Podcast 2: Flipping Blogs: How to Sell a Blog for $20,000 Plus
The first post that ever went viral on Blog Tyrant was called How I Sold a Blog for $20,000 in 8 Months. It hit the front page of Delicious, got tens of thousands of visitors and even got noticed by some newspapers and A-Listers like Rand Fishkin. Blog Tyrant was born.
In this second Podcast I chat about how I have sold several blogs for similar price tags and about how you can do the same. If you don’t want to sell your blog don’t worry, a lot of the Podcast is dedicated to how you can increase the revenue and community on your blog as quickly as possible.
Some of the things that get mentioned in this Podcast include:
- How much you can expect to sell your blog for
- Why you need to monetize your site from the very beginning
- Why WordPress is a necessity
- What to do if Google bans your site
- How to use language, emotion and friendship when selling your blog
- Much more
Now, I know a lot of you are really interested in blog flipping so I am going to be doing a lot more to help you out with this in 2011. Make sure you are subscribed to be a part of it.
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Top 20 on iTunes?
I just thought I’d let you know that the Blog Tyrant Podcast went to the top 20 hottest podcasts for business last week. That, my friends, is 100% because of your support. If you like today’s Podcast I would really appreciate it if you visited iTunes and gave me a nice little review as it will help to get me back up the top. You can also subscribe to the Podcasts on that page or by RSS here.
Question time?
If you have any questions about how I have sold blogs for $20,000 I am happy to answer them here. Just leave a comment and I’ll see what I can do.
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38 Comments
Hi, I just finished listening to your podcast. Well done on the perfect quality audio and giving really good information. Selling my blog is not something I’m currently thinking about (I only started on January 1st and it’s meant to be an author site for me to reach my audience), but there was still some solid advice on how to develop it.
Now I’m off to listen to your first one. I appreciate the effort you are going into by finding out what your readers really want whether it’s that MonkeySurvey you sent or via comments to your posts. Keep up the good work – you’ve helped this newbie out several times already as I learn this mountain of info needed to get started in the blogosphere. With the Tyrant’s advice, how could we go wrong?
Thanks Neil. Really appreciate it.
Hi,
I have just listened to this podcast although I am not even considering selling my blog (right now, I wouldn’t be able if I wanted.
The podcast is really interesting. It has much more information than just selling blogs tips.
Cristina
Thanks Cristina. Glad you liked it.
Just finished the podcast. I’m enjoying them, but I have trouble paying attention because I don’t have anything to focus my attention on so my mind wanders a little after the first 10 minutes.
I can’t agree more about not using Blogger. I don’t know why, but people who buy their domains and continue using the Blogger platform never seem to get rid of the ‘B’ favicon. Drives me nuts. Right or wrong, I immediately close the tab in my browser as soon as I see it because a high percentage of the poor quality sites I run across during research are on Blogger.
You probably already said this but I missed it because of brain wander syndrome, but I’d recommend anyone who wants to sell blogs buy a developer’s license for their fave WP theme, so they don’t have to reinvent the wheel each time they start a site. I know a lot of bloggers use Thesis and love it, but I went with Genesis and don’t regret it at all. I think I’ve got something stupid like 20 child themes to pick from (I don’t need that many) and they keep adding more that I can download but don’t.
Just, please, for the love bubble gum and kittens…upload a favicon to get rid of the ‘G’ that shows as a default. Let’s be real; if I can figure out how to create and upload an eye with a monster hand coming out of it as my favicon, I think anyone with a computer can as well.
+1 Dev license for Thesis.
Jen, you continue to make me laugh.
My work here is done.
There’s an awesome plug in to get your favicon changed. That is what I used because I have no idea how to FTP.
It was easy!
I’ve used a couple before, but I learned that it was just as easy for me to name something “favicon.ico” and replace the file in the template through the FTP. I was scared I was going to destroy my site the first time I did it, but it’s something I won’t forget now.
And yes, I used to break my sites all the time. After getting the white screen of death on my all of my sites in a single weekend, I had to become a pro at figuring out what that string of code meant so I could go in and delete whatever was causing it. But that’s the only line of code I know how to read and debug.
Hi Jen,
That’s how we all learn. Trying and failing sometimes. First time I used Filezilla I was scared to break my site. But if I wanted things done I had to do them myself. I tried and I lost my fear.
Cristina
I agree, just try it.
