Investors in online businesses are now wondering how to flip a WordPress blog. Flipping blogs is a lot like investing in virtual real estate This “webspace” is essentially bought up in the same sense that real estate is bought up. Buy now, accrue value (or equity) and sell for a higher price.  In simple terms it’s called a buy and hold strategy; However, we will be teaching you how to essentially “flip” WordPress websites once you have bought the domain name and once you have provided some simple content on that website.

The Domain Name

A domain name alone is attached to webspace and therefore is a valuable asset. People like you and I purchase homes for investment purposes, whether it is good “as-is” condition or if it needs rehab. The point is to own it, and let the value increase by either fixing it up or simply letting the equity build over time.

Like, real estate investing principals, the same principals go toward online sites and/or domain names.

Almost like playing monopoly in real life. Except flipping websites is much more affordable with its low start up costs.

The 3 goals here are to:

- Purchase the domain name

- Build a decent website

- Sell it for a profit.

It’s really that simple.

The Power of WordPress

The thought of creating your own website might seem a bit daunting if you are new. However, nowadays you should use WordPress.org.

WordPress is essentially a blog platform that one can turn into fully-functioning website.

Some don’t even look like blogs when they are done! In fact Cash Maker Elite is operated on the WordPress platform !When WordPress came out it was originally for bloggers. There are now hundreds of corporations who now have vested interest in making, beautiful, search-engine-friendly, sites because of WordPress’ simplicity and user ease-of-use environment.

Once you know WordPress

Once you know the basics of WordPress, you can now develop a website, blog or auto blog, quickly and easily.
Wordpress has seen exponential growth in terms of usage and thus, one can expect to find pre-built website templates (Called Themes) that one can apply in a plug and play manner.

This website for example, operates on the Thesis theme.

At this point, really, the only thing left to do is to give the search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN the news that your new blog/site is live.

How You Can Make Lots of Money Flipping Web Sites

People that flip blogs and sites for full-time income can literally repeat the entire flip process in half a day or so. Once YOU do it again and again you will make your second site in 10 hours, then 5, then 1. This is where you will want to be if you are considering making a long-term business out of it.

Typically people tend to create affiliate websites using WordPress, and then sell them on sites such as DigitalPress.com, Flippa.com and even Ebay.com.

Low Start Up Costs

This is a definite model for success when you can count on your start up expenses being considerably low. The expenses involved with a project will be web hosting and the cost of the domain name (both under $20). If you choose to outsource (recommended once you get really good at this) this will be an optional expense as well as any type of additional marketing you plan on implementing to drive up your new site’s traffic stats. Again, these last expenses are optional but are highly recommended.

Monetizing The Website You’re Flipping

People buy pre-made websites because of 2 reasons:

1) They are already making money (minimum $20 a month is fine)
2) They are set up to be making money in the future (these sites will sell for less, but still great for quick cash)

Different Types of Website Monetization

1) Creating an affiliate website – Affiliate sites promote Amazon products, Clickbank Products, Ebay listings, Commission Junction products etc. Typically, affiliate sites are the most lucrative of sites to flip and are in high demand.

Amazon and Ebay

These site have thee affiliate programs where commissions are paid to you – the advertiser – simply by displaying their products (related to your niche) on your affiliate websites to the point where you will get paid when a visitor of your website clicks and a buy decision is made.

The Ebay Partners Network (EPN)

The Ebay Partners Network is affiliate commission based on fees, so one will can essentially profit from the percentage of fees that a Ebay seller pays to list an item. These commissions ad up very quickly as Ebay is a worldwide network which continues to gain in popularity. The biggest commission one can get paid from the EPN is if the buyer isn’t already a member of Ebay yet chooses to become one through your site. You profit $25 anytime this happens.

If you decide to create affiliate sites to flip for a profit, ultimately, commissions will go to the buyer; However; these sites can be indexed with search engines quickly and YOU will make the commissions until your site is sold.

You will be considerably surprised on the amount of commission you will make during the brief time that you hold on to your site until it’s sold.

Monetizing with Google Adsense

There are definitely other methods of commissionable income one can earn from these sites. That is by using Google Adsense. You can add Adsense once you have a Google Adsense account. It is strongly suggested that you adhere to the official Google Adsense rules once you have verified your account with them because once you get banned, you are banned for life! The model we use is to put Google Adsense ads on the sidebar of our flippable websites and as well before the content area.

The more money you make by driving traffic to your Google Adsense ads and having people click on them, the more your site/blog will be sold for if you keep good records.

