AFP 13: Cashing In Through Expanding Purchased Sites

Justin:
Welcome to Episode 13 of the AdSense Flippers Podcast. I’m your host Justin Cooke and I’ve got with me my business partner extraordinaire Joe Magnotti. What’s going on, buddy?

Joe:
How are you doing, everybody?

Justin:
We’ve got a great episode lined up for you. This week, we’re getting into cashing in through expanding purchase sites. So if you buy a site, what can you do to expand it to flip that site and make a lot more money or hold on to it and keep some of that residual income?

But first we’re going to go over the updates, news and information for the week. First thing we need to talk about is our iTunes feed, man. Sorry to everyone out there. We had a little bit of a mistake. The iTunes feed got completely screwed up in the episode last – we didn’t get out for a couple of days. So I just want to say sorry for that and we’ve got that fixed now. We’re up and running and it’s back on track.

Joe:
Yeah, and thank you for all the comments and suggestions, for letting us know. If you do see something like that, help us get it corrected.

Justin:
This week – actually the last week or so, there has been a lot more plug in a way than normal. We don’t have a lot of new stuff going on, man.

Joe:
Yeah. You know, I mean we have a lot of stuff going on but it’s kind of the boring everyday stuff, not something I like to go over on the podcast. It’s more just dreary work.

Justin:
Just chugging it out man. And, you know, honestly that’s just the way that this works, right? There’s going to be times where you just have to do the crap to make some money, right?

Joe:
Right. And we did make some money.

Justin:
Yeah we did make a little bit of money. Unfortunately, we’re not doing any site selling right now. It’s kind of on a hiatus. We just finished up another Flippa auction and it went pretty close down to the wire and we just sold – the Buy It Now. So we’re kind of in rebuilding mode right now. We will be coming out with our income report here soon for February but we’re rebuilding right now to get our sites back up to where they need to be and we can have some new sites coming out of the hopper.

Joe:
Yeah, I hope to have some sites up on the buyer sites page this month, probably even the next couple of weeks.

Justin:
Joe, I read a great article from Tom at LeavingWorkBehind.com. He wrote really an article that just kind of went viral. It’s the top 100 blogs and it’s by category. So he talks about niche sites, talks about affiliate offers, all different types of things and it’s this great resource.

Now it’s a bit of information overload but there’s quite a bit of stuff in there that I think is really useful. We made on this – I think we’re 60 something. So really excited to be on there and then he also came out with a follow-up post where he said his 10 favorites, the ones he really looks at and people like, you know, Smart Passive Income, Pat Flynn. He mentioned Derek Halpern of SocialTriggers.com and AdSense Flippers, dude. So I was pretty stoked. I mean the other people in that list, I really look up to and respect. So, to be in that category, I’m fired up.

Joe:
Yeah, it’s an honor to be mentioned with any of those people in the same breath on the same page or even in the top 10.

Justin:
Yeah. If you haven’t checked that out, definitely check out LeavingWorkBehind.com and I will leave some links to those in the show notes for you to take a look at.

Joe:
So Justin, we lost an outsourcing customer. How did that happen?

Justin:
I don’t know, buddy. We had this outsourcing client for about two years and things have gone really well. Unfortunately, kind of wasn’t working out more recently. Like they just weren’t – we just weren’t getting it done. I think it was a lead generation type thing and the list wasn’t so great. Their numbers had really dropped off and this wasn’t – and see, there wasn’t a lot of value there for the client anymore.

Joe:
Yeah. You know, we could blame it on the list but honestly, I think it was the fact that we’re not a telemarketing company and that’s not our expertise. We know how to do it. We did some voice campaigns on our outsourcing company but we should have – we learned that we were to stay away from those kinds of projects in the future and we had this one going on. A successful project and it was a very minor project but it was successful. It seems to have run its course and I wish the customer the best of luck.

Justin:
Well, for most internet marketing people, we really recommend Virtual Staff Finder. It’s kind of a great – like in between, between oDesk and a true outsourcing company, right? So that’s a really good way to get a new virtual assistant to be working with you and we’ve had a couple of people recently ask us questions about that and go through the process. We’ve tested it ourselves. We hired a person through that route and it was really good for us. She’s actually on our Try BPO staff fulltime now.

But we are looking for another potential outsourcing agreement that’s similar. So if you think you’re out there and you’re not in internet marketing but you have a job. You work at a company, maybe a mid-sized company that’s looking to get some outsourcing work done, definitely give us a call. Shoot us an email. Let us know what’s going on and maybe we can work something out. We like to replace that client.

Joe:
Yeah. Again, like Justin said, I would say this usually fits best. We need to outsource at least three, four people. So if you’re just looking for that virtual assistant type job, there are much better ways to get that staffed.

Justin:
All right, man. Well, that’s it for the news and updates. Let’s get right into the heart of this week’s episode.

**** The AdSense Flippers Podcast ****

Justin:
So the heart of this week’s episode is all about profiting through expansion of niche sites. We have an interview today with Chris Guthrie who was recently on Smart Passive Income Podcast session number 32 and we will put that on the show notes, a link there. But he did an amazing interview about specifically how to find sites to buy that you can flip, how to make more money out of those sites and we would like to kind of follow up on that and see what we can do to expand those sites.

