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Developing websites is currently very profitable?
Developing websites is currently very profitable for not much work...
at least according to the article from the Guardian Newspaper below
Can anyone relate to this. Any views/comments?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/sep/11/netrich.internet
Who'd be a property developer nowadays? The answer: people who develop online properties - rather than physical ones - by snapping up undeveloped sites in a practice known as website flipping. The principle is exactly the same as that of property development: flippers fix up the undeveloped sites and sell them for a profit. As with property development, it's all about adding value. In property, adding value may mean converting a loft. Online, it means increasing visitor traffic and improving website revenue.
"There are success stories every single day," says Bryan Clark of siteflipu.com, a website flipping blog. "Some sites have sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars with very little work involved."
Many flippers are driven by thoughts of high-profile internet deals such as News Corp's $580m (£330m) payout for the company behind MySpace, or Google's $1.65bn (£884m) acquisition of YouTube. But most are happy to work on a much smaller scale, making a few hundred pounds a time from developments that can be turned around and sold on in as little as a few hours. A regular turnover of sites can generate a healthy income. "I've been flipping websites for about a year now," says Clark. "I've flipped somewhere in the neighbourhood of 200 sites for a profit of around $160,000. I can make as much or as little as I want in any given day."
Site for sore eyes
Clare Hayes first became aware of website flipping four months ago. "It's a good way to earn a little extra money," she says. Hayes recently flipped the website selfhelpportal4u.com. "It cost me less than £10, and I sold it for £150," she says. "I know that's not exactly a big money deal, but they do happen. You have to start out small, and at the moment I am still on the bottom rung of the ladder."
Much of the appeal of website flipping is that it can be done from home on a small budget with a little effort and some basic web skills. "All you need is a computer, an internet connection and about £10 to get you started," says Hayes. "You can work your own hours and, best of all, there is absolutely no limit to the amount of money you can make." That holds true in both directions, of course: you may make nothing if nobody wants your site.
Some web-savvy entrepreneurs have turned the practice into a full-time job. "Flipping websites has allowed me to give up my day job as owner of an IT hardware company," says Clinton Lee, from Essex. "I now do this full time, and I've made several hundred thousand pounds in the last couple of years."
Lee got into it after discovering the earning potential of Google's AdSense ad-serving programme. "One month when we were too busy to take new orders we placed AdSense ads on the company website," he says. "The theory was that visitors who clicked the ads would be taken to our competitors and we'd earn a few pennies per click. When the website showed £4,500, £5,400 and £4,700 in AdSense earnings for three consecutive months, I decided that those figures beat slogging 80 hours a week. I ceased trading, outsourced our existing warranty commitments, continued running ads on the company website and started buying other sites." Lee bought the website techbooksforfree.com for £1,300 and sold it for £17,500.
Programmes such as AdSense and its competitor AdBrite, which generate cash through content-related paid-for ads, are key tools used to monetise websites. They then increase visitor traffic using search engine optimisation (SEO) techniques to improve their ranking with search engines such as Google and Yahoo. A high ranking, achieved via search engine-friendly design, link-building and keywords, can increase visitor traffic. A website that is making money and attracting visitors quickly becomes a saleable commodity. Free services such as dnscoop.com, which generate website value estimates, can help flippers set price tags.
Rapid turnover
Once sites have been spruced up, they can be traded online via eBay or webmaster-specific sites such as sitepoint.com. SitePoint Marketplace users are trading more than $1.2m worth of websites every month. "We're seeing over 2,000 new auctions listed per month and regular sales in the $50,000 to $200,000 range," says Matt Mickiewicz, co-founder of SitePoint. "The average website sells for between $2,000 and $3,000."
But not all are in a hurry to sell their sites. "Sometimes it's worth holding on for a while to a site that's generating sizeable regular monthly cheques," says Lee. He also has some words of warning for those tempted to investigate further: "The best advice I can give first-time website flippers is to avoid falling for the biggest moneymaking scam of all - the sale of ebooks and courses on how to make money online. There are plenty of sites that offer free information for you to study."
Clark also offers advice: "Start slow and don't invest a big portion of your money at any one time. There are risks involved in flipping sites, and if you become over-extended early on, you risk losing it all." Despite such risks, a growing number of people are viewing website flipping as an attractive and potentially lucrative activity.
"The great thing is that it's very early days and almost anyone can get involved," says Mickiewicz. "All you need is some basic internet knowledge and a willingness to learn. People who start acquiring small websites now and building their online portfolios will be the big winners in five to 10 years' time. Website trading is where domain-name investing was 10 years ago. Savvy domain-name investors who were able to get in on the ground floor were able to acquire lucrative portfolios worth millions of dollars. There's a similar opportunity now with acquiring low-maintenance, revenue-generating websites while valuations are low."