I’ve deleted my public_html folder once, (meaning ALL my sites gone withing seconds..) and I went nuts (after gasping for air for a few minutes). I host my websites with hostgator and they have an online/chat help which was awesome. I had to pay 15 dollars to get my sites restored from their last backup.
Moral of the story back up first and then you can always go back or let your hosting fix a problem.
Back back back it up (like the song) and you will be fine. (also copy and paste your file/page.php in notepad before you make an adjustment in the code)
I have a couple of questions around the material. Since I’ve never tried to sell a blog before, do you have a seperate hosting plan for each blog, or do you host all of your blogs from one account?
Does it complicate things when selling, if you have multiple blogs hosted from a single hosting account? To me it makes sense to host multiple on one account for financial efficiency, but I can see where seperate accounts would be handy if your long term plan is to sell, but would like to know more.
Not if you transfer the domain, copy the database, zip up the HTML files, press send.
Hi Finergystic.
I host my stuff all over the place. I have some blogs on dedicated hosting because they get a lot of traffic, but I also have over 60 on one account.
Like Tim said, if you ever want to sell one you just pack up the database and email it to them. Once you have received the cash you then transfer the domain name to them.
9 times out of 10 hosting support will do it for you.
I’m a litte bit confused now, BT. I’ve heard so many times that transfering a site from one host to another is painful. But you describe it like very simple.
Its easy if it is to the same thing: ie wordpress to wordpress.
Going from Blogger to Wp can be tricky.
I want to know more about how you build the sites that fast, there are so many bloggers out there that have been trying for years to make it and can’t monetize.
I guess a wicked design and content helps..
Hi Rachelle.
The two sites that I sold for around the $20,000 mark I pumped out content like it was going out of fashion. I research titles really well and wrote medium to long articles that were good link bait as well as likely to get type in traffic on Google if they got enough links.
At that time, Darren Rowse was still only just becoming the Problogger and he was doing some really inspiring stuff. I remember him saying that at the beginning he used to write up to 30 articles a day! Just 9am to 6pm writing. So I did that.
These days I’m smarter about it and outsource most of it.
Holy shit! That is a lot!… I might switch up a gear or 10…
I have another question regarding domain age, did you start with a brand new domain name or did you wait past the 1 year mark to start the blog on it?
Brand new for all the ones I’ve sold. Occasionally it is a good idea to buy an existing website and build on it though.
When you outsource the creation of content, what way do you do it? Freelance writers, PLR’s, automating apps?
I’ve got a few websites that I would be happy to sell but I need to do a little bit more to get it in shape.
Thanks for the tips!
No problems Ralph. Good luck.
Ha! Went to flippa and found the perfect website for me…
crankybitch.com
haha awesome!
Thorough and interesting information. Where does one come up with blog topics that readers flock to?
For that you have to do your research. Keyword research, to be more specific.Have you tried for example Market Samurai?
Market Samurai. Lots of Googling.
Dang. I was fiddling around with my Aweber Account… What template are you using to email out the blog posts? Or maybe this is a WordPress vs Blogger issue..? hhmm..
I used the Feedburner code because I wanted it to look the same for those that were subscribed when I was on Feedburner.
I’ll have to go back and see what I’m doing… I too prefer the Feedburner version. I’ll go back and look at what I’m doing. It’s an Aweber setting, right?
Great post.
The only thing that had me confused for a while was the spelling of FLIPPA.COM
I tried flipper, flippr, fliper, flipr before I finally stumbled upon flippa.
As far as selling blogs goes:
At this stage, I have absolutely no interest in selling my blog. I love it too much and it gives me other benefits that money can’t buy – like access to smart people that I want to work with.
Thanks for the article. It’s good to hear advice from someone who has been there before.
–Phil
Flippa is an interesting lessons in choosing domains. Can be confusing.
I’ll write it out next time.
Thanks Phil.
While I don’t want to sell my current blog. I would love to make a living off my blog one day. You presented some great tips. I hope you never sell this blog. It’s such a great resource for me.
Pretty unusual for me, but I just listened to the entire thing! Thanks very much for sharing your views. Some things you said really opened my eyes and I’m going to do something about it right away; such as your advice not to solely rely on organic Google traffic!
Naturally, I’m now a subscriber
hadn’t heard of this website before.
Cheers!
Wish to sell mine too. Anyone interested? Contact me