So we’re really excited to have Chris Guthrie on the program. He has got some fantastic information and I will let him introduce himself now. What’s up, Chris?

Chris:
Thanks for having me. Nice to see you guys.

Justin:
Yeah, buddy. Good to have you on the show.

Chris:
Yeah. I mean I pretty much just started with – Amazon is really what kind of got me making money while I was still working at a fulltime day job. Get home from work, put some hours in building some sites out, build my Amazon income up to enough to where I can – well, I got fired from my job but it was enough time to pay for my bills before I got fired and then just trying to do what everyone else wants to do, scale their business up. So that’s kind of why I started getting into buying sites that way.

Joe:
Chris, you know, it’s interesting that you started with Amazon and not with AdSense. I mean most new people too making money online start with AdSense. Why did you start with Amazon?

Chris:
So actually, I did start with AdSense. Going back a little bit, I built some sites in college and by the end of college, the top earning sites were paying my rent though. I was splitting the room with five other guys or so. So it was not like a ton of money. It was – like the max I was making was 500 bucks a month and that was a video game forum site and it was getting like half a million page views a month.

And so I just kind of switched to Amazon once I was just looking for more and more ways to try and make my own sites because I was so blinded by just focusing on something that I was interested in or that I thought might be kind of fun to talk about. That case being a video game forum that I wasn’t really focusing on something that I could sell and really having a monetization plan so that’s why I switched to Amazon and then seeing I’m doing pretty well with it.

Justin:
Well the reason – I could tell you, Chris, the reason we’re having you on here to talk about expanding niche sites is we’re not experts in that area. We have some ideas and strategies that we want to test out ourselves but it’s not something we’ve had a lot of success with yet. We actually haven’t even done it yet. So we all look to do that in the future and I know that our listeners, readers are guys who buy sites and buy sites from us and others and they would like some strategies to make more money were to cut down the time it takes to break even.

I know that you had a site recently where you purchased – that was in the $100 to $200 a month range and inside the seven months, you got that up to over 600 – almost $700 a month. So yes, tell us a little bit about that site, Chris. I think that’s really interesting and we like to kind of mention that throughout the podcast.

Chris:
Yes. So that site was CopycatCrafts.com. Yes, that site was making 100 to 200 bucks a month but when I bought it, when I was thinking about buying it, I could tell that it was getting me a lot of traffic. You know, over 200,000 page views a month but that traffic just wasn’t really that well-monetized so that’s like one of the things I look for when I’m buying sites is how they monetize and then just knowing what I know now about how to build and better improve sites and what I can do to it.

Justin:
One of the first that we were wondering is you seem to kind of shift to gears into buying and selling sites. I know that you said you’re looking to purchase about $100,000 worth of sites and you’ve got about half of that last year. Why did you decide to get into buying and selling sites instead of just building up the Amazon sites? Why is this a focus for you now?

Chris:
The biggest thing for me is that scaling has been – I think it’s – I know you guys have done really well with your scaling your AdSense sites up to be able to sell them to your listeners and just anyone else looking for a good quality AdSense site. But I don’t know what it is. Just for me, I’ve wanted to just – I’m getting tired of just starting from scratch. I mean I still build some sites from scratch but it’s kind of like I can buy a site for $10,000 that’s already making several hundred on up to 1000 bucks a month or so.

Justin:
Yeah.

Chris:
And try and take that to a $100,000 site as opposed to starting with a small site and trying to take it up to a $10,000 site.

Justin:
We have a pretty big failure rate too so we have to make a bunch of sites to kind of pull out the winners. So you’re kind of skipping that process by buying sites that are already earning and you think it’s kind of a higher level game when you can buy sites that are already earning and then expand those out.

Chris:
Yeah. I mean the biggest thing too is that I just kind of got tired of just doing the same thing. So this was kind of a different thing. Like I have never started a blog about crafting but because the site was already up making money and yeah, I had some of that. I could just pay to manage to run it. Sure, I will buy it.

Joe:
Yeah, I think that’s something that advanced users will definitely get into, buying more revenue-generating sites, sites that will get bigger and bigger as they go along and they become more sophisticated. So it’s interesting that you’ve gone down that path. I could definitely see our listeners going down that path hopefully if they’re successful in buying and selling smaller sites.

Chris:
Yeah, definitely. And I mean we will probably talk about this more too but it’s really – finding sites is difficult and I’m always contacting people just through – I’m doing niche research for niches that I might build a site in but then while I’m doing that, I’m contacting people to see if they’re interested in selling anyway. Then it’s – I can see a site that was started in 2008 or 2009 and I have that several year advantage already over anyone else that might try and start a site including myself.

Joe:
Yeah, that seems …

Chris:
So that’s kind of the other part.

Joe:
Right. How do you find the sites?