As you can see, with website flipping, there are multiple ways to monetize the procedure even before the site changes ownership. Many of these opportunities are quite difficult to understand for someone new to Internet Marketing world; However, that is why we supply a step-by-step guide so that you can literally succeed being hand-held through the process.

Niche Research

Think about a niche to build your site around. You will be building a lot these websites you will need a few different niches. You want popular niches, niches in which people are in “buying mode” for and niches that are being searched for. We will start the necessary steps to find just one for now.

1. Go to http://pulse.ebay.com/ and admire the top 10 items being searched for on Ebay.

Then go to Google and start typing them in and observing the search volume

The niche with the lowest volume is where you want to start because your competitors will be low.

***Note that there’s going to be be a lot of competitors for these niches; However, you can narrow that down by targeting those keywords which you will learn later.

Currently, the iPhone 3G is the most searched item on Ebay (USA) followed by other realted niches in the electronics industry. As we write this, I suggest looking up the Apple iPhone. If you joined, or created a niche based on the iPhone or or any other electronics device, and show a screen shot of the Ebay Pulse results once your site is up, people will flock to it as long as you make sure it is displayed on your developed sales page for the site you are flipping

Stuck on where to find a good niche?

One source is a newsletter we subscribe to called NicheADay.com. This is a free resource that sends a new niche topic to your inbox every day.

Here are some other great resources to get you started choosing a niche:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_extreme_sports

http://rankings.big-boards.com/?p=all

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hobbies

http://hobbieslist.com/

Don’t forget to check Ebay categories and their sub categories

http://www.clickbank.com/marketplace/

http://www.mygoals.com/

A word to the wise – Don’t consider niche selection a sport. It’s not. A niche is a group of people or things that have something in common, like hockey, card-playing, tile floors, or something of that nature. For your niche to be profitable, you must be able to find that specific group of people that are targeted to buy your stuff and, more importantly, they have to be able to find you. So if I’m going to target a bass fishing niche, then there should be forums talking about bass fishing that you should target in search of bass fishermen.

Purchasing The Right Domain Name

After choosing your niche you will have to buy a domain name relating to the niche you picked. Go to GoDaddy.com and open a free account.

When looking for a domain name you will want a name that relates to your niche.

Be very careful when using brand or trademarked names, as Ebay may remove your listings if you are using a trademarked name. More importantly, the company whom the name belongs might sue

Try not to have your domain name too long, the shorter the better.

Unfortunately, it can be difficult finding a good name as many good names are already taken, so you may need to be a little creative to come up with some good names.

Buy A Keyword Rich Domain Name

This is an important step, and you want to check on this before you get too far into the research process. Having a keyword rich domain name, which basically means that the keyword phrase you’re targeting is in the domain name, greatly helps search engine rankings.

If you buy a domain name with the exact search term people are looking for, you will rank higher in Google and MSN. This makes your site worth a bundle more when you offload it for instant cash, and also makes it a lot easier to make it profitable should you decide to hang on to it.

You need to see what domain names are available.

The domain name “VideoGames” is not going to be free in any extension, let alone .com .net or .org. I usually stick with .com (ideal) or .net (second best), but .org works well for sites that don’t come off as too commercial, and .info will work if it’s the only thing available (not to mention they’re less than two bucks a pop).

ActionVideoGamesYearly.com is a good example because it’s a niche inside a niche but maybe a bit too broad to write on for an entire content site, so we will leave that term and just write 1 page of content about it.

Since there are only 40,000 competing terms in Google for this keyword phrase, getting a top 10 ranking with this domain name should be a breeze.

Here are a few tips when looking for a domain name:

 Never use a trademarked name
 The shorter the better
 Try not to use numbers in the name
 Try not to use hyphens – not overly important but if you can get a name
without a hyphen then it is better
 Spell the words in the domain correctly
 Try not to have more than 3 or 4 words in a domain name

Other names I could use if available could be:

 Videogamestodiefor.com
 Videogameactivate.com
 Onlinevideogamesspot.com
 Videogamesmoreonline.com

Play around with the wording if your first choices aren’t available. You can do this easily at http:www.ajaxwhois.com

.COM names generally cost $9.95 (USD) per year, but if you use the coupon code “Diggnation” at the checkout screen, you will find that your domain name cost will go down.

Hosting Your Sites.

Hostgator.com is the best hosting site for this website flipping business.

However, for a site flipping business it is NOT recommend that you purchase the $9.95 a month option, but rather the $24.95 reseller option.

