Buying your first website? . Avoid cookie cutters!
There are more websites for sale on Ebay than ever before, unfortunately there are a lot of “bakers” creating “cookie cutter” websites. That is, they create a site template and resell it over and over and over again, sometimes with identical content.
Here are a few tips to remember before buying your first website.
With so any people jumping on the adsense bandwagon with visions of easy profits from working at home it?? not surprising to see so many of these ??urnkey??websites for sale. One term you will see used loosely and often in these auctions is the term “established”.
Established has a completely different meaning to the person selling and the potential customer looking to purchase a website. In the vast majority of cases established only means that the site has been submitted to the search engines and has started to be indexed. To most people already in the business, an “established” site is one that is already creating revenue for it’s owner. Make sure you ask a lot of questions before committing to anything. The hard truth is that more often than not, the only ones making any money are the ones that created and sold the site.. For the hundredth time.
Do a quick review of the persons feedback. A lot of these sellers will make their feedback private so you can’t see that they have sold the same site before. If they say it is unique, that may only mean that it is their own unique creation and not someone elses. It doesnt necessarily mean they wont resell it a hundred times.
The hard part of making a site profitable is the marketing. Buying a site is the easy part, getting it to make money is the trick. Oh sure you may see the odd dollar or two here and there from adsense or affiliates but unless you work your keister off promoting the site, you arent going to make squat.
One last thing to look for is if they require you to host the site with them for a period of time. A lot of webmasters make their money not so much from the site itself, but from the hosting of it. There are a LOT of hosting companies out there and there is no reason for anyone to pay $9.95 a month anymore and be committed to a long term, unwanted relationship with then when you can get your own hosting for much less, sometimes even free.. And don’t let them tell you it’s because the site will only work on their servers, or they need to keep it on their servers to be sure it runs correctly, blah blah.. If you have decided to purchase a site, unless you really want to stay with them get your own hosting account and be SURE that they will move the site to your host and guarantee its functionality. Don’t leave any feedback until you are absolutely sure the site functions the way it should. In summary, ask a LOT of questions and do a LOT of research on the seller and the types of website you are considering buying before you commit to anything.