Chris:
More of what I’m doing now, although not as much as in February. I was busy with other projects, but just finding sites through researching different types of niches that I’m interested in going into. So it’s kind of a matter of finding older style sites, especially if they’re built in the early 2000s or so, going after those types of sites because they’re so stable in Google’s eyes. I mean if you can get a site that has been up and running and generating money for several years, then it can be pretty solid.

Justin:
Do you think it’s OK to get into an industry that you don’t know that well? Like for example, I know nothing about motorcycle parts. Would it be good for me to buy a site that I think has monetary potential but that I don’t know or would you avoid that especially if you’re starting out? Like what kind of strategy there would you take for industries?

Chris:
That one is tough because – so I have some other friends that work in Downtown Seattle and they focus on just one specific area and so their whole mindset is that they tell you the best in that one area and then if their company gets acquired, then they can sell at a much higher multiple because any business acquiring them can see, “OK, they own this chunk of the space.”

Justin:
Yeah.

Chris:
Whereas if someone were to come to me say a few years from now and hopefully I’ve purchased a million dollars with the sites  or something, I might have them kind of all over the board and it might not be as good to sell. So …

Justin:
Not tightly focused, yes.

Chris:
Yes. So with that in mind, I think that – so if you can do it based on something that you know, that’s helpful because then if someone – say the previous owner doesn’t want to be involved anymore after they sold, then you can take over. But the sites that I bought that haven’t been in focus – blogs specifically, the ones that need continuous updates. Those ones I’ve always had arrangements where the original owner or the original content writer can just keep writing after I purchased it. So in those situations, it’s not as big of a deal to just buy them even if they aren’t really your bread and butter.

Justin:
Chris, I heard recently a great – what I thought was an interesting strategy to get a site owner to sell. A lot of times, it’s like it’s their baby or maybe they’ve forgotten about it but it runs the gamut. But I was listening to someone talking about a great way to do it is to contact the site owner first and say you’re looking to advertise in the site and then you can start to get some traffic and some statistics on what’s going on there. How do you approach someone that you’ve never approached before? Is it kind of a shotgun approach? Find a bunch of sites and reach out to them?

Chris:
Yes, it is. I mean I – that’s pretty much what I do is – the other thing too is that I’m looking for just starting a niche there and said I will contact, you know, the dot com, dot net and dot org owner of the domain name I’m interested in and then, you know, see which ones reply back. And then with the dot com ones, it’s 50 grand. The dot net is 20 and then the dot org is a thousand. I’m like, “OK, a thousand dollars it is.” So yes, I mean it’s kind of a shotgun approach but I have a pretty similar formula I use each time. It’s pretty much just hello and I always get their name from the Who is records if I can or look for their name on the site. So it doesn’t feel like a formula even though it kind of is.

Justin:
Yeah.

Chris:
And then I just say I’m interested in this topic and I would rather – I’m interested in just taking over a site as opposed to starting one from scratch.

Joe:
So what do you think is the – you know, after you have agreed to do the deal, what do you think is the safest way to transfer payment for both the buyer and the seller?

Chris:
I always..I pretty much always use escrow. I’ve done a few transactions with PayPal but even just the domain name I bought a few months ago, the guy wanted to do escrow for $300. So escrow is pretty much what I use and then I also have like a template and contract that I use for selling or for buying rather that I have the seller sign as well and I haven’t had to run this just yet although there was a deal I was trying to work. It was a health..a natural health type website. It’s making about $3000 from AdSense.

Justin:
Yeah.

Chris:
They’re based in India and I wasn’t going to worry about that until it came up but I was not sure about how a contract might work across country lines because you can’t necessarily …

Justin:
Hold you accountable..Yeah. that makes it difficult…

Chris:
Yes, I mean it’s too cost-prohibitive to go over to India and try and do something. So, most of the time, it’s people from the States that I’m buying sites from and that’s always something to keep in mind too is if you’re buying a site from someone in another country and I’ve seen that on the higher end too because I keep in touch with the broker guys that help sell my site because every now and then, I have people with bigger sites that would be selling for high six figures or seven figures and I let them know. Send them on to the broker but he says that that almost kills the deal sometimes with sites in Romania or something and even though it’s making, you know, maybe 20 grand a month from AdSense, the US buyer …

Justin:
Yeah.

Chris:
Yeah. So even on like a smaller individual level, I still don’t do it. I haven’t done yet any sites outside the US.

Justin:
We have a corporation in both the US and the Philippines and so anytime we’re doing business with Americans, we have them do business with our US corporation. It’s a little safer for them. They feel more comfortable with that. So I definitely understand when international issues get involved, it can be a little more difficult or a little more sketchy for people.

So let me ask you – you know, we have the problem where some of the sites we create are just donkeys. They just don’t make us any money but we know that going in. We know that – you know, we have a fair shot. Some are going to make us a bunch of money. Some are going to be the mid-range and some are just losers or busts.

It’s the same thing with buying sites, right? I mean I don’t know if you’ve done enough to where you have an idea on what percentage are going to be winners or losers. But what are the chances you think that something will be able to be expanded and make a good amount of money for you? Do you know?

