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Can you sell (or flip) WordPress websites?
Yes! In fact, at current multiples, you can sell WordPress websites from 25x to up to 50x its monthly earnings. Needless to say WordPress websites can fetch quite a good price nowadays. However, getting the best price for your WordPress website will depend on consistent its income is, the amount of daily or monthly traffic, i.e. visits, your website gets, etc. At the moment WordPress websites are hot! So it shouldn’t be hard to find buyers.
However, simply selling a WordPress website isn’t the only way to make money. There are many ways you can make money if you sell WordPress websites.
You can go the developer route and create customized themes and plugins for clients. This would require you to at least know how to code in PHP as well as HTML and CSS. If you know JavaScript even better.
If you don’t know how to code, then you should know how to hire coders to do the work for you. Not only that, but you would need to be able translate what your client wants into actionable coding tasks and design to the people coding the website.
If you know a lot about WordPress as well as hosting, you can actually build a WordPress website yourself without any coding by using any number of themes. Particularly paid themes since they will give you the most functionality and options.
You should also be knowledgeable in hosting and be able to possibly offer to host the website yourself by opening a reseller account. You can even provide the managing and the day-to-day running of the website for your clients as well.
In fact, I have a post that you should check out that goes into more detail on all that here, “Make money selling WordPress websites to clients. Here’s how.”
However, this post is going to show you how you can sell WordPress websites through “website flipping”.
I’m not only going to go through the basic process step by step, but I will also answer some relevant, frequently asked questions as well.
The basics are pretty easy to learn. This method will use the WordPress CMS as the framework for the website.
The method for traffic generation will rely solely on SEO.
However, there are many other ways to get traffic as well such as paid advertising, email marketing etc.
I will also talk about the two most popular ways that these types of websites use for monetization.
These are through affiliate marketing programs and display advertising.
There are many other ways to monetize a website just as there are various forms of ecommerce stores you could set up as well.
For example, you can open up a drop-shipping store, you can sell physical products that you manufacture or that you have a contract for.
You can offer a product or service, whether that is online or if you sell that service locally offline, you can also generate income through your WordPress website as well.
However, for the purposes of this post, the best and easiest way for you to sell and get the most money for flipping WordPress websites are through the two methods I had previously mentioned above, affiliate marketing and display advertising.
Yes, you can sell (or flip) WordPress websites too, here’s how. Step by Step.
Here are some basic steps that you would need in order to sell WordPress websites through “website flipping”.
These are only the basic step by steps to give you an idea of what’s needed. Your experience may vary.
- Choose a niche (website topic).
Do you have a hobby? Special interests, pastimes or knowledge? Do you have a lot of experience in your line of work that others would find useful? Better yet, is there something you’re interested in learning about or starting? Begin there.
Although many say, “write what you know,” and that advice is also true for building niche websites.
But, writing about something you’re learning from a beginner’s point of view can be just as powerful. It’s only important that you know just a little more than your target audience. In fact, it helps you become more relatable.
Besides, sometimes experts drown in buzzwords and unrelatable jargon. So keep it simple. Find a niche that you could expand on. But not too big. Start small and see where it goes.
Now narrow down a little and get more specific. If you think that the world needs a website about Native American Pottery, find a domain registrar and register NativeAmericanPottery.com and start building your WordPress website.
Your niche can be as broad as you like, but going after Native American Pottery may be too broad, and you may lose traffic to your competitors.
You want to target “low competition” keywords. Low competition keywords are the minor searches put into the search engines, mostly Google.
People may search for “Pottery” 3,600 times per month. That’s a pretty heavy search volume, which in turn means it’s quite competitive. Searches for “Apache Pottery”, may be much less, like 140.
Here’s a secret tip. Don’t worry if some keyword tool says a keyword only gets 140 searches a month. They are almost always wrong, way off sometimes from the actual search volume a term may get.
The only people who know this information is Google and they don’t share it with anybody.
That’s what you want, low competition keywords, which by the way, usually have a much lower search volume. Own them, a lot of them. The high volume keywords are a tough marketplace to get a foothold in, especially for a new site.
- Register a Domain Name.
As I mentioned above, you’re going to need a good Domain Name for your WordPress website that’s relevant to its niche subject.
NativeAmericanPottery.com is a good example of one. It combines three relevant keywords and looks good in the address bar of your web browser.