You want this because you can then offer your customers hosting for their website on your reseller account. This will act as your first stream of residual income as your website buyer will pay you monthly to be parked on your webspace hosting account with HostGator so make sure you check that you are charging for monthly hosting.

***Important. Do not use GoDaddy to host your website. Just use them for buying your domain name and then changing the DNS nameservers to Hostgators DNS nameservers. This can be done by following the instructions in your Hostgator’s control panel and doing a search for “DNS.”

In Hostgator’s control panel you will see ‘Create a new account’.
Next – The username. Try and use something related to the site that is easy to remember like a variation of the domain name itself.
Next – Thr Password – Try to use the same password for all sites, that way it is easier to remember. The buyers/customers of your sites can always change the passwords after they buy.
Next – Email – For now just put your own email the buyers/customers of your sites can always change the email after they buy.
Next – Check the box for the DNS settings and click ‘create’ (For now just put your own email the buyers/customers of your sites can always change the email after they buy.)

Your site is now ready to use so now we can move on to creating some websites using WordPress.org.

***TIP – Always record your username and password for every site you are working on.

Also, when you get busy with this, try to keep a spreadsheet of all the sites you have listed and have sold and record the buyers contact and date of sale, so that you can then check to see if they signed up for hosting on your Hostgator reseller account or not.

Use a 150MB Quota and 1500MB Bandwidth to host your buyer’s site(s).

If they need more than go ahead and offer them more.

Installing WordPress

To install WordPress you need to log into your hostgator’s cpanel which is usually – www.yourdomain.com/cpanel

You will need:

username and
password

You obtained these when you set up when you added the site to your Hostgator account.

After Logging In:

Click on the ‘Fantastico’ icon which you can find by simply typing in the Hostgator search box ‘Fantastico’
Click on ‘Wordpress’
Click on ‘New Installation’

Next, fill in the following information.

1. Admin username – this is the username that you will log in with
2. Password
3. Admin nickname – something like “Admin”
4. Your email address
5. The name of your site
Next, click ‘install WordPress’
Next, click on ‘finish installation’

Now That You Have WordPress Installed

Type in your website’s domain and you will see your site. (It will look blue and say “Hello World” on it) We will change this soon.

Next, go back into your hostgator cpanel

Click on “emails.”
Create an email address that is linked to this website. The email address you create will be used later. Once the site is sold it is up to the new owner to keep it or change it.

Usually “admin@whateverthedomainname.com is used as well as the same password that you used for the site.

Choose A WordPress Template

You will choose a free website template for WordPress available online.

http://wpthemesfree.com/ is a website where you can download these templates for free. Browse through their templates until you find one that looks professional and clean and then download it.

***Note. For your affiliate websites you will want to choose a wordpress theme that has at least one sidebar.

With free WordPress template options there isn’t a lot that we can do about that unless you know a little about HTML and PHP coding where you can can change any aspect of the design manually. For example, if your plan is to make a small Amazon store, based on one product per site(recommended), may we suggest going to Google and typing in this phrase exactly:

“wordpress+amazon+themes+free”

The choice you have is to either have a complete Ebay site without a Amazon store, or to just have a Amazon store “as is” with a little bit cut off on the side – a minor cosmetic issue that can be fixed manually or by commissioning someone from rentacoder.com to do it for you for $15 to $20 one-time.

***Important – You can even hire a Rentacoder to do this entire process for you, which will leverage more of your time so that you can make more money. Just hand them this guide.

Configuring Your WordPress Theme

Unzip the wordpress theme you just download and upload the unzipped files to your website.

You will need a FTP program to upload your files. Use Filezilla to accomplish this.

Note – If you do NOT know how to install a WordPress theme, please go to youtube.com and search “install a wordpress theme+filezilla”

All you have to remember is that you are dragging the UNZIPPED folder to the “Themes” folder – which is located in wp-content. This folder was created automatically for you once you installed WordPress using Fantastico.

Again, You need to upload your template to the ‘themes’ folder.

Installing WordPress Plugins

Next, we want to upload some plugins.
Wordpress plugins serve specific purposes in terms of adding a bit of customization to your site.

The plugins we need to install are the following

-Google Site Maps
-Sociable
-Platinum SEO
-Headspace2
-Akismet
-Privacy Policy

You need to unzip each plugin (because they get downloaded as compressed files) and upload the individual pluings to the ‘Wp-content/Plugins’ folder.

After you have uploaded both the template and the plugins, we can now go online and start working on the website.

..to be continued.