Chris:
Well, I think it safe to say definitively what the chances are, you know. Seventy percent of the sites I buy fail or something like that. I mean work rather. If I had a 70 percent failure rate, that would be bad. But yes, so I don’t have a specific number but I think – so the reason – part of the reason why I like it is that when you’re looking at a site especially when they’re not actually advertising it for sale, you can see all what they’ve done to it. Like through the backlinks, seeing how they built their traffic in that way and then seeing what they rank for using like SEM rush or other tools like that and then using..you can use seerush to see other sites they might own.

So you kind of get a pretty good picture of how the sites make its money and even before you even see the financials. I mean I’ve had sites that I buy that didn’t work out. Like one that I bought that was earning money from AdSense since 2007, nine days after I changed the adsense over the site was banned by AdSense apparently.

Justin:
Ouch!

Chris:
Yeah, yeah. And I think the reason why is because in my account, that AdSense account, it was a new site and it was making, you know, about $20 to $30 a day. Not a lot of money but decent enough for a site that doesn’t need updating and haven’t been updated since 2007 but the problem there is like there’s a misleading message above the Google AdSense link, the 160 by 90 pixel ones. It was like some type of – it wasn’t saying it was an advertisement. So anyway, there’s misleading text above that so I think that’s why I got banned but that can happen.

Justin:
That’s rough for sure. I mean yeah, like having a site banned. It’s interesting though that – I mean a lot of sites you end up purchasing, there can be problems with that and I think the due diligence part is – can be a bit rough. But yeah, it’s one of the most important things that you can do when buying a site and, you know, people spend years going over that and really studying that. It’s a really tough area in buying sites.

Joe:
And obviously from the scope of what you’re doing in our site, I hope you don’t take years to do your diligence because you wouldn’t be very successful. I mean this is not exactly like you’re buying an airline here. So …

Justin:
Yeah.

Chris:
Yeah.

Justin:
So like eventually it runs up there though. You’re spending seven figures on a site, I’m going to want to be damn sure that I’m going to get something from the site.

Chris:
Right.

Joe:
Maybe we make a real world example here. I mean what did you see in Copycat Crafts that told you to be expanded or to make more – what kind of diligence, due diligence did you do? And, you know, talk about that example.

Chris:
Yes. So the biggest thing, I am being able to trust the buyer in that standpoint. It’s really a difficult way of finding someone just through Google or even through Flippa, sometimes it’s tough to tell. I mean you can see there the amount of transactions they’ve done and their feedback but in this case, I knew the person that was selling it somewhat well so that like the due diligence in that sense that trusting what this person was talking about being true wasn’t as much of a concern for me and that and the money was so low that I – with the traffic, it just showed me after I was added to the Analytics. I said you would have to be at least making that much. So …

Justin:
Yeah.

Chris:
In any case, that site specifically, it has – if you go to the site even right now, you will see there’s a 728×90 banner right at the top and then a 300×250 in the sidebar and those were the only two banner ads on the entire site. And so the 728×90 above the header image, that one would get a terrible click rate because it’s not even close to the content and the sidebar was only marginally better. So I knew even just adding an inline ad unit, which is what I have now is just the 468×60 and the rate beneath the article title and then above whatever the image is.

Even adding that would – I knew would add additional money and in fact, after seeing the data from over some months – or I guess it’s about nine months now. Seeing that data, yeah, it has more than doubled the amount of money just by adding in that ad unit and then also too knowing that I’ve used Vibrant Media which is the in-text advertising company. I’ve used – they’re more for hard traffic sites so I had a relationship with an account manager there. Just sent him an email and said, “Hey, can I get this added to my account?” Put on that and that saying, “Actually, I pulled out my stats from that.” That one has made me over $2000 or $3000 from just Vibrant Media.

Justin:
Nice.

Chris:
So that started a huge chunk of the site purchases as well and so I mean it’s not like a ton – I mean it’s not rocket science really but the other thing too is that even beyond just ad placements, people can further – if I’m in the process of hiring someone to write an ebook, like a really high quality ebook on how you get started with do-it-yourself crafting, like just different types of crafting types, anything that would be really beginner-oriented because people that come to these types of sites, they’re lurkers and they might just be looking at something and be like, “Oh, that’s really cool what they did there. I don’t know how to do the same thing themselves.”

Justin:
Yeah, I like that. We were talking about that a little bit before we got on the call as far as like putting an ebook, attaching it to the Copycat Crafts site and being able to give people more information, having an opportunity for them to buy in there as well in addition to all the advertisement placements. I like that.

What do you consider the low-hanging fruit when it comes to expanding the site? I mean obviously changing the ad placements. You know, we’ve talked about adding a new monetization strategy. Do you look at all that? Do you think about all that before you even get into the site or do you look for a site? I mean this one had traffic so you figured there’s some way I can make money out of it, right? I mean that was the idea?

Chris:
Yeah, I mean that one was – it was really clear. Over 200,000 page views a month and the fact that the ad placements weren’t the best and the original site owner knew that. I mean if she already was able to build the site to that level, then she knew that it wouldn’t – she can do more but for whatever reason, sometimes people don’t want to be more aggressive with their advertising or whatever it is.

