You might have heard of the term ‘site flipping’. The phrase ‘site flipping’ was coined from the term ‘house flipping’. House flipping is traditionally known to mean buying an existing property, renovating it/fixing it up, and selling it quickly for a profit. You can indeed do this with virtual property too but for the sake of being clear, this psot is about building brand new property not about buying existing websites to renovate and flip.

There are many ways to make money from buying and selling virtual real estate and although I have bought established sites and flipped them this is not the area of focus for this post. I wanted to give you just one method to begin with rather than dilute the content by trying to cover too many options. The following steps will provide you with an overview of the process of building a web property and selling it. 

• Market Selection

Choosing what market or niche to build your site in can be difficult but there are some great resources to spark ideas for you.

• Domain Name

There are many different types of sites you can build to sell but in this guide I’m really only covering the very basic idea of flipping a simple blog quickly and in that case I suggest you choose a .com domain name. Right or wrong, the .com
extension is still considered by many as premium and although a .org or .net can rank just fine, when it comes to selling a site quickly the last thing you want to be doing is trying to convince buyers, so stick with.com. All that being said, whenever I’ve sold a basic blog I’ve aimed to have the keywords in the domain name and simply added a word on the end to ensure I could register a.com.

• Hosting and Control Panel Setup

If you already have a hosting account then you might be familiar with how to set up a website in your account. Your hosting package will impact on how your site selling pans out so if you are serious about selling virtual real estate then you might want to consider the following. By far the best way to manage the hosting of sites you plan to sell is to host them on their own and I highly recommend you set up a reseller account to enable you to do that. Although Hostgator are far from perfect they are a good low cost solution for this purpose. With a reseller account you are able to set up individual accounts for each website you intend to sell.

When the transaction takes place and your buyer is ready to take possession of the site you can simply give them the log in details and leave them to it, deleting the account down the track depending on the agreement you have made with them as part of the sale. If you are transferring the site for the buyer it’s still easier handling it from it’s own account as there is much less room for error. If you already have a hosting account that allows unlimited domains then you will probably feel compelled to not invest in any further hosting which is wise at least until you determine if selling web property is something you really want to get into on a regular basis. The main problem with one account is that you would always have to transfer the site unless you were willing to allow the buyer access to your entire hosting account, personally I would never risk doing so with a stranger.

• Nameservers

Now that you have a place to host your new website you can go ahead and adjust the Nameservers for the domain name by visiting your domains control panel. What this means is that you will be directing the domain to reside on the servers associated with the hosting account you set up for this domain in your Reseller account.

• Wordpress

I highly recommend you install your blogs on WordPress. The simple interface is easy to learn for buyers who are new to Internet marketing. Those that aren’t so new are most likely aware of the many benefits WordPress brings in terms of the ease of use, updating and the abundance of powerful plugins that can be used to add even more functionality to the site.

• Adding Content

The quality and amount of content you add to the site will impact on the perceived value of it. Anything less than 8 to 10 posts would most likely not be looked upon favourably. I’ve used PLR (private label rights) content and unique content and both are definitely options and each will attract a different type of buyer in most cases, although not always.

I worked on one site that I set up as a niche blog with very targeted keyword optimisation, very good quality content and the site was bought by someone who had no need for unique content based on what they intended doing with it. It’s not always that each buyer will appreciate or have a need for the quality you pour into your sites however your sites will appeal to a wider audience the more you pack into them. If you’re after quick cash though you’ll only want to spend a certain amount of time on building the site and limited time will impact on how much value you can add.

• Theme Selection

It’s easy to spend a lot of time on making the site look attractive but you’ll need to find a balance between that time investment and what you end up receiving in return in terms of profit. Remember I’m focusing on quick cash basic blogs in this  post;  restricting your time investment is crucial if you want to scale this model and or not work for less than award wages per hour.

• Monetization

When it comes to monetising sites it’s a good idea to integrate a variety of income generators. Potential buyers will have their own monetisation preferences and if you offer one or more of them they’ll be more inclined to buy from you. To monetize a basic blog I suggest as a minimum you add AdSense ads, Amazon products and affiliate products like those found at ClickBank. If you don’t have an AdSense account you could place ClickBank contextual ads instead, they look just like AdSense only they do not create income from a click but rather from affiliate commissions from sales generated of the products they relate to. You can sign up for a free affiliate ClickBank account at the following link https:// www.clickbank.com/.

• List for Sale

Now is the time to list your site for sale, this can be fun and nerve wracking all at the same time. If you’ve never sold a website before you might be worrying about all number of things such as the questions you might receive from buyers and how best to handle them, to transferring the site successfully. Don’t let it intimidate you, after a few site flips it will all become second nature. There are many marketplaces to sell web property but my number one recommendation is flippa.com, they really are the industry leader. You need to set up an account at Flippa.com to be able to list a site for sale there.

• Site Transfer

Once the site has sold and you have secured payment you need to establish with the buyer if they would like you to move the site for them and if so you will need some details about their hosting account.

If they don’t have a hosting account you could simply direct them to Hostgator where they could set up a baby account or reseller account depending on their needs.

A great way to earn more money after the sale is via affiliate links for hosting so be sure to set up an affiliate account with Hostgator so you can provide your links to any buyer who requires hosting. If the buyer is happy to move the site him or herself all you have to do is give them the cpanel and WordPress login details and push the domain name to them. Never push the domain name until you are certain you have secured their payment.

Although the site transfer can seem a little overwhelming at first it’s not as bad as you think. My online friend Forest Parks taught me this simple method of transferring sites and I’m so glad I’m now able to share it with you too.

It is important to not get over confident with site transfers; you must be very careful when you’re working in the buyer’s hosting account as there could very well be other sites in the account that you need to be certain you don’t mess with!

If i forgot anything about site flipping please let me know on your comments