A searcher, who typed “Native American Pottery” into Google, may be shown with your website in their search results page. They may probably click onto your site.
A good domain name can go a long way in attracting traffic. I like keyword rich domain names.
As a word of warning, don’t use or buy trademarked names. You can buy WordPressisgreat.com, but be prepared for a cease and desist letter from Automattic, the owners of the WordPress trademark, when they see your website.
Sometimes corporations will allow the use of their name for unauthorized sites, but they generally need to be fan sites, not commercial sites.
- Get a Web Hosting package.
Start out with a cheap Web Hosting Provider and get a Shared Web Hosting package. Don’t worry, your website will probably not be getting a lot of traffic at first.
You can put a whole bunch of websites with their own domain names in one web hosting account.
Many of these Shared Hosting plans offer “unlimited websites” included with their plans. Websites don’t really take up too much server space.
- Install WordPress.
WordPress is a free and open source(more on this below) Content Management System (CMS) for creating professional looking websites. Many of the websites you visit are powered by WordPress.
In fact, WordPress is the most popular CMS today and powers something like 40% of all websites online today.
It’s a very flexible platform with many developers creating new themes and plugins all the time, that let you fully customize your website. Many of them are free. There are thousands of them that you can find on WordPress.org.
WordPress is easy to use, but it will take a little time to learn how to use it.
Most popular Web Hosting Providers now offer “one-click” installation of WordPress available to its customers. Usually through cPanel, which is the chosen dashboard Web Hosting Providers use.
- Set up Google Analytics and Google Search Console.
Setting up Google Analytics and Google Search Console is a must. Whether you are looking to keep your website long term or especially, if you’re looking to sell it down the road.
Google Analytics basically keeps track of all the traffic that comes onto your website on a daily, even, hourly basis. It gives you vital data such as the pages they visited, how many posts they visited while on your website, how long they stayed on your website, where your visitors come from, etc.
Google Search Console is also a very valuable asset to have attached to your WordPress website.
Although the information on Google Search Console is a little slower in gathering than in Google Analytics, it also contains information not found in Google Analytics that can help you optimize your WordPress website.
For example, Google Search Console will tell you which keywords users typed in the Search Bar in order to find your site, but also which keywords were used when they clicked on to enter your website as well.
Google Search Console will also show you where your website ranks for each keyword as it appears in the search results, every time someone types it.
However, the most important data that Google Analytics shows that is required when selling your website is the traffic numbers.
Most buyers of websites will only accept traffic data coming from Google Analytics. So if you’re depending on WordPress or any other software to keep track of your website’s traffic, forget about using it when you want to sell it.
Because buyers, even brokers will not accept any traffic data other than from Google Analytics.
- Monetization.
As I’ve mentioned above, the best monetization models for selling WordPress websites “flipping” is through a combination of Display Ads and Affiliate Marketing Programs.
Here are some of the more popular programs.
Display Ad Networks:
- Google Adsense.
- Monumetric.
- Ezoic.
- Mediavine.
- Adthrive.
Affiliate Marketing Programs:
- Amazon Associates.
- Shareasale.
- CJ.com.
- Ebay.
- Awin.
- Rakuten.
And many, many more, just do a Google search.
- Create Content.
This is the most important factor in the success or failure of a WordPress website. If Keyword Research is Queen, Content Creation is King.
It’s more important than anything else. So you need to sit down and start writing some posts for your website. If you don’t have the time nor the inclination to write, hire someone else or several other people, like freelancers to write for you. Either way, there’s no getting around it.
- Design your website. Make it look pretty or at least, professional.
Pick a color scheme, a theme, and think about your layout. Do you want a logo? Can you make one? If not, you can go to free sites like Canva and create one there. They have a ton of free graphics and tools you can use to create one.
If you’re not a great designer, don’t worry. You’ll simply learn by trial and error.
- Persistence and Patience.
You’ve built your site, but no traffic or just trickles of it. You thought that like in the old baseball movie “Field of Dreams” that if you built it, they would come. But they haven’t.
In SEO it can now take anywhere between 8 months to a year for traffic to start coming in. That’s if you’ve done everything right with keyword research, consistent content creation and a lot of it.
Organic traffic takes time. Creating WordPress websites for making money and eventually flipping is a long game. There are other ways you can speed up the process.