Justin:
Yeah.

Chris:
And so looking for those opportunities can help. And so a low hanging fruit, definitely like where the ads are placed, the fact that they do or do not have a newsletter, like an email opt-in type thing; like for that site specifically, I tried to get a relationship with Jo-Ann’s fabric store to try and – and I was going to try and work with their affiliate manager to get some coupons but anyway, so that’s something else I’m trying to work as well. So I can put that into the email marketing strategy and more – have a better reason to build the list. So then if it’s coupons that are exclusive to the site using maybe our branding and then an ebook that we can sell, that’s looking at a lot more monetization that isn’t just display advertising through cost or critic.

Joe:
Right. We think that our sites are definitely – well, some of our sites at least are very good suspects for being expanded into that type of affiliate play. So if someone was able to buy our sites and do that, they could probably make a lot more money but they would have to give a lot more time and attention to each individual site. So when you’re looking at sites, how do you isolate– are there variables that you isolate and you say, “OK, I know I’m going to be able to expand this”? Do you test for that kind of stuff?

Justin:
Yeah. That’s a good question, Joe. I mean like if you’re looking to expand a site, right? And I just heard you said, “I want to make more money with it.” Do you just put like five or six new approaches on it and kind of see what works, if it makes more money or not or do you go individually? OK, ad placement first. Yes or no. New affiliate offer, yes or no? How do you do that?

Chris:
It’s really just like – I will make a quick list of what I see wrong with the site or in the sense that what I can do quickly to make more money with it and then also like a further long term plan. I mean I’ve wanted to do the premium ebook on the site for a long time but it doesn’t matter. I’m trying to find someone to do it that kind of could see what I’m looking for.

And so the quickest thing is just ad placements and different – trying those things out. I mean I had a call today with Valueclick media or maybe – I think it’s just ValueClick but anyways, I had to call them and I think I’m going to be getting a better ECPM rate using their banners as opposed to the ones that I’m using right now.

Justin:
Nice.

Chris:
So then it’s just that’s the other type of angle to go in. I think that helps too at the site with higher traffic. When, you know, it’s – and that’s kind of why I like just buying sites that already get quite a bit of traffic because then it’s just – rather than, “OK, how am I going to build links to the site? How am I going to write this content?” it’s more like, “OK, what can I do to take this site and build it into a much stronger earning site using a lot of different monetization methods so that if I want to sell it later or even just hold it, I’ve got a really solid income coming from different angles, you know?”

Justin:
Well, it was already built. They’ve already come. Now it’s just making money from the people that are there.

Chris:
Exactly!

Justin:
I like that.

Joe:
I like that, for sure, and that sits in well with our sites, I think. I hope at least that people could refocus that traffic on some of their type of method. But who do you use to do that, Chris? Do you use like a US contractor or do you have a VA or …

Chris:
So I always – in sites that I’m buying, I’m pretty much always trying to make sure the content is outsourced so that I can just focus on like the marketing plan which would be changing the ads, coming up with a strategy for how to make more money, et cetera. So that’s kind of what I do and really, that’s something that I’ve been thinking about a lot this year too is that I’m making really good money for my business. But at what point do I need to just go get an office in Downtown Seattle or something and see if I can get some other web entrepreneurs to saddle up?

Justin:
Yeah. Well, that’s something we’re kind of doing with our internship is starting to get Westerners out here that can help us grow our business and it has been really interesting. I noticed about us but we’re big process dorks, right? Like we like to put like a set process that works in place. It seems a bit more difficult to do with expanding sites because it’s kind of each site is unique. Like you may have a site with high traffic and low monetization or it’s well-monetized but could use additional monetization methods. Do you think you can set up a process for this that is step A, step B, step C or is it just custom?

Chris:
I think the actual finding the site, I mean there’s a process to what to look for that you can kind of systematize. I’m not even sure that’s a word. Maybe it is but yes, I think that part can be processed out looking at the site and then seeing what can be done and kind of having a checkbox of all the things that can be done to make a – have a higher traffic site and make more money. Going through those and then having, you know, different people working on it.

So I think knowing what I know about how you guys build your sites, I think that it’s possible to kind of build them out in that way. It’s just a matter of – I think it’s really just a matter of finding good enough sites to buy.

Joe:
I’m interested though in the budget that you spend on expanding sites. Do you have a formula for that based on the price that you bought it for or do you have an idea in mind of how much it’s going to cost? How do you do that?

Chris:
No, I don’t really do huge budget beyond just kind of knowing what these types of things might cost. Like for example, the ebook, I’m still working with the writer. I haven’t done it yet now because – but I’m curious to see, you know, roughly what someone might charge to write a premium ebook.

So if I buy these sites that are kind of around how to do something, then I can take that and, you know, pay someone else to but I need a book and then OK, I’ve got a $1000 expense for the ebook and based on the traffic and the size of the email lists, I should be able to make this many sales, et cetera.

So I don’t have like a really good budgeting process for how it expanded out but beyond the purchase price, I always kind of know that I’m going to be putting some more money to the site, whether it’s ongoing content creation or things like that but I’ve never really just sat down and thought, “OK, what am I going to budget for?” you know.

