I’ve added another website into my growing internet empire! It’s http://www.britishtravelblog.co.uk and I think it was a great buy and has a lot of potential. I’m not super crazy about the theme but that’s just a cosmetic thing… there’s plenty of good content and at the $2,800 price tag, I think it was a good deal.
I wrote a post back in November 2011 called I Want to Buy Another Website… But How? and I had my question answered months later when a site owner named Charlene got in touch offering up her British travel blog. I took a brief look and told her that I was somewhat interested but that I didn’t really have the time to take a proper look but that I’d get back to her later. Of course I got distracted with other things and it took a reminder email from her last month coinciding with some spare time on my end before I dedicated some time to checking the site out.
I was happy I did because what I found was a pretty well put together site with almost 100 pages of content. The fact that the site fit very well into my UK travel niche and that I got a good vibe from Charlene meant that I was pretty keen on buying the site. The only problem in deciding I was having was due to me wanting the cash for some other projects in Rwanda.
But I bit the bullet and bought the site a couple of weeks ago and here’s why…
- 80+ posts - The site is full of good content. I’ve got a couple of new sites in the pipeline (one for travel in London, the other Scotland) and I’ve been paying GBP25 per post, including a photo (I know, I could get content for far cheaper but my strategy of quality content has been paying off so I’m sticking with it). At that rate, the content alone would have cost me GBP2,000 so it seemed like a good buy just for the quantity of content alone.
- Fits well with my niche -It seems like UK travel has become my niche and it seems to be working very well so adding this site into the mix is a logical choice. It means that I can pitch the new site to my existing advertising contacts which should mean some easy ad sales in the future.
- Proven earnings - Since the site began only six months ago, it’s made GBP2,000 mostly in guest posts which seem to have become my main earner lately. Charlene offered to send me screenshots of her Paypal account as proof of earnings but I prefer to trust my gut on these things and based on that, and the fact that the site is, in my opinion, of a high quality I trust that it’s true.
- Great price -So if the site has earned GBP2,000 in six months then my price of GBP1,800 is a great deal. I told Charlene that I feel like the site is worth more but that I’ve been spending a lot lately on this trip through the States and I have some big projects in mind for when I get back to Rwanda so that was my offer. She took some time to think about it decided to go ahead which, I have to admit, I was somewhat surprised about.
- Good PR and stats - For a site that was started in February, it has some decent stats. It’s PR2 and gets over 100 visitors per day. I only seeing this improving, especially with the links I’m going to send it from my existing sites.
- Good domain name - The domain name says exactly what it is and I like that. I like that it’s a .co.uk domain as well.
- Ranking well with Google - The site ranks #1 for the keywords ‘British travel blog’ which I think is pretty amazing.
- Personal sale - Having browsed through websites like Flippa, I’m never impressed with what’s on offer. I feel like those sites are mostly filled with garbage content and created just to be sold. I feel like the sites I’ve bought so far have been created with at least some level of passion and commitment to making it a good site and that has shown, I think, it the content and quality. I like that both of the sales have been from people who read my blog and feel like they’re leaving their site in good hands. I like the personal touch of buying sites from people who get in touch with me with an offer.
- Ease of transfer - I’m not as nerdy as I wish I was and don’t know a thing about transferring WordPress sites from one host to another. I asked early on whether she knew how to do this and, as it turns out, she only had this one site on her hosting account so she just gave me the password details to that and to the WordPress account and that was that. The domain name is part of the hosting which makes things even easier.
Overall I feel like this is a great deal for me based on the earnings to date, the fact that it fits well into my niche, and the number of articles already written for the site. I’ve had several people already contact me about guest posts and have made one sale for GBP30 with another two on the way for GBP40 each. I’ve bumped the guest post price up to GBP100 and have a few interested people so far but no sales just yet. I like to start high and if that price doesn’t work then I’ll reassess things as I go. I don’t think this site is going to pay itself off as quickly as Blighty Traveller as the advertising inquiries don’t seem to be of as high a caliber just yet… but I think it will get there!
Overall I’m really pleased to be adding another site into my growing little web empire. I’ve got a couple more sites on the cards and last Friday we finally launched my living in Kampala website (post to come soon… I’m REALLY excited about this project!) so I’m pretty pumped about the web world at the moment.
Yay to new sites!
I agree that Flippa doesn’t have many good websites. I’ve been looking for potential websites that I could also buy online and the ones on Flippa are not good. Most of them are auto-regenerated or their content is not original. So it was probably a good choice buying directly from the website owner. In the long run, it’s a good investment.
Your mini travel site empire is developing well. Any thoughts on Google buying Frommers and how it might impact travel sites in the future?
Hello again Kirsty! Great news, and a good bit of business. I’ve now settled on Scandinavian travel as my niche and am pursuing two different models alongside my blog – building my own site (expat focused, along the lines of your “Living in…” sites actually) and buying one. I’ve been actively searching all the various forums (including Flippa) and found very little of note, but I have made contact with a few site owners. Many are confused that I’m interested in buying their site! I would say these are the best people to approach, rather than those that built up a site to sell. If you do come across any suitable sites, please do shoot me a mail
Nice buy. Whatever Google says about exact match keywords then this is further evidence that it helps.
Kirsty, you’ve got another great deal there. The content + the domain name + trust acquired = great value. Plus you fact it’s on a separate C-block to your other sites. I agree about the theme – it’s a bit too “cool” but easily changed.
My exact problem. I would like to buy a website once every now and then, but browsing Flippa all I see is either out of my current price range or crap. Mostly crap. You’re lucky with the british travel blog.