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Blog Flipping 101: How To Sell A Blog For Profit [Ep. 72]

By Jessie Festa. This episode on how to make money blog flipping is sponsored by Travelpayouts and also contains affiliate links to trusted partners I think you’ll love!

Interested in learning about blog flipping; as in, how to sell a blog for profit?

Well, you’re in luck, as in this episode of The Profitable Travel Blogger Podcast, we’ll be focusing on how to make money with blog flipping.

By the end of this episode, you’ll understand:

  • What blog flipping is and why it’s a smart monetization strategy for bloggers
  • How much you can potentially earn flipping a blog
  • Tips for flipping blogs and earning as much income as possible
  • What the website buying and selling process looks like
  • Mistakes to avoid when it comes to blog flipping
  • And more!

Our special guest for this episode is Dale of Blogging Her Way, who will be sharing the blog flipping technique that has helped her sell multiple blogs for multiple five figures!

Table of Contents

Blog Flipping 101: How To Sell A Blog For Profit [Podcast Episode Audio]

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This episode is sponsored by Travelpayouts, the largest affiliate platform designed for travel content creators.

Travelpayouts helps bloggers earn on all types of travel services including flight tickets, accommodation, tours and activities, car rentals, insurance, and many others by connecting over 100 trusted travel brands with over 300,000 content creators globally.

If you’re interested in making money through your blog, joining this network is a smart move.

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Free Travel Blogger Resource Library

To help you really jumpstart your blogging success, I’ve added 55+ blogging resources like printables, video tutorials, and workbooks into a FREE resource library for travel bloggers.

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I’m all about implementation and I really want to make sure you don’t just listen to the episode and forget about it, but that you actually use what I share to make your blogging life easier!

See Success Flipping Blogs With These Helpful Tools:

Niche Investor. This brokerage and marketplace for selling blogs makes website flipping a breeze.

Empire Flippers. This online business marketplace has helped thousands of people buy and sell more than $400+ million worth of online businesses.

Motion Invest. This marketplace helps you buy and sell websites quickly.

blog flipping technique

Blog Flipping Technique [Episode Transcript]

*Note: This is the edited down and paraphrased version of the episode on how to sell your blog for profit. For the full episode, listen to the audio version linked above.

There are so many different ways to monetize your travel blog:

And while these popular methods of making money are great, there are also lesser-known strategies that can be very profitable.

One of these is blog flipping; as in, selling a blog for profit.

Now, if you’re new to the concept of selling a website but want to learn more, stay tuned, as our special guest for this episode, Dale of Blogging Her Way, will be breaking the full strategy down. ​​

Dale has started and sold multiple blogs for multiple five figures, and today she’ll be sharing her top blog flipping tips so that you can do the same.

1. Thank you so much for taking the time to share your tips! To start, can you tell us more about yourself, your blog, and how you got into blog flipping?

My name is Dale and I’m the founder of Blogging Her Way, where I teach aspiring bloggers how to start and grow their own profitable blogs.

I actually started blogging about five and a half years ago when I was still a college student as a way to make some extra money. I ended up starting three blogs in just over a year, and I was able to grow all of those into profitable moneymaking businesses.

After a while, it began to feel like too much to be running three websites, so I decided to try blog flipping on my travel and lifestyle blog. This is because it was the one I was least passionate about, and I thought that by selling it I could free up time to focus on the projects I was more interested in.

However, what actually ended up happening was I became hooked on blog flipping, and I ended up starting and selling several more blogs over the following years.

2. Okay so let’s start with the basics. What is blog flipping, and why might it be something bloggers should have on their radar?

Blog flipping is selling a blog or other website for a profit.

You can think of it kind of like house flipping like you see on HGTV shows like Love It or List It, except it’s with digital real estate assets — like a website — instead of actual real estate.

To get started, you can either buy an existing blog and then later flip it for a profit or you can start your own blog from scratch and then later sell it.

3. I’m sure it varies, but about how much money can a blogger make flipping their site?

It definitely does vary; but in general, you can expect to sell a blog for a multiple of its average income over the last twelve months.

You typically see multiples of anywhere from 24 to 48 times the average monthly profit. For example, if your blog earns $1000 a month on average, you can sell it for anywhere from $24,000 to $48,000, and the multiple can vary based on different factors.

A blog that has traffic and income that’s been on a downward trend or a blog with volatile or inconsistent traffic and income may sell for a lower multiple.

On the other hand, a blog that has been very consistent or is even on an upward trend with the traffic and income could be sold for a higher multiple.

4. Let’s backtrack for a bit. For someone who is brand new to blog flipping, what are some best practices for getting a blog ready to sell? Are there things they can do to increase the value?

If you’re brand new to blog flipping, there are steps you can take to get your blog ready to sell.

First of all, you can go ahead and start organizing your blog’s proof of income, because that’s something you will need in order to sell it. This could be a spreadsheet of all your blog’s earnings and expenses by month as well as corresponding screenshots to go along with the earnings. This total package would act as proof of income for potential website buyers.

You may also want to remove any personal information from your blog — such as really personal blog posts or photos of yourself — if you don’t want to remain the face of your blog when you sell it.

As for increasing the value of your blog, you can work on getting your blog’s income to a higher place in the months before you sell it. This is wise because it’ll help you get you the highest multiple when you do sell your website.