Justin:
Again, it’s one of those things that’s kind of custom too. So I don’t think you can say I’m going to spend $5000 on the site and I will allow another 20 percent of the purchase price to expand it, so depending on where you think you can get value and some sites may take 50% more. Some sites, 10% more.

Chris:
Yes, and that’s why it’s kind of fun too. What I was saying before, part of the reason why I expanded out into buying sites is cool because I had some of the capital to do it but also just because it’s kind of fun. I mean you’re starting – rather than starting from scratch, you got something you can already take and really, you know, build up.

Justin:
Chris, how long does it – to get an idea on like how you make a determination on whether the site is working or not, how long does it take for you to start seeing a return on the time or money you invested on expanding the site out?

Chris:
In the first three months, I can generally improve the income and then know – and then also look to see what I’m doing with the traffic. The traffic component, it was always something that if it relies on me to come up with like a marketing plan and like a really good strategy for trying to drive traffic in more – in greater numbers, then the traffic component will just kind of be pushed to the side a little bit while I’m too busy answering emails or doing other things.

Justin:
Yeah.

Chris:
You know, even as I’m saying these, answering some of these questions, I’m really thinking that this maybe the opposite time to get out and maybe start hiring. So if you’re in Seattle and you’re listening to this just let me know.

Justin:
Chris Guthrie is hiring locally.

Joe:
You know, I find that determination factor very interesting because, you know, that’s really what it’s going to come down to. I mean not every site you buy is going to be this overwhelming success.

So, you know, is there a stat that you look at for potential success? I mean after you bought the site and you’ve run it through your process or you’ve done everything that’s customized to it and you kind of let it go, is there something that you say, “OK, this site is worth working on because it has good traffic but the CTR, the CPC is bad. But this site, I’ve taken it as far as you can go. Now I don’t want to work on it anymore. I’m just going to leave it for residual income or I’m going to flip it”? How do you determine that?

Chris:
Well, so for me right now, I’m basically just trying to build my monthly website income up into higher and higher levels. So I’m not really looking to sell any of my sites at this point. I mean I guess everything is for sale for the right price but like the crafting site, I mean I would assume that I could sell it into the five figures and knowing that I bought it for $4000, that’s a nice $6000 profit but I mean it’s still not enough to make it worth doing.

Justin:
Yeah.

Chris:
So I think maybe the best way to say it is that if I can’t sell it for at least, you know, 50 grand or more, maybe 100 grand, then I don’t even know if I will bother selling because then it’s – you know, you’re looking at a lower income multiple than you can get at selling something much higher. So, I think that’s really the only thing is looking at how much you can sell for them and is it worth all the time it took for you to find a site worth buying and then do all the things that you did to it to just turn around and sell it.

Joe:
How do you know if you’re going to keep working on the site? Like how do you know when you say, “OK, this is as far as I’ve taken this site. I can’t do anything else more. I might as well just buy another site and work on that site instead of expanding this anymore”?

Chris:
I don’t think I really know. I think it’s more of just I – once I write my list of what I want to do to the site, so whether it’s improving the advertising, hiring more content writers or whatever it is and then beyond doing that, after I finish, it’s like OK, well, just keep letting it run. See if it kind of grows naturally as a result of what I did. And if not, OK, what else can I do to really improve it?

Justin:
The reason Joe is asking this, because this is something that we’re looking at over the next couple of weeks and months ourselves. Like, you know, we have a set process for creating the sites but some of those with a little more love and attention, we think could make a good amount of money. So we’re going to have to determine in that process of like kind of like a clean-up crew going through our sites and making more money. When do they call it quits? When is the site done? So we’re going to be running through that process here soon. So that’s one of the reasons we’re wondering but maybe just one of those things you got to get in and do and figure out.

Chris:
Yeah, it’s really individual and I guess maybe that’s just because – and again, even kind of go make that point where I probably – I’m at a point where I need to start working with more people but yeah, I just kind of have the list of what I want to do, work on doing it and then that’s something I really thought about exactly coming out of the process through every site that I buy because it’s kind of – it’s different each time so it’s kind of tough to …

Justin:
Tough to do that, yeah. That’s why we’re thinking we’re going to have to have like a custom team go back behind and make, you know, individual determinations on which sites to expand and which ones not to.

We had a site that we bought. It was Twittar.com. We bought this a couple of yeas ago for like 5000 and it was a good earner, right? It was doing well for us. We didn’t really expand it. We just kind of sat on it and collected the revenue. Ultimately, it was profitable. It made us money. It was a good buy but we started to see – we started to let it die and we consider that kind of one of our failures. We think we should either have expanded it or sold it and not hung onto it any longer. What do you do with a site that you’ve bought that just didn’t work out? It was just a dud and not a scam or anything but just kind of a dud. It’s dying on the vine. What do you do with that?

Chris:
So that’s the worst part too is if you have a site like that and it’s already starting to die, then it’s harder to really sell it, at least to sell it for enough to make it worth selling.

