Anyone who pops by here occasionally for a read will know that I bought my first website in September. I already have a bunch of sites, of course, but this was the first one I forked over money for – ready made and ready to earn. I paid $3000 for The Blighty Traveller and so far things are really paying off.
I earned $700 from the site in the second half of September then October was a lot slower with only about $350 in earnings. November is going a bit nuts and I’ve already earned almost $1300 (and am on track for a +$7000 month!) If things keep going this well, I should have this baby paid off before the end of the year. Four months… not too shabby, especially if the site keeps contributing to my earnings the way it has been.
Part of the reason I bought the site had nothing really to do with earnings potential. I honestly went into the sale without worrying too much about previous earnings and deals or traffic stats or any of that stuff. I just jumped in feet first and followed my instincts. This has been as much an exercise in risk-taking and I like it. I’m not averse to taking risks in life at all… selling all my stuff, moving to various countries, travelling to semi-dodgy places occasionally, doing dumb things etc. but I’ve never really been much of a risk-taker with money.
I spent all of my money on plane tickets and day-to-day travel and living expenses while stuffing a small amount of savings away in case this internet gig of mine implodes. Besides outsourcing a couple of programming things, buying The Blighty Traveller was my first major investment in expanding my business and, while parting with what is a pretty big sum of money for me was a bit scary, it’s a great feeling taking a (somewhat calculated) chance and seeing it pay off. I’m planning on taking a few more risks like this and so I’m looking for some more sites to buy.
But where the hell do I find them? The Blighty Traveller fell into my lap one day, out of the blue. I’ve been on Flippa and, from what I can see so far, the sites on there are mostly garbage. Is it just a matter of checking that site out all the time to try to find the rare gems? Are there other sites out there with good websites for sale? Should I be checking out website forums instead? Do you have a good site for sale?
I’m mostly interested in destination-specific sites. Preferably guides for large cities around the world. Or anything to do with backpacking, budget travel etc would be ok too. Or anything really… maybe I’ll branch out a bit from my comfort zone if the right site crosses my path.
I’m really new to this side of things and I haven’t really got a clue where to start looking for websites. If anyone out there is experienced in this, I’d love to hear from you! Or seriously… if anyone has a site they want to offload, send me an email and I’ll take a look.
Blight. Like boarded up windows and rubble. And travel. That’s a stupid URL no matter how it earns.
You just missed a series of sites being sold by company called Tribune on Flippa with proven earnings which were travel guides to places like Malta, Andorra, Tenerife, etc. Travel sites don’t seem to appear often on Flippa though, I keep looking out for them myself and instead I decided to buy domains and build (such as Caribbean.org.uk that I paid £180+VAT for last week).
Oh, a quick way to see travel sites on flippa is this link: https://flippa.com/buy-travel-websites
I hate to toot my own blog, but I wrote an article on avoiding Flippa BS this morning: http://www.mattpaulson.com/2011/11/how-to-avoid-scams-when-shopping-for-websites-on-flippa/
You might like to visit experienced-people.net – forum for people who buy and sell websites (no sales there, more talk about how and why, as well as all the other website stuff too
)
Great to see that the site has been an immediate success. Once it’s paid off then everything is profit which is great! I haven’t bought any sites and have only ever made mine from scratch but if I do decide to invest then it’s great to know there are some great deals out there.
I guess another option is to buy aged domains someplace like http://justdropped.com/ or godaddy.com and build a quick site around that domain name. It may already have a PR and traffic coming in and of course it already has the age.
Nomadic Ratt, you don’t have a clue my friend. The Uk is often referred to Blighty, maybe only by Brits but seeing as there are now over 63million of us I think it is a well worth domain!
Even if the domain name is not the best it proves that it doesnt matter if great content is behind the site. These people that chase ‘keyword’ domain names and pay way over the odds are fools in my opinion. I have seen many keyword domain jump into top SERP positions and then they are gone within a few weeks.
Caribbean.org.uk? Big waste of money unless you are a UK based charity with interests in the Carribean!
Hi Kirsty, if you’re interested in an Rio de Janeiro site, check out ours and let me know what you think!
Kirsty great to see you are doing so well, along with the success of The Blighty Traveller.
I second WN great domain name and site… more so as it is unique..
I think flippa is still a good place to buy just do your due diligence, sifting through those you dont want can be a pain. The advanced search is very good though..
A less well know method is to go find sites on the web that look abandoned or underdeveloped and contact the owner direct with a decent offer.. this is a proven method and can produce some real gems, more so with your network of advertisers.
Best of luck.