Before selling your site, I’d recommend taking a look at your blog’s most popular and highest traffic posts and auditing them. You want to make sure they’re optimized for income in the best way possible. For example, you might add affiliate links to a blog post that doesn’t currently have any.

5. Interesting. And then how do you know when your website is ready to sell?

There’s no definite formula for knowing when your blog is ready to sell; but, if it feels like the right time then I would say to go for it.

If you feel like you’re burnt out with your blog or you don’t get excited about working on it anymore, or you just want to focus on other projects instead, that’s a good sign that it’s time to sell your blog.

That being said, it is always better to sell your blog when income has been consistent or even increasing over the past few months — because that’s going to get you a better price when you sell it.

I also wouldn’t rush into selling a blog if you think there’s still room to grow. This is a mistake that I’ve made a couple of times when maybe I should have waited a little longer to sell to maximize my earnings.

6. What is the website buying and selling process like?

When selling your blog, I recommend going through a broker. I’ve worked with the team at Niche Investor several times and they market your blog, find a buyer, and handle the whole transition process for you.

You can also use another marketplace like Empire Flippers or Motion Invest.

The same goes with buying a blog. All of those websites have listings where you can browse and make an offer on a blog that you’re interested in. Just note that it’s important to do your own due diligence on a website before you purchase it.

And typically when buying or selling a blog, you’ll use an escrow account where the money is held until the transaction is completed — which also includes transferring over all the website files, the domain name, social media accounts, and any other assets included in the sale.

When I’ve sold blogs in the past, it’s taken anywhere from a few days to a few months to find a buyer. From there, the total transaction can take a few more days to a week to close.

7. Speaking of buying, does it make sense for bloggers who want to pursue blog flipping to buy a blog to spruce up? Or should they create their own from scratch?

You can go about it both ways, and there are pros and cons to each.

I’ve started off by building up blogs from scratch and then selling them; however, in the last couple of years I’ve also experimented more with buying blogs to later flip them.

My recommendation:

If you have the capital to invest in an existing blog, that’s definitely the fastest way to get started.

Let’s say you buy a blog that’s earning $200 a month and you purchase it for $7,200. If you can get that blog earning $500 a month within a year, you can then flip it for $18,000 or more — so there’s definitely a shorter window and a bigger potential for profit.

If you don’t have the money upfront to buy an established blog, you can sell your existing blog or start a blog from scratch with the intention to later sell it. That’s another good option, especially as you’ll learn how to actually grow and monetize a blog to help strengthen its earning potential.

8. What are some of your top tips for someone who is listening to this and thinking “Yes, I want to try blog flipping! How do I get started? How do I see success with this?”

If you’re interested in blog flipping, I would suggest figuring out how you want to approach it first.

Do you want to buy a blog and then flip it, or do you want to sell one of your own blogs? Or maybe you want to start a brand new blog from scratch with the plan to sell it later on?

If you want to buy a blog, then I would get on the email list for Niche Investor and other website brokerages so that you can see their latest listings when they become available.

This is important, because when a high quality blog goes on the market it typically sells very quickly — sometimes even within hours or a couple of days. You want to be able to preview these types of listings so you can make an offer on a good asset.

If you’re going to sell your own blog, I would consider how it’s monetized or how you plan to monetize it.

Personally, display ads and affiliate links have been the easiest ways to monetize the blogs that I’ve sold. It’s also really easy to transition over to the new buyer because they just need to get approved for the ad network as well as swap out the affiliate links for their own.

Because of this, these monetization streams can make your website more attractive when you’re selling because it’s just a really easy process and a seamless transition.

9. What are some of the biggest mistakes you’ve seen bloggers who want to sell their blogs make?

Selling a website too soon is a big mistake that I see — and that I’ve even made myself.

I wouldn’t sell a blog before it’s at least a couple of years old, just to make sure that you’ve maximized the potential for profit and that you’re able to get the highest price possible when selling.

Also, don’t think that your blog needs to be making a ton of money in order to sell it. In fact, you can sell a blog that’s making even just a little bit of income.

And while monetized blogs definitely fetch the highest price, you can actually sell a blog that isn’t currently making money for about $1,000-$2,000 if there’s a lot of good content on it or if there’s a lot of potential for growth.

10. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom! Before we sign off, can you let everyone know where they can find you?

Alright, now I hope you enjoyed this episode. I hope you feel inspired and empowered to make blog flipping a part of your blog monetization strategy.

Don’t forget to grab access to my free resource library for bloggers. There are a ton of social media resources in there.

Also, thank you once again to our sponsor, Travelpayouts. Make sure to sign up to grab a $50 bonus on top of your first payout.

And of course, make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss future episodes sharing these bite-sized strategies for bloggers who want to turn their blogs into profitable full-time businesses.

Happy blogging!

 

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Master Website Flipping & Blog Monetization With These Helpful Past Episodes:

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How To Find Niche Keywords By Doing Competitor Research

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How To Reach Your Blogging Goals Faster With Outreach Days

How To Create A Pinterest Strategy That Grows Your Blog Traffic

7 Types Of Emails That Can Boost Your Travel Blogging Income

Click here for all profitable blogging podcast episodes.

What tips would you add to this blog flipping guide?