Justin:
Yeah, yeah.

Chris:
So I mean it’s really – it’s again one of those really tough things because if you’re looking at the income, it’s stagnating or it’s starting to fall, then you might think, “OK, maybe I can sell.” But then you’ve also got to factor in seasonality because these winter months, you’re going to be seeing a lot higher earnings. So yes, I mean with that angle, I mean there are so many people that I see selling sites either because they’ve contacted me through like the URL where I have – that I have a site where I tell people that – they want to sell their sites to me and then they talk about the potential or use them like this but not mix this and that’s like OK. Well, you’re not selling to me based on what it was making before. All I care about is what it was making in the past 12 months.

Justin:
What is it – so you have GetRidofYourWebsite.com.

Chris:
Yeah, and actually too I’ve had a few people that were – a few decent sites come through there but most of them are people that are – have a site that’s making no money and they want $20,000 or …

Justin:
Yeah.

Chris:
Even when I say that …

Justin:
It’s their baby.

Chris:
And I actually post – yeah.

Justin:
Yeah.

Chris:
When you post this podcast, I will probably get plenty of people with a site making $100 a month. They want 20 grand for it.

Justin:
Sweet lord. I’m absolutely certain to that yeah.

Joe:
Now that we’re talking about all this, you mentioned that a lot of things are kind of custom. A lot of things you kind of go by feel. I mean I wonder, Chris, how easy is it to model your process. How easy is it for someone else to get into this and understand what you’re doing?

Chris:
So I think it’s more difficult than starting sites from scratch in the sense that when you’re starting a site from scratch, it’s very, very systematic. It’s – you need to research. Buy your domain name. Write your content. Build your links and wait for Google to hopefully give you some traffic. I mean that’s pretty clear but here, you’re looking at trying to contact people that might tell you to F off when they contact you. We’ve had some guys say that before.

Justin:
Yeah, that.

Chris:
Or they will say, you know, sure it’s for sale. It’s a million dollars. OK. And so you’re dealing with a lot of that going on. So it is more difficult to build a system for it, I think.

Justin:
Chris, do you think it’s worth your time? I mean we always look for processes that we can scale, right? That don’t require a huge investment of our time. Because this is so custom, like have you thought about this? Like would your time be better focused on building out your Amazon sites and building a team to do that for you? Because this obviously requires a fair amount of your time. Why this direction, do you think?

Chris:
Well, I think it really depends too on the price range you’re going for. Like the first site I bought was a $500 site. It wasn’t making any money from anything. It had some traffic, some links and the site was already ranking for some terms in Google so I just kind of said, “Hey, would you sell this to me?” And then I turned around and added Amazon to it, et cetera and it since made me about $7000. But now I’m like trying to and this is the rule I’ve set for this year is to buy sites only for $10,000 or more because then it is – to kind of answer that question.

Justin:
Yeah.

Chris:
It’s a lot more worth my time when I’m buying a site for 10 grand or more than it is when I’m looking at a little bit lower.

Justin:
Yeah, you got to think about your per hour. So you buy a site for let’s say 700 bucks, ends up being worth 7000 but if you put in a bunch of hours, your per hours lower, if you buy something for 10,000 and turned that into 80,000 for the same effort, right, you’re like, OK, I made more money there, right? I get that.

Chris:
Yeah, and even if someone is listening, they can just – you don’t have to go at that level because – I don’t know. Like you said, once you get to a certain point, it has to be worth enough money that you need to really bother doing it.

Joe:
Right. And for us, we’re always playing that game. Is it better for us to expand our sites? Is it better for us to just sit around and crank up the machine and produce as many sites as we can? So if you were the AdSense Flippers, put yourself in our shoes for a second, if you were us, do you think it’s better to expand our sites before selling them to buyers or just crank up the machine and pump out as many sites we can and leave that upside to our buyers when they get them?

Chris:
I think that it’s worth testing out, trying to take – having your team or hiring some people that focus specifically on taking the sites to the next level and then seeing just what they can do to the total sale value you can get when you sell your sites. So that’s something you will have to do more testing but because you have the other aspect, building out these niche sites down so well, it’s almost like making more sense to just crank up the machine.

There are so many who will want to make money online and because – you know, done for you and that’s normally like a negative connotation. Well, when you’re buying a site, it is kind of done for you. So I mean that’s where you guys have like a pretty good market that you could sell to. So if you can crank out more of those types of sites, it might make more sense. But I definitely would say at least it’s worth looking into having some of your people build out the sites just to see what you can do, trying to take the site to the next level.

Justin:
Well, that’s where we are now, Chris. Both, basically. We need to scale out the sites and figure out a way to get them earning more. We’ve got our intern here. That’s his next project. You see, right now he’s documenting the process of everything that we do and he has really got that down. So now we could start taking a look at which sites have the best potential for success and really trying to expand those and see what we can do there to make more money.

So anyway, Chris, people want to get a hold of you. I’m sure they’re going to be interested especially after this interview. Where can they get in contact with you? Where can they go?

