How I Made $12,000 Flipping Websites
And why I plan to start again today
Over the last 10–20 years, I’ve experimented with a whole host of different side hustles.
One of the more successful experiments was building websites for Google AdSense, then selling them either privately or via Flippa.
I would do some keyword research to find niches that weren’t too competitive. Then I would build a very simple site. Then I’d hire a writer to write around 10–20 articles. I’d hire another person to create backlinks to the posts.
The process was very simple and I could build out a whole site in a couple of weeks. I’d then keep adding backlinks until it ranked on page one of Google Search.
What I found was that out of every ten websites, a couple would do well, a few would be average and a few would fail. I could never figure out what the difference was between the sites that succeeded and those that failed.
My best guess is that there is an element of luck involved.
A 20 percent success rate follows the Pareto Principle, so it made sense when looking at it from that perspective.
The best sites I had earned around $200 per month from AdSense, while the average ones earned around $50.
I was able to sell these for around 10–20 times monthly earnings. My best site sold for $4,000, while some others only sold for $500.
Some of the failures I either had to abandon or sell for under $50.
My total sales were around $20,000. Expenses for hosting, writers, and backlinking came to around $8,000.
That left me with a profit of around $12,000 over a 6 months.
If it was so good, why didn’t I continue doing it?
With everything going so well, I woke up one day to find out that there had Google had released a major algorithm update. My rankings dropped across the board.
From that day forward, my backlinking strategy stopped working. I tried building a few more sites but didn’t get any traction at all.
But now I’ve decided to start another site.
These days, sites like those can sell for 30–40 times monthly profit.
I plan to write the articles myself based on topics I’m interested in, so no need to hire any writers.
I also have a new backlinking strategy that I can implement myself.
This means I won’t have any expenses for writers or backlinking.
If the sites don’t work out, all I will have lost are the hosting fees. I can repurpose the articles for use elsewhere if needed.
So I have nothing to lose and everything to gain.
If my new strategy works, I can sell a site earning $200 per month for $6,000-$8,000.
If I can do that a few times a year I will be very happy.
Have you tried building websites to sell? If you have, how did it work out? Do you have any tips that could help me?
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