cool or whatever.

In today’s episode, we talk about growth through acquisition.

There are many reasons to buy an existing website such as:

  • instant access to targeted traffic,
  • increasing your search rankings,
  • diversifying your income and/or products
  • and entering new markets.

You might just be a purchase away from achieving your business goals.  Listen in to find out how.

Mentioned in the show: Flippa

Enjoy your Foolish Adventure,

Tim & Izzy

You can also right-click on this link to save the file to your computer.

  • Michael

    What WP plugin do you guys use for the retweet buttons?

  • http://www.izzyvideo.com IzzyVideo

    If you’re talking about the vertical bar to the left of the post, it’s called Share Bar. I learned about it from listening to the Smart Passive Income Podcast. I never knew about this plugin, and so far so good.

  • http://twitter.com/julieannekay Julieanne Kay

    This place is for sale, maybe someone here can make it their next Adventure?

    http://www.photowalklist.com/time-to-move-on-photowalklist-up-for-sale/

  • http://tim411.com tim

    I’ve noticed that sharebar doesn’t give an accurate number count, but still a cool tool.

  • http://www.drewveeneman.com Drew Veeneman

    Great show. Are there any websites like Flipa for just purchasing domains held by squatters?

  • http://FoolishAdventure.com Tim Conley

    There are a lot of domain auction sites. I’ve used Godaddy’s auction platform, Pool.com & Sedo.com to buy domains.

    As for domains held by squatters, these domains are sites that an existing company would want and the squatter bought it before the other company. The only thing that can be done with a squatter is go after trademark infringement or if it is easier just buy it from them if it is less the the legal fees & hassle.

    I would caution using the term squatter for anyone else who has domains that aren’t in use or are full of AdSense ads. When using words with a negative connotation you can cloud your own judgement and possibly overlook business opportunities. A lot of those domainers make a lot of money every year from the clicks they get on their parked sites.

  • http://www.drewveeneman.com Drew Veeneman

    Tim, thanks for the quick response.

    I’ve been looking at the parked domain politicalmechanics.com, and was hoping it would expire last August(I know, I’m being cheap… wishful thinking).

    With inspiration from the IzzyVideo business model, I started a political consulting podcast this year called Political Mechanics. When the .com address was taken, I thought I’d temporarily settle for for a .us address instead. My podcast is focused on methods for US politics anyway… so it seemed like a good idea.

    Anyway, it’s six months later. I have some episodes on a simple wordpress layout… is it worth anything from a SEO standpoint to go after the .com domain name now?… I’m not sure.

    http://www.politicalmechanics.us

    PS Thanks again. Was I being unfair with my squatter characterization in this instance? I don’t think anyone is making money with it… (shrug)

  • http://FoolishAdventure.com Tim Conley

    If the owner just renewed, it could be he/she intends to use it or it was on auto-renew (more likely). Why not contact the owner to see if he/she will sell it? Use a gmail address and not your site email and maybe use a different name when initially contacting the person. A quick search will show the person you own the .us version and may want more from for the domain. If you can’t get the .com consider a different name or get the .net version.

  • Anonymous

    Great episode guys! Shock-full of goodies as usual. Looked at Flippa today and I saw one site running for $270K and one for $17K. Understood the $270K one but the $17K was way overpriced. The claimed financials and claimed traffic didn’t meet the asking price. And only established since 2009 . . . is 1 to 2 years considered an attractive website age? Tim, I’m taking your advice and w/ “due diligence” will do my homework. Great episode!

  • Anonymous

    Also, noticed a lot of “ranking” information – Google PageRank, Alexa Rank, SemRush Rank . . . Which one is the most important – I’m assuming Google PageRank?

  • http://FoolishAdventure.com Tim Conley

    One to two years can be very attractive. It can even never have been launched. AOL just bought the startup About.Me. The deal was struck before they launched their site and was announced 4 days after launch.

    There are many factors that go into buying a website, the biggest, I believe is what purpose will this website serve. If your goal is an investment, then you want a stable business with a strong history of earnings and it’s systemized so that you aren’t buying a job.

    If you have a business, but want more traffic (stuff I focus on for my clients), then I’m looking for a history of traffic generation that is automated and cheaper than buying traffic from Google AdWords.

    If you intend to take an existing site that you believe has promise and “renovate it,” to increase its traffic, sales, etc then you may put up with a young site or one with declining revenue or traffic due to the owner’s neglect. Kind of like buying an ugly, rundown house in a good neighborhood. Once you fix it up, it will be worth more than what you put into it.

    As for PageRank and the other stats, that doesn’t actually mean much. What is important is where does the site rank for major keyword phrases in its niche. If you were buying a site to help rank another site, then PageRank is very helpful because a link from that site to your main site will assist your main site’s SEO efforts.

    Hope that helps.

  • Anonymous

    Tim, very helpful, thank you. I think for starters I’ll be sticking to buying websites to augment my traffic but may venture into “renovating” some time in the future – that’s a really interesting concept.