Chris:
Yes, best place is just my blog. It’s MakeMoneyOnTheInternet.com. It was my attempt at a keyword domain name before Google AdWords applied their keyword wasn’t getting as much traffic as I initially thought. But that’s the blog that I’m at and then I have an email address that I do my best to answer everyday, at least for the time being, Chris@MakeMoneyOnTheInternet.com.

Justin:
Cool, man. Well, it has been really helpful and really eye-opening for us because us looking to expand our sites, it’s really important for us to see how we can make more money and obviously our listeners are buying sites. They’re building their own sites. So if they can figure out a way to make more money out of their sites, that will be fantastic. So having an expert on like you that has done this a few times, been around the block, is really useful, man. I really appreciate it. Thanks for being on the AdSense Flippers Podcast.

Joe:
Yes. Thank you, Chris.

Chris:
Thanks guys for having me.

Joe:
Yes, thank you very much and we hope to be on your show soon.

Justin:
All right, buddy.

I don’t know, Joe. I thought that was a really good interview, buddy. What do you think?

Joe:
Yes, I really like talking to Chris. I think it’s very interesting hearing about buying sites and expanding them, taking them up to the next notch and revenue and these are not only AdSense sites he’s talking about. He’s talking about larger sites, smaller sites, all kinds of sites.

Justin:
I think that’s cool. I mean one of the best ways to expand an AdSense site is to add a better monetization method, right? So as we look to expand our niche sites within the next couple of months, we’re going to be really testing through that. That’s the intern’s next role, his next job. It would be really interesting to see like if we can find some other affiliate offers or some other stuff we can add on that will help make that site make more money in the long term as we continue to turn them into authority sites. You know what I mean?

Joe:
Especially if we can make a process out of it.

Justin:
Yeah, buddy. And that’s the thing, right? Let’s scale the hell out of it.

Joe:
Right.

Justin:
All right. Well, let’s get right into our ninja marketing tips, tricks and our plans for the future.

**** The AdSense Flippers Podcast continues ****

Justin:
So Joe, I got the first ninja marketing tip, man, and this is Optimize Press versus Premise. If you’re looking for a sales page, if you’re looking for something that really grabs some of the attention and get some email addresses, we were kind of doing this battle between Optimize Press or Premise. We’re working on a charity project. Now I know this sounds funny. Why do you need a sales page for a charity project? But you see, we put some of our internet marketing skills to good use and particularly good use and see if we can help out some people that really need it.

Anyway, deciding between the two, I found out that Optimize Press is great. It comes highly recommended. It’s a WordPress theme though. It’s a full-on theme where Premise gives you a lot of the same options and it’s a plugin instead of a theme. So for us, we want to be able to use like WooThemes theme or something. Using a plugin instead is fantastic.

Joe:
Yeah. I think a plugin is always going to be a little bit better than using a theme, if possible, for something this specific. Unless you want to change the entire look and feel of your site or your site which is a one-page long sales page, then that’s a different story.

So the next tip here when talking about improving sites is a great little product I like to use, service I like to use, called Optimizely.com and that allows you to make changes, basic changes to sites without having to edit your code or change your theme or anything like that. You can move buttons around. You can change colors. You can do all kinds of interesting things. It’s called Optimizely.com.

Justin:
Yeah. We will put a link in the show notes but that’s something that’s really good for me, right? I’m not a terribly technical guy. I don’t want to have to be moving all that stuff around. If I can do that really easy, like plug and play, pull, drag and drop kind of stuff, that’s really helpful.

Joe:
Yeah. So you don’t have to be very technical. You will have to have control of your site obviously in order to make the changes and test that but it allows you to do A-B variant testing, very scientific.

So the third tip I have here is kind of a fun one, Justin. I’m not a big fan of the electronica music, the dance party music thing but Dan and Ian and a couple of other people out there got me into this Bootie Mashup.

Justin:
Yeah, man. I don’t know, buddy. Bootie Mashup, give it to me. What’s it all about?

Joe:
OK. So BootieMashup.com and they take old songs and new songs and kind of run them together in a dance format and it’s pretty cool. I mean some of it doesn’t work. Some of it you’re like, “Ah, next.” But it’s free. It’s nice to have the mix on in the background when you’re just trying to pump out some work and I highly suggest you check it out because if you’re like me, choosing your music sometimes gets a little old and I mean if you’ve been listening to the same old stale playlist over and over again, this is a great way to freshen it up.

Justin:
We always want to freshen it up, don’t we? Just teasing you, buddy. It’s cool. I don’t know. I should really check it out. I think I saw it in Dynamite Circle. I was looking at it and going, “Wow, that’s kind of interesting.” The mash-up thing though sounds a little too much like Glee and my girlfriend beats the hell of that show, makes me watch it with her so I don’t know. I think I’m done with the mash-ups but I will take a look, man. I will take a look.

Well, that is it for Episode 13 of the AdSense Flippers Podcast. Really excited to have you with us. Thanks for sticking with it. Make sure to check us out on Twitter at AdSense Flippers. We’re on there. Don’t be shy. Come say hi and we’ll give you a tweet.

Joe:
Bye-bye everybody.