How to flip websites – Tips to prevent you from failing again
Website flipping is a very lucrative revenue stream these days. Many people enter into this business with the hope of earning a lot of money by buying and selling websites. However, most of them don’t have any idea on how to flip websites.
Looking for other ways to make money online? Read our guide on making money online.
The world of website flipping is definitely enticing. But, there are many things that you need to keep in mind before buying or selling a website.
This article will help you understand more about website flipping as a business and what to check in a website before buying it. We will also discuss about transfering the ownership of the website to the new owner after selling it.
How to flip websites – Things to do before and after the flipping process
If you don’t know what website flipping is, read our guide on website flipping first.
Five things you should check before buying or selling a website for flipping:
- Domain authority, page authority, and spam score
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For any domain or website, these are the most important parameters that measure the credibility of the website.
Check the spam score of the website to see if any low-quality or spammy backlinks point to the website.
A website with a good DA and PA has better chances of selling quickly and will fetch a high price. Earlier, the Alexa rank of a website used to be an important parameter, but Alexa is not too reliable nowadays. - Google analytics data of the website
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Check if the website you are planning to purchase is ranking on search engines for the right keywords or not. This determines whether it will attract the right buyers and the right price or not.
The traffic of a website also plays a major role, if you are selling a website instead of a domain. However, make sure that a large part of that traffic is organic and not direct or paid. - Adsense compatibility
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One of the most important features in any website is its Adsense compatibility. Many expired domains found by potential buyers are left by their old owners, because they were banned from using Adsense. There are many other ways to monetize a website, but Google Adsense still remains a very popular revenue source.
Go to websites like www.bannedcheck.com or www.isbanned.com and see if the website or the domain is banned by Google. - Authenticity of the seller or the buyer
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Alway check the authenticity of the seller you are purchasing the domain from, or the buyer you are selling the website to, before entering the process. This step is very important to ensure that your money does not go to waste.
Website flipping sites like Sedo or Flippa are good platforms which have the escrow feature. - Available social media accounts
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Once you purchase a website or domain or want to sell an existing domain, always check for social media accounts with same names which can be linked to that particular blog or website. However, it is not legally allowed to sell social media accounts. So, it is better not to list these linked accounts on website flipping sites.
How to transfer the ownership of the website to the new owner after selling it:
This step is one of the critical steps when it comes to website flipping. Once you have sold or purchased a website, the next step is to transfer it to the new buyer. In this section we will list down the step-by-step procedure to transfer the full ownership of the website:
- Domain transfer
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The first step is to transfer the domain to the seller. If both the buyer and the seller have accounts with the same domain registrar, the domain transfer is very simple and is mostly done free of cost. For transferring the domain, all you have to do is get the EPP code (an authorization code) for your domain and unlock it before sharing it with the seller.
If you only have one domain listed in your account, you can just share the login details to transfer ownership. - Database transfer
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Data transfer including hosting transfer is pretty easy. Most hosting providers provide a free website transfer from one owner to another owner. So, you can ask the hosting company to learn more about the migration process.
If you have just one website in your hosting account then you can simply share the login details with the new owner. Then, he or she can change the email ID associated with the website. - Social media accounts transfer
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This is the easiest part of ownership transfer as you simply have to hand over the social media accounts, with their login details, to the new owner. Major social media accounts like Facebook page, Twitter account, Instagram page and Google Plus account should be given the most importance in this transfer, as these media channels are the most popular and drive a lot of traffic to a website.
Apart from these three basic transfers, you can also transfer the feed of the website through a simple process. Feed transfer is only allowed between two Feedburner accounts and two Google accounts.
You can also share the Google webmasters data with the new owner, by simply making him or her the admin of the webmaster account.
These are some of the basic tips and tricks involved in website flipping. This handy guide on how to transfer website ownership to the new owner after selling the website will help you close the transaction quickly.
Do you know of any other tips that help in a safe and secure website flipping? Share with us in the comments below.