Eric Porat’s Expert Tips for Website Flipping: Part 3

Here at EricPorat.com, our goal is to share Eric Porat’s experiences and tips from nearly two decades of successful digital investment. The mistakes he’s made, the successes he’s achieved, and most importantly, what he’s learned from all of it along the way.

As you may know, Eric Porat went from starting a website from scratch in 2005 to selling it three years later with over 70,000 monthly visitors. Since then, he’s bought and sold over 70 websites for over half a million dollars.

Long story short, there’s something we can learn from Eric Porat, especially when it comes to digital investment. Here is Part 3 of the EricPorat.com guide to website flipping, Expert Tips for Website Flipping.

In our last edition, Part 2, we left off just as we were about to start talking in-depth about where you can sell your website, more importantly…

WHY you should invest in a website and WHAT SKILLS YOU NEED to do it successfully, all told by the experts here at EricPorat.com.

So, let’s dive right in. Where can you sell your website?

Obviously, you aren’t going to be heading down to the local farmers market or listing it on Craigslist. You need to use the right platform to buy and sell your website. EricPorat.com, unfortunately, while providing you with great tips to buy and sell, isn’t going to be able to give you a platform to sell your website, either.

Here are the places you can buy and sell websites!

BROKERAGE FIRMS

Brokerage firms are a great way to connect website buyers and sellers. Whether you want to buy a site or sell one, brokerage firms are there every step of the way, from finding the right site to purchase to closing the deal to finalizing the legal paperwork and fees.

CLOSED GROUPS AND MARKETPLACES

There are tons of private groups and communities of investors (think “clubs”) who buy and sell online websites and businesses. The tricky thing here is that these listings are mostly exclusive and not available to outsiders. So, closed groups and marketplaces are best if you’re a more serious professional investor looking for a long-term investment opportunity, or if you want the community/support that comes with a closed group. 

PUBLIC MARKETPLACE SITES

These are website listing platforms that are publicly available, like Craigslist but for websites. This is the alternative to closed groups or private marketplaces, where buyers and sellers interact and trade websites. The main downside here is that you don’t have the benefit of any barriers to entry. When you use a closed marketplace, you can vet the buyers and sellers you encounter based on the barriers to entry to the group. People trust each other more. No one wants to get booted off the marketplace for bad business practices, and word gets around, so the participants are more reliable. 

The advantage of marketplace platforms is the sheer volume of traffic they attract. They’re a good option for beginners with small budgets, and you can find tons of sites on them. However, buyers and sellers should be more cautious here, since more professional website investors are likely to be found in the private groups. Flippa is one of the most commonly used public marketplaces for website buying and selling. 

DIRECT CONTACT

This is the least popular method, for a variety of reasons. 

You’re basically just reaching out directly to a site owner with an offer (or waiting for someone to contact you, if you’re the seller). This can work when you have a really popular site (if you’re trying to sell) or if you’re trying to buy or sell with someone you already know. 

Otherwise, this option is pretty risky, since you really have no way to vet the site owner or the investor. Eric Porat would advise you to steer clear of direct contact as a beginner investor.

So, you’re probably wondering

The EricPorat.com BIG QUESTION. Why should I invest in a website? 

It’s the million-dollar question. And we mean that literally. It can, quite honestly, make you a million dollars, or more, if you follow Eric Porat’s advice. EricPorat.com is all about that process. If you’ve already gotten to Part 3, you’re probably already stoked about website investing, but if not, we’ll go more in-depth here.

The MARKET is Booming 

Global internet penetration is supposed to reach 54% in 2021, and it’s only growing! That means hundreds of thousands of new people are getting access to the internet every day, non-stop. All these people are looking for new content, new information, new products, new resources. There are literally millions of opportunities to create the next new site, whether an affiliate sales site or an info site like EricPorat.com.

The INVESTMENT is Low 

At least compared to real estate, which is probably the only thing you can compare to website investing, website investment has a really low barrier to entry. 

Like we mentioned in our first guide, you only need around $10,000 to invest in a great starter website, and up to $50,000 can net you a really well-established site.

The RETURNS Can Be Great in a Short Time

If you buy a well-established, viable site and put decent effort into improving it… well, you can sell it in a year for as much as 3x the price you bought it for! 

There’s not really anywhere else you can find that kind of fast, large return in investment. 

The SELL is Easy

Profitable websites with lots of reliable, diversified traffic and monetization methods in play are easy to sell. They are a hot commodity. Seriously. If you’re done a good job preparing your site for the sale, chances are you’ll be able to sell it within a week or two.

There are tons of ways to MAKE MONEY

Even while you’re improving your site and optimizing all the functions, there are literally dozens of different monetization methods you can use to get extra side income. Sometimes investors don’t even end up selling their site since they make so much cash on the side! What’s more, as you make more money and add different income streams to your site (social media, blogging, affiliate marketing, ads, etc) your site becomes more and more valuable!

Read Part 4 HERE to understand the SKILLS YOU NEED TO INVEST IN WEBSITES and the key process of the most important step in website investment…

IMPROVING YOUR WEBSITE.