Developing websites is currently very profitable for not much work...
at least according to the article from the Guardian Newspaper below
Can anyone relate to this. Any views/comments?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/sep/11/netrich.internet
Who'd be a property developer nowadays? The answer: people who develop online properties - rather than physical ones - by snapping up undeveloped sites in a practice known as website flipping. The principle is exactly the same as that of property development: flippers fix up the undeveloped sites and sell them for a profit. As with property development, it's all about adding value. In property, adding value may mean converting a loft. Online, it means increasing visitor traffic and improving website revenue.
"There are success stories every single day," says Bryan Clark of siteflipu.com, a website flipping blog. "Some sites have sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars with very little work involved."
Many flippers are driven by thoughts of high-profile internet deals such as News Corp's $580m (£330m) payout for the company behind MySpace, or Google's $1.65bn (£884m) acquisition of YouTube. But most are happy to work on a much smaller scale, making a few hundred pounds a time from developments that can be turned around and sold on in as little as a few hours. A regular turnover of sites can generate a healthy income. "I've been flipping websites for about a year now," says Clark. "I've flipped somewhere in the neighbourhood of 200 sites for a profit of around $160,000. I can make as much or as little as I want in any given day."
Site for sore eyes
Clare Hayes first became aware of website flipping four months ago. "It's a good way to earn a little extra money," she says. Hayes recently flipped the website selfhelpportal4u.com. "It cost me less than £10, and I sold it for £150," she says. "I know that's not exactly a big money deal, but they do happen. You have to start out small, and at the moment I am still on the bottom rung of the ladder."
Much of the appeal of website flipping is that it can be done from home on a small budget with a little effort and some basic web skills. "All you need is a computer, an internet connection and about £10 to get you started," says Hayes. "You can work your own hours and, best of all, there is absolutely no limit to the amount of money you can make." That holds true in both directions, of course: you may make nothing if nobody wants your site.
Some web-savvy entrepreneurs have turned the practice into a full-time job. "Flipping websites has allowed me to give up my day job as owner of an IT hardware company," says Clinton Lee, from Essex. "I now do this full time, and I've made several hundred thousand pounds in the last couple of years."
Lee got into it after discovering the earning potential of Google's AdSense ad-serving programme. "One month when we were too busy to take new orders we placed AdSense ads on the company website," he says. "The theory was that visitors who clicked the ads would be taken to our competitors and we'd earn a few pennies per click. When the website showed £4,500, £5,400 and £4,700 in AdSense earnings for three consecutive months, I decided that those figures beat slogging 80 hours a week. I ceased trading, outsourced our existing warranty commitments, continued running ads on the company website and started buying other sites." Lee bought the website techbooksforfree.com for £1,300 and sold it for £17,500.
Programmes such as AdSense and its competitor AdBrite, which generate cash through content-related paid-for ads, are key tools used to monetise websites. They then increase visitor traffic using search engine optimisation (SEO) techniques to improve their ranking with search engines such as Google and Yahoo. A high ranking, achieved via search engine-friendly design, link-building and keywords, can increase visitor traffic. A website that is making money and attracting visitors quickly becomes a saleable commodity. Free services such as dnscoop.com, which generate website value estimates, can help flippers set price tags.
Rapid turnover
Once sites have been spruced up, they can be traded online via eBay or webmaster-specific sites such as sitepoint.com. SitePoint Marketplace users are trading more than $1.2m worth of websites every month. "We're seeing over 2,000 new auctions listed per month and regular sales in the $50,000 to $200,000 range," says Matt Mickiewicz, co-founder of SitePoint. "The average website sells for between $2,000 and $3,000."
But not all are in a hurry to sell their sites. "Sometimes it's worth holding on for a while to a site that's generating sizeable regular monthly cheques," says Lee. He also has some words of warning for those tempted to investigate further: "The best advice I can give first-time website flippers is to avoid falling for the biggest moneymaking scam of all - the sale of ebooks and courses on how to make money online. There are plenty of sites that offer free information for you to study."
Clark also offers advice: "Start slow and don't invest a big portion of your money at any one time. There are risks involved in flipping sites, and if you become over-extended early on, you risk losing it all." Despite such risks, a growing number of people are viewing website flipping as an attractive and potentially lucrative activity.
"The great thing is that it's very early days and almost anyone can get involved," says Mickiewicz. "All you need is some basic internet knowledge and a willingness to learn. People who start acquiring small websites now and building their online portfolios will be the big winners in five to 10 years' time. Website trading is where domain-name investing was 10 years ago. Savvy domain-name investors who were able to get in on the ground floor were able to acquire lucrative portfolios worth millions of dollars. There's a similar opportunity now with acquiring low-maintenance, revenue-generating websites while valuations are low."
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