Like promoting your website on social media. Paying for advertising, etc. But these may only give you short bursts of traffic, cost time and money, which would have been better spent on content.
SEO and organic traffic is the best form of traffic to get though, especially if you plan on flipping your website in the future.
Once you start getting traffic though, you’ll start seeing results. You may not see the cash right away, but you will learn more about your visitors. You’ll find out key information and data like.
- How they found your site.
- Which keywords they typed in (set up Google Search Console and Google Analytics the minute your website is live).
- Which pages they visited, products and ads they clicked, etc.
- Are they returning?
- Are they converting from visitors to buyers? etc.
This step by step mini-tutorial is nowhere near the possible complete process, but should give you a rough idea of what you need and could expect, should you choose to go into it.
Where can I sell my WordPress website?
There are various brokers that you can list your WordPress website with. The most popular ones being:
- Empire Flippers.
- FE International.
- Motion Invest.
- Flippa.
You can also offer it through various Facebook groups and other online forums specifically targeted towards niche website owners and developers.
It’s always best to join these groups first and participate.
These groups are not only excellent potential places to sell your WordPress website, but they will also teach you a lot and show you what to look out for and what to expect when you sell your WordPress website.
Eventually, you will get to know some of the main players who you may feel more comfortable with selling your WordPress website to.
How much is a WordPress website worth?
At the time of this writing, a WordPress website is usually worth between 20 to 40 times it’s monthly revenue. Some websites fetch less, many fetch more. There are quite a few factors that are at play when determining how much a WordPress website is worth including:
- Amount of Traffic.
- Traffic Sources.
- Top countries where visitors are coming from.
- Niche.
- Age of the Website.
- Monetization methods and sources.
- Content.
- Links.
- Average monthly revenue over a year.
- Google penalties.
There are other factors of course that determine how much a WordPress website is worth. However, those are the main ones.
How much does it cost to sell a WordPress website?
If you use a website broker to sell your WordPress website, then you should expect to pay anywhere between 10% to 20% of the final sale price. The average fee is usually around 15%.
However, if you decide to sell your WordPress website through one of the Facebook groups or forums, then of course there are no brokerage fees.
Although it would be a good idea that you use some kind of escrow service to make sure the transaction goes as smoothly as possible, if you’re selling it without a broker.
Escrow services usually charge much less than a broker with fees averaging around 5% or a flat fee depending on the escrow service.
How many hours does it take to build a WordPress website?
You can literally build a WordPress website and have it live on the internet within a few hours even with no experience.
There are various posts here on how, you too, can get a WordPress website up and live on the internet.
Which type of website is best for earning?
The best type of website for earning is of course a website with some sort of commercial value and intent.
This means that the website and its content either need to be targeted to a specific audience who buys products or services within that website’s niche.
If you can find affiliate programs with products and services that are related to the topics you write about on your WordPress website, then you should be able to earn by selling or displaying products and services related to that niche on your website. It really is that simple.
However, sometimes finding products and services with affiliate programs or having advertisers willing to pay good money for their ads to be shown on your website, can be a little tricky and may require some imagination in order to find them.
Is Wix better or WordPress better for website flipping?
Wix is definitely not better for website flipping than WordPress. Why?
Wix is a closed platform. This means that their themes, plugins and coding are all proprietary. They own them, not you. Another reason is since Wix is a closed platform CMS you can only host your website on the Wix hosting platform as well.
Whereas WordPress on the other hand, is open source. This means you own the theme whether it’s purchased from a theme developer or you had it custom-made. You also own the plugins and any other customizations you have made to the website.
Also with WordPress, you can self-host it on any number of independent Web Hosting Providers.
This makes WordPress websites much more valuable for flipping than Wix or any other closed platform CMS.
Yes, you too can sell WordPress websites! Closing thoughts.
So there you have it. You too can sell WordPress websites. You don’t need to be a developer, coder or programmer to do so either.
However, you should know how to at least create a WordPress website through WordPress’s CMS as well as how to host it, etc.
In addition, since the SEO method for gaining traffic is dependent mostly on keyword research, content and lots of it, you will either need to write and create all that content yourself, or have the money to pay others to do it for you.
Selling WordPress websites can become a lucrative business. Think of selling or “flipping” WordPress websites as the digital “house flipping” of the 21st century.
